This isn't the column I wrote.

The column I wrote was about how people needlessly obsess over trying to get the temperature in their oven or the flame on their stove precisely correct.

I'm here to tell you that I made my arguments succinctly and well.

Using a combination of personal experiences and history that literally went back to Paleolithic times, I made the case that people don't have to fixate on the temperature when they cook.

Don't sweat it, I said. The temperature doesn't make that much of a difference, I said. Hakuna matata.

The thing is, I don't think I was right.

Last weekend, I cooked a leg of lamb on the grill. I started with a marinade by Julia Child (Dijon mustard, soy sauce, crushed garlic, rosemary, powdered ginger) and then I added a twist of my own: plain yogurt.

This is one of my favorite things to do on a grill. If I'm making an overnight marinade and the flavors are strong enough, I like to mix in some yogurt. Yogurt gently tenderizes the meat and keeps it moist. At the same time, it adds a slight and delightful tang to the flavor.

I wanted to cook the meat at 350 degrees, but the grill heated faster than it usually does (and I was paying bills, so I was perhaps less attentive to it than I should have been). I checked the temperature after 15 minutes, when it would usually be around 300 degrees.

It was 400 degrees, edging toward 425.

I have a charcoal grill with ceramic lining, so it retains heat especially well. That's great for cooking — exceptional, really — but the only drawback is that it is difficult to lower the temperature once you've heated it too high.

So I put the lamb on the grill and closed the cover. "What's 75 degrees among friends?" I said, remembering the column I had written. "Hakuna matata."

Hakuna matata my eye.

I obsessed about that hunk of lamb in the grill as if it were a newborn baby and I were a first-time father. I returned to the grill again and again, fiddling with the air vents, trying to bring the temperature down. I opened the grill a couple of times to let the heat out, like opening the door to an oven, but the temperature glided back up to 425.

I eventually managed to get the temperature down to a little over 400 degrees. But a 4- or 5-pound leg of lamb only takes an hour or so to cook, especially at 400 degrees, so I could only do so much about the heat.

I pulled the lamb off the grill at an internal temperature of 130 degrees and let it rest for 20 minutes. Because the meat continues to cook even after it is removed from the heat, that should have brought it up to a perfect medium-rare temperature of 135.

Ah, but I cooked the meat at better than 400 degrees. That means the outer part of the meat was hotter than it would have been if it had been cooked at 350, and meat cooks from the outer part inward.

What I'm saying is, my lamb turned out to be medium instead of medium rare.

It was still spectacular. I still ate way too much of it. The yogurt trick worked to perfection. And I have plenty of leftovers for several days' worth of lunches.

But it was not quite the lamb I wanted. And more to the point, I realized that the column I had written was thoroughly and entirely inaccurate.

It's a pity. You would have liked it.

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