Click picture to enlarge - Original hosted at Flickr
Click picture to enlarge - Original hosted at Flickr
It was a quiet weekend of rain, cheesemaking, and watching Season 4 of "The Wire." I've been talking in Baltimore "street," much to the dismay of my wife. Ain't no thing. According to her, it is a thing, a thing that will end very soon.
Here are some random notes from the weekend:
- Congrats, Penguins! I think that team showed amazing heart, winning two series after having lost the two first games. The last game kept me on the edge of my seat and finished with two saves for the ages.
- The National Wholesale Liquidators on Broadway has closed. While living on my own for 9 years, the Liquidators was my life outfitter. I bought everything there from socks to ice trays. Some days, I don't even recognize NYC anymore with such wonderful places fading away.
- I needed a new stock pot and NWL was gone, so I headed to a flea market in Dumbo. Bad idea. There are no good stands at the Dumbo flea market. You know, the ones with some crazy old guy selling everything he collected over 73 years, including a stock pot for $.25. Instead, there is row after row of homemade jewelry, frumpy clothes, weird objects that sit on shelves, and ceramic coasters--crap.
- On Sunday we walked 4.46 miles around parts of Brooklyn, running various errands, but also shopping for cheese and better milk. No luck on the milk front, but we did find a few old school Italian dairies (like today's pic) that specialize in homemade mozzarella for neighborhood restaurants.
- I made Cheese #2, another stab at Farmhouse Cheddar, starting with the same recipe as before. Here are the notes:
- Used regular Gristede's pasteurized, homogenized whole milk
- Used 1/2 teaspoon of Calcium Chloride (double the normal amount)
- Use 1 full Rennet tablet
- Despite using extra rennet and CaCl, the milk still took an extra 35 minutes (80 total) to achieve the magical "clean break."
- And finally, welcome to Brooklyn, Liam A! Congrats to M&D!
