Whatever happened to fondue anyway?

I am completely charmed by this city.  Which is saying something, given that it was 28 degrees Fahrenheit when we set out this morning, and I forgot to pack my long johns.  Winter is not my friend—my nose turns red, my skin becomes reptilian, and I win the hat head contest on a daily basis.  But everyone here wears goofy hats to keep warm, and it just so happens I bought one in France, the last time I found myself colder than I had expected to be.

I love the water, the scale and style of the buildings, the quiet.  Once you get many more people riding bikes than driving in cars, the street becomes a lot more quiet, the air much cleaner.  It’s remarkable.

After another lazy morning, we set off by tram to the Van Gogh museum.  Can I just say how happy I am that by the time I had kids, museums had figured out that they had to entertain children in order to get the adults in the door?  The Van Gogh museum has a fabulous acoustiguide for kids, and a treasure hunt you can pick up at the front desk.  Both are very well done, and our kids were perfectly happy to stroll through the galleries with their headsets on.  They were, of course, fascinated by the whole ear chopping story.

There is a large green space right outside the museum that includes a skateboard pipe—which was fun to watch—an ice skating rink, and a playground.  We were smart enough to let the kids run wild for awhile, and then to feed them, before we entered the museum.

We had lunch at the Cobra Café, which is right next to the playground, so we figured out what the kids wanted and let them stay in the playground while we ordered, calling them in only once their food had arrived.  I had a bowl of tomato souple and a very good tuna melt.  The food was good, healthy, and not too expensive.

We walked part of the way back home, but the kids were pooped, so we caught the tram the rest of the way, and Alec took them to the apartment while I checked out the Nine Streets, a well known shopping quarter.  I got some good cheese and some wine for a snack, some chocolates to bring to a dinner tomorrow, and mostly just enjoyed wandering and seeing not a single chain store.

We ate dinner at Café Bern—fabulous cheese and beef fondue; if you go, you have to reserve ahead of time.  Why did fondue ever go out of style in the US after it’s short-lived popularity in the 1970s?  I understand why macramé and decoupage have fallen out of favor, but yoga has come back, so why not fondue? I have a fondue pot on one of my high kitchen shelves back in Brooklyn.  I’ll have to bust it out next winter.

The kids are pooped, and Alec is already snoring with his laptop on his chest, so I suppose I should get my 40 winks as well.