Ever since Mike came home from his 2009 trip to Europe with the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp International Exchange, he has not been able to stop raving about raclette, a traditional Swiss dish of melted cheese with potatoes and assorted accompaniments. Well, that is, until we got our own modern table-top raclette grill.
We had often talked about having it in Germany, as that's where Mike had his first experience with raclette. One of his host families had decided it would be fun for the American to try his hand at the raclette grill and it had left quite the impression. Unfortunately the opportunity never presented itself when we lived in Wolfsburg. More often than not, this fun twist on fondue is done for special occasions. Finally, on a cold winter night in December (though most definitely not as cold as it has been recently) we took our own raclette grill out so that I could finally try it.
The grill itself has a heating implement that cooks or warms food on the platform on top in addition to melting cheese that you place in the personal pans underneath. It also comes with scrapers for the pans that hearken back to the original way of scraping off melted cheese from the cheese wheel.
Traditional Raclette cheese is very mild in flavor and melts easily. We were able to find two kinds, although both came from France rather than Germany or Switzerland.
The cheese is always served with cooked potatoes -- skin on. We decided to add some thinly sliced steak and peppers to the meal.
Red onions and small pickles also make for great accompaniments. I also like mushrooms.
We had a very nice set up.
Everything smelled delicious as it cooked on the grill. You can also see the cheese melting below.
Once everything is cooked and the cheese is melted, you pile the food into the plates and scrape the deliciously melted cheese on top.
Make sure to grab a bite with all of the components!
Success!
Thus far, we've used the raclette twice... and just talking about it is making my mouth water. Maybe it will have to make an appearance again soon. Guten Appetit!
One of the benefits of working for Orchestra Hall (aside from being able to see the symphony’s normal concerts) is the ability to see concerts I may pass over otherwise. Such was the case with last Friday’s concert: Video Games Live. Both V and I had heard of this show; in fact, one of the teachers she student taught with was on a life mission to see this production before he died. So, knowing this concert was coming up, when comp tickets became available I asked V (last Thursday) if she might be interested in going. As we both were free, we decided it might be fun to check out what this show was all about.
The basic premise of this concert is that an orchestra plays music from video games. Think the beat-boxing flute guy playing the Super Mario Brothers theme, only with an entire orchestra. There was a large video screen informing us from which games these songs came from, occasional game inspired videos, and other visual delights to cater to the crowd. Near the end someone in a Halo costume ran out wielding a flag and ran across stage. Laser lights and other amusements were omnipresent and added to the overall production ‘event’ effect of the evening.
Here are some of the highlights:
At two points during the concert they invited audience member to come on stage and play video games. The first was a head-to-head battle of Frogger with the orchestra adjusting to what happened during game-play. The second was every Guitar Hero fanatic's dream: wielding the five-colored controller on stage in front of an audience of some two-thousand cheering fans while a full symphony orchestra is your back-up band.
The guest flaut-and-vocalist was the YouTube star Laura Intravia, also know by the tag-name Flute-Link. She had a nice voice, but far out-shined herself in her Link flute-playing skit and with her flute playing in general. Quite a talented young lady.
This is she performing in 2009.
The concert was emceed by its creator, Tommy Tallarico, a video game designer, music composer, et cetera, e tcetera, who came out brandishing his guitars and changing outfits (and showing off his Tron underwear) as the evening wore on. Pander was to be expected, but he showed off his instrumental skills dueting with the aforementioned Guitar Hero, as well as other songs throughout the night.
The conductor was a composer by the name of Wataru Hokoyama who has had quite a bit of success and composed an award winning score to the (unsuccessful) video game Afrika. John Mackey – another composer – wrote about how impressive Mr. Hokoyama’s ability to get a full orchestra to record the music to Afrika here. Hokoyama did a nice job leading the orchestra and keeping the evening moving along (as well as an element of ‘class’ical to the mix).
I’ve enumerated the non-musical elements of the concert, so now comes the question of how the show came off musically. Honestly, V and I left amused but indifferent. With few exceptions, we both felt more drawn to the visuals accompanying the music than to the music itself. In fact, the best piece of the evening in both of our opinions was the Tron segment. We both were drawn to what the orchestra was playing and found the visuals distracting. However, that music was taken from the original movie – music intended to move chronologically and not be part of a video game. When it came to the actual arrangements of the video game songs, they were almost always thick, blocky, and subservient to whatever was being projected on the screens.
