CHEESE FONDUE À LA KARA
• White wine, 2 ½ cups, plus extra for thinning the
sauce
• Butter, at least ½ cup or more, to create your
desired consistency
• Flour, about 1 tablespoon; a little more is OK
• Salt and pepper, to add according to your taste
• A dash of onion salt
• Three different cheeses, cubed:
Gruyere cheese, one pound
Sharp cheddar cheese, one pound
Emmental cheese, one pound
• Dippers, such as day-old French baguette loaf
bread or vegetables
In a large fondue pot or a good-size saucepan, gently
heat 2 ½ cups of white wine.
Meanwhile, melt the butter over medium-low heat in
a small sauté pan. Add the flour with a whisk, blending together and cooking for about five minutes or so,
stirring constantly to avoid sticking and burning.
Pour the flour/butter mixture into the pot with the
white wine, which should be bubbly but not boiling.
Blend. Then slowly add the cheese a little at a time.
Stir gently and constantly to help the cheese melt.
The pot should be hot enough to melt the cheese
but not hot enough to scorch it.
Pour in more wine as needed to thin the mixture.
I estimate that half a cup or more of extra white
wine will be needed.
When you are ready to eat the fondue, be sure to use
a low flame to keep the fondue pot warm. Fondue
pots with adaptive burners can easily be adjusted to
a low heat. You don’t need a fondue pot, however.
We often serve the fondue in small bowls and
replenish as necessary.
The best dipper is French baguette loaf bread.
Use day-old bread—the consistency holds up well in
the cheese fondue. Other dippers include vegetables,
such as broccoli and cauliflower florets.
Adapted by Kara Amey
from a recipe found on the internet.
never see that child eat another bite
of food in her life.”
In December 2002, Kara was
diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a
type of brain cancer more common
in kids than adults. She was 10
years old, a fifth-grader and an avid
soccer player. Two days later, during
a six-hour surgery, doctors removed
an egg-sized tumor from her
cerebellum at the base of her skull.
Because that brain region controls
digestion, Kara was wracked with
nausea after the surgery.
Next came six weeks of radiation
to her brain and spine. The treatment nauseated Kara more and
made swallowing painful, so she was
fed through a chest catheter and a
stomach tube. Still, it was tough for
her to keep down even liquid food.
Then she received seven rounds of
chemotherapy but had a painfully
toxic reaction to one of the drugs.
At one point, Kara lost a quarter of
her already-meager body weight,
dropping from 82 pounds to 62. “I
looked like a living skeleton,” Kara
tells people now.
In the middle of treatment,
Kara changed settings, moving to
Georgetown University Hospital’s
Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer
Center, in Washington, D.C. “When
Kara came to us, she was close to
being in a wheelchair,” recalls Aziza
Shad, a pediatric oncologist and
hematologist at the hospital. After
Shad changed Kara’s chemotherapy
regime, she started to improve. She
spent hours in physical therapy
learning how to walk and run again.
And eventually she regained weight.
“Her determination and courage
really made the difference,” Shad
says. “She has a fun, cheerful
personality, and she just takes
things in stride.”
Nearly four years after her
diagnosis, with no sign of cancer in
her body, 14-year-old Kara shared
her experiences in a speech at a
Georgetown Pediatrics’ friends
and sponsors dinner in front of
300 people. Her family was being
recognized for its gifts totaling
more than $1 million to Georgetown
University Hospital’s pediatric
oncology program.
It was immediately clear that
Kara had a gift for grabbing her
audience’s attention. “I could smell
the stench of my own skin burning,”
she said of her radiation treatment.
Reaction to the chemotherapy
drugs felt “like my bones were
grinding, chipping and breaking
During a difficult point in Kara’s
cancer treatment, in August 2003,
Coco (opposite page) became a
great source of comfort.
