For what it's worth, my wife has been making this bread since we
first saw it in the New York Times, and each has been a great
success. She uses Canadian all purpose flour (we are in Ottawa,
Canada) and Fleishman's instant yeast and bakes the bread in our
French ceramic tagine, made by Emile Henri. The only initial hassle
was in the bread dough sticking but that has been resolved with time
and experience and more flour when working with the dough. The crust
is crispy and the crumb is very chewy as we like it. The flavour is
mild, but not bland, and we are happy with the results.
Peter