Friday is always fondue and movie night.

We often have trouble finding the fondue at Safeway. I mean, we know where it is, but we often find our Safeway is out of stock. Safeway actually has their own brand of fondue, and we like it just fine. Sometimes they’ll have this Tiger brand, and that’s okay too. Safeway’s country and gorganzola versions we don’t like.

We tried making the fondue ourselves from scratch once, with gruyère and emmental, but it was pretty runny.

We do make the bread from scratch though. Well, as much as baking bread in a bread machine is considered making bread from scratch. I’ve done it so many times now (every Thursday, with few exceptions, for the last couple of years) that I know it by heart: 1.5 tbl sugar, 1 tsp salt, 250 ml water, 1 tbl olive oil, 3.25 cups bread flour, 1.25 tsp yeast. Set for 1.5 lb French setting and let ‘er rip.

When I was a kid we used to have fondue twice a year. This was in the seventies, when apparently fondue was all the rage in the suburbs. We got to choose whatever we wanted for dinner on our birthdays, and my brother and I always chose fondue. So I like to remember that my family had fondue every March 15 and May 27 throughout the seventies.

But back then we’d have meat fondue (Fondue Bourguignonne) as opposed to the cheese fondue (Fondue Neuchâteloise) that Dawn and I have now. For cheese fondue you just dip the bread in and then take it out, but the meat you’d have to let cook for a while. I remember we’d each have two fondue forks, and everybody’s would get crossed in the fondue pot. You had to coordinate with everyone else.

What a social meal it was really. Perfect for a birthday dinner.