Smoke and spice at Provenance

“It’s hard to make vegetables look sexy, but we try,” and indeed before Provenance chef Cathy Pavlos finishes the thought, her voluptuously adorned fall squash platter arrives. Smoking rosemary sprigs stud the colorful array of fall vegetables strewn artfully across a wooden platter. So artful, in fact, that the fall platter has the stolid abstract resonance of a late de Kooning.
Pavlos, an Orange County native, opened her first restaurant, the popular Lucca Cafe, in Irvine&rsq