I always made fun of those girls who talked incessantly about their weddings, swore up and down and backwards that I wouldn’t be one of them. Even if you’re perfectly fine being the single girl, it’s hard to pretend you give a shit about centerpieces. And save the dates. And whether or not you’re going to have your guests ride around on a decommissioned Disneyland steam train. But I’ll get to that later.

I didn’t get it, ultimately, because I hadn’t planned my own wedding, I’d like to think, not because I was jealous or insensitive. I just had absolutely no idea how time-consuming the whole process could be. But it’s like a full time job, especially when you’re not exactly sure what you want. It took four months to find a venue and nearly a month to deal with the contracts. But now, nearly five months after Neal and I got engaged, we’re just one wedding insurance plan and a couple of signatures shy of having nailed down our venue and our date: April 24, 2010.

When we first started talking about getting married, we knew we didn’t want to get married in the summer. Definitely not the summer. All I had to do was think back to the half dozen summer weddings I’d been to over the past couple of years, the sweat rolling down the back of my thighs like raindrops on windowpanes, slowly racing toward my ankles and then pooling in the heels of my now-too-tight dress shoes, which were ridiculously uncomfortable to begin with. A fall wedding would be ideal—it’s my favorite season, even in seasonless SoCal—but I’d be happy with springtime too.

So we started looking for venues. Or should I say I started looking for venues. Neal was still working night and day to get CuteAsHell.com launched, so I decided to “preview” places for us. Bad idea girls. Don’t do it. If your fiancé is too tied with work to participate, wait. He may say that, “whatever you find is fine,” but he doesn’t mean it. I had nearly talked myself into the funky former Smog Shop on La Cienega called, well, Smog Shoppe. I took my parents to see it and then, finally Neal, who said it was a little too funky. And, of course, it was. I had decided to overlook the pin-ups in the men’s room, and the painted handicap sign on the ground. And that it was, well, a Smog Shop, however nicely it was decorated. It might have been right for some other urbanites, but we definitely weren’t that cool.

My only L.A. idea kaibashed, I found myself at a loss. As much as I’d managed to make L.A. home, it wasn’t me. It was dressed up or beach-y and I pictured rustic, elegant and personal, like an oversized dinner party. So my mom and I went up to Northern California, to tour my old Sonoma County stomping grounds. With the help of my L.A. wedding planner, Emily, and some suggestions from Sonoma County “Eco-Chic” event planner Vanessa from Clemetine Eco-Events, my mother and I spent two whirlwind days listening to the red-neck voice on my dad’s GPS tell us we’d “done got where we’re going” all over Sonoma County before we’d gotten there. There were cool barns and pretty gardens and some plastic grass, which I really didn’t understand because the plastic grass was at a garden. There were vineyard views and rolling hills with cows and, finally, a cozy backyard with a vineyard view, called Vine Hill House. It was reasonably priced, included tables and chairs and heat lamps, and the owner would let us choose or own caterer and bring in our own wine (as long as we bought a couple cases of his).

I thought we’d finally gotten somewhere, but when I sat down at home with Neal to show him all the pictures, he seemed unimpressed. It’s all outside, he said. What if it’s cold? What if it rains? Will people be comfortable? Good points, I conceded. And then the kicker, “I really can’t tell anything from photos anyway.”

I can’t remember if I screamed. I probably did. But I know I cried. This wasn’t fun. I felt alone instead of together. And that was that. I wouldn’t look at another venue without him, work be damned.

Like finally deciding to move somewhere to be near family rather than picking my new home based on a job or the landscape, realizing that I just needed to wait for Neal was the best thing I could have done. A month later we drove up to the Central Coast, albeit slightly begrudgingly (it’s a long three-hour drive for East Coast guests who’ve already traveled cross-country), and finally started finding places that suited us. There was a beautiful barn in a lemon grove in Nipomo and a more garage-like barn with crazy neon signs and the most stunning ceremony site overlooking rock outcroppings and a lush, green valley floor in the Edna Valley to choose from. Nothing was perfect, of course, but we both were happy. And, at the risk of being cliché, it felt like us. So we went home.

