Hosting a Fondue Party

Hosting a fondue party can be a lot of fun! It's a nice get together with family and friends.

To keep the fun rolling - and good fondue recipes coming! - here are a few things that you, as host, should keep in mind:

• Don't invite more than 6 people to your party. There's usually only enough forks in a standard fondue set for six, and it makes sense when you see more guests than that trying to reach the fondue pot. There just isn't enough room!
• Cover your table. You probably don't want to use your best table cloth either, unless you enjoy spending time in the laundry room removing stains.

  Drippings can damage your table, and chocolate, oil and melted cheese are difficult to take out of fabric. Use a disposable plastic or paper covering and save yourself the trouble.

• It's a good idea to prepare two identical trays of the fruit and other goodies you intend to dip.

  Placed at either end of the table, guests are able to easily reach the food - which saves everyone from having to constantly pass one dish back and forth.

• Place the fondue pot in the center of the table so everyone can easily reach it.
• If you're planning on a full three-course meal, serve each course separately.

  Begin with cheese, broth or oil, and end with chocolate. This keeps everything organized and prevents raw meat from coming in contact with other food items.

  It also keeps the funny guy you invited from dipping meat into your chocolate fondue pot ;)

• Instead of a sit down fondue party, you could go the buffet route. This gives you more flexibility when it comes to serving - have different stations set up for each kind of fondue you plan to offer.

You could even make a separate dessert table if you wanted to, with a cascading fruit display, or perhaps a chocolate fountain.

• Serving buffet style means you can invite more people; you simply add more fondue pots of each course, and provide more trays of cheese, meat, fruit and anything else you are serving. This also allows your guests to mingle.
• Whether you have a sit down dinner or a buffet style fondue party, it's recommended - if you serve wine - to use the same type both for cooking and drinking.

• Purchase a high quality dry white wine to use in cheese fondue, and a red wine for use in beef fondue. For dessert, there are some fabulous wines available that contain chocolate.

  Ask your local wine store for help in choosing something complementary.

Where did fondue come from? The Swiss created it out of necessity (even though the name is French and means to "blend" or "melt"), to make the cheese and bread stored over the winter a little more edible. Variations followed and turned into the fondue we make today.

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