I like everything about fondue.

In the early 90′s Greg and I would go to Geja’s Cafe, the fondue institution in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, a subterranean place with stucco, flamenco tunes and delightfully curtained booths. Called “Chicago’s Most Romantic Restaurant,” it features a massive fondue menu with cheese, beef, lobster, scallops, flaming chocolate. You drink wine for two hours while you wait. You drink wine with four fondue courses, watch wine blaze your dessert, clink champagne. Then, if you are me, you pass out on the table in cheese-wine coma and, for an encore, fall out of a taxi and hurl.

Still, I like everything about fondue.

I like going to buy the cheese, and griping about the cost. Oh well, I always say, handing the cashier our mortgage, it’s only once a year. I love that it’s a one-pot meal, and prying open Sterno, and piling tart apples in bowls and drinking wine while I stir in the wine. I like forks flying, diving, and tangling under cheese. Enough tangled dipping and someone’s bound to drop an apple, or lose their bread. When that happens, tradition dictates that you kiss the person to your right…

…especially if that person is a Josie-loving Lab.  Now break out that set – you know, up in the high cabinet, in the back. Pour, stir, bubble and smooch: enjoy your own fondue night.

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Traditional Swiss Fondue

adapted from The Book of Fondues

1 garlic clove, peeled and halved
1 cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 cups (8 oz.) shredded Gruyère cheese
2 cups (8 oz.) shredded Emmentaler cheese
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons Kirschwasser (cherry brandy)
dash white pepper
pinch grated nutmeg

crusty French bread, cut in cubes
1 – 2 tart, firm apples (I prefer Granny Smith) cut in chunks

Rub inside of fondue pot with cut garlic clove.

Pour in wine and lemon juice; cook over medium heat until bubbling. Turn heat to low and gradually stir in cheese with wooden spoon or, for easier cleanup, a heatproof silicone spatula. Cheese will melt, but cheese and wine will appear separated.

In a small bowl blend cornstarch with Kirschwasser. Add to melted cheese mixture and continue to cook, stirring for 2 – 3 minutes, until mixture comes smoothly together. Watch carefully and do not allow fondue to boil. Season with white pepper and nutmeg, and serve immediately.

Serves 4 as a first course; double recipe to serve as main course.

A word about heat: whatever your fondue heat source, it’s a balancing act. You want it high enough to keep fondue melted, and low enough not to burn. Despite best efforts, you’ll nearly always find a small patch of burnt cheese on the bottom. French-speakers and true fondue fans love this treasure and call it “la religeuse,” the nun. I call it holy good snacking.

Cold never used to trouble me – and in fact I still adore winter, and before that fall, and rank Kansas summer heat just above root canal. But the fact remains that I am freezing. While walking Cleo yesterday – she loves it, both obvious and oblivious – the world could see only my nose. Encased in two tanks, a thick sweater, tights under jeans, red scarf, big coat, gloves, jammed-down hat and sunglasses, I found myself in a mummified winter state, not altogether unpleasant, an insulated place unlocked by parkas.

Cleo has seen three winters now, but is still deliriously newborn come January, amazed at her paws disappearing in white.  As she romped around and we circled the quiet chill of the park, a lovely mental heater kicked in.  Thinking other thoughts, answering your own questions, replaying scenes from a good day, a bad year – anything but it’s so cold.  That engine is your own pot on the stove, and it lets you kick snow like coconut, forget why you came and believe, with warm conviction, that you don’t mind being there at all.

* Here’s a question – hey Marilyn, where’s the food?  I’m getting sick of all this yammer.

Well my honest friends, I defrosted my fingers over many a delicious bite this week, and they’re all coming your way in the next.  Stay tuned, and stay warm.

…that we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Still, I am waiting for the other Wellington boot to drop.

I am fairly certain that any moment now my 7:13 alarm will go off…

…and I will have to throw on wool socks, a t-shirt, a hooded sweater, jeans, a big red parka, a wool scarf, thick gloves, and waterproof boots with fleece liners. I will breathe frost.

Pinch me -

- before everything fades to white again.

Ah! That’s better.

** to my frozen peeps in Lawrence – especially you, Joel, in the warmest corner of the coffee shop – my heartfelt and sunny apologies. With any luck, I’ll bring good weather back.