Lily: I think we’re really starting to click with these people. Claire and Austin just invited us to their Fondue Fest next weekend!

Marshall: You’re trying to get me excited about fondue?

Lily: It’s dipping stuff in hot cheese! What’s not to love?

Marshall: Okay, that does sound good.

(from How I Met Your Mother)

Fondue has been a big part of our lives for the past couple of years, as it’s our favorite way to celebrate special occasions with our Life Group. Last night, we had the pleasure of introducing fondue to some newbie friends of ours. For the main course, we had steak dipped in hot oil, with salad and bread, and later we enjoyed chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, and pretzels.

Fondue is great for prolonged meals. There’s plenty of time for conversation, and the slow pace of eating helps everyone to eat moderately so that they have room to stuff themselves with the next course. Our guests were relatively new friends of ours, so we swapped stories of college life and courtship. I felt gratified when Sarah left the house asking Dan for a fondue pot for her birthday, but the highlight of the evening for me was when Stephen admitted once and for all that I was RIGHT about registering for the fondue pot in the first place!

Most wedding registry selections are made based on a bride’s delusional fantasies about the kind of woman she will grow up to be. A giant, family-sized griddle, mini-loaf pans, an expensive Kitchenaid mixer: all of these gifts represent a baking, breakfast-serving housewife with whom I have very little actual resemblance. I have yet to use my breadmaker, and the ice cream maker has only been used once, but I still hold on to the hopes that I will one day be the sort of superwoman that makes sandwiches on homemade bread and serves delicious homemade ice cream to guests on a hot summer day.

But the fondue pot is in use! We have, on a regular basis, sat at the table around a pot of sizzling oil, quick-frying our steak and enjoying delightful conversation with friends. Dreams for active and occasionally interesting social life are fulfilled.

Lest you get too envious of our sophisticated and stimulating life, I’ll give you a brief snapshot of the Watson family only two hours before our company arrived. Desperate to find out the truth about the freighter waiting only eighty miles off shore, we have resorted to watching Season 4 of LOST online. We crowded around our 12-inch computer screen, each getting one ear bud of the iPod headphones to hold up to one lucky ear (somehow this produced better sound quality than the laptop speakers). The video quality was a little choppy as the video play went faster than the computer could buffer. But we made it through one episode! As always, the show raised more questions than it answered: Did only six survivors get rescued? Why are they all going crazy? Does Kate choose Sawyer or Jack? How can Hurley see Jacob? We shall soon see…