Now that the book is at the printer (please go take a look and then immediately order lots of copies...) it is time to start thinking about the launch party - and that means thinking about food and drink. For now the drink is most important, the party will be in about five weeks so I just have time to recreate one of the few things by me that is in the book - my own Bay Area version of an altbier. So that's what's planned for today. I may also make some real ginger beer for the kids now that I have enough stuff to brew two batches at once. I recently discovered the real secret to home brewed drinks like ginger or root beer - you should use champagne yeast rather than brewing yeast - it is designed to maximize the CO2 production and that's what we need. The challenge for me will be keeping the alcohol production down to a low enough level that it'll be OK for the kids - but that's why I'll do the real beer first - the soda takes much less time because you really just let it do the initial fermentation when it produces masses of CO2 and it is only in the later stages when it eats the complex sugars that you get the alcohol. If you want to try home brewing (or winemaking for that matter) check out Beer, Beer and More Beer in Concord. They have all the stuff and are really helpful.

The food part of the party can wait, but I am hoping to have it all be from the book so that people can get some idea of what the recipes in the book are like.