Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Fondue in France

So my second host sister (who I just met this month) is leaving to move into her apartment in Paris this weekend, so we were having a goodbye party for me and her. Also my host mom has broken her elbow so she did not feel like cooking with her left hand. So they approached me in the evening, around dinner time, and said we're going out to dinner tonight! So we got our shoes on, put on coats and left out the door to walk to the restaurant. We were walking for about 15 minutes and I was about to ask if we were lost when my host mom pointed out a nondescript building and said that their favorite restaurant was just there! We went into the restaurant and we were the only people in there, we got our menus and my host family proceeded to explain everything on the menu. Although I had already learned all these words before, or even had these dishes before, they still felt the need to explain it to me, several times from several different people. I have gotten very use to hearing the same story a couple times each night however, once from my host sister, once from my host mom and finally with my host dad.
But they asked me what I wanted, and I heard them all talking about fondue so I asked for the fondue too. It worked out perfectly because all five of us had fondue. It was the normal cheese fondue that you think of from the 70's, and with a very strange tradition. After ordering and getting a bottle of wine for the table, my host mom explained to me that if any bread is dropped into the pot you have to take off a piece of clothing, and once you are naked you run around the block. Then my host mom said we wouldn't do that tonight because I needed to practice first. I thought that was very nice of her, but my older host sister explained on her ski weekends they do that tradition all the time.
We got some bread cubes and the cheese came in a very large pot and we all dug in. We also had a plate of sausage and hams delivered to the table, and another bottle of wine! After digging in and finishing off the first pot of cheese, we got another pot and an egg came to the table. Once everyone was finished with the cheese, they cracked the egg into the pot of hot cheese and it created a cheesy scrambled eggs that we dipped the bread into.
After the cheese we then all ordered dessert. I had a pistachio ice cream topped with caramelized apples. It was delicious.
All in all, it was a very nice dinner with my host family, and I am going to miss them a lot because I go back to the states in like 2 weeks! It's crazy I feel that I just got here.
Peace, Love and Cheese!

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