Just days later, Emily called to tell us she’d turned up one more venue, and this one, she thought, was perfect. And it was available at the end of October. So we cleared our schedule for another quick trip, called my best friend in New York to tell her the dates we were thinking and called Neal’s best friend Charlie, who we wanted to officiate for us. And that’s when things got interesting. Charlie is a pediatric hospitalist in upstate New York, and he’s a busy guy. So when he told us that he didn’t think he’d be able to get out of a commitment the second half of October and pretty much all of November, we believed him. We were frustrated and disappointed, but we decided to change the date. Not having Charlie there was a deal-breaker.

A few weeks later we went back up north, this time with my folks and Emily, to see the aforementioned barn-in-a-lemon-grove, garage-barn and the potentially perfect unseen venue, Santa Margarita Ranch. It didn’t take long to realize she was right. The ceremony site was on a lawn, under a giant old oak tree. And the reception site was a barn built around a half-completed California mission made of stone. It was surrounded by newly planted grape vines, and had lush green rolling hills in the distance. There was an old movie marquis. And a decommissioned Disneyland steam train that people could tour the property on (not really our jam, but it looked cool). It was rustic and funky and earthy and elegant all at once. It was affordable. We could bring our own caterer. We could bring our own wine. We could be ourselves.

We could get married.

Murcotts at Burkart Farms, Hollywood Farmers’ Market, Murcott Olive Oil Ice Cream

The pile of Murcotts at Burkhart’s farmers’ market stand shrank a little this week, the stack looking more like a pile of bright orange tennis balls left behind on the playground than winter’s citrus bounty. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, you can see the stand above, and the selection is far from paltry. But I’m waxing a little poetic this morning about winter’s waning. There are probably only a few more weeks left in Murcott season, and I’m a little melancholy. I almost packed up my sweaters in defiance of Mother Nature, hoping the razzing would prolong the season just a couple more weeks. But it looks like our wedding is going to be next spring, instead of the fall, and I couldn’t afford to piss her off. I may want more Murcotts now, but next April I want warm days and mild evenings and mountains of springtime produce to help execute the dinner menu that’s slowly evolving in my head.

The Murcott, as I mentioned in last week’s post, is a tangerine that deftly walks the line between tangy acidity and breakfast-orange-juice-sweetness, making it exceptionally easy to eat. While I enjoy them in savory dishes and out of hand, it’s the deconstructed creamsicle that Foodwoolf made last Easter that stands out in my mind as the ne plus ultra of Murcott use. So in homage to the fading winter, sticky-fingered childhood memories sitting on the curb eating a rapidly melting popsicle, and my favorite citrus of the season, I decided to preserve the Murcott’s memory by making ice cream.

I was a bit concerned about adding the Murcott juice directly to the cream and milk, imagining the citrus’s acid turning my dairy into Little Miss Muffet’s curds and whey, so I decided to take a slightly different tack. Inspired by the tangerine olive oil Neal and I tried at Pasolivo Olive Oil while hunting for wedding venues up on the Central Coast, I decided to infuse my favorite fruit olive oil with the Murcott zest to extract the flavor. The result? Murcott Olive Oil Ice Cream that layers flavors like delicate sheets of puff pastry melting into each other on your tongue. The little girl in me was jumping up and down with every bite, oohing and ahhing at the sweet tangy goodness, and the grown-up in me couldn’t get over the featherweight creaminess in my mouth. Of course, if you can’t find Murcotts at your local farmers’ market, you can try this recipe with the zest of almost any citrus. Satsuma mandarin? Key lime? Kumquat? Let your palate be your guide.

Murcott Olive Oil Ice Cream

2 cups whole milk
¾ cup heavy cream
¾ cup sugar
½ cup fruity extra virgin olive oil
3 egg yolks
1 oz Murcott zest cut into large strips, pith removed

Pour olive oil into a small saucepan. Add the Murcott zest, gently rubbing it between your fingers to help extract the oils. Bring the oil and zest to a boil then turn off the heat and let stand for 1-2 hours.

