So there I was in a friend’s house enjoying my vacation in the island of Nantucket. The cottage where we stayed was right by the beach and the splashing waves with the smell of sea air were just amazing.
The house owner, who was abroad on vacation herself, graciously lent us her beach house for the weekend even offering whatever food there was. There wasn’t much except for a few bottles of beer, a carton of orange juice, a bar of butter, and a plastic jar with something whitish that was floating on what seemed like diluted milk. Out of curiosity, I took out the container and checked its contents. The label read Bufala Mozzarella and thought to myself, “Isn’t bufala a female bull?” My knowledge of cheese was limited to cows and goats milk, so I was not so sure if the item was really mozzarella cheese from a bull. Later in the day, I googled the info and learned that indeed, mozzarella cheese from female buffalos actually do exist. Now, I’m glad that at least my knowledge of cheese expanded.
I wasn’t about to try anything new unless I am told it’s safe to eat. So I left it at that.
We did buy our food supplies for the week and stored some in the fridge. Each time I would take something out, the plastic container with the funny looking swimming white substance just glared at me. It took a couple of days until our food supplies ran low. The last day of our vacation, all we had were two loaves of french bread, a handful of tomatoes and a bunch of basil leaves plus of course, a bottle of red wine. We can’t be low on that. Since we didn’t have any protein in this meal, I took out what I thought could be the only protein that could sustain us.
Considering it was ‘mozzarella’, I cut it into rounds. Earlier, I did cut up a few rounds of bread and tomatoes. Then with not much ado, I placed the tomatoes, basil and cheese on top of the bread. I was bent on toasting it, just to be sure that there wasn’t any foreign organism whatsoever. After 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven, I took out my toast, and I thought to myself, “Well am sure whatever is in there won’t harm us anymore.”
With a glass of wine and a hungry stomach, we devoured our ‘last supper’. The smoothness of the cheese with the crunchiness of the bread just blended so well with the tomato basil mix. It was marriage in heaven to the mouth.
Later in the week, I tried to replicate that experience and tried looking for some buffalo mozzarella. But alas! Not many carry such a unique find. So I googled it and found a gourmet cheese shop online, known as Ideal Cheese. They did carry Bufala Mozzarella and so I ordered to find out if it was indeed the same one.
The package came just when I was having company. I duplicated what I did in Nantucket but added balsamic, and olive oil before toasting them. When done, I passed on my toasts to the guests, and my take on this: If there’s a word that will surpass heaven, this is it!