Net Results: Keeping with the bubbly nature of silly season, let us turn to discuss bread. Yeast bubbles in bread, to be precise.

I am directing this in particular at ex-pats from the Silicon Valley area living in Ireland, or any of the people who have lived there or spent holiday time in the San Francisco Bay Area, who will experience a small frisson of desire when I say: sourdough bread.

Bay Area sourdough is, as far as I and millions of others are concerned, one of the unique selling points for the region. As close as the competition is, a good loaf of sourdough easily beats out Dungeness crab, artichokes, enormous burritos from San Francisco's Mission District taquerías, Anchor Steam beer, or any of the other culinary delights of the area.

For over 100 years, sourdough bread from the region - which, when I was a child growing up in Palo Alto, we curiously always called "French bread" although many of the makers were Italian companies - has been very different from other sourdoughs.

It supposedly was born of the skill of Gold Rush era immigrants, is particularly and deliciously, tangily sour, and full of holes from the special yeast "mother" culture used to make the loaves, from yeast recipes carefully guarded by each bakery.

Almost 40 years ago a couple of US Department of Agriculture scientists tried to figure out what gave the loaves their special taste - and the result is a fascinating tale of microbes, localities and bakers' craft that you can read about on the Discover website: http://tinyurl.com/zmtv7.

For decades it was argued that the loaves could not be reproduced outside a 50-mile radius of San Francisco. Certainly, when I moved for a few years to the Sacramento area, about 80 miles away, this was indeed the case - the bread was not at all the same and not as sour. But in later years this seemed to change, and many places well away from the Bay Area could do a decent, chewy sourdough in the San Francisco style.

But not over here. There are lots of yummy sourdoughs - Polish style sourdoughs most recently. (I am particularly partial to the Blazing Salads range of sourdough loaves, especially their white loaf that slices into the most incredible toast - any San Francisco sourdough lover will confirm that it makes extraordinary toast - and French toast too). But nothing that is quite like that taste I am always homesick for: proper San Francisco style sourdough.

But I've found it. And oddly, it comes from an Irish company - or rather, what was a Los Angeles based artisan bakery called La Brea Bakery that grew large and was acquired in recent years by Irish food giant IAWS under the Cuisine de France label. The loaves are made in New Jersey, part-cooked, frozen and shipped around the US and the world to outlets that complete the baking and sell the fresh bread. Apparently they have been available in Ireland for over a year, but I had never come across their exquisite Country White Sourdough Oval until recently, from the wonderful Fresh supermarket in Smithfield square in Dublin.

I took one look at the loaf, grabbed it and practically rushed home to try it with butter to see - hope against hope - if it tasted as properly sourdough as it looked.

Yes! It does! I was so excited I called all my ex-pat California friends and could hardly wait to let my mother know during my next phone call home, who, like any Bay Area mother, was thrilled that I could get "real bread". Their sourdough has won in San Francisco area taste competitions against the "authentic" competition, so I am not alone in thinking this is stupendous sourdough.

Now all of this may seem ridiculously silly unless you know what I am talking about. And a lot of tech industry people who have worked out of Silicon Valley know exactly what I am talking about. If you don't, go and buy this exact loaf and try it - fresh with cold butter, baked into garlic bread, toasted for breakfast, in thick slices when a day old, or for French toast. Consider this my summer public service announcement. Now if only I could quaff down an Anchor Steam with it, I'd be in heaven.