Lingering Yeast Infection

As if it weren’t bad enough having to read blog entry after blog entry about the Jim Lahey no-knead bread recipe published last month in The New York Times, Mark Bittman is back, telling us even more about it (registration required).

The saturation of this recipe is deep and wide. According to Bittman, “In the last few weeks Jim Lahey’s recipe has been translated into German, baked in Togo, discussed on more than 200 blogs and written about in other newspapers. It has changed the lives (their words, not mine) of veteran and novice bakers.”

It’s such a simple recipe, he needs to come back and explain it again?

His pointers this time around are practically remedial:

SALT Many people, me included, felt Mr. Lahey’s bread was not salty enough. Yes, you can use more salt and it won’t significantly affect the rising time.

YEAST Instant yeast, called for in the recipe, is also called rapid-rise yeast. But you can use whatever yeast you like.

As Bittman claimed in the original article (registration required), Lahey’s technique may be the best thing since sliced bread, but please, its 15 minutes are done. We’re over it, we’re bored with it, now we’re just getting annoyed by it.

And now I can’t even go knead some bread to let off steam!