Say cheese!

Julien confessed that my lactose intolerance had thrown him for a loop. "No cheese? No cold cuts? What can we feed 'er?" he'd admitted fretting to Eena before we arrived. His solution: "I know! We will eat ze raclette and ze fondue, and she will eat broccoli!"

Faced with his pronouncement, I had to laugh... and protest vehemently. When he was convinced that I didn't give a rat's ass about my lactose intolerance and wouldn't die from it ("Your tummy gets big, that's all?" he asked suspiciously), it was agreed: dinner would be that great Swiss treat known as raclette. 

I've only had raclette once, at a wine and cheese party at Robin's house many pounds years ago. We had it melted in a ceramic baking dish, into which we dipped pearl onions and other odds and ends... more like a fondue really. But our Swiss host had the full setup in the chalet: half a wheel of raclette, and this fantastic tabletop contraption that would ensure that our raclette was the genuine article. 

This is how the Swiss roll: you clamp a wheel of raclette (or part of it, as we did) in place under a bar that heats up, melting the cheese. This to me is the most exciting part, something you never get with an oven and a ceramic dish: hearing the bubble and sizzle of the cheese, watching it soften and melt, and knowing that it's your turn to get it. The bigger the wheel of cheese, the more often you get to savor those moments, over and over again.

Once the top layer is melted and sizzling, you swivel the cheese out and tip it over your waiting plate, using a knife to scrape off the top layer into a quivering puddle of cheesy goodness. 

When Julien had demonstrated the proper way to do it, naturally Marlon and I had to give it a try. My scraping technique wasn't as smooth as the boys', with my knife bumping and skidding a few times, but that doesn't change how sinfully salty, gooey and rich the cheese tastes (thank goodness!).   

To accompany our cheese, we had pearl onions, potatoes, an onion and red wine vinaigrette, cold cuts, air-dried meat from the region, and gherkins, which I never liked before but suddenly found delicious.

Swimming in a sea of hot, salty cheese, I lost count of how many times Marlon and I stepped up to that glorious cheese-melting contraption. Six? Seven? I have no idea. "We're just eating this to be polite," Marlon joked on his nth turn at the raclette. "Of course you are," agreed Julien. "And when you go back to Holland, zey will ask you: 'How were ze Swiss?' Zey were horrible! So cruel! you will say. Zey forced us eat oil and cheese! Zen zey will ask you, 'did you tell them you were lactose intolerant?' Yes! you will say. And ze Swiss did not give a shit!"

Apparently this much cheese gives you nightmares, our hosts warned. Strangely enough, they were right. That night, Marlon dreamed about buying me a condo with dismembered bodies on every floor. And I dreamed of ghosts waking me up in the night. Currrr-eepy! 

Not that the cheesemares dissuaded us, because the next night, we were back for more. This time it was fondue at Julien and Eena's apartment back in Geneva.

We bought bread and cold cuts on the highway as we drove back from the Alps.

As the only local in the group, it fell to Julien to mix the fondue, which he did moitie-moitie (half and half), equal parts Vacherin and Gruyere cheeses, with some white wine, flour and garlic rubbed on the bottom of a cast-iron pot. Judging from the speed at which we inhaled that wonderful mixture, I'd say his fondue was a whopping success.

As we neared the bottom of the pan, Julien remarked, "If you're 'ardcore, sometimes you crack a raw egg on the crust at ze bottom and make a cheese omelette." Hearing the words hardcore and raw egg stirred something primeval in the deepest regions of Marlon's manliest self. Naturally, he had to do it.

We women were aghast. Actually, more like eeew.

But as the lactose intolerant girl who had wheedled and pushed and begged for two cheesefests in a row, I could not even begin to claim moral ascendancy. So I had my cheese, Marlon had his egg, and we all agreed that our men were hardcore.

Wide and happy smiles all around. And we didn't even have to say cheese.