Braised Fennel and Maiale ai due vini

Had a nice white bulb of fennel from the market, so did Marcella Hazan's simple braised fennel. (How can such a nice vegetable be an insult in Italian? Finocchio is not a nice thing to call a guy and it sounds even worse in Sicilian: finooch, as in "Of course they caught him with a choir boy. Everybody knows priests are all finooch!")
So take your gay vegetable--not that there's anything wrong with that--and trim off the stems. Cut in half, remove the core, and slice thinly. In a frying pan, sauté in some butter for a couple of minutes, but don't let brown. Then add stock, wine, water, what have you, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low c. 30 minutes, until almost all the stock, wine, water, what have you, is absorbed. You can top with parmesan, if you want. But save some of the little fronds for decoration. With fronds like these who needs anemones?
The pork is a nice variation on the standard veal marsala (see below for pork instead of veal: the other, other, other white meat). Take two thickish pork steaks, pat with thyme leaves, salt, and pepper. Brown on both sides in butter (not olive oil for this dish). Add 1/2 cup marsala, 1/2 cup red wine, and 1 TBSP tomato paste. Cook covered till you no longer have pork sushi and the sauce is nice and thick. Pork and fennel are a natural match, despite the different sauces.