July 3, 2024 • 29 mins
Paula Lambert, Founder of The Mozzarella Company in Dallas, truly is The Big Cheese. She founded her business in 1982 with the goal of bringing the fresh-made mozzarella cheese she learned to make while living in Italy to the U.S.A. The Mozzarella Company offers more than 30 artisanal cheeses, all made by women. The company is also 100% women-led. In 2023, Lambert sold her business to her employees. In 2024, she received the Specialty Food Association Lifetime Achievement Award.
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W four CY Radio. Welcome tothe Connected Table Live. We're your hosts,
Melanie Young and David Ransom. You'reinsatiably curious culinary couple. We bring
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you each week the amazing people wemeet as we travel in food, wine,
spirits and hospitality around the country andthe world. We love sharing their
stories with you. You're listening tous now on W four CY Radio,
but you can hear all our podcastsanytime anywhere after the live show on iHeart,
Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or yourfavorite podcast platform. And we invite
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you to follow us and connect onInstagram at the Connected Table and on our
Facebook page at the Connected Table.So David knows I have a weakness for
what cheese. We both do.To be honest, we're che grew up
eating cheese from all over the worldbecause my mom was a cheese ahulic too,
So I think it runs in thefamily, both our sides. I
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mean, I could just have anentire meal on cheese. And I think
that we're really excited about our gueststoday because she has been considers one of
the pioneers of artisan cheesemaking in theUnited States, making one of our favorite
cheeses. What is that mozzarella?The real stuff. So we are speaking
with Paula Lambert, who is thefounder of the Mozzarella Company based in Dallas.
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Paula fell in love with fresh mozzarellain Italy when she was studying Italian
language and and she brought the conceptof making artisan in mozzarella and eventually other
cheeses back to the United States andstarted a company in nineteen eighty two.
So it's forty years ago, David, imagine what nineteen eighty two was like
in the cheese world here, kindof before artisanal became a thing. Yeah,
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I don't think artisanal was a word. So we're really excited to share
her story she's won more awards.I'd probably more awards than anyone in the
world of cheese, and we're reallyexcited to share her story today with you.
Paula Lambert, Welcome to the ConnectedTable. Thank you, Hi,
Melanie, How are you really great? I think I met Paula David like
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probably when I was first moved toNew York and was getting involved with the
James Bear Foundation in ICP and Iremember meeting you going Wow, what a
pistol and thinking, Wow, whatamazing cheeses. Well it's been fun,
yeah, it sure has. Itreally has been a great, great road
for you. And we always liketo start our show with a little bit
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of our guests backstory. We knowyou grew up in Fort Worth. I
think your dad was an attorney.What was your life like in the family.
Was it a food family or didyou kind of develop that interest later
in life. Well, we lovedgood food. I mean we had wholesome
food. It was Southern when Iwas growing up, and my grandmother was
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a great cook. She had agarden and she made fabulous vegetable soup.
So mother wasn't much of a cook, but we used to go to New
Orleans every year in the summer,and we ated all the wonderful French restaurants
down there, so I'd say thatI had a good background. Well,
you share a connection with us becauseNew Orleans is our spiritual home and a
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secondary home, and we were marriedthere. And I think it's funny you
said we went to New Orleans inthe summer right last year. It was
hot, But we know how youfeel about following in love Arable. So
you know, living in Fort Worth, did you eat a lot of text
Max, Yes, we had some. It was really more Southern cooking.
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But we had a wonderful restaurant thatwe went to often. It was called
the Original Mexican Eats and I justwent there the other night and it was
still fabulous. And so that's youknow, over seventy years I've been going
there. It's a classic. Itis. So you ended up actually going
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to Italy to study while you werein college, and is that when you
fell in love with Italian food andyou wanted to start making cheese? Give
us that yes part. Yeah,Well, I went to Italy to study
the Italian language and art history,and I lived in Perugia, which is
a little town in Umbria. Andbetween Florence and Rome, and I had
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fallen in love with Italy before Iwent to live in Perugia, and I
had specifically loved fresh mozzarella. Icouldn't believe it was cheese. I mean,
the mozzarella tomato salad was just deliciousto me, and I kept saying,
is this really cheese? And thewaiter would say yes. So I
fell in love with it. Andthen when I went back to living in
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Italy, I often bought mozzarella,and in fact, I loved it so
much that I found out about alittle cheese factory that was outside of Perugia,
out in the countryside that made freshmozzarella, and I would often go
there to buy the cheese on theday it was made. That was the
point of fresh mozzarella in Italy,to eat it on the day it was
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made, and so I would gothere and get the cheese. And then
years later, after I left Perugiaand I came back to Dallas and got
married, I decided that I missedthe mozzarella so much that I would just
have to learn to make it andstart a cheese factory. You know,
that's pretty, That's that's pretty gutsy, Paula, it really is. It
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was love loved first bite. Yeah, absolutely, So you apprenticed, you
you ended up apprenticing with a wellknown I think it was two one or
two well known artisan cheesemakers. Tellus about them, and what and when?
What was their reaction? And yousaid, this is what I want
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to do. And what was yourfamily's reaction, and what was your husband's
reaction? It was all something else. Well, I went back to that
same cheese factor when I decided Iwanted to make mozzarella and have a factory,
I went back to that same cheesefactory and asked the owner about it,
and he was so kind to meand let me come and spend a
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few weeks there learning how to makethe cheese. And so that was my
whole doctrination. I mean, thatwas all I knew, and I came
back with that amount of knowledge.I came back to Dallas and found a
place and built a cheese factory,and I found an Italian cheese professor in
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Italy who would come to Dallas andteach me to make the cheese here.
