French Dip au Jus -- The Sunday Anchor, Seven Years of Showing Up

Late March, and the seventh anniversary of the blog passes — seven years of weekly entries, seven years of standing at the stove and writing about the standing. The seven years are the book. The book is the seven years. And both are Mama, who sits in her chair in the kitchen while the anniversary passes without her knowledge, because anniversaries require the awareness of time, and time is the thing the disease has stolen most completely.

Mama's care needs have officially reached "full-time" — Dr. Okonkwo's assessment, delivered at the kitchen table with the gentle authority of a man who has been saying difficult things gently for four years. Full-time means Ruth plus Gloria plus Naomi plus Robert, the four of us rotating around Mama like planets around a sun that is dimming but that still holds us in its gravity, because love is gravity, and Mama's gravity has not diminished even as her light has.

I visited Joy on Saturday. She is painting larger than ever — a mural on the common room wall that Mrs. Patterson commissioned after Joy's paintings became the unofficial art collection of Magnolia House. The mural depicts "the garden" — Joy's garden, not the actual garden, a garden of purple trees and orange flowers and a sky that is simultaneously blue and green and gold. The mural is magnificent. The mural is Joy.

James called on Sunday — the weekly call, the ritual that connects Columbia to Charleston through a phone line and a son's voice and the particular love that flows through voice when the voice belongs to someone who grew up in your kitchen and who carries the kitchen with him wherever he goes.

I made she-crab soup — the Sunday anchor, the seven-year soup, the dish that has been the beginning and the ending of every week for three hundred and seven weeks. The soup is perfect. The perfection is not skill. It is faithfulness. And the faithfulness is the life.

She-crab soup is the Sunday soup, the seven-year soup—but not every Sunday kitchen tells the same story, and if I’m honest, the dish that has carried us through the long middle hours of these caregiving weeks, the meal that Robert and Ruth and Gloria and I have leaned on when the rotation felt heavy and the afternoon felt longer than it should, is something slower and more forgiving: a French Dip au Jus, pulled from a pot that has been doing its quiet work all day, ready when we are. It asks nothing of you in the hard hours, and it gives everything back at the table. After seven years of faithfulness to the stove, I have learned that the best recipes are the ones that are faithful to you in return.

French Dip au Jus

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 8 hrs | Total Time: 8 hrs 15 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 3 to 4 lbs beef chuck roast, trimmed
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 8 hoagie or French rolls, split
• 8 slices provolone cheese (optional)

Instructions

1. Sear the roast. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the chuck roast on all sides with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. Sear the roast for 3 to 4 minutes per side until a deep brown crust forms. Transfer to a slow cooker.
2. Build the au jus. Add the sliced onion and minced garlic to the slow cooker around the roast. Pour in the beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, and soy sauce. Sprinkle the dried thyme over everything.
3. Slow cook. Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 8 hours, or on HIGH for 4 to 5 hours, until the beef is fork-tender and pulls apart easily.
4. Shred the beef. Remove the roast from the slow cooker and shred it with two forks, discarding any large pieces of fat. Return the shredded beef to the slow cooker and stir to coat in the juices. Keep warm.
5. Strain the au jus. Ladle the cooking liquid through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl or small saucepan, discarding the solids. Skim any excess fat from the surface. Keep the au jus warm over low heat for serving.
6. Toast the rolls. Arrange the split rolls on a baking sheet. If using provolone, lay a slice on the top half of each roll. Broil for 1 to 2 minutes until the rolls are lightly toasted and the cheese is melted and beginning to bubble.
7. Assemble and serve. Pile generous portions of shredded beef onto the bottom half of each roll. Close the sandwich and serve immediately alongside individual small bowls of warm au jus for dipping.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 520 | Protein: 42g | Fat: 18g | Carbs: 38g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 890mg