BFBC Pill Poppin' Potty Stoppin' Food Tour '11: Part I

I am a member of a book club. 

The Best Friends Book Club. 

Yes, it is true. 

I know how to read.

The really great thing about THIS book club, is that books are just an excuse.

It is really all about the food.

You see, we pick our books based on the menus we can derive from them.

We do a pot luck supper when we meet each month, and bring dishes that pertain to the theme or locale of the story.  We read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and everybody brought dishes made with potatoes.  Read the book whose name i refuse to mention but the [sordid and very small] gene pool was from Italy, it was Italian food.  Sometimes we go a little nuts.  When we read The Zookeepers Wife everyone brought German food.  Except me.  I brought the stuff to make White Russians in honor of the Rooskies liberating Warsaw.  That particular meeting was longer than most of the rest.  And i don't seem to recall much discussion about the book.  Which was very good, by the way.  The book.  The adult beverages were too, but i was talking about the book.

We have been threatening to take a road trip for quite some time, and last month we finally did it.

And a Grand time it was.

I will explain the trip's moniker in Part II.  Right  now we need to get down to the important part.

 Cheese.

The second stop on the BFBCPPPSFT '11 was the Mozzarella Company cheese factory (the first stop was a potty stop, but as i said, we will cover that later.)

Anyone within 500 miles of Dallas should plan a detour to visit this fine establishment.  The cheeses were amazing, and the folks there were very tolerant.  And nice.  But with six women descending upon them, and all of us being the shrinking violets that we are, i think their most outstanding trait was tolerance.

Yes, they really do sell cheese to the public--we proved it!

The factory is in an old, artsy part of downtown called Deep Ellum.  Apparently the building that used to give people a place to rest before moving on now gives cheese a place to rest before moving on.  You would think a building that old would have learned another skill.

You KNOW i loved this little guy!  Yes, they make goat cheese.

This momentarily upset me.  The lady is pouring whey directly into a drain in the floor.  You know we don't waste anything around these parts, and whey is fed to the animals, as it still contains unharvested nutrients.  The first splash drew a sharp breath from me, until i realized the volume of whey that would be produced in the process of making the five billion tons of cheese they make each day.  Have to say, there would come a point where i, too, would dump it down the drain.

And here is the assembly line where the curds are being cut, formed into balls, and then tossed into the big white tub.  Their hands were like lightning, and their aim was true.  Was all very cool.  Can't wait to return.