We are in the middle of end of the school year madness. I am tired already which is unfortunate since we have school activities 4 nights this week plus a soccer tourney (it is bad to hope for a loss just to get the season over with?) and a 21st wedding anniversary. Did I mention I am flying to St. Louis for 30 hours this week, too? Tired yet?

After watching Joe “Typhoid Mary” Biden on The Today Show last week, I suspect he and President Obama had an interesting discussion afterward. Since Biden could not get Matt Lauer’s name right, I think his office should have just written off the whole incident by saying “Vice President Biden was completely confused and just disregard everything he said”. How much do you want to bet that Biden was ordered on that train on Friday?

We went from winter straight to summer here in Atlanta. This has been known to happen but not in recent memory. So, less than a month ago, we had snow flurries and this week it is nearing 90! No wonder the dog cannot decide whether to start shedding or not! The basil and tomatoes are fine early but by lunch are a bit droopy. Hope you are enjoying spring wherever you are!

Apparently the Interweb is in an uproar over Miss California USA’s statement regarding gay marriage. Since when do we care what beauty queens think? She is not in favor of it. So what? During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama echoed the same sentiment by stating he thinks marriage is between a man and a woman. Miss CA apparently lost the crown due to her stand on the issue. I have no idea if she should have won or not but I am tired of the debate of this. Maybe we can cover some actual news for a change.

We had some dicey weather here in the Atlanta area last evening. I am a true weather geek, especially when hurricanes are part of the equation, but even I reached the breaking point with the endless coverage of nothing last night. A doppler-indicated possible tornado does demand some attention but staying live for over 15 minutes to say 45 seconds of relevant information is ANNOYING. Even when the storm clearly weakened to the point of being a non-issue, we were subjected to the same litany of information that had been repeated 15-20 times already. This beating the dead horse will cause trouble later when people do not tune in for truly important and breaking weather news.

I never thought I would see those words combined but we decided to do something different for Easter lunch this year. In previous years, I cooked various types of meat (ham and brisket to name two) in Coke. This tastes much better than it sounds, I promise! This year, after hounding the family for weeks about what to fix, I made the executive decision to have cheese fondue for lunch.

We modified a cheese fondue recipe from a previous meal and made it more flavorful by using extra sharp cheddar and fontina cheeses. Our base was Red Stripe beer which was a very nice liquid for this flavor profile. We cooked bratwurst in beer and then browned them on the stove instead of firing up the grill for 6 links. I added pretzel rods and toasted baguette and an Easter lunch was on the table.

We like fondue for a couple of reasons. The process is fun and it is interesting to see how creative the kids are in how many things they try to put on their forks. We also enjoy the slower pace which gives us the chance to sit at the table for an extra long time to catch up with each other. Sunday marked the last day of spring break, so it was a nice way to end our time together. So consider a new tradition and consider fondue for your holiday meal. We have a great fondue pot that I received for my 40th birthday.