Allow Me To Clarify

Because I'm feeling lazy and uninspired this morning, and because it's Saturday, which means all my cubicle-dwelling, slacker readers aren't at work and probably won't be reading, I'm just going to answer some questions/comments that were posed yesterday.

1) Mayberry Magpie asked how the mozzarella was made. I wasn't there, but I saw the recipe. There are a million recipes for making mozzarella, some that are ridiculously complicated. It involves a milk thermometer (a special kind that floats in the milk and goes to high temperatures), rennet (which used to come from a calf's stomach lining but is now commercially manufactured) for coagulation, citric acid to "curdle" the milk and separate the milk solids from the whey, and unpasteurized milk. This kind of milk would probably be the hardest of all of these things to get if you don't live around dairy farms that can sell directly from their dairy, like we do. The milk in stores is all ultra-pasteurized, though some recipes say you can do this with organic store milk.

2) Lennie asked if we used our own nuts in the pesto. The answer to that one is no. We have black walnuts, which are a lot more bitter than the English walnuts you typically buy at the store. So to make a fully Blackrock-harvested pesto, we'd have to use black walnuts and lard. And I would just rather not imagine that.

3) Roger suggested that the bats that would bite you in the night (GAAAH!!) are vampire bats. He's the biologist, so I bow to his expertise on this one, but are there vampire bats on Long Island? Because that's where the girl who died was bitten.

4) Mayberry Magpie asked if house cats will take care of bats. Well, funny you should ask that. I think the bat I found in the kitchen was delivered there by James. However, the bat wasn't entirely dead (it chittered weakly at the MiL when she picked it up) (GAAAAHH!!!), and you most emphatically do not want your cats messing around with bats. Especially if they haven't had rabies shots. James had not. The MiL brought him and the bat to the vet last night. James got a rabies shot and the bat is awaiting pick-up by the county health person for testing for rabies.

5) Ms. Picket mentioned a bat that survived freezing in water. This does not surprise me, as I have witnessed a bat getting sucked up in a Shop Vac and living to bare its teeth at A. when he dumped it out (GAAAHH!!).

That's all. You may go.

P.S. Mayberry Magpie also said that she hopes this bat thing was an isolated incident.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Woooo. Pardon the hysterical laughter. See here, and here, and here and you'll know why that was so funny. But funny in a depressing and creepy way, because the bats, they just keep on comin'.