So that's the way I really aprettiest in my own little factory was that
Mara Buffani, well Bruffani was theone that I went to in outside of
Perugia. And then Giovanni Marquesi wasthe cheese professor who came from a pandino
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in northern Italy. I can onlyimagine what they felt when they came to
Dallas is so different. Well,you know, he was young, he
was excited. And something interesting isthat later, many years later, Maro
Gruffani's son came to Dallas to helpus and consult with us. So it
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was just wonderful. He wasn't evenborn when I started the factory, and
then he was, you know,able to come and help me in Dow
years later. So forty years isa long time. It gives you a
lot of time to do things.Sure, does you know there's obviously a
lot of different regulations involved in makingcheese in Italy and making cheese in the
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US. Were there a lot ofhurdles to getting yourself started over here to
make the kind of authentic montarella youwanted to make? Oh yes, I
mean I didn't. When I started, I didn't even know what pastorization was,
and I found out quickly that wehad to pastorize all cheeses that were
made in the United States that wereless than sixty days old. So that's
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how I got to the cheese professorin Italy because Brufani was not even pasteurizing
his cow's milk to make the motalain Perugia. So I had to learn
about cultures and rented and I hadto learn all those things from the cheese
professor and different people that I metalong the way. Can you, I'm
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curious, can you have any pastorizedunpasteurized cheese in the United States today?
Yes, you can. It justhas to be aged for sixty days.
Oh, I did not know that. So, you know, again we're
talking about nineteen eighty two. SoI was just graduating college. In my
life, I grew up, Iwas intent. I grew up in Tennessee,
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Okay. So David's mother was,you know, very into the kone
world. My mother we went togreat restaurants like you talk about your family.
We went to great restaurants, butwe didn't cook. And my only
knowledge of cheese growing up was craftyeah and velveta. So here you are
in Dallas in the in the southwestsouth southwest, depending on everybody's opinion.
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And I think about the food scenethen, and how hard was it to
convince buyers. I guess you wereinitially thinking you were going to sell retail.
I mean, how did you convincepeople to buy or cheese to sell
it? I mean, because peopledidn't know what you were doing. They
never had cheese like that. That'sright. Well, we were lucky.
We first tried to sell to thestores and they weren't. You know,
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they were not very successful at sellingten balls of mozzarella a week, which
was what you know, five pounds. That was my minimum for delivery.
And so I decided that if Icould sell to the chefs in the restaurants,
then people would go to the restaurantsand they would try the cheese.
They'd say, it's so wonderful thatask the waiter where it came from.
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The waiter would go back and askthe chef and he would say from Paula
down at the Mozzarella Company. Andso that was how I built my business,
actually because I pivoted and I stoppedtrying to sell so much to shops
because no one knew about it,and I sold to the restaurants and they
helped me educate the customers who weresome of your early give a shout out
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to some of those early chef supporters. Well, the first most ordered customer
I had was the mansion on TurtleCreek, and that was before Dean was
even there, and he had beenthere but left and I sold the mansion.
I sold to an Italian restaurant calledLombards. I sold to a few
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little restaurants, and just then Americanregional cuisine and Southwestern cuisine were beginning to
take off in Dallas, and sothose restaurants and ships became my customers.
And of course we're talking about thegreat Dean Fearing. Yes, and then
see Kyles came on, and youknow the timing, Actually you were right
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ahead of the curve when because Ithink the American colony revolution really started peaking
at its height in eighty four eightyfive. In the late eighties, it
just became like wow, and theneverything the word artisanal, I think ed
the artisanal food entered the vocabulary,right. I think that it's even too
early for artis. And at firstwe were calling the cheese specialty cheese,
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and the word artisanal hadn't even started. And that was pretty much branded by
Daphne Zeppo's at Artisanal in New Yorkto me, and I'm not that was
probably in the nineties, but anyway, it was fascinating. It was great.
It was so long ago that WolfgangPuck was the consultant to the mansion
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on Turtle Creek and so, youknow, and they were trying to have
an American menu and this was justcompletely revolutionary. And then Southwestern cuisine came
along with Stephen and Dean and Robertdel Grande, Mark Miller, all the
people we know, and Vincent Garritoin Phoenix, I mean everywhere, John
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Seddler in la I mean it wasgreat. Yeah, it was. That
was my heyday. I mean itwas just a I think it was one
of the greatest times in American cookingand restaurants ever. I really do believe
that. And we all kind ofrode that way for a really, really,
really long time. And at thispoint, Paula, you wrote me
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to day and said, you theMozabella Company now produces one hundred thousand pounds
of cheese, all made by hand, right, that's right. We don't
have any equipment other than a pump. So what's that movement? Milk what's
that day in the life of makingcheese? You know, I read somewhere
in a really good article that Iread that you start your day at three
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am. We do two, threemidnight, all kinds of things like that.
It depends on what our orders areand what time the milk is coming,
because the milk comes to us straightfrom the farms, and there are
lots of great dairy farms just outsideDallas, which might be surprising to some
people. We start by receiving themilk, or we have the milk that
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we have in our tanks, andthen we pump the milk into the factory.
We pasteurized the milk we had culturesand rented, and coagulate the milk
and begin to turn it into thedifferent kinds of cheese esues. In the
case of mozzarella, it takes aboutsix hours, and then we stretch it
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and form it into the balls andthe broken chini and all the different types
of mozzarella that we make, andother cheeses we put in molds and drain
and put in our aging rooms toage. So cheese is just a variation
of the same subject. It's milkthat you are preserving and making into something
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more delicious for another time. Well, we've been fortunate to tour a lot
of cheese making facilities on some ofour wine trips to Italy. Remember the
one we went to in the Maremma. Oh gosh, oh my god.
