"PorkChops" news and stories

Photo: A sad culinary scene at Bonnaroo

Nearly 80,000 people descended on a farm in Manchester, Tenn., last weekend for Bonnaroo, a four-day music festival headlined by 1990s jam band Phish and rock star Bruce Springsteen. Because most of the attendees camped on the 700-acre site -- and individual tickets started at a whopping $225 -- most festival goers opted to forgo food from pricey vendors and rough it.

By noon each day campsites were filled with empty PBR cans, half-empty industrial-sized jars of generic peanut butter and remnants of canned beans warmed over propane ranges. A few industrious music lovers, however, weren't going to let a lack of gas or electricity keep them from eating well.

More photos, bison chili, pork chops and Rotel after the jump.

• Five Oregon cheeses that truly stand up above the crowd.
• An Oregonian staffer tries her hand at making cheese. First comes a mozzarella class where she has mixed results, but an attempt at making chevre at home boosts her confidence and readies her for more cheesemaking accomplishments.
  
• Resources for the home cheesemaker. Once you've made the cheese, check out these recipes for ways to use it.
  
• The Market Basket's got tools of the barbecuing trade (perfect since the summer grilling season kicked off this weekend).
  
• Despite legal issues and a few health scares, people still want raw milk (and small dairies want to give it to them.
  
• Pork chops make for a quick, easy and delicious dinner. Pair them with some quickly cooked stone fruit (coming into season now) and you'll have yourself a tasty meal.
  
• Wine writer Alice Feiring is trying to stop the homogenization of wines, advocating instead a natural approach.

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I picked out a package of pork chops for dinner tonight, and I was walking home from Trader Joe's, I got to thinking: are pork chops romantic?

I'm making a nice meal for my husband and I to eat after the boys go to sleep, so it will be just a touch romantic. And I like to think of pork chops as in this photo from the Saveur recipe I'll be following: entwined, bone-to-bone, in the carnivorous equivalent to entwining your arms when you perform the all-time most cheesy possible champagne toast.

But pork, it's pig, and pigs - they're not so romantic. But then, neither are cows, or strange-looking red shellfish with pointy claws. Can a hunk of meat be romantic? And if so, which one is worthiest of your special ménage à deux?