Dutch Oven Pulled Pork -- The Practice of a Long, Patient Sunday

January 2024, and Carrie returned to Fukuoka. The returning was easier this time — not because the distance is smaller but because the practice of letting go has become, like all practices, more fluent with repetition. I drove her to the airport. I watched her walk through security. I did not cry. The not-crying was the practice. And the practice is the love.

The house is two again. Robert and Naomi. The two-ness is the rhythm now — the default, the resting state, the way the house breathes when it is not inhaling guests and exhaling departures. The two is comfortable. The comfortable is the marriage. And the marriage is the two people at the antique dining table who have been eating dinner together for twenty-six years and who will eat dinner together tonight and tomorrow and the night after that, and the night-after-that is the love.

I have given my one-year retirement notice. The library knows. The board knows. The patrons will be told soon. The telling will be the goodbye that takes twelve months, and the twelve months will be the finishing — not of a career but of a chapter, the chapter called "Librarian," which will end on June 30th, 2024, and which will be followed by the chapter called "Writer," which has already begun.

I have been reading the letters that continue to arrive about the cookbook — twenty, thirty a month, handwritten, from women who read the book and who cooked the recipes and who tasted their own mothers in the food. The letters are the book's afterlife. The afterlife is the point. And the point is that Mama is now in kitchens she never visited, in the hands of women she never met, in the mouths of families she never fed, and the feeding has extended beyond her reach, which was always the dream, and the dream is now the fact.

I made she-crab soup. The first Sunday of the new year. The first Sunday of the rest of the Sundays. The soup was perfect. The perfection is the practice. And the practice continues.

The she-crab soup was Mama’s, and it will always be Mama’s — that Sunday I made it again and let it be perfect, I understood that certain recipes belong to the making of them as much as to the eating. What I can offer here is what came later that same week, when the house had settled back into its quiet two-ness and Robert and I needed a long, slow dinner that asked nothing of us but patience: a Dutch oven pulled pork, the lid clamped down, the oven doing the work, the whole afternoon smelling like something faithful and earned. It is the kind of cooking that suits a chapter ending — unhurried, forgiving, and better the longer you let it go.

Dutch Oven Pulled Pork

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 3 hrs 45 min | Total Time: 4 hrs | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 4 to 5 lb bone-in pork shoulder (pork butt), trimmed of excess fat
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 large yellow onion, sliced into rings
• 4 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

1. Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 325°F (163°C). In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, salt, black pepper, and cayenne. Pat the pork shoulder thoroughly dry with paper towels, then rub the spice mixture evenly over all surfaces.
2. Sear the pork. Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the pork shoulder and sear, turning every 2 to 3 minutes, until a deep brown crust forms on all sides, about 10 to 12 minutes total. Transfer the pork to a plate.
3. Build the braise. Reduce heat to medium. Add the sliced onion to the Dutch oven and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly golden, about 4 minutes. Add the smashed garlic and cook 1 minute more. Pour in the chicken broth, apple cider vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot.
4. Braise low and slow. Return the seared pork shoulder to the Dutch oven, nestling it into the braising liquid. The liquid should come roughly one-third of the way up the pork — add a splash more broth if needed. Cover tightly with the lid and transfer to the preheated oven. Braise until the pork is fall-apart tender and registers at least 200°F on an instant-read thermometer, 3 to 3 1/2 hours.
5. Rest and shred. Carefully remove the Dutch oven from the oven. Transfer the pork to a large cutting board and let it rest, loosely tented with foil, for 15 minutes. Using two forks, shred the pork into rough, generous pieces, discarding any large pieces of bone or fat.
6. Finish and serve. Return the shredded pork to the Dutch oven and toss with the braising juices. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt as needed. Serve piled onto buns, over grits, or alongside roasted vegetables — with whatever the evening asks for.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 375 | Protein: 41g | Fat: 19g | Carbs: 6g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 510mg