Pork Roast with Cherry-Beer Sauce

I think I’m getting old.

And yes, I’m fully aware of the irony of that statement.

But it doesn’t make it feel less true. I feel like I’m getting older, like there’s less “spring-back” in my way of seeing the world. It takes me longer to get back into rhythms and patterns, and I have a harder time leaving things behind, something that has never bothered me before. I used to pack up and leave without so much as a second glance, and now I feel like I’m always glancing… or staring… soaking up as much of my surroundings as I can, because it feels as though everything is moving so fast, and I have no idea how to slow it all down.

This summer, in New York, I was greeted with a heartswell that almost had me crying the second I got off the plane and stepped onto the sidewalk… and I had just arrived. Never mind that I intended to stay for a month; leaving it already felt impossible, not only because of how much I love New York, but also, perhaps especially, because Paris doesn’t feel new anymore.

It’s hard to imagine getting tired of something like Paris, and I don’t think that’s what I’m describing… not really. It’s not that I don’t want to come back to Paris or that I want to leave. I still love Paris, honestly I do… it’s just that it’s not exciting anymore. It doesn’t feel like a discovery. I used to wake up and laugh because of how simultaneously wonderful and absurd it seemed to be living in a place like Paris. And while it still is, it’s also home to my adult life and everything that comes with it: bills, getting up early to go to work, bad weather (it’s been raining constantly for two weeks), annoying people who elbow you in the métro….

I don’t think it has very much to do with Paris at all; I think it’s more a time. It’s a moment in my life where I’ve been out of school long enough to feel like I should be well on my way to reality, and yet I still feel young enough where the future is unclear. And so I’m stuck somewhere in the middle, on a bridge between old and new. But I can’t get a clear grasp of old, and I don’t really have much of an idea of what lies ahead.

I just know that that feeling of urgent change that used to hit me is gone, and so is the ease with which I abandoned the now. When I first came to Paris, it was an adventure, but it was also just a stop on the way to somewhere else. When I left it the first time, for Cannes, and then the second time, for San Sebastian, I had no problem saying goodbye. But I feel as though whatever I do next, whether I stay and make Paris even more of a home than it already is or whether I leave for somewhere new, the decision won’t be an easy one.

I can only hope that it’s as exciting as the ones that have brought me to here and now have been… and hope that, in time, I’ll know what this in-between feeling is supposed to help me decide to do.

Pork Roast with Cherry-Beer Sauce

1 2-pound pork roast
4 tbsp. grainy mustard
1/2 pound fresh cherries
1/4 cup stout
1/4 cup water or chicken broth 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Brush the entire pork roast with the mustard. Place in a a roasting pan with a rack, fat-side up. Roast for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, pit the cherries.

After 20 minutes, place the cherries in the bottom of the roasting pan. Continue roasting for an additional 40 minutes.

Remove the roast to a plate and tent with foil. Allow to rest.

Meanwhile, place the pan over a low flame. Deglaze the pan with the stout and water or broth. Allow the liquid in the pan to reduce slightly while the roast rests for 10-15 minutes.

Slice the roast into thin slices and serve with the cherry-beer sauce.