Fondue With the In-laws??

Jill, along with her mother had a gift certificate to The Melting Pot. 

She decided we would go out to Fondue with her parents. 

No problem, I thought. I had never had fondue before, but I was pretty sure it was a double dippers        nightmare! 

The waiter asks if we want to try a cheese appetizer? Sure let's try it, right?

 I ask the waiter, "So how hot does the stove make the fondue?"  in hopes it got the cheese hot enough to kill any double dipper bacteria.

He says, "oh it's hot, we burn ourselves all the time!"

I say, " what 250, 300, 400 degrees?"

He says, "Uh, yeah, maybe 300."

I say "Thanks, you have been very helpful!" NOT!

We each start to eat, and I am probably the only one worried about the double dip scenario. I try a piece of bread dipped in what I hope is scolding hot, burn your mouth, molten cheese.


To my sadness, and great distress, it turns out only spit warm, which I know won't kill any of the possibly nasty germs taunting me in everyone elses mouth.



 I mention loudly so everyone can hear, "oh look, they do give you regular forks so we don't have to barbarically eat off of the main fork and then stick it back into the communal pot of cheese!"


 They say "it's hot enough, it will kill any germs"  I say "no it's not, it has to be 212, and it's only about 120."


Every sensible person at the table tries to ignore me, and we begin to eat.


I watch everyone on the 'down low like'.

I am some sort operative working for the table manners police, just to make sure others aren't sticking the whole fondue fork into thier mouths, possibly introducing 'special ingredient' into or communal pot of luke warm cheese, and ultimately,,,

spit.

To my disappointment, most people aren't as concerned as me about germs, and I am the only one alert to this dangerous situation.

Now on to the main course!

The waiter brings out this special container for the main broth, and kindly lets it simmer and mellow on the stove for what must have been 45 minutes.

If the main meal came any sooner,  we might not have had time to talk about how the wife and I don't get out to see her distant family enough, and how that makes us bad people.

I have the "French Quarter" dish which is so loaded with spice it looked like someone took apart a Lipton tea bag and dipped my chicken and shrimp in it, rolling it around until it had about a 16th of an inch of coating on it. Uh, Yum!

My wife has the vegetable platter, which after some hindsight, was probably the safe choice.

My food is about the saltiest, spiciest dish you can imagine.  It, along with the coffee makes my stomach feel, WONDERFUL!

The wife however later complained about how all of us meat eating barbarians kept pushing out her delicate asparagus spears with our huge portions of meat.

We finally finish the meal after a quick 2.5 to 3 hours, and my mother in law tops off the meal with the story of how when my wife was a baby, she was a finicky eater and wouldn't keep the nipple in her mouth and kept spitting it to the side, squirting breast milk everywhere around the room.

Thanks for the lovely image Ma!

Yeah, it really wasn't a bad meal.  I would do it again in a heart beat! Not!