Norma,
Glad you liked the fire story. You don't want to encourage firemen storytelling. There is lots of laughter as well as grief in the job. I think the propensity to create humor is probably a way of coping or dealing with involvement in tragedy. There were guys who were genius at creating practical jokes. It was an outlet. My daughter is a high risk labor delivery nurse and on bad days she goes home and hugs her little boys until they tell her to stop.
I have used dry yeast, cake yeast, sourdough, and dry yeast with sourdough to make pizza dough. The cake yeast turns out the best crusts. I bought it in small quantity at a local supermarket and it cost a lot. Second best is dry yeast in very small quantities with long fermentations. Maybe sourdough starters would be also good if they were managed properly, but that is beyond my skill. Bake shops can pay attention to their leavens and starters every day. The home baker can't.
I don't know anything about how fresh or cake yeast is prepared, but would guess it is the same organism that is in dry yeast. What I wonder is if it is possible to grow yeast from dry, and make your own fresh. If that is the case, and it is not too much trouble, a home baker could do that and use it and be done with it and not have to worry about managing starter every day.
The other thing I wonder is if cake or fresh yeast has such a short life, how can they sell it in supermarkets where it surely sits for weeks or months in the distribution channels and on the store shelf and at home before it is used. There must be a way they keep it vital.
