Stalking the Waiter

Riffing on foods, flavors and methods since...no, that would be telling.

Monday, January 09, 2006

The 2006 Food Challenge or This Year I Dare II!

I've thought of another item to add to my first three:
Baking bread - I used to bake bread at least once a week, pizza also at least once per 7. I was so used to it that I never used a recipe. I haven't made bread, aside from some abysmal stuff in a bread machine, in years, and I want to get back to that. So, my fourth challenge will be that, by the end of the year, I'll be making bread at least once a week again. I think homemade bread tastes and smells (!) wonderful, heavenly, delicious, all of that. Plus it's got better texture and body than almost all storebought. I'd like to be nearly self-sufficient on the bread front again. I find that being out of bread is one of the things that most often prompts a trip to the market, and that's just plain sad.

Oh! Here's number five:
Homemade mozzarella - I've been wanting to try this for years, ever since I was teaching in Baltimore and had to make weekly trips to the (world's best) Italian deli, Mastellone's*, on Harford Road, for fresh mozzarella and other goodies. It's really not that hard, a little time consuming and requires a little equipment, but I've got a year to get my act together.

*Very nice couple, BTW, and they have some things there I've never managed to find now that I'm home in California, again, like a sheep's milk Romano with black peppercorns in it. It's soft enough for eating but hard enough to grate. Ambrosia. I was addicted to that stuff. Oooh, and big, fat capers packed in salt, still in the barrel they came in. Just a really great source for authentic Italian (and some Middle Eastern) deli-type stuff. If you live in Baltimore or are visiting, go there!

Mastellone Deli & Wine Shop
7212 Harford Road
Baltimore, MD 21234-7702
(410) 444-5433

5 Comments:

At 10:59 PM, Blogger Ilva said...

Great-I'm happy you accepted the challenge! And I'm looking forward to see the results, especially the home made mozzarella!

 
At 11:23 PM, Blogger ZaZa said...

Me, too! :G: Thanks, Ilva, for thinking of it.

 
At 10:54 AM, Blogger Sam said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At 10:55 AM, Blogger Sam said...

i think i am going to htry my hand at mozzarella making too

 
At 2:13 PM, Blogger ZaZa said...

Sam, I wish us both luck. What got me interested, oddly enough, wasn't that I loved it or that my deli made their own, it was a really awful made-for-tv movie with Susan Lucci and David Soul (yikes), in which Susan's character worked in a deli. They had one scene where she was stretching and forming the mozzarella, and it really struck my fancy - seeing it right there, knowing it was people that made it. \;+)

BTW, somehow I managed to approve your comment twice, so that's why you see one deleted.

 

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