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In Italy at the moment. Baby artichoke risotto for lunch was delicious.

I know that I sound like a broken record but don't forget about our "friend", Powdered Brewers Wash (PBW), for cleaning stainless steel gear, like rotisserie parts and I'm sure that it would do a similar job on the hanger.

Hi Paul. No, I did not use a drip pan. The set up is as per the photos - I didn't move or remove anything for the chickens' photo shoot. On low and slow cooks I put the smoke pot directly over the fire. That acts as my shield and I rarely use a drip pan for such cooks. No flare ups at all. I like rotisserie chicken for the crisp skin and the fact that the meat is "rarer" than it is for the low and slow smoked chicken. That said, I think you could cook hot and fast with the meat hanger, e.g. for a tandoori cook, but I have not tried that yet. Chances are you will need a drip pan for that but it depends on whether or not the longitudinal splitter could be used to keep the fire away from the drips. It is relatively easy to move the hook on the hanger to turn the chicken if you want a bit of the kiss of the fire on both sides. And yes, set up and clean up with the meat hanger is easier. No motor to haul out, attach and plug in. That said, I have no problem with cleaning the spit rotisserie. I just put the prongs in the dishwasher and run a sponge down the spit itself.

For today's Desem bread I made a proofing cradle from wood. I'm at the limit where my dough will sploof out into flat bread. A classic proofing basket is already wider than the wood frames I've been using for years. My frames had no bottom, but now I want to finish proofing in the fridge. For flavor, and as a bonus so the loaf better holds its shape. So now I needed a bottom. There are gaps by the four corners (which is fine for a proofing basket) so that wood expansion doesn't crack the box. Wood responds to changes in humidity by expanding across the grain. The poster child here is a beginner woodworker who makes cutting boards for gifts, and mixes end and side grains. Their boards crack. If one studies drawer construction, the bottoms float to avoid this issue. I prefer a chunkier solid proofing cradle, for thermal mass. You'd think my design would be everywhere, but I've never seen it before. In the same spirit as my artistic tirade above, this box uses my favorite cheater joinery. One shouldn't glue end grain without further support. People who understand wood believe that a hand cut dovetail joint displays the pinnacle of craftsmanship, even though box joints are stronger. People who make box joints tend to use jigs, then they look like every commercial box you've ever seen. What I do is plan and dry assemble my joinery using cabinet screws, then glue using the screws for clamping. Once the glue dries, I remove (and reuse) the cabinet screws, and replace them with Miller dowels. I then sand further and finish with Tried & True Original Wood Finish polymerized linseed oil and beeswax, which is food safe. My box is shown sunning in our yard, so the bread won't taste like linseed oil. This is dead simple joinery that I'd recommend to any casual woodworker. My friends who don't judge art by difficulty, or who are simply oblivious to measuring difficulty for wood joinery, love this style of construction.

Ha! My wife Laurie is my muse, saw where I was going with the Brød & Taylor Sourdough Home, and recalled reading the Desem section in The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book, back in the 1980's when it came out. I sensed a seminal work, akin to Richard Olney's Simple French Food spawning the Chez Panisse diaspora. Sure enough, Jennifer Lapidus read that same passage back in the day, and tracked down Laurel Robertson's dear friend Alan Scott, who became her mentor. She bought his 5,000 pound, 48-inch stone mill when he died before receiving it, and used it to found Carolina Ground. Her book Southern Ground is my new bible; as @Pequod discovered it's basically about Desem bread. I'm working through the Kindle edition until her signed copy arrives. Tracing back her sources, I found a used copy of The Bread Book by Thom Leonard. It's yet another take on Desem bread, worth reading. I've learned a few things I hadn't put together, such as slack bread could be overly digested by the sourdough starter. Meanwhile, my grain order from Janie's Mill arrived, to supplement our stocks of hard red spring wheat from Central Milling, and soft wheat and rye from Giusto's. Let the games begin!

In addition to the multi-zone cooking Tony mentioned, all that room is very nice. The pancake cook in the pics is the first time I've made pancakes and they were all still warm when I ate them. Clean up is easier too! I do have to admit that I waffled about getting one for years due to that very valid point, but I really like pancakes and have always struggled with them - I always burned the first one and I struggled with keeping the first ones warm while the latter ones cooked. I tried several large frying pans as well as a griddle plate for my gas grill. The pans didn't really help with the "keep warm" issue and the grill griddle plate was a pain for grease management. I've always struggled with not playing with my food while it's cooking and having several things going on the griddle at the same let's me play with one thing that needs constant attention while leaving stuff that needs to be undisturbed while cooking alone. (I think that's also a reason I like cooking on the big Santa Maria grill - I can play with the fire instead of the food). I'm having a blast cooking on this thing!

It was time for more pork roast and chicken breasts 😁

I went to follow up a lead on getting some Red Fife wheat berries and lucked out. Ordered some berries and bought a loaf of red fife bread. The crumb was quite close but the bread was delicious.