Friday, December 03, 2021

Raclette (our take)

We get so many questions about Raclette that I thought I would do a big post here I can use to help explain what it is, how we found it, and how we do it.

Raclette is a cheese that you melt and is usually served over potatoes.

The first Raclette experience I had was in Annecy. An incredibly beautiful town on lake Annecy in the French Alps. Hard to beat this for a first Raclette experience.

This is how it starts. A large wheel of Raclette (in this case French) in place on the melting thing, a bowl of potatoes, some wine, and side plates of things like salad and dried meats to taste.  The melting things this place has sets the mood for sure.

The process:
  • Boil small potatoes (we normally use small Yukon Gold)
  • Cut up a potato into some slices / chunks on your plate
  • Optional -- we also add small chunks of avocado in with the potatoes
  • Salt and Pepper to taste
  • Raclette is under the heater until it gets a nice melty layer about to drip off.
  • Put your plate with potato under the cheese
  • Use the scraper knife to scrape the hot melty cheese onto the potatoes
  • Eat
  • Each person takes a turn with their plate so this is a nice slow social meal with an occasional jockeying to be next in line for more cheese!
  • Sip on Wine and snack on cornichon pickles while waiting for your turn under the cheese

I was by my self so they gave me a well used chunk of Raclette. Has no effect on how good it is. You can see the angled heating element, the plate holder area and scraping knife. I think the pitcher was full of wine if I recall correctly -:]

Here is a shot of Annecy. How can you beat eating great food in a place like this?

How we do Raclette in here in SF since we can't get to Annecy often enough.

We have a small Raclette heater and Raclette specific knife. We order a wheel of French Raclette and quarter it. Served with potatoes, wine, conrishantes and to add a flair of CA to the whole ting a side of Avocado.

We have had Swiss and French Raclette but prefer the more flavorful (and smelly!) French Raclette.
When by ourselves we tend to eat in front of the TV with a nice Yule Log video playing for atmosphere. Maybe one day we'll have a place with a fire place but for now we do what we can with our minimal SF space.

Here you can see an over view of our janky living room setup. Jank has no affect on the great flavor and fun of Raclette!

Close up of the heater with Raclette in place for melting.

The magic moment.

Just another beauty shot from the other side.

 

Saturday, November 27, 2021

NASA DART on Target!

NASA DART on a Falcon 9 on target for Dimorphos as seen from SF. As in it is going to crash into  the asteroid Dimorphos in the first planetary defense test. Pretty fun that an interplanetary rocket launch is visible from 230miles away.

Our Local Star 2021-11-12


There it is, our local star. Finally some sun spots so it's a little more fun to image with my gear. Next time I hope to do a little eyepiece projection so I can get a little closer view of some spots.

Friday, July 30, 2021

Lost Things

So sad. I hope they are all found and get back to a loving home.

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Sad Cat Delivery

Sad cat delivered to us. I think he was mostly sad because there was no more fish tacos in the bag.

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Party Cat!

Well, maybe less party and more sparkly?

Sunday, May 30, 2021

It's a dog head.


 Hello dog head.

Saturday, May 29, 2021