I Heart Raclette

Let me tell you about my friend Raclette. Raclette is both a cheese and a party and it's all the rage in Switzerland, France, and probably loads of other countries too (because yeah, it's that good).

See, you take one of these grills...

{buy me}

And you put slices of Raclette cheese on the little plates inside until it's melted. When the cheese has melted to your desired level of gooeyiness, you scrape the cheese  on top of meats, potatoes, and any other goodness you'd like. Add some wine and voila... it's a party. Hence, Raclette Party.

Papa's Wife loves a Raclette, and when she phoned on Friday to invite us over on Sunday for her first Raclette of the season, I knew that she had been swept up in the Christmas spirit. And get this, besides partaking in the deliciousness that is the Raclette, Papa's Wife wanted us (us as in Brother-in-Law, Child Bride, The Husband, and me) to help build the little rock walls for her Christmas creche. RSVP yes thank you very much.

Raclette + Xmas creche building = holiday family fun time

So The Husband and I picked up Child Bride and headed over to Papa's House. Papa and Brother-in-law would be joining us later. After they killed a wild boar. Because apparently, Wild Boar Hunting > Raclette.

We were greeted by a smiling Papa's Wife and a table setup with all the Raclette goodness... meats, slices of the Raclette cheese; both natural and fumé, plump cherry tomatoes, potatoes, cornichons, pearl onions, and of course wine. I felt gleeful. I was picturing my stuffed self tipsily (but ever so deftly) constructing a mini Provencal rock wall for the creche. Like I said... holiday family fun time.

But then the Grinch that stole Christmas happened. Or more precisely; the Papa that stole my holiday family fun time happened. When Papa had heard that we were all to participate in the mini wall building, he threw a tantrum, and said that it was his favorite holiday thing to do and he wanted to do it all by himself. I guess Papa doesn't want to share his toys.
(OK, I don't know if he really threw a tantrum but it's fun for me to picture it in my head). I had to readjust my equation.

Raclette + wine = holiday family fun time 

And so we ate and ate and kept on eating. And Papa and Brother-in-Law hunted and hunted and kept on hunting. Which was really fine with me because I didn't want to share my food. (I was totally bogarting the chorizo).  

So the final math of this story is that four people (4 1/2 if we count la petite in Child Bride's belly) can eat Raclette for six. But I can't figure out that equation.

Math + Me ≠ Friends

And did you notice that I typed la petite and not le petit?

bisou