Dear Sun Spots: In the May 29 edition of the Sun Journal, you ran an article about a baker, Stephen Lanzalotta, who has developed a diet called the Da Vinci diet. This diet is based on bread as its mainstay. Your article mentioned no way to request further information about the diet. Could you please publish that information in Sun Spots? – Almon F. Jordan, Jr., Auburn.

Answer: Unfortunately nothing was provided on how to obtain further information about this diet. However, Sun Spots spoke with Lanzalotta who encourages you to contact him at his bakery/gallery in Portland to discuss this. You can reach him at Sophias Bakery/D’Ue, 81 Market St., Portland, ME 04101, (207) 879-1869. They are open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday. For more information about the gallery, check out //www.duegallery.com.

Lanzalotta hopes to to write a book on his Da Vinci diet at some time in the future. In the meantime, he’s hoping recent Maine stories will be picked up by the Associated Press nationally. He also says the FDA is consider updating its food pyramid and he’s hoping they might consider the Da Vinci diet when they do. Lanzalotta says his diet is a balanced, simple diet, a return to the senses if you will, using some of the ancient principles from two millenia ago. It is 50 percent carbohydrates, 20 percent protein and 30 percent fat.

Lanzalotta says the diet is the result of him transferring the math from doing carpentry to baking. He was concerned with the damage the Atkins Diet was doing to the bakery and bread making industry. Lanzalotta believes if carbohydrates are so bad why have the ancients all the way up to now used them without getting fat. Perhaps it’s more a matter of not having the correct balance or correct carbohydrates?

It must be working because this particular diet has helped Lanzalotta maintain a muscular 160 pounds into middle age.

“Human civilization and grain have ties that go way back. No municipal society evolved without grain, no matter what it was,” said Lanzalotta quoted in the May 29 article. “Not that I believe bread is one of the most sacred foods, but it is one of the most important things we can eat.”

He says people often have an emotional reaction to his bread and he’s had several customers tell him their babies cry if they can’t get the bread. Dogs have been known to sniff it out in a cart.

Lanzalotta – Named by Yankee magazine as the “Legendary Baker of Mid-Coast Maine” and by Port City Life as “the paragon of artisan bakers in Portland, Maine” – bakes 20 varieties of breads, made from ancient grains, down from the 60 varieities he used to bake. They are Italian breads only but Lanzalotta says these have Greek, Spanish, Slavic, Arabic, Roman and other influences. His bread is all hand made and no machinery is used. They include heavy rye, light semonlina breads and more.

In the meantime, Sun Spots hopes you and other readers will enjoy the following recipe for Russian Rye Bread. Can be served with hearty soups.

Ingredients: 2 packages active dry yeast, 2 cups warm water (105 to 115 degrees F) 1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened, 1/4 cup dark molasses, 1 tablespoon freeze-dried instant coffee, 2 tablespoons honey, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon fennel seed, crushed, 4 cups medium rye flour, 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour, 1 egg, slightly beaten.

Method: Dissolve yeast in warm water in large bowl. Stir in butter, molasses, coffee, honey, salt, fennel seed and rye flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough whole wheat flour to make dough easy to handle (dough will be stiff but slightly sticky). Turn dough onto generously floured surface; knead until smooth, about 5 minutes.

Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up. Cover; let rise in warm place until double, about 1 hour. Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.

Punch dough down; divide into halves. Shape each half into a round 5-inch diameter loaf. Place loaves on greased cookie sheet. Cover; let rise until double, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Brush each loaf with egg. Sprinkle with fennel seed if desired. Bake until loaves are dark brown and sound hollow when tapped, about 1 hour; cool on wire racks.

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