Solar fondue

A very simple idea: instead of sitting in a cozy restaurant high up in the Austrian or Swiss Alps enjoying a classic fondue party, while it snows outside -, we take it to Southern Spain, Italy or Greece and let our cheese melt there. The southern mediterranean countries have equally delicious cheeses, so it's worth a try.

Sit down in a circle or at a long communal table, out in the sun. Get the local fruity table wine and the bread. Now all participants have their own solar fondue tool - or we can use a big communal one. Instead of a pot with heated oil and a burner, we now use a stylish kind of looking glass kept steady in a holder. You can simply aim the glass towards the sun, so that the light focuses and creates a hot spot. Put your piece of bread under it, with your chunk of cheese, on top and see it melt...

Delicious mediterranean fondue... Moreover, it's much less fatty and oily than the Alpine variant, even though we could first dip the bread into some fine spiced-up olive oil (which in itself is not unhealthy, compared to the animal fat used in traditional fondue oil).

Serve with olives, sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, sardines, mild chilli's stuffed with garlic... the mediterranean lot!