In the meantime, heat the sugar and milk in a medium saucepan, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

In a medium-sized bowl, beat the egg yolks with a whisk. Slowly whisk the warm milk mixture into the egg yolks to temper them. Return all of the mixture to the saucepan and warm over medium-low heat until thickens slightly, stirring constantly. You’ll know the custard is ready when you can run your finger through the batter on the back of a spoon or spatula and it leaves a clean line.

Pour cream into a large bowl or large measuring cup (at least 1 quart) and place a fine-meshed strainer on top. Slowly strain custard into the cream. Then slowly strain olive oil into the custard mixture. Mix and cover. Refrigerate overnight. Give a stir and then freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Serve a scoop of the ice cream with a squeeze of fresh Murcott juice or even candied Murcott zest.

Pulled Pork Sugo with Chestnut Polenta

Let me start first by saying, no, we haven’t set a date yet. Neal and I might be getting married this fall, or we might be getting married next spring. Or maybe we’ll get married fall 2010—though I think I might lose my mind if I’m in planning stages for another year-plus. We figured we’d pick a date once we found a venue we liked. But that’s just it, trying to find a venue has been like Amazing Race meets Survivor. I’ve gotten lost behind the Orange curtain, hit by a cyclist who ran a red light, seen a wedding venue come menagerie and driven all around Sonoma County with Slingblade barking at me from my father’s GPS, “Bear left, cow right.” All this running around is exhausting. And when I get home from a weekend’s worth of talking about tables and chairs and luxury Porta Potties, cranky for having missed my Sunday morning at the farmers’ market, the last thing I want to do is spend a lot of time cooking.

Which brings me to reason number 2,356 that I love my Le Creuset Dutch Oven: No-fuss cooking. Forget the crock pot. This can go in the oven, on the stovetop or even on the grill. It’s sturdy, conducts heat great and almost everything I’ve ever cooked in it tastes incredible. I’ve made carnitas, braciole and Hungarian Goulash. But right now my favorite dish is Pulled Pork Sugo with Winter Greens and Chestnut Polenta Cakes.

The word sugo is Italian for “juice” or “sauce” and it is up there in the country’s food lore with the best Bolognese—cooked slow, different for every family and nonna’s hallmark. Mine started with a recipe from Gourmet and is slowly morphing into something all my own. The dish is hearty and heart-warming, it takes very little effort to make come together—you literally stick it in the oven and walk away for hours—and the flavors have that layered balanced of savory and sweet, texture upon texture. While I love this sugo over chestnut polenta cakes for the nuttiness the chestnut flour adds, and the extra dimension of chew the polenta cakes get, and I like to add sautéed beet greens or Bloomsdale spinach from the South Central Farmer’s Cooperative, it’s also great with firm, dry pastas. The original Gourmet recipe paired it with orechiette, ear-shaped pastas that cup the sauce perfectly, holding onto it like a message from generations long gone. Bigoli, a rough-hewn spaghetti-shaped pasta is another favorite for the dish, and soft polenta goes well, too.

Winter’s running out, which means the opportunities to make this cool weather dish are trickling away with the lingering darkness. But for now I’ll make my sugo and eat the leftovers in the morning, topped with a gently fried egg, a pick through the last of the potential wedding venues on my list, knowing I had to do very little for this great meal.

Pulled Pork Sugo
adapted from Gourmet

2 lbs pork butt or shoulder
salt and pepper
1 large onion, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp dried oregano
11/2 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup dry white wine
2 cups chicken stock
½ cup cannellini beans, preferably dried and soaked
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 bunch beet greens, Bloomsdale spinach or other hearty winter green
½ cup Parmigiano Reggiano or Pecorino Romano, grated

Place rack in the middle of your oven. Heat to 325 degrees.