It's just it's quite a process.And cheese is kind of a living thing.
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And you started mozarella, but nowyou have I think it's over forty
different types of cheese and textures.What are some of your best sellers.
Well, we have a wonderful onethat's called deep Ellum blue, which is
a cheese. It's started out asa teledgo and then I changed it to
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be deep Ellum blue and it hasa wonderful penicillinpe forty crust on the outside.
And we have a little goat cheesethat's wrapped in the leaf that comes
from Mexico called Oja Santa that meansholy leaf and it has the flavor of
sassafras. S us you send usthat we were trying to identify that now
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it's asa frash sas a frass,a little annis. It's a delicious cheese
and we make all kinds of differentcheeses. We have a lot of Mexican
cheeses, Queso Wahawka. We havea minnina, which is like a chihuahua,
and we have Queso fresco, Quesoblanco, all kinds of things we
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were sent. We have the CasaBlanco with chili's, which I think we're
gonna try to make on our cauliflowerpizza tonight. We have yeah, and
we ever and with each of these, we're thinking about the wines, because
we both write about mine. Wehave the mostzarella roll with green olives,
and those olives really are like freshand maybe when I have We were trying
to decide during our walk the otherday what wine we would want that we
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were talking about Alberino while we wasseeking gruner. We have the black pepper
garlic cocciota. Uh yeah really reallyit's good with the red ones. Yes,
yes, yes, and delightful juston a cracker and I just opened
them. The one that it's likeit's torta with it's it's the basil.
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It's I love that. That's sogood, smelling it right now over if
you have leftover, you can justput it on on uh blanched vegetables.
I mean it just melts and justgives them so much, we should try
that next time we do a spiracus, we'll try that broccoli. Well,
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what we noticed about the selection,you sound, it was the flavors there.
There were some very intense, verymouth pleasing, but intense flavors,
and and we found we did deala little of the Texas Mexico flare with
the Queso blanco in there. Ofcourse, we love barata and buffalo mozzarella.
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On your website, you have awhole history and story about mozzarella.
Why don't you share a little bitwith our listeners since that's the name of
your company and it's got a greathistory. Well, the word mozarre means
to tear off, So mostrella isa curd. It's a string cheese.
It's been stretched with hot water andformed into a big mass of cheese and
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then pieces of it are torn offand thrown into cold water to firm up.
And that's where the word mozzarella comesfrom. There are lots of different
cheeses in the Mozzarella family. They'rebarda, and that we make three different
kinds of barda. One we fillwith crim fresh and their little tiny individual
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two outs bardas we make one that'sthe traditional way that it's made in Pulia
with the stratchi inside, and stratchiare little tear torn up pieces of mozzarella
that are immerged in cream and thena sack of mozzarella is stretched out and
formed around this liquid center. Andwe also make one that's called burno,
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and that's the way they make itin the North and it is most sorella
that in cases of node of butter, and so that's really good. So
anyway, we mix some mascar ponyin with that butter to make it softer,
because you know, if it wereicy cold and just be hard like
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butter. And so then we alsomake mozzarella rolls, which is something that
I created at the very beginning,where we stretch out the mozzarella onto a
flat surface like a we're going tomake a jelly roll, and then we
spread a filling like the olives orbasal pesto procoto, something like that,
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and then we roll it up intoa spiral like a jelly roll. And
I love those. They're really good. And another cheese in the mozzarella family
would be casedo wahaka, which comesfrom Mexico, and that's mozzarella that's stretched
out into a long ribbon and thenwound up like a ball of yarn.
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And another in the mozzarella family issca mortza, and that is a firm
mozzarella. It's shaped like a littlesnowman and it's hung with a string around
its neck. And we smoke itand we smoke it over pecan shells.
And I started doing that because thepecan is the state tree of Texas.
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I wonder if that gives it inparts a certain flavor, and wonder how
that I love smoke. Actually,Paula smoke mozzrella is my first initiation into
really good mozzarella. I have avery dear friend Laura, who used to
bring it to our beach house inthe Hamptons with her father's shrimp, and
it was a turning point for me. I've not yet been to Campagna to
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go to the mozzarella to Buffala farmto see how it is made, but
that I remember that smoke moz Sorellawas like my Aha moment, like Wow,
I've never had anything like this before. It's fantastic being smoked over but
con Sheells is special. It's justa wonderful wonderful, mild smoky flavor,
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and it's very it's round, andI think it's just perfect. I think
that smoked mozzarella and shrimp are sogood together. It's really good. Try
that on a pasta. Oh,that sounds really good, making me hungry.
We always do these shows right aroundlunch. For us. It's like
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pretty missing. Now I noticed,well, David, what do you have
questions about some of the cheeses.Well, I have a comment. You
were talking about the mozzarella that's madein Pulia, And I was in Pulia
in twenty eighteen on a wine tripto judge some wines for a competition,
and one of the wine writers hadfound out that there's this very famous mozzarella
maker in Bari and found and oneof the wine makers had brought a sample
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of it, or an actual ballof it to the wine tasting, and
we all sat around having this incrediblemontzarella literally right in the middle of the
castle grounds during the outdoor tasting.And it was just one of the great
experience with cheese of my life becausewe were none of us had ever had
anything that delicious in that fresh before. Oh, And it was just such
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a great experience, and we alltook pictures of it. We were just
sitting there on the on the stonewall of the castle. We're eating mozzarella
with wooden spoons out of the dish. It was so much fun. I
get picture that it's wonderful down therein Pula. I have a little travel
company and I take people. Oneof the places is Topulia, and I
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love it down there. There's agreat cheese factory south of Late j called
chinkhoi Santi. They make some ofthe most creative, delicious things you've ever
tasted. I noticed on your websitethat you do have the travel company.
