Day Trips

Photo by Gerald McLeod

The Mozzarella Co. in Dallas makes so much more than just mozzarella cheese. The wide assortment of fresh cheeses filling the coolers in the small retail area of the factory is staggering. It's easy to become a deer in headlights, frozen in indecisiveness by too many choices.

Fortunately, they give free samples.

From the outside, the cheese company's gray-and-red brick building blends in with the warehouses and nightclubs of Deep Ellum. On the inside there's a beehive of activity as technicians cook, mix, and blend the handmade fresh cheeses.

A graduate of the University of Texas with a degree in elementary education, Fort Worth native Paula Lambert started the cheese-making factory in 1982.

While studying Italian in Italy, she fell in love with the fresh mozzarella served in the restaurants. When she returned to the States, she found she could purchase good Italian wines, pastas, and herbs, but she couldn't get locally made cheeses. That got the mozzarella ball rolling.

Lambert returned to Italy, this time to study cheesemaking. While working at the Caseificio Brufani (Brufani's Cheese Factory) she met a university professor who agreed to act as her consultant on building a similar factory in Dallas.

The classic method of making mozzarella starts early in the morning in order for it to be ready to eat that afternoon. Lambert's business got off to a slow start in the first few years. It turned out that she was just ahead of the renaissance in American cooking. With the expansion of cooking shows on television, Dallasites became more aware of global cuisines and the uniqueness of fresh, locally made ingredients.

The expansion of local palates sent Lambert back to Italy to expand her cheesemaking skills. The wipe board in the retail store at the factory lists 34 different varieties of cheeses, including eight kinds of cheeses made from goat's milk. The cheeses can now be found in gourmet groceries as far away as New York and locally, at most Central Markets. Some of her most ardent supporters have been area chefs, including cooks at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas.

The company doesn't conduct factory tours, but it does offer classes in cheesemaking and pairing beer, wine, and food with different cheeses. Besides the many awards the company has garnered over the years, Lambert has also written The Cheese Lover's Cookbook & Guide, a wonderful book for both amateur and professional cooks.

The Mozzarella Company is located at 2944 Elm St., on the east side of downtown Dallas. Cheeseheads can also have fresh cheeses delivered to them through the company's Cheese of the Month Club. The retail shop is open Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm and on Saturday from 9am to 3pm. For more information, call 214/741-4072 or go to www.mozzco.com.

973rd in a series. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of "Day Trips" 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.