Pat pork butt dry and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Roast in a small roasting pan or Dutch oven, tightly covered with foil and covered, about 3 hours, or until the meat begins to pull apart evenly. (This step varies greatly by your oven so the first time you make it, check after an hour.) When the pork is cool enough to touch, shred and set aside.

Pour off all but a few tablespoons of fat. Add the celery and onion and sprinkle with salt and pepper, cooking until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and oregano into combined, then add tomato paste. Cook 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Add wine, broth, beans, vinegar and pork and let simmer, covered for at least 30 minutes. If the sauce gets to thick, add a little water. If you’re pairing it with pasta, use the pasta water.

Wash, trim and shred your beet greens. Heat a sauté pan over medium heat, add olive oil and heat until glistening. Add the beet greens and lower the heat to medium-low. Sprinkle with salt and sauté until wilted and sweet. Remove immediately from heat.

Serve with Chestnut Polenta cakes (below), soft polenta, or dried pasta. Finish with grated cheese.

Chestnut Polenta Cakes

4 cups water
pinch of salt
1 cup coarse ground polenta
¼ cup chestnut flour
butter
olive oil

Note: The trick to polenta is cooking it for a long time, the longer you cook it, the softer and creamier the corn gets. It also makes it much easier to digest. The trick I learned is to have a pot of hot water on the stove, and to slowly add water as the polenta thickens, to keep it the right texture.

To make the polenta, add water, salt and polenta to a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon, adding water as it thickens. Cook for 45 minutes. Add chestnut flour and stir in until it’s full integrated.

Pour polenta into a greased 9×12 dish and let set, then cut into 3-inch squares.

Heat a sauté pan and add a teaspoon each of butter and olive oil. Add the polenta cakes and cook, about a minute on each side until they’re warmed through and they have a crispy skin. Top with beat greens and pour sugo over polenta and finish with cheese. These polenta cakes are also great with fresh tomatoes and sautéed green and a fried egg for breakfast!

I’m not as bitter about wedding planning as I was in my first post about the subject. I’m actually starting to enjoy it, thanks to my wedding planner, Emily, who has taken over all the research responsibilities. Now I can click on the myriad links she sends me leisurely. I can rule places out with a glance, and I don’t have to worry about hurting my mother’s feelings. And I can sit in my pajamas all day and flip through the stacks of wedding magazines my friend Suzy so thoughtfully lent me. None of this makes finding a location for both the ceremony and the reception that suits our budget any easier, however; it’s just less stressful.

But with most of my free time devoted to the business of getting married, and Neal hunkered down at his desk, working into the wee hours every night trying to finish a side project he took on months ago, I haven’t thought much about romance.

I’ve long had an aversion to Valentine’s Day. It was one of the few days that being single bothered me when I was, and it always felt cliché and unromantic when I wasn’t. But last year I fell off the anti-Valentine’s wagon lock, stock and chocolate-covered barrel. And this year I’m grateful that it’s coming up, if only that it’ll shake me out of my future-oriented daze and get me to pay some well-deserved attention to the man I love. While I’m working diligently to whip a mental recipe to make Neal melt like a box of Russell Stovers left in the sun, here are a couple of click-and-go treats from my quiver.

Recchiuti Confections
If your lover likes chocolate, these elegant, rich, subtly infused delights are a no-brainer. Using top-quality chocolate from Valrhona, El Rey, Scharffenberger and E. Guittard, Michael Recchiuti’s collection of sweets are like the cacao version of Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should Have Come Over”—they will bring you to your knees. My favorite was easily the Sur de Lago—extra bitter chocolate ganache resting on a Sur de Lago chocolate disk with crushed Sur de Lago nibs all covered in bittersweet chocolate. While decadent enough to make you want to tear your clothes off, it wasn’t too sweet and it had the most textural contrast of all the Recchiuti chocolates that I tried. The San Francisco chocolatier has special Valentine’s selections, but nearly anything from this house of chocolate would work. If you’re really looking to impress (or can’t decide), try one of Recchiuti’s Chocolate Clubs and fill the next three, six or 12 months with chocolaty bliss. Order online or check out their store at the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco.

