July 20th 2013: Cheese Making and Shooting Arrows

Today, I had an appointment with friends to do some cheese making and archery in the towns of Woburn and Fall River.

Before that I passed through the towns of Marlborough,

Old Victoria Building, 277 Main Street

Marlborough Savings Bank,

81 Grange Boulevard

Acton,

Theatre III

Old Building, 543 Massachusetts Avenue

Raymond J. Grey Jr. High School

and finally Concord,

Massachusetts Correctional Institution

The Concord Depot, 86 Thoreau Street

where I decided to have a small breakfast at La Provence, a small cafe in town.

After looking at the cakes in the shop which also sells French delicacies, I decided to get a small Gateau Concorde, a type of cake,

and a slice of the Wild Mushroom Quiche, both of which were actually pretty good.

After breakfast, as I still had a lot of time to spare before meeting up with my friends, I decided to go to the town of Wakefield to finish my sightseeing there, passing by Woburn along the way.

New China Pearl Restaurant

In Wakefield, I visited a few places before finally heading to Beer and Wine Hobby in Woburn to meet my friends and make cheese.

Wakefield Lynnfield United Methodist Church

St. Florence Church

Lake Quannapowitt from Gertrude Spaulding Park,

Lowell Street and Quannapowitt Parkway

St. Parascheva Romanian Orthodox Church

Americal Civic Center

Broadway Treatment and Pumping Facility,
108 Broadway Street

Crystal Lake,

Broadway Street near Lake Street

before finally heading to Beer and Wine Hobby in Woburn to meet my friends and make cheese.

This place is more for enthusiasts who like to brew their own beer, with all the brewing equipment in supply here,

but apparently showing people how to make cheese is also part of their business.

All of us had originally thought that we were all going to make our own cheeses. As it turned out, it was more a demonstration than anything else, making us a little disappointed.

Before everything started, the instructor sanitized his hands first and put on gloves, as bacterial contamination is bad for cheese.

He had all his ingredients in front of him, including a transparent glass pot containing full cream milk. According to him, only glass or stainless steel pots without scratches can be used as aluminum will react with the cheese, while scratches are havens for bacterial growth.

He also had 4 bowls of water, each containing an ingredient required for the mozzarella cheese making process, including citric acid, lipase, rennet and cheese salt.

While making the cheese, he passed around samples of citric acid, rennet tablets

tiny spoons

and cheesecloth for everyone to see.

The instructor also mentioned that temperature and time were critical parameters in the cheese making process, with allowable variability of plus or minus 1F for temperature, and that a cheese knife, with a curved edge, sharp on one side and blunt on the other, has to be used to make curds of equal size.

So here goes the instructions on how to make mozzarella cheese. First, add 1.5 teaspoons of citric acid diluted in 1 cup of cool water to 1 gallon of milk and stir thoroughly.

Next, heat the milk slowly with stirring to 90F, tested using a thermometer. In order to do this exactly, one must know how well the pot transfers heat, and hence when to remove the heat source to reach the final, desired temperature.

At this point, add a quarter tablet of rennet that has been dissolved in a quarter cup of cool water to the milk in different spots,

using the ladle in an up down motion to cut into the milk for 30 seconds before covering the pot for 5 minutes.

After five minutes, the curd should have formed, separating from the clear whey.

With that, use the cheese knife to cut the curds into equal sized, 1 inch diamond shaped pieces in order to allow for homogeneous heating in later steps.

Next, heat the mixture up to 105F, slowly stirring during this time, then remove the pot from the heat and continue stirring for 2-5 minutes.

After the 5 minutes is up, transfer the curds

to a coriander to drain the whey from the curds,

collecting the whey in a separate bowl.

The end result is a huge pot of liquid whey, and a pile of curds.

 At this point, the instructor decided to let us taste the whey by scooping out cups of it and passing it around.

I have to say it tasted more like sour rotting milk than anything else. Nasty stuff.

The curds are then further squeezed to take out as much of the whey as possible.

Next heat the curds in the microwave for 35 seconds to remove more whey and drain it.

One can then start kneading the curds,

reheating the cheese for 30 seconds between each knead until the cheese reaches about 135F, at which point it can be kneaded and stretch to give the final product.

Here, the instructor cut the cheese that had been flattened out for us to try, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The cheese produced was not as chewy as what I am used to as it was not as dry, but still tasty.

