After being terrified by stitches, busted lips and Javier Bardem’s performance in No Country for Old Men, I decided to lighten up the Sunday downer mood and create un petit masterpiece. I was in a creative spirit and wanted to venture out of the chicken / steak box. Although this may sound silly, my knowledge of the Other White/Pink Meat is minimal at best, so I decided to play around with pork to boost my confidence. I played around with a past recipe that used apples, whiskey and balsamic and eventually reduces to a glaze. To boost up the recipe, I sautéed shallots and garlic in butter (decadent, I know), browned some onions, seared the thick pork chops, added apples, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard and a dash of grenadine (I know it doesn’t replace whiskey, but it's used in alcoholic beverages so I let it slip). I also roasted some red potatoes with herbs, olive oil, some cubes of butter (!) and bread crumbs, roasted a yellow summer squash and made a basic stuffing ( I lie! I used a pre-stuffing mixture, no judgments, I’m not Martha). I learned that I can now comfortably use butter to my liking. And I also learned that the Other White/Pink Meat is as easy as they say it is to cook. It was juicy, flavorful and lends itself well to a mustard-balsamic-fruit glaze.