The Times Magazine this weekend features a spot of food porn from Michael Pollan, in which he describes a 36-hour dinner party held in Napa over the summer in which he, his son, wine guru Kermit Lynch, and several chefs prepared multiple meals with a single community oven in a backyard. Pollan reminds us that “focus” is Latin for “hearth,” and writes, “The inspiration for this pyro-gastronomical experiment was the communal ovens still found burning in some towns around the Mediterranean, centers of social gravity where, each morning, people bring their proofed, or risen, loaves to be baked.” The baker in this case was Tartine’s Chad Robertson, and the chefs included Chez Panisse alums Mike and Jenny Emanuel, Melissa Fernandez, and Anthony Tassinello, who broke down and roasted a whole goat, and made a bunch of other stuff too. Read, sigh, and plot your own (inevitably inferior) weekend indulgences.
The 36-Hour Dinner Party [NYT]
