Homeowner Entertainment Idea – Fondue is Fashionable Again

RISMEDIA, Feb. 12, 2008-(MCT)-It’s your turn to host next month’s girls’ night. Not sure what to do for food and entertainment? Why not try something old yet new at the same time? Try fondue, which is having a resurgence. There are plenty of recipes online, as well as books dedicated to fondue to get you started.

Before you know it, you can have fun dipping bread cubes in a fondue pot of cheese or making your own chocolate-covered strawberries while talking and laughing with your friends.

“Definitely (fondue pots) are popular again,” says Palo Alto, Calif., author Lou Seibert Pappas, who writes in her book, “Fondue” (Chronicle Books, $14.95), that this technique was all the rage in the 1950s and `60s. “I think people like the informality and the congenial way of enjoying food with friends” that fondues provide.

A fondue pot is typically made of ceramic or metal. It sits on a stand above a warming element, such as a tea light or a Swiss fire gel can. If it doesn’t come with forks, you’ll need some-about six per fondue pot. Pappas recommends forks with different colored handles “so they’ll know which one’s theirs.”

Whether you select the ceramic or metal fondue pot will depend upon what you’re heating. “If you’re going to do a cheese fondue, you get a ceramic (pot),” she says in an e-mail. “If you’re doing an oil or broth-based (fondue), you get a metal pot.”

Nicole Huntley, the store manager at Sur La Table in Fresno, Calif., says ceramic pots are primarily for chocolate or cheese. “You’d mostly heat it in the microwave to melt it, and then use the tea light or Swiss gel can to keep it warm.”

The metal pot allows you to place it on the stove to heat your oil or sauce before moving it to the stand to be kept warm, Huntley says.

Electric-warming fondue pots also are available.

“It’s a convenience thing,” Huntley says. “You can do everything right here and don’t have to transfer the pot.”

The cost of fondue pots can vary. They range from $25 to $140 for six different fondue pot styles at Sur La Table. Target has an electric fondue pot for $29.99 and a chocolate fondue fountain for $39.99. At Bed, Bath & Beyond, personal fondue pots cost $9.99, while larger ones cost $19.99. The store also had electric fondue pots for $49.99.

“We sold a lot over Christmas,” Huntley says. “It’s a great gift idea for people you don’t know what to get.”