Obviously you probably haven't been doing tripsrecently, But what do you have planned
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for two or twenty twenty three.Give us an example of what people who
go on your trips would experience.Oh, I've already already had people in
Tuscany with me last fall. Itake people to Tuscany. I rent a
gorgeous villa and we spend a weeksouth of Florence in the County Classico district.
Different days we might visit a pigfarmer, a butcher, a winemaker,
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a castle, all kinds of differentthings. And we said a beautiful
villa and spend a week there together. I also take people to Pulia and
then I do cruises with Stephen Piles, a chef from Dallas, and we
do lots of wonderful cruises. Wego on Alma Waterways, which is a
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riverboat, and we'll be going onthe Danube in May, and then next
year we're going on the Dwaro inPortugal. With this, we go on
Silver Seas. Uh, we're doingRome to Venice. Next year, we're
doing a trip to Morocco, let'ssee. And we have a chartered a
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boat in the Greek Isles for thissummer. Well, we're busy. Well
that sounds pretty awesome. Yeah,it's fun. I'm glad to see you're
sailing again and you still find timeto make mozzarella. Yeah, I do.
I'm busy, but I love it. You know. I also noticed
on your website in the wonderful photoson their have your staff? Your team
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looks very happy. How many peopleare does Moza Weella company employe? And
it looks like you can play alot of women. Yes, we have
about fifteen employees and most are women. Uh, it's men in the office
and men in the shipping and delivery. But in the cheese making, it's
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all women, and it has beenmy entire life of company. We have
had one or two men in thechief factory. That's all. I find
that the women are so good withtheir hands and these these fine motor skills
that they need, and they havea great memory. I've trained all the
people myselves. They've made wonderful livesfor themselves and their families working with us.
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They're proud of what they do.I'm proud of them. I couldn't
do it without them. It's justa wonderful situation. I have one girl
two that have been with me overthirty five years. I was going to
ask that that's really amazing. I'mgiven how many people feel the labor market
is so tenuous. That you havesuch well tenured people working for you,
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that's just fabulous. It's great.Many many have been there more than twenty
years or twenty five. I mean, I can't even keep up with it.
Yeah, I'm always wanted to learncheesemaking. Remember George Say, our
friend George Say, piece of bigwine guy. He wanted to. He
took he was a lawyer and hewent and studied cheesemaking. I'm curious for
anyone who would like to think aboutstudying cheesemaking, are there schools or tutorial
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you know, what would you recommend? Oh? Yes, there's lots of
ways to learn how learn cheesemaking.There lots of universities and places in Wisconsin
have cheesemaking short courses and I can'tthink of one just offhand, but there
are many. You could just lookit up on the internet. So you've
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won one of awards, too many, many many awards. Is there anything
that you've achieved that you're most proudof that you'd like to share and why?
Well, I'm very proud because thisyear Food and Wine just named us
as one of the top fifty cheesefactories in the United States, and I
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can't believe it. It makes methrilled to think we're the only ones in
Texas, the only ones in thispart of the country, and to think
that we can be recognized like thatis just wonderful. And then the other
thing that I'm the most proud ofis the James Beard being in the Who's
(27:14):
Who you Know for so many yearssince I don't know, maybe nineteen ninety
five or ninety eight a long time, so I love that. I love
that too. We just got toget to get that back in place because
they retired the Who's Who, muchto my chagrin. They really I hadn't
heard. Yeah, anyway, we'reabout to run out of time. I
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would we want to make sure weget a shout out for your website,
which is www dot Moscow m ozzcodot com, and make sure we get
that in to the website as well. And if somebody wants to buy your
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cheeses, I know you sold alot to restaurants. Where do you have
a list of retailers or do youship tell us about how people can buy
your purchase your cheeses. Yes,we have a shop online at wwwmosco dot
com. They can order all thecheeses by the half pound and we ship
them straight to them. And wealso have they are a list of different
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shops that sell our cheeses. That'sso fantastic. You know you've been called
a pioneer. How do you feelabout that word, being called a pioneer
of cheesemaking? I love it.I love it. I mean, what
could be better? I'm doing somethingthat I love and that I'm passionate about
and I've met all these wonderful people, done all these fun things. I
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mean, it's just great. Imean, I'm thrilled. Well, I
think you're a testament to doing whatyou love, dreaming it and doing it.
As they say, you fell inlove with something, you had an
Italian love affair with cheese. Youbrought it to the United States. You've
en riched all of our lives bymaking really terrific products. So thank you,
Paula. We really appreciate all you'vedone. And congratulations in forty years
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at the most all the company.Thank you, Melanie and David, thank
you so much. It was ourpleasure. Hopefully, I know Melanie's met
you a number of times in life, but I haven't. So hopefully when
we come to Dallas, we'll sitdown and we'll have a piece of cheese
together. Oh definitely, and I'llcook I'll cook dinner for you. Oh
that's great, Okay, bye bye, Thank you. Thank you folks.