With that, our lesson was over, and we went out to collect our cheese kits that was part of our groupon used for this class. Once again I would have to say that the class would have been more fun if we could have made the cheese for ourselves.

From here, it was a long drive to the town of Fall River, where we were to do archery at Trader Jan's Archery Pro-Shop, passing by the Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset with its huge exhaust towers,

and the Charles M. Braga Jr. Memorial Bridge along the way.

As we were a little early, we decided to grab some lunch at Applebee's right next door, which made us late in the end.

At Applebee's, some of us tried the Take 2 seasonal menu, with me getting the Oreo Cookie Shake,

the Lemon Shrimp Fettucine (shrimp seasoned with citrus notes on fettucine tossed in roasted garlic cream sauce, topped with artichokes, lemon zest, bruschetta and parmesan cheese blend) and the Garlic Rosemary Chicken Pasta (chicken breast glazed with garlic, thyme and rosemary herbs, paired with grilled asparagus, artichokes, portobello mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, on top of fettucine lightly tossed in bruschetta, with garlic bread on side).

My friends got the Green Goddess Wedge Salad (wedge of iceberg lettuce ladled with Green Goddess Dressing and topped with bacon, honey glazed pecans, bleu cheese and parsley) and 4oz Blackened Sirloin (on bed of crispy red potatoes tossed in sundried tomato pesto, topped with lime butter)

and the Signature Sirloin with Garlic Herb Shrimp (with seasoned shrimp in light cream sauce, served with herbed potatoes, seasonal vegetables, bruschetta, sliced almonds).

All in all, the food was actually pretty decent, although I got full from drinking too much of my shake and could not finish my food.

We walked back to the archery place, located on the second floor of an old factory that smelled musty and mouldy, with cracked paint on all the walls. The shop itself was only a little better, with expensive crossbows and bows hanging on shelves,

as well as the owner's archery championship trophies.

Our instructor took us to a separate room on the side to teach us how to shoot arrows with a bow.

Apparently only handicapped people can used crossbows in Massachusetts, and there are such things as left-handed bows as well.

When holding the bow, one must hold it at an angle away from your arm, otherwise the bowstring will hit it and hurt a lot.

After pulling the string all the way back, one must not pluck the string, but just slide off your fingers, otherwise the bow might actually break into pieces, and one might get hurt from the shrapnel.

After shooting all the arrows, they have to be removed from the wall, turning counter-clockwise to loosen them from the wall.

After this, it was our turn to start shooting. All the time, I wasn't a very good shot, and even went we progressed all the way out to the 30 yard line, I wasn't any better, obviously. At least my arrows hit the wall and stuck there, and I did not shoot to high to be the arrow in the ceiling.

One of my friends was pretty good at this, getting the bull's eye several times.

After we were finally done with archery, we decided to head into town to get some frozen yogurt at Yogurt City.

Designed much like Mixx Yogurt in Boston, I got a bit of every flavor as always, and as alwzys, after the flavors started mixing together, it tasted weird and I lost my appetite for it. Not too bad though.

Next, we headed back to Woburn, where we decided to have a sushi buffet dinner at Maki Maki, where I was just a few days ago.

This time, we got the Tai Special,

the Salmon, Tuna, Tobiko and Red Snapper Sashimi,

the Shrimp and Vegetable Tempura, the Age Tofu, the Shumai, Lobster Puffs,

Spicy Seafood Soup,

the Spicy Seaweed Salad,

the Salmon Teriyaki,

Beef Fried Rice,

the Salmon Skin Hand Roll, the Eel Avocado Roll

and the Beef Ribs.

Tai Special

Sashimi assortment

Salmon Skin Hand Roll,
 Eel Avocado Roll

Tempura Shrimp, Vegetables, Tofu,
Shumai, Lobster Puffs

Beef Ribs

Salmon Teriyaki

Spicy Seafood Soup

Beef Fried Rice

Spicy Seaweed Salad

The Tai Special wasn't too bad, while the rest were just average. The tofu was too bland, being just tempura tofu, while the soup was not to my liking due to the presence of peppers. Same impression of the place as before.

From here, we headed to Burlington to meet up with another friend who had come to town to visit at Not Your Average Joe's, a restaurant chain which has taken the place of the Ginger Pad, which I had been to before. We arrived in time to grab a drink and converse a little before finally heading home for the day, with me heading to Boston to stay over at my friend's place for the night.

I had a lot of fun today with my friends, especially at archery. Not looking forward to doing food truck stuff tomorrow.