It’s halfway embarrassing (well maybe only one-quarter embarrassing) to think about the role of food in my family’s life. And when I say family, I don’t just mean Bill, me, and our children. I’m talking about my whole extended family.

There would never be a family function that did not include food. Furthermore, it is not an exaggeration to say that when the whole of us are together, we begin discussing our lunch plans at breakfast and our dinner plans at lunch. Furthermore, my grandmother always said, no matter the occasion, be it a celebration or a funeral, “You have to eat a little something.”

It’s become our family mantra.

I began thinking about that recently when one of my nephews proudly posted photos of a pork shoulder he smoked for a birthday party that subsequently was cancelled due to illness. It was an impressive piece of meat (that I will be featuring later this week). What I realized is that my grandmother and grandfather loved food, my mom and dad loved food, my siblings and I love food, and our children love food. Period. End of story.

And our children cook. Or grill. At any rate, they love food and they are responsible for preparing it at least some of the time in their busy lives.

Take my nephew BJ. Jen’s son BJ has always appreciated good food and wine. And I mean from the time he was small. He has worked for many years at a family-owned Italian restaurant in Fort Collins because he appreciates that it is locally-owned and he loves the food and the owner’s cooking philosophy. He would tell you he learned much about cooking from Clyde Canino.

But I purport that he learned much about grilling from my dad – his Poppo.

Poppo was a master griller. I don’t remember my life without a grill in it. Nearly every night in the summer when I grew up, Dad would fire up the grill (and I’m talking the charcoal kind) and cook his butter-basted chicken with lemon juice or his delicious steaks.

The grandkids especially remember his pork chops – skinny little chops sprinkled in salt and pepper. Dad would always keep a can of beer nearby to douse the coals as they flared up. So the chops (or chicken, or steaks) were basically all basted in beer. It was delicious. Our sons remember the can of beer, and I would venture to say every one of them uses beer to cool an overly-hot grill.

Taking a cue from his Poppo, BJ grills nearly every night – even in the winter. Rain or shine. Warm or cold. Company or not.

He says often what he chooses to grill is a pork chop. I haven’t confirmed this with him, but my guess is that pork chops are cheap and it’s easy to buy one chop and cook it for oneself. He might marinate it. He might simply grill it with salt and pepper or Monterey seasoning. He often tops his meat with bleu cheese. He almost always serves it with grilled vegetables on the side. Sometimes he cooks a potato in his toaster oven. I LOVE the fact that he cooks for himself.

So I asked him for one of his recipes. No written-down recipes, Aunt! But here’s what he told me:

Poor Man’s Pork Chop
I found pork chops on Manager’s Special at King Soopers – two for $6. I marinated one of the chops in a little olive oil sprinkled on top with Monterey seasoning for about 10 minutes. It was minus 4 degrees outside, so I cooked the pork chop on my grill pan indoors. I grilled a red onion that I had sliced up, and then placed the chop on top to cook. I cooked the onion until it was blackened because I think that blackened red onion tastes like onion straws. When the chop was cooked through, I put some blue cheese crumbles that I had in my refrigerator on top, covered it and let it melt.

I used what I had on hand, and it was delicious. I still have one chop left for next week.

Honestly, his Poppo would be very proud.