do you know what i love even more than eating?
cooking.
especially when cooking involves my dearest friend dot, aka lauren orman. in honor of our turning thirty (within four days of each other), dot and her boyfriend, christian, took a little drive from their home in carmel, california to san diego. the photo above shows us piled into a prius with thing 1 & thing 2, set out for the most important kind of mission: produce. the beauty of making dinner with dot is embarking with only the vaguest of plans and letting whatever we find inspire us. i don't know how to do that very well, but this lady does!
is there any better source of inspiration than chino's vegetable shop in rancho santa fe? dot picked a bagful of tender, buttery lettuce and bouquets of the tiniest spring onions and leafy sorrel. i went straight for the grumpiest looking, most esoteric root vegetables i could find. what can i say? i like produce that scowls at me from time to time. craggly, knobby celery root, parsnips, and sunchokes won my heart, in addition to red spinach and spring garlic.
while dot & christian spent the afternoon playing afoot and afield in san diego, i set the table with the assistance of thing 1 & thing 2. they are experts in the art of scattering rose petals and blowing out candles. they also made place cards for everyone and spent the better part of an hour bickering over who would sit next to dot. chairs were rearranged so thing 1 & thing 2 could make a dot sandwich and everyone was cheerful when our co-chefs arrived.
seeing this picture of dot's wild mushroom salad with truffle vinaigrette is making my mouth water all over again. earthy pan-browned mushrooms entangled in the prettiest of lettuces and showered with shards of pecorino romano, spring onions, and celery root greens, then all united with a slurry of meyer lemon juice and truffle oil. dot is really gorgeous, but i have other reasons for being in love with her.
(dot's recipe here)
a bowl of fragrant blood oranges and those grumpy root vegetables inspired my entree. i used a favorite recipe for slow roasted sea bass (the very best recipe for serving thick, fleshy fish to a crowd), and set it atop a puree of parsnips, celery root, and sunchokes with flash-cooked red spinach laced with green garlic and currants. the entire pile got doused over with bright blood orange sauce and a crumble of hazelnuts. no one complained.
(recipe here)
finally, dot and i found a pretty way to serve the sesame seed benne wafers we had baked earlier in the afternoon. the recipe for benne wafers comes courtesy of the wednesday chef. it can be found here. our advice: sprinkle them generously with sea salt before baking and leave them in the oven for an extra minute. they are peculiarly addictive, especially if you set them beside apples roasted in red wine, spiced whipped cream, and pomegranates.
(recipe here)
beautiful things happen when you cook with your best friend. at the end of the night, you have a dinner to share over candles and rose petals. plus, look at those two lovely lovebirds i got to laugh and feast with. could life get any sweeter? why, yes.
the day after this delightful meal went down, christian and dot got engaged!
permit me to gloat: on dot and my's 25th birthday we took a roadtrip to big sur, california where christian lived and i played a cosmic part in introducing them for the first time. and now, two of the most wonderful people i know are gettin' hitched.
the love continues shortly with a ten bites interview with miss dot. soon to be missus.