Today in Velvet's Journal:

1) Food porn - cheese fondue and chocolate-covered strawberries. All turned out well, and we have the pictures to prove it!

2) The jacket - at last! Piet's going to take the pictures as soon as I'm ready, which should be within half an hour.

3) Pictures of Elizabeth dancing on the ugly green chair in our living room. She's such a darling, and so photogenic.

4) Distinct possibility of a Trinity game update

5) Slightly less distinct possibility of some kind of plot outline for the dolphin book, for those of you on the writing filter.

Stay tuned for these and more wonderful offerings from yours truly, over the course of the weekend!

The Fondue

Well, the fondue was delicious. I just finished the leftovers, right down to the toasted crust on the bottom of the pot, and it was just as good the second time around. It was a bit stringier, though. For the few pictures that turned out, see pyat's journal. But something's wrong with our digital camera - every picture the darn thing takes is blurry, no matter how good the light. So the pictures are no great shakes. (Hence, no pictures of me in my leather jacket, either. Those were awful in every sense.)

Things to remember next time I make a fondue:

1) Have the participants each bring some pre-grated gruyère with them. First, it cuts down on the cost (and this is by no means a cheap dish to make.) Second, it makes it much easier to fulfill the recipe requirement of cheese from several different moulds, of different age. Third, it alleviates the problem in #2.
2) Have a really good cheese grater or food-processor to do the hardest work. Those little hand-held mills, designed for putting parmesan on spaghetti? They don't cut it. You have to spend a lot of time cutting up the cheese so it will fit, then you crank and crank and take the cheese out and put it back in again with a different side down and change hands because the hand holding the mill is getting sore from pressing. It took me close to an hour to accomplish.
3) Make sure you cook it enough to get rid of most of the alcohol. Otherwise the teetotalers or rare drinkers in the group are going to have issues. There will always be a bit of alcohol left, unless you cook it past the point of gooey fondue goodness, but you can get rid of most of it.
4) If the alcohol is part of the raison d'être of the fondue, skip step three.
5) I need to invest in some fresh peppercorns. And a proper mill. In fact, replacing all my spices as I use them would be a really good idea. Mine are mostly quite old. The nutmeg should have had the whole house smelling, and it didn't, not even when I spilled some.
6) In the presence of an alcohol burner and sharp, never-used fondue forks, the toddler will alternate between one and the other, keeping parents on their toes. She was cute, though. She munched on cheeseless bread; I think she disliked the wine smell.
7) Bread with butter in it really brings out the flavour of the cheese and the wine. I may try a pat of butter in the fondue next time.