Family, Food, Kids

The Melting Pot

28 Comments

My treasure has turned 23! I so clearly remember going to China to get her – how little she was – it seems just like yesterday sometimes.

We celebrate Family Day every July and for the past 10 years or so, we’ve splurged with a trip to The Melting Pot in downtown Minneapolis. (Yes, I completely get the irony that we’re celebrating the blending of two cultures/two races by eating at a place called The Melting Pot).

This year YA had a really hard summer with several summer school classes and a lot of work as well and we could never find a good time for The Melting Pot. With her birthday last week, we decided we should go now.

Usually we take the bus downtown because I really dislike driving downtown, but with the sloshy weather and how long it takes, we decided to drive. Instead of splitting a salad, we each had our own.  YA remembered that last time we were there we tried their blackberry lemonade and didn’t care for it, so we just had water.  Even though these parts of the tradition were different, we went with the only fondue that will do – the alpine with gruyere and emmentaler.  They make the fondue right at the table so you get to see the wine, the garlic, the fresh ground pepper and even fresh ground nutmeg go in before your eyes.

And even after scrapping every bit of cheese out of the pot, we always finish up with chocolate. This year we did the milk chocolate with peanut butter.  Little bites of pound cakes, brownie, strawberries, banana and pineapple – YUM-O!  A wonderful end to our wonderful little tradition.

What is your favorite fondue dipper?

28 thoughts on “The Melting Pot”

  1. i do the alpine clone
    i have the guyeur and emmenthsller recipe in my brain and do it without the recipe being around
    that with a nice pinot grigio are perfect together
    we do that with 2 oil fondues (meat and non meat) and a chocolate (strawberries, pineapple, banana, bread, cherry

    it is a good meal for a couples get together
    sitting around the table with focused eating is good

    we tend to reload the pot once , the first pot is never quite enough.
    firm chunks of refrigerated cheese fondue leftovers are among the worlds finest midnight fridge raids
    nuke em and use bread, crackers, cauliflower broccoli or fingers to do the deed
    a bottle of kirschwasser (cherry brandy in recipe) lasts for 25 fondue pots and is the only booze that doesn’t get pilfered when other midnight raids happen around this house

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  2. I’ve never done fondue — I didn’t realize it was still in! But it sounds very fun and delicious. Especially chocolate dipped fruit. 🙂

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  3. I always liked fondue at parties, but never did it at home. S-i-l, though, used it for one of their weekly meals.

    I think you’ve named my two favorites, and my mouth is watering. And the meat was always “ok”… But what else is there? I suppose you could do different cheeses, and light and no doubt there are tons of different chocolates. I can imagine cross-overs, like maybe try a mushroom in the chocolate, and a pineapple in the cheese? Bread and chocolate!

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      1. Don’t have one but that’s the point. I do know two people, both men, who have favorite aspics. For me, and this is obviously subjective, fondues, like aspics and flummeries, are OK but sort of meh.

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  6. I love any fondue, but my gun-to-the-head choice would be a great crusty bread dipped in gruyere or Emmenthaler or other quality Swiss cheeses.

    My sister hosted our family Christmas dinner last month, and she did fondue–the trifecta–oil, cheese, and chocolate. Delicious and fun and we were pleased that no one set the tablecloth on fire. The best part was scraping off the crusty burned cheese from the bottom of the pot near the end of the meal. Yummmmmm.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  8. I recall fondue being a “thing” in the 70s, and I think my mom received a set during that time, but I don’t think we ever used it.

    May have to check out the Melting Pot at some point, because anything involving melted cheese has my attention :).

    Sounds like a fun tradition. We’ve got a couple of places like that for special occasions too.

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  9. Gosh, it has been so long since I’ve had fondue that I can’t clearly remember it. Once upon a time I had a fondue pot, perhaps I still do, though I have no clue where it might be. I do have the fondue forks, still. I know this because I have them bound together with a rubber band in an attempt to limit them from getting tangled up with everything else in that drawer. It isn’t working very well.

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      1. Since they’re coming back in vogue, it would make a nice wedding gift if you know someone who is getting married. Or maybe a gift for vs’ solstice party. Oh I forgot, you have that fancy chess set to get rid of. 🙂

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  10. Fondue? Never had it. Never had aspic or flummery either but I think, of the three, fondue sounds the best, assuming the it starts with excellent ingredients.

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  12. While I haven’t had fondue, I have had Chinese Hot Pot. At home. Engineered/assembled/prepped by a Chinese guy. While it’s not a dipping activity like fondue, there are similarities in that you have a “hot pot” in the middle of the table and each person chooses what they want from the array of food to cook in the hot broth. Very yummy and fun.

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  13. We received a fondue set as a wedding gift, nigh on to 50 years ago. We used it quite a lot back then, mostly for holiday and special occasion meals, but occasionally for cozy, family fun times. It was always a mess to clean up and this was well before the electric models hit the shelves, so it was heated with Sterno. The cordlessness was a plus, but the open flame made me a bit tense when there were a lot of dippers. I think we let it go when we left the big house and moved to the downtown condo. I liked doing the trifecta, but sometimes had cheese failures when they didn’t melt the way they should (I’m sure those were cook errors rather than equipment errors). The daughters, sister, and I went to Melting Pot once a few years ago after a DT Mpls. event, and I loved it. We were just talking about going again, but not until he Super Bowl shenanigans are over. What was the question?

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  14. I’ve been a fondue fan since I was right out of college. I actually own 3 fondue pots (I know, you’re all shocked) – all gifts. One of them we use exclusively for chocolate.

    Going to Switzerland just ramped up my love of melty cheese – YA and I also have a raclette machine that I HAD to have after going to Gruyere. (Instead of dipping food into melty cheese, you pour melty cheese over food). For raclette, we use potatoes, cooked cauliflower, bread and sweet gherkins. Oh, and pears.

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  15. Everyone survive the snow? We had 8″-10″ of good wet snow. Took a few hours to get dug out late afternoon. Will have to blow the driveway again in the morning, but it shouldn’t be bad.
    Also our basement drains have backed up for some reason. Me thinks it’s the septic tank. But odd that that’s never happen before. The drain in the utility room is clear water. The shower drain is definitely sewage. Yeah, Yuck. (Kelly discovered that about half time of the Vikings game.)
    We’ve hauled a few ‘shop-vac’s full of water out.
    Tomorrow I’ll see about digging up the septic tank. It’s only down about 18″ to the cover. And it won’t be frozen ALL the way down… hmmm….
    Oh, and then the thermostat for our entry way heat has, according to the directions, reached it’s ‘End of Life’. Huh. Didn’t know that was a thing but evidently it is as the GFCI won’t reset.
    Could all be worse.

    Fondue!

    There’s a restaurant downtown Rochester called ‘Chesters’. That’s the only place I’ve had fondue.
    “Beef and Blu Fondue
    Pan seared tenderloin pieces, oven roasted tomatoes and sourdough toasts. Served with creamy Amablu cheese”

    That is pretty good stuff!

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