Fon-don't

so yesterday i spent the evening with a few friends for potluck and fondue. i have no idea how we ended up with twice as much food as for the number of people, so it was a sickening full evening of gorging... (take THAT, Valentine's day my @ss!)
after loitering around the table i helped melted the chocolate and cream over the stove...

transfered the fondue into my little el-cheapo fondue ceramic pot and we lit the tealight candle from the set.
after a few minutes we began losing faith that the little candle can keep the fondue hot enough to eat...

someone else had brought their camping cast iron fondue set, so by majority vote, it was decided we needed to use this more serious fondue set which sits on top of a can of sterno.
now being a city girl all my life, i had to ask what sterno actually is, and the dumb-down version is 'gel gas'. ok... so the sterno was lit, and a pretty blue flame appeared... chocolate in the cast iron pot sitting on top. voila, sounds like a good plan!

however, after a few minutes, we came to a consensus that the chocolate was still just room temperature - making the chocolate difficult to coat to the fruits.
one of the girls L had an idea - why don't we just heat the cast iron thing on the stove to get the chocolate melting and boiling, then put it back onto the sterno...

J did just that, delicately handling the cast iron pot with potholders and (unbelivably) not catching them on fire or burning herself. she got the chocolate to a roiling boil and came back with the pot.

now sitting atop the sterno, the pot of boiling chocolate became angry. it sure was bubbling, and boiling and toiling much like the witch's concotcions out of Macbeth. we merrily started dipping the fruits into the chocolate (my faves were pineapples, strawberries and bananas in that order)... then after about 20 seconds, the angry chocolate looked... well unlike chocolate. a layer of oil seperated the mixture into liquid and chunk. what was delicious and smooth now look like potting soil left in the rainstorm and sat out for a few more days beyond. nothing could salvage this pot of nasty looking gunk.

in desperation we melted some more chocolate and cream in a non stick small pot on the stove, and just sat it on a tivet in the middle of the table for another quick 2 minute lightening round of Survivor Fondue (fastest fingers get to have fondue before the chocolate settles back into solid form as the pot cooled...)

people tell me fondue is an art, but after last night i think it's very much a science. the gross kind that you love to mash and get your hands on when you're a kid, like making mudpies in your front yard. i've undercooked chocolate, and burned it on the stove - but never in my life have i seen such a distinct seperation of chocolate fondue. now i feel my collection of chocolate-kitchen mishaps is complete.

it was so memorable that J took a video clip of it and put it on YouTube. yes i am the one who turned away from the camera, heaven knows i don't want to be associated with the gunk and the Fon-don't. (forgive the bad fondue-pun, but all the other ppl there seemed to think it was semi clever and laughed politely)

here's the video of our Fondue Gone Wrong