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Lisa1349 is our resident DiBruno's expert... hopefully she could be pursuaded to fill us in on the yummy news from there. Lisa, you out there?

Wild yeasts are everywhere. Particularly on fruit skins. Break the skins and the wild yeast will go to town on the sweet stuff inside. No need to add yeast to fruit unless you want to make absolutely certain which exact yeast is doing the fermenting.

Good article indeed. Congratulations Brooks! Now I have to track down some Great Divide beers and taste what they're all about for myself.

I recently got the chance to sample jordan's Q tonic, and wanted to comment... It is very clean in its flavor profile, and restrained in its intensity. It is well carbonated and comes across as very well balanced when mixed with gin. I find that I prefer a bit more citrus than is in there, but that is what limes are for. Most notable is the absence of any of the common objectionable flavors that turn up in tonic-- no metallic, no oversweet, no artificiality. This is not a recipe that shouts. If this is the result of tonic homebrewing experiments, then we all should take jordan's example seriously, as he's walked the path and gotten someplace interesting.

Indeed. Might it be that the quality of modern vermouth has something to do with its de-emphasis in the Manhattan's flavor profile? I, for one, can't stand Martini & Rossi Rosso. The Carpano is too heavily cinnamoned for my particular tolerances (bad reaction to large quantities of cinnamon... not quite an allergy, but...) , though in flavor it has none of the M&R's objectionable musty cardboardy qualities.

On brewing yeast: yes, there is a boatload of choices out there. The two biggest yeast labs are Wyeast and White Labs. Each has around 40 strains of yeast in their product range that correspond with particular styles of beer. They're sold as a liquid slurry. You'll likely have a homebrew shop someplace near you that stocks some of the products of one or the other of the labs (few stock both, as there is a lot of overlap). There are also dried yeast strains on the market too. As to results, I found the yeasty flavor better in my loaf made with a few drops of beer yeast slurry. The yeast I used was liquid slurry left over after brewing with Danstar's Windsor dry yeast. Isolating what it added is tough, as that loaf also used milk instead of water and had some olive oil in it. I'll just say that it was good. If you want to take up homebrewing, we have a fine beginner's course right here on eGullet, if I do say so myself.

The yeast drops out of suspension and forms sludge once it has eaten all of the fermentables in the beer that it can. There is plenty of live yeast in there that will jump at the chance to chow down on some more nice carbohydrates.

The sludge is the yeast. The sludge is yeast... with a few coagulated proteins in there too...

It isn't just beer that got added... it was 2cc of the thick cloudy yeast slurry that accumulates at the bottom of beer fermentation chambers. (Homebrewing has its privileges!) Beer all by itself may not have any yeast still in it... lots of commercial breweries filter it all out. If you're looking to use beer yeast, make sure to get a bottle conditioned beer, and only use the cloudy dregs at the bottom of the bottle.

I've been playing with this recipe a bit recently and am having all sorts of fun. Most recently I decided to experiment a bit with the recipe... working a few tablespoons of olive oil into the dough... substituting milk for water... substituting liquid brewing yeast slurry for instant baking yeast... folding herbs and black pepper into the dough... All have come out quite good, provided I stick to the ratio of flour to liquid and keep the yeast additions small. I've got 3 or 4 varieties of S. Cerevisiae sitting in my fridge now that each produces a very distinctly different beer... must experiment and see how their differences express themselves in bread.

Sounding great, Bob! I have a 6 lbs of honey sitting around now awaiting mead inspiration... maybe 2.5 gallons of your pepper mead might be the thing... One way or the other, I have to get it fermenting sometime soon. I still really like how the batch fermented with witbier yeast came out... maybe I'll use some of that to get it going.

Who would have guessed that a London 5-star hotel could get zebra milk on demand for fussy guests? http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2006470...6530321,00.html

They rotate the hot sandwich availability, so don't count on the roast pork being there... but they do a great sausage and peppers too... and if you have to settle for a hoagie, you're still going to be pleased. They've got quite a lot of seating in there, actually... there is the deli room with all of the pasta and canned Italian stuff and such for sale, and there are the adjacent rooms off to the right which are all seating. I've never seen it get very full, but they could seat a lot of people in there.