Carmela Ice Cream
If you’re current relationship is hot and steamy, the last thing you’ll want to do is overheat before Valentine’s is over. Carmela Ice Cream’s cool, creamy confections will also quickly put the thaw on any anti-Valentine’s sentiments. Jessica has whipped up a Valentine’s assortment that includes a reprise of the ever-popular Rose Petal ice cream, which has a hint of rosewater and flecks of organic red roses. The sampler also includes Lavender Honey, made with organic lavender from Silver Lake Farms and local honey, Brown Sugar Vanilla Bean, which is exotic and earthy, Salted Caramel, Dark Chocolate Cacao Nib, Spiced Strawberry Sorbet, Blood Orange Sorbet and Aztec Chocolate, a blend that includes Ceylon cinnamon, whole Madagascar vanilla beans and spicy Ancho and Chipotle chile peppers—the perfect way to reintroduce the heat after these frozen desserts. You can order Carmela’s ice creams online by February 9th or pick them up from one of the area farmers’ markets: Culver City, Silver Lake, South Pasadena or Hollywood.

Sugarbird Sweets
Bring out the little kid in your sweetheart with handmade marshmallows and rosewater Rice Krispie treats from Sugarbird Sweets. Using gourmet fruit purees and fresh herbs from the garden or the farmers’ market, Kei takes the marshmallow to a whole new level. The strawberry heart marshmallows are intense, but to me the perfect Valentine’s flavor is passion fruit, which has a lovely tropical tang to it. Kei left her job working pastry at David Meyer’s Sona and now reserves her handiwork for these confections, currently available at the Carmela booth at the farmers’ market and from her Etsy site.

 Grapefruit & Black Pepper Sorbet

Something happened while I was waiting for blood oranges. My friend Suzy brought me a giant bag full of Ruby Red grapefruits from her parents’ house in Palm Springs. Juicy, sweet and wonderfully tangy, these were some of the best grapefruits I’d had in years.

I haven’t always been a grapefruit fan. I thought the yellow-fleshed, sour orbs that my mother served instead of salad some nights when I was a kid were utterly horrible. They made your face screw up so that even the cutest five-year old would look like a Photoshop-warped Popeye. After my mother finally caught on and started buying me oranges, I forgot about grapefruits completely. In fact, I don’t think I gave grapefruits another thought until college, when they were one of the safest things to eat in the cafeteria. Nothing bad could happen to your grapefruit under its leathery skin, and sprinkled with enough sugar—at least until I learned to appreciate their tart intrigue—they were exponentially more edible than the pancakes, though those made fair stand-ins for Frisbees on the disc golf course on campus.

There are dozens of grapefruit varieties ranging in sweetness and in color, for almost white to, well, ruby. There are also Pomelos, which are thought to be an ancient grapefruit variety. These suckers can easily reach the size of a bowling ball, though are more often the size of a baby’s head. Grapefruits are predominantly grown where all citrus does well, in places like Florida, Texas and California. Wander around my neighborhood and you’ll surely find them dangling off trees, just within reach. But be sure to ask the homeowners. People steal our avocadoes all the time and it stinks.

Anyhow, back to Suzy’s grapefruits. I ate them out of hand, in salads and brûléed. But there were more grapefruits than Neal and I could imagine consuming before they went bad, so I harnessed my inner David Lebovitz (you do know David Lebovitz, right? Author of the Perfect Scoop, one of my all-time favorite cookbooks), took a well-deserved break from wedding research, and concocted a sorbet recipe, with a kiss of black pepper to spice things up.

Not wanting to be wasteful, I peeled all of the grapefruits first and set about to candying their zest with a super-simple recipe I got from Cookstr. Remember those gummies that your grandma kept in the candy dish? The candied zest was like those, except it wasn’t stale and it tasted like real fruit. Together, the zest and the sorbet made a remarkably refreshing dessert, perfect for the warm weather here in Southern California, but an equally nice get-away treat if you live in the colder reaches of the country and have access to good citrus.

