Pork with Blueberry Herb Sauce

Sven and I made our morning circuit — kitchen, back hallway, front porch, lakefront walk, kitchen again, breakfast for both of us. The same circuit every day for years. The repetition is its own grace. There are people who would find such a routine unbearable, and there are people who would find it salvific. I am the second kind. The routine is the rope I hold in the dark, and the rope is what gets me from one end of a day to the other. Mamma's hands shake more than they did last month. I do not point it out. I notice. I notice everything. The shake is small — barely visible when she is at rest, more visible when she lifts her coffee cup, most visible when she is trying to thread a needle. She still threads needles. She still bakes. She still calls me on Tuesdays at 10. The hands shake. The shaking does not stop the doing. The doing is what Mamma is. Karin and I talked Sunday. Stockholm in winter is dark. Duluth in winter is dark. We compared darknesses. We laughed. Karin said: "Linda, do you remember the time Pappa drove us to Two Harbors in a blizzard because Mamma wanted lutefisk?" I said yes. The story unspooled across the phone for twenty minutes. I had forgotten half of it. Karin remembered all of it. The memory was, briefly, complete between us. I cooked Beef stew this week. Browned chuck, root vegetables, beef stock, two and a half hours. I made the soup. Fifty gallons. I served the soup. A hundred and twelve plates. I came home tired. I came home good-tired. The Thursday tired. The right tired. I sat on the couch with Sven and a glass of wine and I did not move for two hours. The body wants this kind of tired. The body has wanted this kind of tired for thirty years. I thought about Lars this week. He has been gone since 1979. The grief is old, but it is not gone. The dead do not leave. They just become quieter. Lars at twenty was funny in a particular sideways way that nobody else in the family was funny. He could make Pappa laugh, which nobody could make Pappa do. He has been gone forty-five years. I still hear his laugh sometimes, when Erik is laughing in a particular way, or when Peter accidentally tilts his head the way Lars used to. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. Mamma used to say: "En människa är vad hon ger." A person is what she gives. She said this in Swedish so often that the phrase still sounds in my head in her voice. I think about it daily. I think about what I have given, and what I have not given, and what is still to give. The accounting is mostly favorable. The accounting is, in some ways, the only accounting that matters. It is enough.

The beef stew had already done its work that week — two and a half hours of browned chuck and root vegetables, the kind of cooking that keeps the hands busy and the mind in the right kind of quiet. But later, when I wanted something that felt like a gift to myself rather than an act of maintenance, I turned to this pork with blueberry herb sauce. Mamma always said a person is what she gives, and sometimes what you give is a proper supper on a dark autumn evening, just for yourself, at a table that still holds everyone who ever sat at it. The blueberries are sharp and sweet at once — the way memory is.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs pork tenderloin, trimmed
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 shallots, finely minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken or pork stock
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves (or 1/4 tsp dried)
1 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped (or 1/4 tsp dried)
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp cold unsalted butter (for finishing)

Instructions

Heat the oven. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C). Pat the pork tenderloin dry with paper towels and season all over with salt and pepper.
Sear the pork. In an oven-safe skillet, heat the olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the tenderloin and sear, turning occasionally, until browned on all sides, about 5–6 minutes total.
Roast. Transfer the skillet to the oven and roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part reads 145°F, about 15–18 minutes. Remove the pork to a cutting board, tent loosely with foil, and rest for 5 minutes.
Build the sauce. Return the skillet to medium heat. Add the shallots and cook, stirring, until softened, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 30 seconds more.
Add the blueberries. Pour in the stock and balsamic vinegar, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the blueberries, thyme, and rosemary. Simmer, stirring occasionally and lightly pressing the berries, until the sauce has reduced by about half and the blueberries have broken down, 6–8 minutes.
Finish the sauce. Stir in the honey. Remove from heat and swirl in the cold tablespoon of butter until the sauce is glossy and lightly thickened. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.
Slice and serve. Slice the rested pork tenderloin into 1/2-inch medallions and arrange on a platter or individual plates. Spoon the blueberry herb sauce generously over the top and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pork with Blueberry Herb Sauce — What the Kitchen Holds When Everyone Is Gone