anything but fondue

we went over to my mom's house the other night for my early birthday dinner.




it's been a long time since she's put on a home-cooked birthday meal like the kind she pulled off so effortlessly when we were kids.




a couple of weeks ago she asked me what i'd like to have her cook for my birthday and before i could answer she quickly qualified her offer with "ANYTHING BUT FONDUE".




dang.




see, when we were kids, fondue was THE birthday meal. and my brother steven, being born just a week before me - albeit three years later, always wanted the same menu.




for a month our lives revolved around fondue.




now, we didn't do any sissy "warm cheese/melted chocolate" fondue. sure that was there too but the centerpiece of our fondue experience was like something out of a medieval horror show.




vats of boiling oil on the table, platters of raw meat we picked up with our fingers and stabbed on to forks long enough to poke your brother's eye out without even leaning over.




we loved it.




mom was always a complete basket case on "fondue night".




i mean, really, i've got two kids and on the rare occasion we fry up some bacon they won't step in to the kitchen without their swim goggles on, just in case there happens to be a wild smattering of grease aimed right for their eyes.




three kids and boiling oil at the dinner table? if someone banged their knee on the table leg we all dove for cover as the oil splashed around in the fondue pots like the tide was rolling in.




then, of course, there were the "fondue fork sword fights" - with or without the meat on the fork you can still pin your brother's scrawny little hand to the table. trust me, i've done it.




not long after we were married john and i went to a fondue restaurant in denver. "the melting pot", i believe it was. i was in heaven and john's summary of the evening went something like this:




"that's a lot of money to pay to cook your own food."




oh, he missed the heart of the culinary experience. see, i think it's something about the element of danger involved: there could be permanent disfigurements. multiple stabbings. all in the name of fine dining.




danger mixed with cheese and chocolate. yum.




a couple of years ago i dreamed up a saturday night live skit about a drive-thru fondue restaurant that would have definitely aired if only i'd had access to will farrell and lorne michaels. alas, their telephone numbers had fallen out of my rolodex.




so this little skit remains un-skitted.




who knows, maybe someone will forward my little blog on to someone in the know and weeks later we'll see some presidential candidate who's hosting SNL, perhaps obama or thompson, in my little drive-thru fondue skit.




and then someone will send me a million bucks for my brilliant creativity.




anyway, there's something about texas that makes me believe a drive-thru fondue restaurant could become a reality. one thing i've noticed percolating right under the surface out here, under the big and bright stars, is texans as a general rule have high regard for radical personal responsibility.




"listen, if you're dumb enough to pull up to a drive-thru window and place a styrofoam cup full of boiling oil between your legs so that you can cook your raw chicken with a 4 foot long pitchfork and then place that scalding piece of meat in your mouth while sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, GO RIGHT AHEAD. when you burn your tongue right out of your mouth and your noggin gets pinned to the headrest with your fork, you've got no one else to blame."





i love it.





texans are like the neighborhood dad you used to hate.

the "it's always fun 'till someone gets hurt" dad.




once i caught the vibe some peculiarities around here started to make sense.




bridges, or the lack of them: i have to drive through water to get in and out of my neighborhood. there's no fricking bridge. there's a low water crossing with a little flood gauge on the right hand side of the road. i have no idea at what level i shouldn't attempt to cross the river in my SUV. it's my choice as to whether or not i'm going to risk driving through 6 inches of water or 3 feet of water.




in "texan" it sounds something like this: we ain't putting up a bridge. if you drive through water and you drown, then you're a moron. too bad you chose to be a moron.




and then there's the firework's "safe zones": so up the road, right up next to the Interstate, sits a fenced in "firework's safe zone". cool. in colorado you can't set them off anywhere. down here in texas there's a fireworks stand on every corner. so we loaded up our car on the 4th of July to "safely" set off our $2,000 bag of fireworks.




we arrived and it looked like normandy beach in "saving private ryan". i do believe this was the scene francis scott key was referring to when he wrote the "star spangled banner" and referred to the rockets red glare. except maybe he didn't envision that red glare being a bottle rocket aimed at your head by a guy standing 2 feet away in a wifebeater tank top who's dodging the roman candle someone over by the fence is shooting at his buddy who's running our direction in order to avoid getting his big, giant baggy pants burned off.




in "texan" it sounds something like this: if you're dumb enough to go in there with 5,000 people playing with fire you deserved to get your panties blown off. next year, stay home.




buying a house: in colorado everything is a negotiation ... your inspection deadline, your inspection agreement deadline, etc. it's a "feel good" experience. but here in texas, you put in an offer on a home and you've got 10 days to get the house inspected and agree on who's gonna fix what. if you don't get it all done in 10 days, you pretty much own yourself an un-inspected home, or you lose your earnest money. you could have termites as big as your head spitting sawdust in your face and the house is still yours.




in "texan" it sounds something like this: get it done or quit crying about it.




yield signs: evidently a "yield" sign in texas means "slow down and let the other car in if you're feeling generous." that feeling, apparently, doesn't move over folks very often as we've determined you've got like a 50/50 chance the car coming down the frontage road is gonna take the sign serious enough to yield to you.




in "texan" it sounds something like this: if we were committed to folks on the frontage road stopping, we'd have put in a stop sign. a yield sign is more of a, um, "suggestion". if you want to avoid getting t-boned by a teenager in a pickup truck with a gun rack you should always assume they're on the "give it some gas!" side of the 50/50 equation. in other words, if you want to be sure you're not in a wreck, you gotta be the one doing the yielding.



so, the way i figure it, texas is a great place to open my dream drive-thru fondue restaurant. there's little chance i'll get sued when someone renders themselves infertile as they drive away with the "meat lovers super sized #9 combo meal with a side order of flaming wesson oil" pinched between their legs.

by the way, in case you're wondering, my dream fondue restaurant has a name ... it's called ...

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEat"!