Pfeiffer turned 10 last week.

In our family, we have a tradition of the birthday child choosing the entire menu for the birthday meal.

Usually, the children choose their current favorite of some meal I make routinely. In years past, Julia has requested Indian butter chicken over rice. Zayley’s perennial favorite is fettuccine alfredo over angel hair pasta.

Those are easy. I’ve made them dozens of times.

Sometimes they get wild and crazy, though, like the year Julia asked for palak paneer, which is surprisingly tasty for a dish that looks so much like cream cheese chunks floating in pea soup.

The first time I made a birthday meal for Zayley, she asked for “leg chicken.” What is leg chicken? you may be asking yourself. I asked myself that, too.

Eventually I settled on a bucket of KFC baked chicken pieces and a variety of homemade sides.

These days, I would have just baked up a couple packages of drumsticks. At the time, though, I was in the first trimester of my pregnancy with Pfeiffer, and I’m pretty sure just picking up the KFC felt so traumatic that I cried on my parents’ front porch.

I guess this year, Pfeiffer wanted to get in on the trauma.

She asked for fondue.

Theoretically, fondue should be easy. A little cheese sauce, a little melted chocolate and a tray full of dippers and you’re done!

Unfortunately, that was not at all my actual experience.

My cheese sauce resembled nothing so much as a big blob of exceedingly poorly-made play dough.

My chocolate didn’t melt and didn’t melt. Finally, I realized the flame under the saucepan had gone out.

Even when I relit the burner, though, it took much longer than I anticipated.

At last, I poured the ingredients into a glass mixing bowl. Thankfully, for once in my life, I waited patiently to melt the chocolate in the microwave.

Honestly, after I had failed on the cheese fondue, I needed a win. I was thrilled when this recipe performed as expected.

It made more palatable the fact that we were pretending that half a carton of Gordo’s cheese dip was actually “fondue.”

CHOCOLATE FONDUE

(adapted from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe)

Ingredients
12 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped (I used a bag of Guittard chocolate baking wafers.)
1/3 cup whole milk
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
■ Pour chocolate, milk, and cream into a microwave-safe mixing bowl. (I prefer glass.) Place bowl into microwave. Microwave 30 seconds at 50% power. Remove bowl from microwave and stir well. Continue this process (30 seconds at 50% each time) until chocolate is completely melted and smooth. Listen to me: DO NOT BE TEMPTED TO SPEED UP THIS PROCESS. Once your chocolate is burned or has seized, it’s done for. You can’t bring it back no matter how much you mix. Technically, you should be doing this melting in a double boiler, so when you are tempted to speed the process along, remember that you’re already speeding it along as much as is reasonable. When the chocolate is melted, stir in vanilla. Place in a fondue pot or small slow cooker. (If you have neither of these, you can pour the chocolate into a heatsafe bowl or dish and set that dish inside a regular slow cooker turned to the Keep Warm setting.) Serve with dippers: bananas, strawberries, graham crackers, marshmallows, cookies, etc.

Amelia Plair is a mom and high school teacher in Starkville. Email reaches her at [email protected].