Fondue is an interesting concept

and doesn't appear, superficially anyway, to be difficult. It is, though, not as simple as it appears.

If one grates cheese into a bowl in an amount designated by a recipe, tosses the mound of grated cheese with corn starch and then drops it in small handfuls into hot broth, one should get creamy cheese fondue. One may get, however, lumpy and cheesy broth that is not creamy.

I heated the broth as instructed; I added cheese and stirred unrelentingly as instructed. While the subsequent substance was usable, it was not wonderful. All of us sitting around the fondue pots had to break strings of cheese to get the dunked item (bread, or vegetable or apple, etc) back to our plates.

It tasted OK; but it was not creamy and smooth. So my cheese fondue requires some work; I need to review recipes and analyze my work to see what can be done to make it better.

The hot oil was simplicity itself, as long as it remained hot--those little holders of sterno are grand as long as they remain lit. Of course, one could burn off eyebrows, skin, maybe fingers trying to re-ignite the sterno. But while the oil is hot, one can cook their meat of choice nicely.

Chocolate fondue, which one would think would be more difficult since it requires heated milk or cream, was easy and very nice--after I threw out the pot of half and half I let boil. The next pot worked. The hot half and half and chocolate chips made a divine creamy, chocolaty soup for dunking pound cake and fruit.

And, after the preparation of getting the pieces ready to use, preparing the liquid for dunking, it is amazingly difficult to eat a lot. I mean, you sit at the table dunking pieces of food one by one into these hot liquids; you check on them every few seconds and when finally ready, you eat them one at a time.

That's a slow dining process. But, all in all, it's also fun. Probably as much for the company and the process as for the food.  There wasn't a drop of alcohol served, but we were all laughing at the food 'lost' in pots of oil or cheese, at our own silliness and at how much fun it was to eat like this.

All in all, 'twas a fine birthday dinner; Rosey says it was great. And, I've been eating leftover remnants of fondue for a week. I think I'll prepare fondue occasionally (that is more often than once every five or six years). Maybe that cheese fondue will improve.