Friday night we were in for a nice treat as Claire had invited Chantelle and me over to join the rest of my family and her at her place for a evening of a fondue (provided we bring the fondue equipment along of course!)
Seeing as Riley was out of the house on a work team building event, the remaining Lotter clan took over the Newlands Carpenter stronghold en masse, and it would have all been in one big foul swoop had it not been for the fact that I got Chantelle and me HORRIBLY lost on the way to Claire’s flat and only ended up arriving a good half an hour or so later than the time we had originally scheduled for (the others were not amused)! As it was, Chantelle threatened to kill me if we ever do get lost for real real, because she just couldn’t handle my inane driving directions and decisions any more! (All I can say is Thank God for the good old marker that trusty old Table Mountain is – because without it I may very well have ended up in Gugulethu… again!)
One of the main purposes for the evening’s visit was of course to meet the two newest members of the Carpenter clan, those being Cal and Tiga, two of the cutest little kittens that you will ever find. Cal is a beautiful calico coloured kitten (ginger, white and dull black/grey if you don’t know) and Tiga is a tiny little ginger and white kitten that simply doesn’t stop mewling! These two younglings are only a couple of weeks younger than our own Olympus and Coco, but already those few weeks’ difference caused Chantelle to loudly exclaim “these kittens are cuter than ours!”, much to the horror of myself of course! But I do agree that these two playful bundles of claws, fur and mews are too cute for words, particularly once we stuffed the two of them into ‘catfish’ that we had brought along for Claire. (Coco and Olympus have unbelievably already outgrown it!)
However, scratches and blood-curling shrieks of pain aside, the one thing that I don’t envy of Claire is the fact that little Tiga refuses to stop crying! I swear I would be driven insane within a single day and it’s no wonder that Claire claims that it is impossible to get any sleep with the two of them around! (At least Riley’s fish can continue to sleep easy though – there’s no way that those two kittens are going to get the better of those two big sharks and humungous Plecostomus there!)
As to the fondue though, Claire couldn’t put a foot wrong it would seem! She started us off with a bevy of French loaf snacks topped with cheese, salami and the works and from there it was on to the main event, for which she brought out seemingly endless bowl after bowl of meat, sausages, nuggets, mushrooms and the rest of almost anything that tastes good in a fondue! As is always the case with any fondue, the air around the table which the six of us found ourselves plonked down at was soon filled with cries of “Oh no!”, “I’ve lost my sausage”, “Damn these veggie bites!” and “Ag crap!”, all which added colour to the festivities for the night.
Now while Chantelle and I tend to have had quite a couple of fondues together by now, it would seem Mom, Dad and Ryan haven’t, and as such much fun was had by all. Each and every one of us stuffed our faces with something of everything, and by the time the cooking oil finally cooled down to a point of being unusable, we had all eaten our fill and then some…
… Which means that when Claire broke out the melted chocolate with strawberries, bananas and marshmallows, it was with an already HEAVY stomach that the food attack started once more! Now melted chocolate fondues I don’t have that much experience with (outside of a couple of tries at the chocolate fountain concept which basically pans out to the same idea), and it was an absolute treat, but I’ll have to admit to finding it so sweet that I only managed to coat a single strawberry, banana slice and marshmallow in my sitting! (Not that Ryan complained of course, seeing as he got to lick out the remaining chocolate from the cooled pot once everyone had eaten their share for the evening).
And while the wine, cooldrink and other beverages had been flowing freely throughout the evening, there was no other way but to end the evening off with a nice warm cup of coffee and after quite a bit of chatting, playing with the cats and watching Ryan clean our pots to their cleanest status ever, it came as quite a surprise when we learned that the time had already snuck on to just before midnight, prompting a huge exodus through the front door which I can only imagine must have brought a huge sigh of relief to my beleaguered sister’s lips.
Thank goodness she has a maid to do the washing up must surely have crossed her mind!
So thanks Claire for hosting a great family get-together and we’ll return the favour post haste – only so that you and Riley can get to see our two children for a change! :)