Join us at The Market for our second Fondue and Raclette Party! Thursday, March 15, at 6:30pm I will be away cooking in California so the staff will be super relaxed! They have been "baptized" in the rites of the melted mountain cheeses! Gather your friends and family and learn or rediscover this fun and easy way of intimate winter dining. As you can see by the photos, it is a guarantee for great conversation and camaraderie!

The plan is to serve you both fondue and raclette. Our fondue recipe will utilize Swiss Gruyere, Swiss Appenzellar, and Swiss Bergkase, or Emmenthaler.

For the raclette, I would like you to try both our our fabulous French Comte de St. Antoine and our our new Italian from Asiago, Trugole! It will be fabulous over the Fingerling Potatoes. Salad will be served to everyone and assorted charcuturie and garnishes accompany the raclette.

We will have fruit sorbets for dessert, if anyone has room!

The fee is $30 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Reservations are necessary. We will limit the seating to about six tables of six. You are welcome to bring your own libations.
Call now to reserve at 231/539- 7100

Last month I thought we would have a small gathering around pots of steaming fondue and sizzling raclette, a simple, quiet evening tasting, comparing and enjoying the merits of various mountain cheeses.
We sent out the announcements and were astounded by the response. What I imagined to be a simple, lightly attended affair, with a minimum of prep and staff, turned out to be a full house that had everyone of us on the run!

Maybe part our nervousness was that I was the only one of us who had made fondue before. And, I wasn't really sure how we were going to elegantly switch tables or fondue pots and raclette machines in the middle of the dinner! Oh well ,those details always work themselves out!!

Tony spent two days grating, slicing, weighing, and portioning six different cheeses, then baking, cooling and finally cubing French baguettes.

Brenda was called on to slice and arrange the multiple platters charcuterie - saucisson sec by D'Artagnan, Spanish chorizo, rRosette de Lyon, Molinari's Finocchina and spicy coppicola.
Diane portioned out little dishes of vinegary cornichons, crisp pickled onions, and tiny pots of spicy whole grain mustard. I was trying to find the third raclette machine, the proper sterno, the seven fondue pot bases and figure out the ever changing seating arrangement.

By 6:30pm The tiny fingerling potatoes were steaming, salads had been washed and crisped, vinaigrette was being whisked, bread was "trayed-up", guests were arriving and corks were starting to pop.

Tony had portioned out the three cheeses, white wine, kirsch, garlic cloves, nutmeg etc. and had it all neatly laid out before the stove. I rubbed my odd assortment of borrowed, begged and "ebayed" ceramic fondue pots w/ cut cloves of garlic. Next I added the white wine and put half of the pots on to simmer! had no time at all to greet our guests and explain the rituals of fondue and raclette as I had planned, because once you begin to add the cheeses, they must be stirred constantly.

I wish I had a picture of Tony, Diane and myself stirring four pots of fondue, reaching over one another, adding small handfuls of cheese to each pot, carefully stirring until it melted, trying to keep track of which bag of cheese we took our last handful from and which pot it was to go into! "Did I add the kirsch to the green pot or was it to the blue pot?" "What happened to the nutmeg?" "Who took the pepper" "Bring out the salads, now!!" "Where are the waiters?" "Hurry, it's time for the bicarbonate of soda!"

It was a comedy! I was told that out in the dining room, the only thing anyone noticed was that "Nancy seemed a little stressed"! Actually I ended up having a ball, but that was after all of my fondues were served perfectly melted!

Brenda Phipps joined the Pellston Market staff last Fall. Phipps is a Harbor Springs High School alumni, an active, double award winning member of the American Culinary Federation, former award winning member of Greg Norman's 2004 "Taste of the Tidelands" culinary team, former award winning member of Myrtle Beach's Thoroughbred Restaurant's 2001/2002 culinary team at "Taste of the Tidelands and "Renaissance Gala" !!

It was while apprenticing with renowned Master Chef Rich Travis of Latitudes in Bay Harbor, Michigan that Phipps first realized food was her true passion. She has taken many roads since then and we are thrilled that one of them led her to us!

Brenda will prepare two dinners for you using seafood as the highlight. Chef Nancy will be away working in California and later in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, so now is the perfect time to let Brenda take command of the "piano" and strut her stuff! Don't miss it!

March 23rd, and March 30th, 2007 Menus to be finalized within 2 - 3 days!! If someone in your party does not eat fish, we will be happy to make a substitution for you if you let us know in advance! Hors d' Oeuvres at 7:00pm First Course: coming soon

Thank you for reading, thank you for your interest and support of our efforts! We look forward to cooking for you soon!

Nancy and staff