Friday Fondue
Friday is always fondue and movie night.
We often have trouble finding the fondue at Safeway. I mean, we know where it is, but we often find our Safeway is out of stock. Safeway actually has their own brand of fondue, and we like it just fine. Sometimes they'll have this Tiger brand, and that's okay too. Safeway's country and gorganzola versions we don't like.
We tried making the fondue ourselves from scratch once, with gruyère and emmental, but it was pretty runny.
We do make the bread from scratch though. Well, as much as baking bread in a bread machine is considered making bread from scratch. I've done it so many times now (every Thursday, with few exceptions, for the last couple of years) that I know it by heart: 1.5 tbl sugar, 1 tsp salt, 250 ml water, 1 tbl olive oil, 3.25 cups bread flour, 1.25 tsp yeast. Set for 1.5 lb French setting and let 'er rip.
When I was a kid we used to have fondue twice a year. This was in the seventies, when apparently fondue was all the rage in the suburbs. We got to choose whatever we wanted for dinner on our birthdays, and my brother and I always chose fondue. So I like to remember that my family had fondue every March 15 and May 27 throughout the seventies.
But back then we'd have meat fondue (Fondue Bourguignonne) as opposed to the cheese fondue (Fondue Neuchâteloise) that Dawn and I have now. For cheese fondue you just dip the bread in and then take it out, but the meat you'd have to let cook for a while. I remember we'd each have two fondue forks, and everybody's would get crossed in the fondue pot. You had to coordinate with everyone else.
What a social meal it was really. Perfect for a birthday dinner.
posted by 4mastjack @ 9:01 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I went to a fondue party once. It was at a friend's apartment in Falls Church, over near the Bennigan's at Seven Corners. I think that Sam and MaryAnn hosted the party, but then again it could have been Stuart and Nancy. Both couples lived in this apartment building back in the '80s, and I remember helping all of them move in and move out.
Anyway, this was my first experiment with fondue, and it didn't go well. I believe that the idea was to stab some kind of raw meat with a fork and then cook it for a while. If I remember correctly I was too busy gabbing and didn't pay enough attention to what I was doing. I ended up eating whatever the meat was without cooking it, and shortly thereafter I was sicker than I'd been in years. It was one of those rare moments when all the fluid in my body said, "Get out any way you can!" 'Nuff said. It's funny now. It wasn't then.
I think I ended up in the emergency room. Even though I was in my 20s I still had my mom come with me. There's no substitute for a mom when you're at your lowest ebb. One interesting thing that I remember about it was that they gave me an IV, and as soon as the sugars and salts began pumping into my system I immediately felt better. I remember having a vision of being pumped up with air like a big balloon in the Macy's parade.
As for your comment about supplies being out of stock at the grocery, boy does that stick in my craw. I go to the Harris Teeter here in Nashville, and it is a very nice place; the folks are friendly and the atmosphere is cheerful, so I try to ignore the fact that "Pastries" is spelled "Pasteries" in the black stenciled paint-on-metal display above the counter at the delicatessen.
Anyway, since I gave up my addiction to caffienated sodas several years ago, I have gravitated toward ginger ale and root beer when I want to buy soft drinks. And, as any 40-something can tell you, all root beers are not the same. I happen to love IBC brand root beer, and I can tell that I am not alone. Probably half of the times that I've gone to the HT to pick up IBC root beer they are out of stock. I understand why it's popular; the stuff is darn good. What I don't understand is WHY THEY DON'T NOTICE WHAT IS SELLING, AND STOCK TWICE AS MUCH. This drives me crazy, mainly because I'd rather not make two stops when I should be able to get my stuff done in one. Yet, there I stand, marveling at the fact that the IBC cream soda, orange soda and diet root beer are overflowing on the shelves, but the good stuff is gone. This happens all the time! Am I the only one to notice? Why don't they cut the shelf space for the cream soda and add some more of the good stuff that everybody wants? Or, if there is some dastardly contract stipulating that certain manufacturers must receive a certain amount of shelf space for their products (so that the cream soda must be given its due) why not have several crates stacked up behind the scenes? I just don't get it.
This happens all the time at the H-T. Sometimes it's IBC, sometimes it's Newman's Own lemonade, sometimes it's Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. Wouldn't you think that grocery store managers would keep track of what is selling in quantity and adjust stock to give the people what they want? It seems to me that that would be taught in "Grocery Store Manager 101."
If I ran that store there'd be a whole dang freezer devoted to Chocolate Fudge Brownie.
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