Candied Grapefruit Zest

Grapefruit & Black Pepper Sorbet

2 cups fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice (about 4 grapefruits)
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Using a paring knife, peel the zest off the grapefruits in wide, long strips, and reserve for your candied grapefruit zest.

In a saucepan bring sugar, water and ground pepper to a simmer, making sure all the sugar is dissolved. Whisk simple syrup into grapefruit juice. Refrigerate overnight and freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Tuscan Chickpea Soup

Planning a wedding stinks. At least at this stage. Neal and I will have been engaged for a month (as of tomorrow), and I’ve already cried three times, gotten a migraine and fought with my folks. And I thought not having a preconceived notion about my “dream wedding” would be a good thing.

Neal and I decided we wanted a simple wedding—something like an oversized dinner party. Good food, good wine, good music and the people we love, we said, that’s all we’d need to make the day special. But apparently that’s a very tall order. Our families are huge. Venues are outrageously priced. And the extra costs associated with finding a cool site that will let you bring your own caterer and wine can be tens of thousands of dollars. The wedding planner we consulted suggested we be prepared to spend $75-90K. If we had that kind of we’d be buying a house instead of planning a wedding.

Times like these call for comfort food. And what’s more comforting than soup? Every culture has its soup recipes—from gazpacho to phở to menudo—with some combinations dating back thousands of years. Soup can be highbrow (vichyssoise), or lowbrow (potato leek). It can be made from the bones of animal, like chicken or veal stock, or the scraps of vegetables from your garden. Soup can be magical, too (think of the children’s story, Stone Soup) and restorative. In fact, the word restaurant derives from the French restaurer, a word used to describe cheap, filling soups sold be street vendors in the 18th century.

So when my friend Tracey invited me to her house for a soup swap last weekend, I was excited. We were all asked to bring six quarts of homemade, frozen soup, which we would then swap for different ones.

I had initially wanted to make a white bean soup, but with all the wedding venue hunting I didn’t have time to soak the beans, or make mirepoix for six quarts of soup—about three batches of your average recipe. So I settled on Tuscan Chickpea, a quick, easy and tasty favorite. Like the best soups, the ingredients are simple, basically garbanzos, canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, rosemary and water, with a splash of balsamic vinegar at the end for added depth of flavor and acidity. Ochre-colored and a little gritty, I love this soup topped with a handful of freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and a big hunk of rustic, freshly baked bread.

I came home with some amazing soups, too: Joanna made a tasty chicken tortilla soup, Cami a mint and sweet pea that tasted like springtime, perfect for the warm weather spell we were having. Tiff made a chipotle tomato that had the slight smokiness of the peppers to warm you up. Krista made a hearty split pea that could give Anderson’s a run for their money (and she gets extra credit for using leftover ham that she froze after her Holiday party). Nicole made a curried eggplant soup that promises to be exotic and comforting, and our hostess, Tracey, made a white bean, sweet potato and kale soup with walnut pesto that I haven’t gotten to try yet, but am thoroughly looking forward too.

The afternoon was so much fun, talking with these women about life and soup. For a few hours everything seemed simple. Good food, good wine and good people. Maybe I’ll have a soup swap instead of a wedding.

Tuscan Chickpea Soup
from Cooking Light

2 tbsp olive oil
2 cups finely chopped onion
8 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups water
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper
2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
3 cans garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
6 tbsp grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Heat a olive oil in a stock pot over medium heat. Sauté onion and garlic until soft, about 10 minutes. Stir in water, salt, pepper, rosemary, chickpeas and tomatoes. Boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 30-40 minutes for the flavors to come together.

Using a stick blender or a stand blender (in shifts) blend until smooth. Return to pot. Add vinegar and bring up to a boil again. Season to taste. For best results, let cool and refrigerate overnight to allow all the flavors to come together. Serve hot with a sprinkle fresh Parmigiano.