My Personal Story
Every raclette grill enthusiast has a story of how they were first introduced to this unique tabletop grilling experience. So, here’s mine.
We sent you something in the mail: a birthday present.
I was living in Los Angeles, California and my parents, who reside in the greater Louisville area of Kentucky had sent me a package in honor of my upcoming birthday. It was November 2014 and, since I hadn’t given them any suggestions on gift ideas, whatever they were sending me was going to be a true surprise. I only knew to look for it so the package wouldn’t be stolen by porch pirates.
We think it’s something you’ll like that both you and Jason can enjoy together.
Jason was my boyfriend (now husband) and he had no idea what it could be either. He hadn’t dropped them any gift suggestions on the sly.
Birthday Package
When the package finally arrived and I opened it, I did a double-take. Then, a triple-take.
What is it? Jason asked, grabbing the box out of my hands and turning it over and inspecting the graphics on every side of the box.
It appeared to be a kitchen appliance of some sort, which confused me because people who knew me, especially my own family members, know better than to think I could rock some new- fangled kitchen device as cooking was not all my forte.
It was a mini-raclette grill.
A what?
Neither of us had any reference for what that even was.
I unboxed it, unwrapped the plastic that protected all the components, and brought everything to our small, kitchen table to assemble all the pieces: a small black grill stand with a rippled top – the grilling surface. It was electric, we could deduce from the black cord that tailed the appliance. It also had these two small, square, aluminum pans with tiny handles for safely holding them when heated. The pans were designed to slip underneath the grill top surface but below the heating coil element broiler style. They are designed to fit perfectly on an undershelf designed for their placement. It had a red switch on the side to toggle it on and off. There were two plastic scraper type tools with it.
I looked for the instructions on use, but Jason was already thumbing through the small white booklet. It’s like some indoor grill, and we’ll probably use it once and then throw it in the alley. We don’t need this, he said tossing the booklet aside.
I picked up the booklet and started reading, all the while wondering what on earth would cause my parents to order me an indoor electric grill for a birthday gift. And then, I saw the words:
cheese melters and suddenly pieces of the mystery started to fall into place.
Cheese melters!
I explained. Honey, this just isn’t any kind of grill. The cute little pans are cheese melters! You grill food on the top and melt cheese on the bottom.
Whatever…we can melt cheese already; we don’t need this! It’s just another useless kitchen gadget, he exclaimed.
Well, we’re going to try it. I’ll look into what people do with it and we’ll give it a try. Let’s not knock it, until we try it, I coaxed.
After all, it was designed to melt cheese as part of a meal, I reasoned. Being a huge fan of many different kinds of cheese, I knew I might just need this in my life, so I wasn’t about to dismiss it so quickly.
What my parents knew, that my boyfriend was still coming to terms with, was that I love cheese. Not every kind of cheese, but the cheese I love I really love. I had even shared a story with them once about how in my 20s – while living as a single gal in Chicago – I had some health issues and, as part of getting my health back on track, I did what people call an elimination diet. (It’s a diet where you cut out all breads, and dairy, and sweets, and fruits, and sauces, and most carbs for 30-60 days only eating meat and vegetables/salad. You do this to get back to a baseline, reset your body and cravings and then gradually re-introduce the foods you subtracted back into your life in small steps to identify problematic foods that cause pain and inflammation.) And when I started that diet I thought for sure the food category I’d most miss eating would be chocolate. I have always adored chocolate in many forms. But, no. Lo, and behold: chocolate was not what I missed most. Instead, after about three weeks, I started to dream about….cheese. And, I didn’t just dream about it; I had full-on rich, daydream fantasies about indulging in large quantities soft, melty cheese – which made me wonder if a person could honestly become a cheese addict to any degree of serious concern. I later discovered an strange controversy around a vegan-diet-pushing dietician who claimed a scientific study proved cheese activates all the same pleasure receptors as a recreational drug that rhymes with Lorraine. This claim has reportedly been debunked, however, I can understand why it got a lot of attention…I digress…
We sought inspiration, found little, but ended up winging it…
We searched online for some ideas, but at that time the online inspiration for this cooking experience was pretty sparse in the United States. I learned about raclette cheese and it being the traditional choice for this kind of table grilling, but also read that you could also use any other meltable cheese for a raclette dinners. Not finding raclette cheese in our local Ralph’s grocery, we opted for some smoked gouda slices and went on instinct with the rest. We filled our grocery basket with anything people normally like to grill that sounded good to us. We started with the premise that anything someone might put on a skewer for an outdoor grill would surely work for indoor grilling, too.
The first dinner using our new mini-raclette grill.
Steak, portabello mushrooms, little smokies (aka cocktail weenies), green peppers, broccolini, smoked gouda, toasted italian bread, thyme herbs. Since then we’ve branched out considerably to include more items, but this was how we started. This is not the classic Swiss / French raclette food menu, of course, but you can read about that one on the FAQ page. We also enjoyed some red wine with our meal.
Waiting for food to cook between each bite is not a bug, it’s a feature
It feels weird at first. You can’t not notice the wait between each small cooked morsel of food. But – hear me out – this is not a bug, it’s a feature. Raclette grilling is an eating style all its own. The whole purpose of this set-up is not just to heat food on your dining table that you could’ve just as easily cooked on your outdoor grill. No, the experience is designed to be slow, conscious, and evocative of many sensory pleasues that we normally rush though when we feed like animals at a trough from our plates, shoveling it back, so we can move on to the next part of our day or evening. Instead, you select, you season, you place. You melt you curate cooked items on your bread (or potatoes) and you carefully smother it all in cheesy goodness. And then you taste each bite and you allow more time to taste and take in the flavors, aromas, and sizzle sounds. The moment you flip the internal script from: dang, this is taking forever, to hey, this is nice and so tasty, the meal is upleveled to something almost luxurious. Yes, even cocktail weenies, can reach new heights. Food becomes less about a desperate attempt to satisfy a nagging hunger craving in its utility and becomes more about the art of eat, breathe, chew, taste, savor, share, connect it was always intended to be.
I like this; it’s kinda nice. We should do this as part of our dinner rotation.
This was said by the same guy who was ready to drop-kick the appliance into the alley dumpster at first glance. Suddenly, after enjoying a steak where every single piece was seasoned and seared to perfection, was already making plans for the next time we used it. We both enjoyed it and our dinner even felt like dating again. It was nice. It was romantic. It was an unexpected gift that served us many times over for six years or so until we graduated to the next larger size raclette grill so we could enjoy it with friends. And now, over a dozen years later, we’re already on grill number three, that has some other features we like, and we’re still enjoying romantic raclette date nights as a married couple.
Although I can’t find the specific mini-raclette we were gifted for our first grill, there are currently two on Amazon that are very similar if you are searching for a mini-raclette, 2-person size grill with two melting pans (links below). These are ideal for small kitchenette table use or small apartment or studio apartment use with a 2-person experience in mind.
TAMARIT RACLETTE GRILL FOR 2 PERSON
Do you have a fun first raclette experience story you’d like to share? I’d love to hear it. Visit the contact page to send me an email with your story using the subject: First Raclette Experience.