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You've been listening to The Connected Tablewith Melanie Young and David Ransom and our
message to you always besides following uson Instagram at the Connected Table and listening
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The topics and opinions expressed in thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
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(00:20):
W four CY Radio. Welcome tothe Connected Table Live. We're your hosts,
Melanie Young and David Ransom. You'reinsatiably curious culinary couple. We bring
(00:43):
you each week the amazing people wemeet as we travel in food, wine,
spirits and hospitality around the country andthe world. We love sharing their
stories with you. You're listening tous now on W four CY Radio,
but you can hear all our podcastsanytime anywhere after the live show on iHeart,
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(01:07):
you to follow us and connect onInstagram at the Connected Table and on our
Facebook page at the Connected Table.So David knows I have a weakness for
what cheese. We both do.To be honest, we're che grew up
eating cheese from all over the worldbecause my mom was a cheese ahulic too,
So I think it runs in thefamily, both our sides. I
(01:29):
mean, I could just have anentire meal on cheese. And I think
that we're really excited about our gueststoday because she has been considers one of
the pioneers of artisan cheesemaking in theUnited States, making one of our favorite
cheeses. What is that mozzarella?The real stuff. So we are speaking
with Paula Lambert, who is thefounder of the Mozzarella Company based in Dallas.
(01:55):
Paula fell in love with fresh mozzarellain Italy when she was studying Italian
language and and she brought the conceptof making artisan in mozzarella and eventually other
cheeses back to the United States andstarted a company in nineteen eighty two.
So it's forty years ago, David, imagine what nineteen eighty two was like
in the cheese world here, kindof before artisanal became a thing. Yeah,
(02:17):
I don't think artisanal was a word. So we're really excited to share
her story she's won more awards.I'd probably more awards than anyone in the
world of cheese, and we're reallyexcited to share her story today with you.
Paula Lambert, Welcome to the ConnectedTable. Thank you, Hi,
Melanie, How are you really great? I think I met Paula David like
(02:39):
probably when I was first moved toNew York and was getting involved with the
James Bear Foundation in ICP and Iremember meeting you going Wow, what a
pistol and thinking, Wow, whatamazing cheeses. Well it's been fun,
yeah, it sure has. Itreally has been a great, great road
for you. And we always liketo start our show with a little bit
(03:00):
of our guests backstory. We knowyou grew up in Fort Worth. I
think your dad was an attorney.What was your life like in the family.
Was it a food family or didyou kind of develop that interest later
in life. Well, we lovedgood food. I mean we had wholesome
food. It was Southern when Iwas growing up, and my grandmother was
(03:22):
a great cook. She had agarden and she made fabulous vegetable soup.
So mother wasn't much of a cook, but we used to go to New
Orleans every year in the summer,and we ated all the wonderful French restaurants
down there, so I'd say thatI had a good background. Well,
you share a connection with us becauseNew Orleans is our spiritual home and a
(03:45):
secondary home, and we were marriedthere. And I think it's funny you
said we went to New Orleans inthe summer right last year. It was
hot, But we know how youfeel about following in love Arable. So
you know, living in Fort Worth, did you eat a lot of text
Max, Yes, we had some. It was really more Southern cooking.
(04:11):
But we had a wonderful restaurant thatwe went to often. It was called
the Original Mexican Eats and I justwent there the other night and it was
still fabulous. And so that's youknow, over seventy years I've been going
there. It's a classic. Itis. So you ended up actually going
(04:31):
to Italy to study while you werein college, and is that when you
fell in love with Italian food andyou wanted to start making cheese? Give
us that yes part. Yeah,Well, I went to Italy to study
the Italian language and art history,and I lived in Perugia, which is
a little town in Umbria. Andbetween Florence and Rome, and I had
(04:56):
fallen in love with Italy before Iwent to live in Perugia, and I
had specifically loved fresh mozzarella. Icouldn't believe it was cheese. I mean,
the mozzarella tomato salad was just deliciousto me, and I kept saying,
is this really cheese? And thewaiter would say yes. So I
fell in love with it. Andthen when I went back to living in
(05:18):
Italy, I often bought mozzarella,and in fact, I loved it so
much that I found out about alittle cheese factory that was outside of Perugia,
out in the countryside that made freshmozzarella, and I would often go
there to buy the cheese on theday it was made. That was the
point of fresh mozzarella in Italy,to eat it on the day it was
(05:41):
made, and so I would gothere and get the cheese. And then
years later, after I left Perugiaand I came back to Dallas and got
married, I decided that I missedthe mozzarella so much that I would just
have to learn to make it andstart a cheese factory. You know,
that's pretty, That's that's pretty gutsy, Paula, it really is. It
(06:05):
was love loved first bite. Yeah, absolutely, So you apprenticed, you
you ended up apprenticing with a wellknown I think it was two one or
two well known artisan cheesemakers. Tellus about them, and what and when?
What was their reaction? And yousaid, this is what I want
(06:25):
to do. And what was yourfamily's reaction, and what was your husband's
reaction? It was all something else. Well, I went back to that
same cheese factor when I decided Iwanted to make mozzarella and have a factory,
I went back to that same cheesefactory and asked the owner about it,
and he was so kind to meand let me come and spend a
(06:46):
few weeks there learning how to makethe cheese. And so that was my
whole doctrination. I mean, thatwas all I knew, and I came
back with that amount of knowledge.I came back to Dallas and found a
place and built a cheese factory,and I found an Italian cheese professor in
(07:06):
Italy who would come to Dallas andteach me to make the cheese here.
