Pork

The early Yankees often cooked local shellfish in milk-based chowders with potatoes. True to their English heritage, the colonists planted kitchen gardens with as many herbs as they could cultivate, which they put into all kinds of dishes, including chowders.

Constant basting with this lively sauce ensures moist chops and plenty of flavor. Warm potato salad with tarragon and white wine is the natural accompaniment.

Mango sorbet and gingersnaps would be a lovely dessert.

Simple, appealing and perfect with the polenta. Pour a Barbera or Pinot Bianco.

Frying tenderloins is like frying chicken: All recipes are fundamentally alike, but each has a twist, ranging from how the flour coating is seasoned to what the cooked meat ought to be drained on (paper towel? brown paper bags?).

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

A delicious tapa that is called flamenquines in Spanish. The precise origin of the name is unknown, but it is most certainly related to the term flamenco, which refers to any colorful dish native to Andalusia.

This is great over steamed rice.

Serve this dish with cornbread and a mixed green salad for a hearty supper.

Transforming cabbage into sauerkraut was one way the Germans preserved summer's crop for the hard winter ahead. A combination of rinsing the kraut of its salty brine and baking it with dried fruit mellows its bite. Smoked pork chops can be substituted; just omit the browning step. Offer some dark and light German beers to drink.