Ski holiday day 7: raclette for dinner

When we got into our chalet last Sunday, we had a good look around to see what equipment was in there. Lo and behold, in the kitchen cupboard was a raclette grill, so a big chunk of raclette cheese was written on the list for the Super U shop on Monday (and subsequently bought).

All week the daily question has been: is it raclette night tonight?

That is one big piece of cheese.

We might have done it a couple of days ago, but the cheese overdose of the La Bergerie pizzas stumped us, but we're running out of days and tonight was the night.

I don't think the grill had been used and there was one of those why-didn't-we moments when Sam said perhaps we should have checked that it worked before we bought the cheese; but it did work and there was considerable excitement as we settled down to Morteau sausage, gherkins, potatoes and salad - and cheese, of course.

The grill actually worked really well. When we stayed in Val Thorens, our whole chalet went out one night and we were seated at a round restaurant table with hardly any room. Four of us ordered raclette and you've never seen a table more crammed with food and accoutrements. What was worse were the wires trailing across the table (only just long enough to reach) and the red hot grills pouring out molten cheese in the middle. It has to rank as one of the most stressful, dangerous meals I've ever had. In the end, we turned off the grills and removed the burn risk; we were all lovely and warm on a cold night though.

Who ate all the cheese? Note the expert scraping technique.

No such problems with our Sainte-Foy raclette, we had lots of room and there was no need to trial wires across the table. It was Margaret's first raclette and she took to it like a duck to water, probably eating the most cheese, followed by Lucy, then Sam and me. As the responsible adult, I was positioned next to the grill and had to scrape (or supervise the scraping) of the cheese. Thanks to my care and attention, no-one suffered cheese burns and there was minimal drippage.

As for the skiing, I stayed in St Foy today, while Sam and Lucy went to Val D'Isere and had a great day. The best thing about Sainte-Foy (apart from the pretty village) is its location. It's easy to get to lots of other places - Les Arc, La Plagne, La Rosiere (Italy) and Tignes/Val D'Isere.

There was nice snow in Sainte-Foy, it had been quite cold overnight and was a little icy first thing, but the sun came up early and it was nice and quiet. I spent the morning skiing the blues and then broke for lunch with Margaret. We had a walk around the village in the afternoon.