So that's the way I really aprettiest in my own little factory was that
Mara Buffani, well Bruffani was theone that I went to in outside of
Perugia. And then Giovanni Marquesi wasthe cheese professor who came from a pandino
(07:30):
in northern Italy. I can onlyimagine what they felt when they came to
Dallas is so different. Well,you know, he was young, he
was excited. And something interesting isthat later, many years later, Maro
Gruffani's son came to Dallas to helpus and consult with us. So it
(07:51):
was just wonderful. He wasn't evenborn when I started the factory, and
then he was, you know,able to come and help me in Dow
years later. So forty years isa long time. It gives you a
lot of time to do things.Sure, does you know there's obviously a
lot of different regulations involved in makingcheese in Italy and making cheese in the
(08:11):
US. Were there a lot ofhurdles to getting yourself started over here to
make the kind of authentic montarella youwanted to make? Oh yes, I
mean I didn't. When I started, I didn't even know what pastorization was,
and I found out quickly that wehad to pastorize all cheeses that were
made in the United States that wereless than sixty days old. So that's
(08:35):
how I got to the cheese professorin Italy because Brufani was not even pasteurizing
his cow's milk to make the motalain Perugia. So I had to learn
about cultures and rented and I hadto learn all those things from the cheese
professor and different people that I metalong the way. Can you, I'm
(08:56):
curious, can you have any pastorizedunpasteurized cheese in the United States today?
Yes, you can. It justhas to be aged for sixty days.
Oh, I did not know that. So, you know, again we're
talking about nineteen eighty two. SoI was just graduating college. In my
life, I grew up, Iwas intent. I grew up in Tennessee,
(09:18):
Okay. So David's mother was,you know, very into the kone
world. My mother we went togreat restaurants like you talk about your family.
We went to great restaurants, butwe didn't cook. And my only
knowledge of cheese growing up was craftyeah and velveta. So here you are
in Dallas in the in the southwestsouth southwest, depending on everybody's opinion.
(09:43):
And I think about the food scenethen, and how hard was it to
convince buyers. I guess you wereinitially thinking you were going to sell retail.
I mean, how did you convincepeople to buy or cheese to sell
it? I mean, because peopledidn't know what you were doing. They
never had cheese like that. That'sright. Well, we were lucky.
We first tried to sell to thestores and they weren't. You know,
(10:07):
they were not very successful at sellingten balls of mozzarella a week, which
was what you know, five pounds. That was my minimum for delivery.
And so I decided that if Icould sell to the chefs in the restaurants,
then people would go to the restaurantsand they would try the cheese.
They'd say, it's so wonderful thatask the waiter where it came from.
(10:31):
The waiter would go back and askthe chef and he would say from Paula
down at the Mozzarella Company. Andso that was how I built my business,
actually because I pivoted and I stoppedtrying to sell so much to shops
because no one knew about it,and I sold to the restaurants and they
helped me educate the customers who weresome of your early give a shout out
(10:54):
to some of those early chef supporters. Well, the first most ordered customer
I had was the mansion on TurtleCreek, and that was before Dean was
even there, and he had beenthere but left and I sold the mansion.
I sold to an Italian restaurant calledLombards. I sold to a few
(11:16):
little restaurants, and just then Americanregional cuisine and Southwestern cuisine were beginning to
take off in Dallas, and sothose restaurants and ships became my customers.
And of course we're talking about thegreat Dean Fearing. Yes, and then
see Kyles came on, and youknow the timing, Actually you were right
(11:39):
ahead of the curve when because Ithink the American colony revolution really started peaking
at its height in eighty four eightyfive. In the late eighties, it
just became like wow, and theneverything the word artisanal, I think ed
the artisanal food entered the vocabulary,right. I think that it's even too
early for artis. And at firstwe were calling the cheese specialty cheese,
(12:03):
and the word artisanal hadn't even started. And that was pretty much branded by
Daphne Zeppo's at Artisanal in New Yorkto me, and I'm not that was
probably in the nineties, but anyway, it was fascinating. It was great.
It was so long ago that WolfgangPuck was the consultant to the mansion
(12:26):
on Turtle Creek and so, youknow, and they were trying to have
an American menu and this was justcompletely revolutionary. And then Southwestern cuisine came
along with Stephen and Dean and Robertdel Grande, Mark Miller, all the
people we know, and Vincent Garritoin Phoenix, I mean everywhere, John
(12:54):
Seddler in la I mean it wasgreat. Yeah, it was. That
was my heyday. I mean itwas just a I think it was one
of the greatest times in American cookingand restaurants ever. I really do believe
that. And we all kind ofrode that way for a really, really,
really long time. And at thispoint, Paula, you wrote me
(13:16):
to day and said, you theMozabella Company now produces one hundred thousand pounds
of cheese, all made by hand, right, that's right. We don't
have any equipment other than a pump. So what's that movement? Milk what's
that day in the life of makingcheese? You know, I read somewhere
in a really good article that Iread that you start your day at three
(13:39):
am. We do two, threemidnight, all kinds of things like that.
It depends on what our orders areand what time the milk is coming,
because the milk comes to us straightfrom the farms, and there are
lots of great dairy farms just outsideDallas, which might be surprising to some
people. We start by receiving themilk, or we have the milk that
(14:03):
we have in our tanks, andthen we pump the milk into the factory.
We pasteurized the milk we had culturesand rented, and coagulate the milk
and begin to turn it into thedifferent kinds of cheese esues. In the
case of mozzarella, it takes aboutsix hours, and then we stretch it
(14:24):
and form it into the balls andthe broken chini and all the different types
of mozzarella that we make, andother cheeses we put in molds and drain
and put in our aging rooms toage. So cheese is just a variation
of the same subject. It's milkthat you are preserving and making into something
(14:52):
more delicious for another time. Well, we've been fortunate to tour a lot
of cheese making facilities on some ofour wine trips to Italy. Remember the
one we went to in the Maremma. Oh gosh, oh my god.
It's just it's quite a process.And cheese is kind of a living thing.
(15:13):
And you started mozarella, but nowyou have I think it's over forty
different types of cheese and textures.What are some of your best sellers.
