Herb-Stuffed Pork Loin -- The Table That Holds Whatever You Bring

End of January. Caleb is five and a half months old. He has discovered that banging things on surfaces produces sound and he is exploring this discovery with scientific thoroughness. CJ says the apartment is never quiet anymore, which he says not as a complaint but as a report from a man who is deeply happy and slightly stunned by how different happy feels from what he expected.

I have been thinking about a specific thing this week that I want to set down: I am grateful to be alive in this January. Not in a dramatic way — not a recovered gratitude, not one earned through a recent crisis. Just the quiet baseline gratitude of someone who has been through enough to know that ordinary Januaries with cold stock on the stove and a baby grandchild five and a half months old are not ordinary at all. They are everything. They are the whole inventory of what you wanted when you were asking for it most urgently.

Bernice's Table has been running for three and a half years. We have served over eight thousand meals by Deontay's calculation, which he made in a spreadsheet for the organizing committee meeting this week. Eight thousand meals. I sat with that number for a while. Eight thousand times the table was set and someone walked in who needed to eat and found something ready. Eight thousand times the choice was made to show up and cook and serve and not ask anything in return. I did not achieve this alone — Odalys and Deontay and Kezia and Vivienne and the whole rotating crew of church volunteers made this with me. But it started from a Tuesday in 2020 when I didn't know what to do with my grief and I made a pot of greens and took it to the church. From a pot of greens to eight thousand meals. The table holds whatever you bring to it.

When I think about what made that first pot of greens in 2020 feel like the right thing to bring — it wasn’t the recipe, it was the intention behind it: something made with care, something that could feed more than one person, something that said I showed up. This herb-stuffed pork loin has that same quality. It’s the kind of roast you make when the occasion deserves more than ordinary, when you want the whole apartment smelling like something good is coming, when a grandchild is five and a half months old and the January is not ordinary at all. Eight thousand meals taught me that a well-set table starts with one good thing at the center — and this is that thing.

Herb-Stuffed Pork Loin

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour 15 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 1 boneless pork loin roast (3 to 3 1/2 lbs)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
• 2 tablespoons fresh sage, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, plus more for seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
• Kitchen twine for tying

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Pat the pork loin dry with paper towels and set aside on a cutting board.
2. Make the herb filling. In a small bowl, combine garlic, parsley, rosemary, thyme, sage, lemon zest, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Stir together until a loose paste forms.
3. Butterfly the roast. Using a sharp knife, slice the pork loin lengthwise down the center, cutting about two-thirds of the way through. Open it like a book and, if needed, make additional shallow cuts to flatten it to an even thickness of about 3/4 inch.
4. Stuff and roll. Spread the herb mixture evenly over the interior cut surface of the pork. Roll the loin back up tightly and tie at 1 1/2-inch intervals with kitchen twine to hold its shape.
5. Sear the roast. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large oven-safe skillet or roasting pan over medium-high heat. Season the outside of the rolled roast generously with salt and pepper. Sear on all sides, turning every 2 minutes, until golden brown, about 8 minutes total.
6. Roast in the oven. Transfer the skillet to the preheated oven. Roast uncovered until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center reads 145°F, approximately 55 to 65 minutes.
7. Rest before slicing. Remove the roast from the oven and tent loosely with foil. Let rest for 10 minutes before removing twine and slicing into 1-inch rounds to serve.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 280 | Protein: 36g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 2g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 340mg