It really is.

You gotta have faith.

In the late 90s, when the first anti-Gwyneth Paltrow backlash was in the news gossip pages, one of my contrarian friends made the conscious decision to become a Paltrow supporter. If something negative came up (and working at a sports magazine with grizzled black-hearted former newspapermen, it did), he’d extol her virtues, her beauty, her cerebral screen presence — basically, anything he could do to get under a detractor’s skin.

Now that the second wave of backlash has come around, I think I might just find myself taking on his old role. Like many people, I signed up for the GOOP newsletter looking for a laugh, but something odd happened — I didn’t always delete them. In fact, I’ve kept nearly every recipe sent from the beginning. (I make no such claim about the lifestyle or shopping tips, but this is a food blog after all.) And let’s be honest — who among us wouldn’t want to be in her position, culinarily speaking? She’s buds with Batali hisownself and probably picked up a thing or two traveling through Spain with him. So when she speaks (and mentions him in the newsletter), I listen.

Last week’s menu featured a few dishes from a meal she had at his home — a meal to which Emeril was invited, btw. Yes, the eyes do roll, but damn, this meal sounded pretty fabulous. And it didn’t disappoint, even with a few changes made to the menu. The chicken dish pictured above is a Spanish affair, complete with thinly sliced onions, lemons and fennel sautéed together with white wine and pimenton, then roasted in the oven. As if all of that weren’t enough, the whole cloves of garlic that baked and softened in the broth were absolute heaven and force me to apologize here and now to anyone who happened to be next to me at the gym yesterday. (I confess to being agnostic about preserved lemons, so when I ran out a few months ago, I didn’t bother restocking. The pomegranate pips were another story. There were none to be found in the few markets I visited, so they were a necessary deletion, but sorely missed.)

Blood oranges. Mmmm. They’re one of my favorite things about this time of year. We’re all just barely hanging in there, waiting for a Spring that seems to retreat the closer we march to it, but at least these beauties bring a dash of color and verve to the last gray days of winter.

The fennel and blood orange salad recipe offered with the chicken was incredibly simple to make and tasted fresh, light and healthy. Because the oranges aren’t terribly acidic, I added a splash of white balsamic to the mix to brighten up the flavors a bit. I’d imagine some thinly sliced red onion would be very good in here, too.

The flatbreads were a bit problematic. My kitchen was a little too cold, so the dough didn’t rise in time to have them with our meal. That’s ok, though. I made them later, and we snacked on them with agave nectar all afternoon; they worked just as well for dessert.

So I don’t know where you stand on GOOP, but I’d heartily recommend the newsletter if you’re looking for a few (mostly healthy) ideas for dinner. And if you don’t enjoy that, you can join in the schadenfreude, I suppose.

Presenting my new love, the pomelo, dressed up in brulée for the holidays. Doesn’t this look like some fabulous ensemble Shirley MacLaine would’ve worn in What a Way to Go?

For the 2007 Advent Calendar, click here.

recipe after the jump

Pomelo Brulée adapted from Food Network

I made the same mistake I always do when broiling — I walked away. The smell of burning sugar brought me racing back into the kitchen. As it turned out, this was a good thing: the topping had caramelized, stopping just short of bitter. Delicious.

1 pomelo at room temperature
dark rum
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon fine salt

Position a rack in the upper third of the oven. Preheat the broiler to high.

Peel pomelo, then loosen the segments by cutting along the membranes with a paring or grapefruit knife. Arrange segments in a small gratin dish in one layer and sprinkle with dark rum — up to 8 teaspoons, though I used much less.

In a small bowl, combine the butter, sugar, flour, allspice, and salt. Using your fingertips, pinch the ingredients together until the mixture forms soft crumbs. Sprinkle the crumbs evenly over the pomelo.

Place gratin dish under the broiler and broil until the crumbs are lightly browned, bubbling, and shiny, about 7 minutes. Serve immediately or cooled slightly, topped with Greek yogurt.