Josie’s “Porchetta”

I’ve been having dreams about my hometown of Phillipsburg, NJ. “P-burg,” as we called it, is a town located on the Delaware River in the northwest corner of the state. Easton, Pennsylvania, was right across either of two bridges: the “free bridge” and the “new toll bridge.”

By the time I was growing up, it was already an industrial town in decline. Two foundries still employed many people, but layoffs had begun, and the once-thriving rail industry had all but disappeared. With 18,000 residents, the town felt enormous to me then. Like most childhood places, it was only on returning as an adult that I realized how small it really was.

My most recent dream began in “Union Square,” a cluster of old buildings I remember as always being vacant. The only reason to be there was if you were coming across the Delaware River from Easton or eating at Jimmy’s Hot Dog Stand, an institution that’s somehow still there.

In my dream, I started walking uphill along South Main Street and reached my family doctor’s office, Dr. Lewis Genninger. I remember the waiting room as oddly ornate, with floor-to-ceiling curtains, two huge Ming Dynasty glazed horses, and big glazed vases on the tables. The room was really out of character for our sleepy little town.

Next door, or at least close by, I walked into the world headquarters of Phillipsburg National Bank with my dad. It was a big concrete building with columns on the front and a drive-through window on the side. At the time, it felt cavernous. Large ornate light fixtures were suspended from the ceiling, giving it the feeling of old banking money. In my dream, I was there with my dad for some paperwork. Today, it’s a medical marijuana dispensary.

That feeling brought me back to a dish my mom, Josie, made often: a pork loin roast she called “porchetta.” In Italy, porchetta is traditionally pork belly, or even a whole deboned pig, with the skin on, rubbed with rosemary, garlic, salt, and pepper, then roasted on a spit until the skin turns deeply crisp. Nothing in my opinion comes close to grabbing a porchetta sandwich from a roadside stand in Italy.

My mom used to make her version surrounded by roasted red potatoes. I can still see the large Pyrex dish coming out of the oven, the smell of rosemary filling the room. The next day, cold slices of the pork straight from the fridge, tucked into bread for a sandwich, always left you hungry for more.

I now prefer to cook the potatoes separately because they do better at a higher temperature. You can roast them while the pork rests. Pork loin is an inexpensive cut of meat, but it’s very easy to overcook. It’s a safer bet to cook it low and slow once you’ve browned it. Be sure to watch the temperature carefully, or you’ll end up with something closer to cardboard. Pull the roast at 135℉.

The memories of this dish are seared into my mind, just like our hometown. The smells are the same, but the town has changed. The bank is now a different business. The waiting room is surely gone. The town itself exists now as much in memory as it does on a map.

But that porchetta, her version of it, still holds. Not authentic, not textbook, not something you’d find on a roadside in Italy, but it was ours. My mom’s. A pork loin instead of a whole pig, no crackling skin, just rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper, and those red potatoes soaking up everything in the pan. It didn’t need to be anything more than that.

They say that you can’t go home again. Maybe that’s true. But every once in a while, without even trying, you catch a glimpse of it anyway, in a dream, or in a bite of something familiar, and for a moment it feels just as big as it ever did.

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