Does Arielle do lunch? Have had some very good dinners there, but don't recall seeing a lunch menu.

For the Harleysville side of things, think of the following: The Mainland Inn is quite good for lunch... Sumneytown Pike between Harleysville and the Turnpike exit in Kulpsville. Very well executed classic American. The most formal option in the area. For stellar sandwiches, a jaunt over to Skippack's Italian Market is the thing. Route 73 just before Route 113. Eat in, or take out... Very good cured meats and cheeses and bread add up to great sandwiches. Skippack has lots of other restaurant options as well. I'd suggest Ortino's on Route 29 up closer to Perkiomenville, but they don't do lunch. Can't think of anything else off the top of my head...

I got a Bron mandoline on deep discount a while back and am quite happy with it. Blades (both straight and wavy) are dangerously sharp, as missing pieces of my fingernails will attest to. The adjustability is great, the construction is like a tank. The swappable blade inserts, however, are difficult to remove once inserted... they fit snugly under the metal retaining bar, and I find I need to bust out a screwdriver or other prying device to get the bar to move out of the way when I want to remove the insert. Probably could be fixed with a little sandpaper on the blade insert's back, but I've not gotten around to doing that. The sliding pusher thing inside the hand guard/ food holder thingy broke leaving it much less useful... the only cheap plastic involved in this device. I should get one of those knife gloves and just do away with it, rather than using the broken guard.

My latest trip to Trader Joes revealed that they have done away with the blister peanuts... I will miss them. Anybody know who else sells such things and what they're called? Google reveals that "blister peanuts" is a TJ-ism, rather than a commonly used trade description.

So, folks familiar with the workings of this technique, how would one apply this method to a dough that contains oil? Just toss it in there with the extra water and let it go... or would recalculations be required? I have in mind something like the wonderful walnut bread from Beard on Bread. How would one hack this recipe to use the new method? 5 cups all purpose flour (preferably unbleached) 1 Tablespoon salt 2 tablespoons sugar 2 packages active dry yeast 2 cups warm milk ½ cup walnut oil or 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, melted but cool ½ cup walnuts, roughly chopped ¾ cups onion, finely chopped

Fascinating article on letting time and yeast do the breadmaking work for you in order to achieve superior results. Anybody have experience with using this technique? Any thoughts on refinements that might improve on the method outlined? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html

Years ago, the restaurant Z-tejas in Austin, TX used to do a dish of Gorgonzola ravioli in an ancho pepper sauce... that sauce was worth licking the place... yum. The principle flavors were ancho pepper, parmagiano, herbs, and a good bit of saltiness. Delicious.

Exceedingly cool! Bravo for your mad engineering skillz!

Come on, D'Artagnan, open another spot someplace further downtown... We'll all go... we miss you.

John- I don't see any serious attempts at slagging off New World wines... There are a few sweeping generalizations, e.g. thin South American wines and the UC Davis oak chip recipe crack, but they are peripheral to the gist of the article, namely that French wines are performing better at the value price point than wines from anywhere else. If you feel the need to defend the honor of new world wines, why not do so in a way that benefits everybody... name some comparably priced new world competitors to the French wines that Craig listed for us. That way we the readers get to try them side by side (if we so choose and can purchase them in our local vicinity) and draw our own conclusions. Better yet, tell us where in the new world has the best price to quality ratio, like Craig did for us by pointing out the value he perceives in the Muscadets out there now.

No harm in mashing everything together most of the time. Mashing is a pH sensitive process, and if you throw something in there that really messes around with the pH, you could be in for trouble... but Acid Malt in large quantities is the only real pH affecting thing most people might consider mashing.

Use a gin that has a real piney-ness to it, and work on Christmas tree flavored drinks as your theme.