Well, we have a wonderful onethat's called deep Ellum blue, which is
a cheese. It's started out asa teledgo and then I changed it to
(15:33):
be deep Ellum blue and it hasa wonderful penicillinpe forty crust on the outside.
And we have a little goat cheesethat's wrapped in the leaf that comes
from Mexico called Oja Santa that meansholy leaf and it has the flavor of
sassafras. S us you send usthat we were trying to identify that now
(15:58):
it's asa frash sas a frass,a little annis. It's a delicious cheese
and we make all kinds of differentcheeses. We have a lot of Mexican
cheeses, Queso Wahawka. We havea minnina, which is like a chihuahua,
and we have Queso fresco, Quesoblanco, all kinds of things we
(16:22):
were sent. We have the CasaBlanco with chili's, which I think we're
gonna try to make on our cauliflowerpizza tonight. We have yeah, and
we ever and with each of these, we're thinking about the wines, because
we both write about mine. Wehave the mostzarella roll with green olives,
and those olives really are like freshand maybe when I have We were trying
to decide during our walk the otherday what wine we would want that we
(16:42):
were talking about Alberino while we wasseeking gruner. We have the black pepper
garlic cocciota. Uh yeah really reallyit's good with the red ones. Yes,
yes, yes, and delightful juston a cracker and I just opened
them. The one that it's likeit's torta with it's it's the basil.
(17:02):
It's I love that. That's sogood, smelling it right now over if
you have leftover, you can justput it on on uh blanched vegetables.
I mean it just melts and justgives them so much, we should try
that next time we do a spiracus, we'll try that broccoli. Well,
(17:25):
what we noticed about the selection,you sound, it was the flavors there.
There were some very intense, verymouth pleasing, but intense flavors,
and and we found we did deala little of the Texas Mexico flare with
the Queso blanco in there. Ofcourse, we love barata and buffalo mozzarella.
(17:45):
On your website, you have awhole history and story about mozzarella.
Why don't you share a little bitwith our listeners since that's the name of
your company and it's got a greathistory. Well, the word mozarre means
to tear off, So mostrella isa curd. It's a string cheese.
It's been stretched with hot water andformed into a big mass of cheese and
(18:07):
then pieces of it are torn offand thrown into cold water to firm up.
And that's where the word mozzarella comesfrom. There are lots of different
cheeses in the Mozzarella family. They'rebarda, and that we make three different
kinds of barda. One we fillwith crim fresh and their little tiny individual
(18:30):
two outs bardas we make one that'sthe traditional way that it's made in Pulia
with the stratchi inside, and stratchiare little tear torn up pieces of mozzarella
that are immerged in cream and thena sack of mozzarella is stretched out and
formed around this liquid center. Andwe also make one that's called burno,
(18:56):
and that's the way they make itin the North and it is most sorella
that in cases of node of butter, and so that's really good. So
anyway, we mix some mascar ponyin with that butter to make it softer,
because you know, if it wereicy cold and just be hard like
(19:17):
butter. And so then we alsomake mozzarella rolls, which is something that
I created at the very beginning,where we stretch out the mozzarella onto a
flat surface like a we're going tomake a jelly roll, and then we
spread a filling like the olives orbasal pesto procoto, something like that,
(19:37):
and then we roll it up intoa spiral like a jelly roll. And
I love those. They're really good. And another cheese in the mozzarella family
would be casedo wahaka, which comesfrom Mexico, and that's mozzarella that's stretched
out into a long ribbon and thenwound up like a ball of yarn.
(20:00):
And another in the mozzarella family issca mortza, and that is a firm
mozzarella. It's shaped like a littlesnowman and it's hung with a string around
its neck. And we smoke itand we smoke it over pecan shells.
And I started doing that because thepecan is the state tree of Texas.
(20:26):
I wonder if that gives it inparts a certain flavor, and wonder how
that I love smoke. Actually,Paula smoke mozzrella is my first initiation into
really good mozzarella. I have avery dear friend Laura, who used to
bring it to our beach house inthe Hamptons with her father's shrimp, and
it was a turning point for me. I've not yet been to Campagna to
(20:47):
go to the mozzarella to Buffala farmto see how it is made, but
that I remember that smoke moz Sorellawas like my Aha moment, like Wow,
I've never had anything like this before. It's fantastic being smoked over but
con Sheells is special. It's justa wonderful wonderful, mild smoky flavor,
(21:07):
and it's very it's round, andI think it's just perfect. I think
that smoked mozzarella and shrimp are sogood together. It's really good. Try
that on a pasta. Oh,that sounds really good, making me hungry.
We always do these shows right aroundlunch. For us. It's like
(21:29):
pretty missing. Now I noticed,well, David, what do you have
questions about some of the cheeses.Well, I have a comment. You
were talking about the mozzarella that's madein Pulia, And I was in Pulia
in twenty eighteen on a wine tripto judge some wines for a competition,
and one of the wine writers hadfound out that there's this very famous mozzarella
maker in Bari and found and oneof the wine makers had brought a sample
(21:57):
of it, or an actual ballof it to the wine tasting, and
we all sat around having this incrediblemontzarella literally right in the middle of the
castle grounds during the outdoor tasting.And it was just one of the great
experience with cheese of my life becausewe were none of us had ever had
anything that delicious in that fresh before. Oh, And it was just such
(22:18):
a great experience, and we alltook pictures of it. We were just
sitting there on the on the stonewall of the castle. We're eating mozzarella
with wooden spoons out of the dish. It was so much fun. I
get picture that it's wonderful down therein Pula. I have a little travel
company and I take people. Oneof the places is Topulia, and I
(22:38):
love it down there. There's agreat cheese factory south of Late j called
chinkhoi Santi. They make some ofthe most creative, delicious things you've ever
tasted. I noticed on your websitethat you do have the travel company.
