Our Sunday Paper Edition: Holiday Trees, Humor and the Comics
Plus: Pork chop recipe
Lighting Tonight
Reminder: Tonight at 5 p.m. on the lawn behind town hall in Greenwich is the kickoff for Everlasting Lights. There will be music and merrymaking and refreshments, too. We may or may not be able to pull off a live stream — try our Facebook page around that time to see. If not, we’ll at least post after the event — or get our next print edition for photos.
Sports
Also: Congrats to the Schuylerville Horses football team for winning yesterday in the state Class C semifinal. They will play next week in the state title game at the Syracuse Carrier Dome!
Outdoors
Sad News to Report: Our nature columnist Bob Henke writes: I am told the white deer I had pictured and wrote about here previously has met its end. I find this regrettable but the genetics are still around. Brian Hafner got this great picture of a piebald doe just a short while ago. I wish folks could preserve the unusual instead of acquiring it.
A Busy Time of the Year
For our next print edition, “Ride Along” columnist Adam Harrison Levy interviews Walt Nygard, who has a local Christmas tree farm. Here is an excerpt:
ADAM: Do have stories about people coming here to cut their Christmas trees?
WALTER: Once I was sitting around at the house, and it was a weekend, and a truck pulled into the yard. Two people get out, and there’s a trailer hooked to the truck, I’m watching them from the window, and they open up the trailer. I’m thinking, why would they need a big trailer just to get a Christmas tree? Two animals came out, and they were not animals that I had seen before, they were like cows but they had long horns. So then I put two and two together. They wanted to cut their tree using oxen. So, I say, well, that’s all right with me. you’ve made the effort of bringing those animals up here why would I stop you now? So, then they go out into the field and cut down a tree and then they hook it up to the oxen with a strap and just pull the tree over to the road. They did that for some other people as well. That pretty much surprised me. The names of the oxen were Popeye and Brutus.
You can find out more about Walter’s farm on Facebook. The whole story will be in our print edition, which comes off the presses Monday and mails the next day. Subscribe now to get it!
Humor Hotel: ‘I’m a boob for visiting this website!’
By Greg Schwem
Why do I keep seeing this ad? I have never heard of Knix, and am positive I’ve never searched the company, or any of its offerings via Google, TikTok or ChatGPT. …
But I was fascinated by the entertaining language the company employs to advertise its products. For example, a bra that “supports your boobs without the wires.”
I realize artificial intelligence may control every component of my life before I die, but I never thought I’d live long enough to see “boobs” in mainstream advertising.
Ladies, and Knix copywriters, what happened to “breasts”? Bust? Bosoms? Years ago, when trying to surprise my ex-wife with lingerie for Valentine’s Day, I stammered through an interrogation from a store clerk who peppered me with queries about my wife’s “cup size.” Never once did she grab a silk teddy off the rack and ask, “Do you think her boobs would fit in this?”
Read more of this column in our next print edition!
Recipe: The air fryer helped deliver a juicy pork chop with a crispy crust, no oil required
By Russell Selander
America's Test Kitchen
Special to Journal & Press
We wanted juicy, perfectly cooked pork chops wrapped in a crispy and deeply flavored crust. But since air fryers don’t fry in the same way that a hot pan with oil does, we had trouble achieving a well-browned, crisp crust. Pretoasting the breading in the microwave with a little melted butter helped significantly, but it was when we switched from regular bread crumbs to Japanese panko that we achieved a crust with crunch.
As with our chicken cutlets, we streamlined the dredging process by whisking the egg and flour together, but went a step further, packing a ton of flavor into the egg mixture with a double dose of mustard — Dijon and dry mustard — as well as garlic powder and cayenne pepper. However, the crumb topping flaked off when we flipped the chops during cooking. To help it stick, we scored the surface of the chops in a crosshatch pattern, creating additional surface area for the coating to cling to.
We also cut two slits into the fat on the edges of the chops to prevent them from buckling in the hot air. Air frying for 18 minutes gave us the juicy chops we were after, and a squeeze from a lemon wedge added pleasant brightness.
Air-Fryer Crispy Breaded Boneless Pork Chops
Serves 2
3/4 cup panko bread crumbs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 (8-ounce) boneless pork chops, 1 1/2 inches thick, trimmed
Lemon wedges
1. Toss panko with melted butter in a bowl until evenly coated. Microwave, stirring frequently, until light golden brown, 1 to 3 minutes; transfer to a shallow dish. Whisk egg, Dijon mustard, flour, dry mustard, garlic powder, salt, and cayenne together in a second shallow dish.
2. Pat chops dry with paper towels. Using a sharp knife, cut two slits, about 2 inches apart, through fat on edges of each chop. Cut 1/16-inch-deep slits, spaced 1/2 inch apart, in a crosshatch pattern on both sides of the chops. Working with one chop at a time, dredge in egg mixture, letting excess drip off, then coat with panko mixture, pressing gently to adhere.
3. Lightly spray base of air-fryer basket with vegetable oil spray. Arrange chops in prepared basket, spaced evenly apart. Place basket in air fryer and set temperature to 400 degrees. Cook until pork registers 140 degrees, 18 to 22 minutes, flipping and rotating chops halfway through cooking. Serve with lemon wedges.
And Now for the Comics
Broom Hilda by Russell Meyers
Animal Crackers by Mike Osbun
Filbert by LA Bonte
The Middletons by Dana Summers
9 to 5 by Harley Schwadron
Closing Thought
We’re reaching our bandwidth limit, but a bit of a closing thought. We at the newspaper used to just think it was us — a local business that most people in town didn’t support by actually buying the product. Maybe they didn’t like to read print, or the paper said something they didn’t like in its 182-year-old history. Some generous people do understand that our modest subscription price makes this effort doable. But we’re starting to feel it’s not just us but most local businesses get little local support. We recently paid the $12 to watch a state semi-final football game so that we could report the results as they happened on social media, and thousands of people were hanging on our every word, but they could have paid the $12 as well. It’s only $12 — but how much do they spend a week on coffee, snacks and such at the local chains in our area? These chains are not local. How much did that phone cost in their hands? There’s just a resistance here to support local efforts with actual dollars. We hear it from many of our advertisers as well. They feel they can’t justify a simple $99 ad because even if local people are informed that this business exists, not enough of them will support it. Not to mention that local non-profits need our support. Many of us need to stop being Scrooges this holiday season and to make it a point to have a bigger generosity of spirit and to go out of our way to spend our dollars to support the people trying to make a go of it here. We’re not talking about the newspaper — we’ll be fine — but this holiday season, make it a point to buy at least five items from truly locally owned businesses. If you have one of those businesses or non-profits, we’ll give you some free press — we do it all of the time — just ask!