Beaujolais Nouveau and Fondue

This past Thursday was a special day in France. It was Beaujolais Nouveau, a day when the Beaujolais wine region of France releases its new wines for the year. These wines are not particularly good; in fact, it is just a pretext for une fete (party). But that's fine with me. In the salle de profs (teachers' lounge), there was a potluck for Beaujolais Nouveau. This is a picture of the potluck, which was from 12-2: standard lunch break for the French. I brought banana bread, which dooesn't exist in France. Since the French are food snobs, there was a lot of suspicion surrounding my bread loaf, which they call a cake since this does not qualify as bread to them. It was gone in about 20 minutes, so I mark it as a success. Of course I tasted the wine, which is very fruity - kind of like grape juice gone bad. Just kidding, it wasn't that terrible. But definitely nothing like the excellent Bordeaux I had that night for dinner...

That same night, another professor on my floor made fondue as a birthday dinner. I am continually humbled by how nice my friends and colleagues are. Some students on the floor joined in and we had a nice little fondue party. I am also continually amazed at how seriously the French take their cheese. For this was not just fondue - it was fondue Genevoise - Geneva fondue. This is different from fondue Savoyard or any other type of fondue. I am pretty sure it just means it's made with different cheese. Geneva fondue is made with Gruyere. It was delicious!