Obviously you probably haven't been doing tripsrecently, But what do you have planned
(22:59):
for two or twenty twenty three.Give us an example of what people who
go on your trips would experience.Oh, I've already already had people in
Tuscany with me last fall. Itake people to Tuscany. I rent a
gorgeous villa and we spend a weeksouth of Florence in the County Classico district.
Different days we might visit a pigfarmer, a butcher, a winemaker,
(23:26):
a castle, all kinds of differentthings. And we said a beautiful
villa and spend a week there together. I also take people to Pulia and
then I do cruises with Stephen Piles, a chef from Dallas, and we
do lots of wonderful cruises. Wego on Alma Waterways, which is a
(23:48):
riverboat, and we'll be going onthe Danube in May, and then next
year we're going on the Dwaro inPortugal. With this, we go on
Silver Seas. Uh, we're doingRome to Venice. Next year, we're
doing a trip to Morocco, let'ssee. And we have a chartered a
(24:11):
boat in the Greek Isles for thissummer. Well, we're busy. Well
that sounds pretty awesome. Yeah,it's fun. I'm glad to see you're
sailing again and you still find timeto make mozzarella. Yeah, I do.
I'm busy, but I love it. You know. I also noticed
on your website in the wonderful photoson their have your staff? Your team
(24:33):
looks very happy. How many peopleare does Moza Weella company employe? And
it looks like you can play alot of women. Yes, we have
about fifteen employees and most are women. Uh, it's men in the office
and men in the shipping and delivery. But in the cheese making, it's
(24:55):
all women, and it has beenmy entire life of company. We have
had one or two men in thechief factory. That's all. I find
that the women are so good withtheir hands and these these fine motor skills
that they need, and they havea great memory. I've trained all the
people myselves. They've made wonderful livesfor themselves and their families working with us.
(25:21):
They're proud of what they do.I'm proud of them. I couldn't
do it without them. It's justa wonderful situation. I have one girl
two that have been with me overthirty five years. I was going to
ask that that's really amazing. I'mgiven how many people feel the labor market
is so tenuous. That you havesuch well tenured people working for you,
(25:44):
that's just fabulous. It's great.Many many have been there more than twenty
years or twenty five. I mean, I can't even keep up with it.
Yeah, I'm always wanted to learncheesemaking. Remember George Say, our
friend George Say, piece of bigwine guy. He wanted to. He
took he was a lawyer and hewent and studied cheesemaking. I'm curious for
anyone who would like to think aboutstudying cheesemaking, are there schools or tutorial
(26:08):
you know, what would you recommend? Oh? Yes, there's lots of
ways to learn how learn cheesemaking.There lots of universities and places in Wisconsin
have cheesemaking short courses and I can'tthink of one just offhand, but there
are many. You could just lookit up on the internet. So you've
(26:32):
won one of awards, too many, many many awards. Is there anything
that you've achieved that you're most proudof that you'd like to share and why?
Well, I'm very proud because thisyear Food and Wine just named us
as one of the top fifty cheesefactories in the United States, and I
(26:53):
can't believe it. It makes methrilled to think we're the only ones in
Texas, the only ones in thispart of the country, and to think
that we can be recognized like thatis just wonderful. And then the other
thing that I'm the most proud ofis the James Beard being in the Who's
(27:14):
Who you Know for so many yearssince I don't know, maybe nineteen ninety
five or ninety eight a long time, so I love that. I love
that too. We just got toget to get that back in place because
they retired the Who's Who, muchto my chagrin. They really I hadn't
heard. Yeah, anyway, we'reabout to run out of time. I
(27:37):
would we want to make sure weget a shout out for your website,
which is www dot Moscow m ozzcodot com, and make sure we get
that in to the website as well. And if somebody wants to buy your
(27:57):
cheeses, I know you sold alot to restaurants. Where do you have
a list of retailers or do youship tell us about how people can buy
your purchase your cheeses. Yes,we have a shop online at wwwmosco dot
com. They can order all thecheeses by the half pound and we ship
them straight to them. And wealso have they are a list of different
(28:22):
shops that sell our cheeses. That'sso fantastic. You know you've been called
a pioneer. How do you feelabout that word, being called a pioneer
of cheesemaking? I love it.I love it. I mean, what
could be better? I'm doing somethingthat I love and that I'm passionate about
and I've met all these wonderful people, done all these fun things. I
(28:47):
mean, it's just great. Imean, I'm thrilled. Well, I
think you're a testament to doing whatyou love, dreaming it and doing it.
As they say, you fell inlove with something, you had an
Italian love affair with cheese. Youbrought it to the United States. You've
en riched all of our lives bymaking really terrific products. So thank you,
Paula. We really appreciate all you'vedone. And congratulations in forty years
(29:08):
at the most all the company.Thank you, Melanie and David, thank
you so much. It was ourpleasure. Hopefully, I know Melanie's met
you a number of times in life, but I haven't. So hopefully when
we come to Dallas, we'll sitdown and we'll have a piece of cheese
together. Oh definitely, and I'llcook I'll cook dinner for you. Oh
that's great, Okay, bye bye, Thank you. Thank you folks.
(29:33):
You've been listening to The Connected Tablewith Melanie Young and David Ransom and our
message to you always besides following uson Instagram at the Connected Table and listening
to our shows and iHeart is stayingstat she'll be curious. Thank you,
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