#COOKING WITH CLORIS--A LITTLE ROMANCE, A LITTLE FONDUE FROM AUTHOR ELLE HARTFORD

Elle Hartford adores cozy mysteries, cozy romance, cooking, and above all, learning new things. As a historian and educator, she believes in the value of stories as a mirror for complicated realities. She currently lives in New Jersey with a grumpy tortoise and a three-legged cat. Learn more about her and her books at her website where you can also sign up for her newsletter to receive bonus material, behing-the-scenes sneak peeks, and terrible jokes.

Celebration Fondue: As Easy as Falling in Love

Makes 4 servings (Cut recipe in half for a romantic dinner for two and serve with salad.)

 

Fondue might seem fancy and complicated. But magical café owner Sakura and her chef, Glacial, are here to prove that anyone can make this fun dish! It only takes half a dozen ingredients to create an enchanting evening. 

 

The following recipe is adapted from Joy of Cooking, with commentary provided by characters from the Pomegranate Café Romance series. Enjoy!

 

Note: Strict vegetarians may avoid gruyère, which is traditionally made with rennet. You can find vegetarian versions (not vegan, but simply gruyère without the rennet), or swap out for a softer cheese.

 

Ingredients:

1 clove garlic

1-1/4 cups dry white wine (plus extra)

1 lb. gruyère, chopped roughly

1 pinch nutmeg

1 T. cornstarch

Veggies, bread, or pretzels for dipping (see step one)

 

Like love, fondue is a dish that doesn’t like to wait. You won’t have much free time once the cheese starts melting! So, prepare your dipping foods beforehand. Sakura loves to use strips of crusty bread, pretzels, or even large croutons. 

 

Glacial recommends foods with vitamins: carrot sticks, red pepper straws, broccoli, tomatoes (either grape tomatoes or large tomatoes chopped so that the seeds stay intact), potatoes, or green apple slices. How you prepare the veggies is up to you, but roughly chopping and boiling the potatoes leads to greater ease of eating! Likewise, broccoli can benefit from a flash boil. Think of this as a chance to clean out the vegetable drawer and practice those knife skills! (Or an excuse to buy prepped veggies from the deli section at the store.)

 

Once you’ve set aside your dippers, it’s time to focus on the fondue. Grab a medium stainless steel pot and your clove of garlic. Peel and halve the clove, then rub it all over the inside of the pot. Think of this like prepping a baking tray with grease. Sakura says this step is silly, but Glacial insists that the oils and flavors from the garlic are important. Discard the garlic afterward.

 

Add wine to the pot and bring to a simmer over medium heat.

 

Once it’s bubbling gently, add in the cheese chunks and a pinch of ground nutmeg, another flavor which Glacial insists will enhance the cheese.

 

Stir everything together with a wooden spoon until the cheese is melted. It’ll look stringy, and that’s okay. Let it sit for a moment while you:

 

Whisk together the cornstarch with an extra two tablespoons of wine in a little cup. If you’re really fancy, Glacial says, you can use kirsch instead of wine here; but if you don’t have kirsch, you won’t notice it’s missing. 

 

Pour the cornstarch mixture into the simmering cheese. Make sure to keep stirring! Good fondue takes some patience–just like love, according to Sakura. It may take five minutes of gentle stirring and simmering, but the mixture will become smooth.

 

If your fondue is too thick, you can add yet more wine to thin it out (just be careful, because you can’t subtract wine once it’s in!). At this stage, you can also add salt or pepper to taste.

 

We’re almost to the good part! Transfer the cheese to a warm fondue pot, or any heat-proof dish set on a stand over a lit tealight. You could eat the fondue straight from the cooking pot or from a bowl, but having a constant heat source will keep the cheese nice and melty.

 

Time to eat! While you dip your bread or veggies, give the cheese a stir to make sure it stays smooth. If it starts to separate, don’t worry. You can always give it a little more heat–even putting it back on the stove for a moment–and with a little stirring, it’ll return to gooey goodness. After all, fondue–like love–is more forgiving than you might believe.

 

Worthy in Love

A Pomegranate Café Romance, Book 1

 

Sakura is desperate to make her new café a success. So desperate, in fact, that she’ll recruit some unsuspecting help . . .

 

Mel is a big city girl who’d rather live the quiet life. She’d also rather not set up a St. Valentine auction with a grouchy carpenter who seems to hate her guts. But she owes the witchy café owner a favor, and Mel’s not one to back down from a challenge . . . even if, in order to succeed, she’ll have to face her toughest test yet: believing in herself.

 

Ryuko isn’t looking forward to the holiday, and he isn’t excited about being in the auction. And he’s certainly not going to fall in love with the café’s new event planner. She has “fancy” stamped all over her, and Ryuko knows his place. But if the café’s meddlesome owner has any say in the matter, Ryuko’s days of staying silent and going unnoticed are numbered . . .

 

Valentine’s Day has come to Belville, and with it, the grand opening of the Pomegranate Café. Can Ryuko and Mel–with a little extra help from Sakura–make it a truly magical holiday? Or will shadows of the past overtake them?

 

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