Lunch and dinner

San Francisco, October 27, 2009—

TO THE CITY TODAY for a meeting, a fascinating one: the Bakers Dozen, Lindsey's professional (and in the best sense amateur) organization, where we and a hundred others listened to Harold McGee and Shirley Corriher talk off the cuff about Food Science — principally, about leavenings. This is tremendously interesting stuff. I was particularly impressed with McGee's revelation that he'd somewhat dismissed Julia Child's mention of the importance of copper pans to the beating of eggs, because it had been dismissed by the few scientific investigations he'd found twenty years ago, but that he then put it to the test and found out through hands-on experimentation that of course she was right. This is an interesting story I'll relate another time, another place.
Shirley Corriher is a hoot, a very funny woman with a southern drawl, a suspect taste (she likes aluminum baking powder and commercial vanilla paste), and a razorsharp scientist's approach to Truth. Beat the fool out of your batter, she said more than once. McGee, is how she referred to Harold McGee; I half looked round to see if Molly was nearby.
But the lunch! We were at the San Francisco Culinary Academy, and had a sort of Caesar salad, and braised lamb breast with couscous and cumin-cooked garbanzos, and breads that really weren't very good, and carafe coffee. Dessert was the best thing, I think, poached apple slices in commercial puff-pastry shells with pretty damn good ice cream, or maybe I was just grateful by then.
Home, it was tamales for dinner, tamales from Primavera in Sonoma. I don't know when Lindsey bought them; she found them in our freezer. They were delicious.

Tempranillo, La Granja 360, Cariñena, nv