Confidence Flailing

You know that feeling when you REALLY screw something up (namely dinner) and it involves more than just your family? Well, I had that tonight. We had friends (whom I hope to become good friends, but at the time of the invitation were more like good acquaintances) over for dinner. I had had a lot going on that day and decided that we should do something low-key...like make your own pizzas. This is a fun dinner (usually), is hard to screw up (usually) and involves little prior preparation (usually). I say usually, because we experienced a mozzarella debacle.

Now, you probably remember me smugly listing in my recipe ingredients "homemade mozzarella". Well, mother nature and chemistry came back to show me that I am not as great as I may have once thought I was. And, I have to admit, that I was pretty proud of myself for making my own cheese. As easy as it was, it still sounds really cool and hard! Well, I found out tonight, that it isn't always easy. I had decided that it would be fun ( and smugly, educational) to make mozzarella WITH our friends, not before our friends arrived. Now, to give myself the best possible credit, I really did want to show them how easy it was so that they may do it themselves, not so that they would see how great I was (if I had wanted that I should have DEFINITELY done that before they arrived).

Things didn't go exactly as planned. In fact, as my guests looked on in horror, I botched not one gallon but TWO gallons of milk in the attempt to make homemade mozzarella for our pizzas. And this is no ordinary milk, I couldn't just run down to Harris Teeter and get another gallon. This was planned ahead, ordered, driven to pick up, local milk from a local dairy. The first gallon never solidified enough...meaning the curds never set so that they weren't possible to set and drain. The second batch curdled and turned into a VERY scary version of curds. Both were complete failures. I have to say the couple could not believe that we went through two gallons of milk with nothing to show for it but a full garbage disposal and I am sure they did not go away thinking local food was either easy or affordable. Ugh!

But, the important thing is that we had a fabulous time anyway. I chalked it up to bad luck (although I promise you tomorrow morning I am going to make real mozzarella even if it takes me two more gallons!!!) and had feta and Parmesan instead and had a great time. Maybe what we did learn is that good food, good friends and good wine doesn't depend on good mozzarella!