mozzarella and strange powers

Laura and I once mentioned to my parents that there didn't seem to be any cheese in the grocery stores here that wasn't multi-ingrediented and/or pre-shredded. Their reaction - bless them - was to mail us milk powder, citric acid, and rennet.

The dried milk had to soak for 24 hours, so we started that yesterday before the beach. This morning we added heavy cream and citric acid, heated it to ninety degrees, and made like a calf's abomasum.

 Creamy!

Supernatant-y!

Silky!

 Curdy!

Stretchy!

At one point during this process, Laura looked over and saw a rotten banana by the toaster. What follows is proof that she is the one.

Mind control

This morning after breakfast, I noticed the brown banana on top of the refrigerator (where we keep our fruit and other semi-perishables) and thought: "I'm going to move this rotten banana over in front of the toaster. Laura will think that I meant to eat it, but decided against it at the last minute because it's so brown. And what do you do with a brown banana when you need the counter space it's on? Move it back where it came from? Throw it in the garbage? No! You bake banana bread at the earliest opportunity! I am so sneaky." 

Readers, she saw right through me. I considered denying it, but there was really no point. 

Everybody wins