Hey team! It’s time for our next dinner party and I, for one, am deeply excited. I’ve wanted to do an après-ski theme ever since I launched Ruined Table, back in the olden days of quarantine, when I was doing weekly Instagram live cooking shows and taking votes on my stories for what the next theme would be. Après-ski was nominated several times, but it never won. Well, now’s your chance to shine, après-ski… now is your chance to shine.
Après-ski 101
Après-ski is French for “after ski,” but the tradition goes far beyond the country of France. It is a world-wide phenomenon - anyplace that has snowy mountaintops and humans who ride down them has an après-ski culture. Japan, the United States, Europe, Chile, Canada, New Zealand and everywhere in between each have their own customs, but the overarching trend is that après starts as soon as the lifts close, when the skiers come down from their last runs. From there, it can be whatever you want it to be. In fact, you don’t even have to have skied that day to après-ski. Whether you opt for an all-out rager, or a simple toast with friends by the fire, there is only one rule: an après-ski party must involve that classic après-ski vibe. The Germans call this vibe gemütlich, which roughly translates to “a feeling of warmth, friendliness, coziness, and good cheer.”
The good cheer of après-ski was popularized in the Alps in the 1950s, right around the time skiing became commercialized. The Alps are a majestic, arc-shaped range that run through parts of France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Leichtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia. They formed over millions of years when the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided, creating peaks out of marine sedimentary rock, so, when you’re skiing the Alps, you’re technically skiing on the bottom of the ocean. The highest peak, Mont Blanc, reaches 15,774 ft, and they’ve found marine fossils there.
When people think of the Alps, many think of chic couture, Swiss chalets and cash flying out of their pockets. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Yes, parts of the Alps are glamorous and expensive, but there’s a yin to that yang. Other parts are humble, affordable and often more tantalizing than the glitzy parts. Most of the inns, restaurants and farms that dot the Alpine landscape are family owned and run. The herders there practice transhumance, which is the pastoral movement of livestock from the valleys in the winter to the high mountains in the summer. This often includes festivities to mark the change of seasons.
The Alps are known world-wide for their beauty, amazing slopes and welcoming population, but do you know what else they are known for? The food. Oh my yes, the food, so obviously we are going to focus our aprés-ski menu on this region. Because they run through so many countries, Alpine food has a lot of variation, but there are a few things that bind the gastronomy together - high elevation cooking, lots of fresh dairy, and a commitment to tastiness. Imagine skiing over to a hut, hidden high in the mountains of Austria. The family who runs the place has lived there for generations. They make a living farming, and feeding the mountaineers that hike or ski through. They welcome you into their cozy, wood-lined space, or stube, as they call it, and seat you next to the wood burning stove. They offer pine schnapps, and as you sip on your forest-in-a-glass, you hear the sound of a wiener schnitzel hitting the pan, frying to a crisp, golden perfection. If you’re lucky (which you are), they’ll serve it to you with a tart huckleberry compote, and a side dish of chewy cheese spaetzle that’s made from a cow who grazes just outside the door every summer. Not sure if it’s possible to beat this scenario, but we’re sure as hell gonna try.
Our menu:
I’ve based most of these dishes on the Austrian Alps, because schnitzel and spaetzle are two of the best dishes ever invented, and if not now, then when? There’s a nod to many of the other Alpine countries here as well. For example, a bombardino is an Italian cocktail that’s served hot. It’s light as air, but it still manages to knock your ski boots off. I’ll tell you more about this menu as I send out the recipes over the coming weeks, but I do want to point out that there is one thing missing from it. It’s the most après-ski-alpine food that exists, and it didn’t make the cut. There’s good reason for this, the main one is that I’m simply not a fan of the dish. I’m talking about cheese fondue. I don’t take this omission lightly, and I’ve given it a lot of thought because it doesn’t make a lick of sense. As the self-described Queso Queen of the West, it seems like I would welcome all walks of melty, cheese-based dips to my mouth, but cheese fondue has always left me disappointed. I suspect it’s because I’ve never had a top-quality version. I’ve never been to Switzerland, and I’m willing to bet it’s transcendental there, because that’s where the fondue cheese is made. Lucky for us, we don’t need fondue for this dinner party. The menu is rich enough as-is, and the spaetzle à la tartiflette has enough cheese in it to make a Swiss brown cow blush.
So, let’s get gemütlich.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll provide recipes, photos and details for every item on this menu, plus an invitation template that you can screenshot and send out, should you choose to throw this dinner party yourself. (Which you totally should!) I’ll also create a thematic playlist for your listening pleasure, decoration & game ideas, Up for Discussion conversation starters, wine suggestions, a grocery list, and a prep plan to help get it all done, so stay tuned. And remember, you have permission to take what you want from this and leave the rest. If you want to throw a full-on après-ski dinner party rager, you will soon have all the tools to do that. But if you just want a chill night of listening to kraut-rock, oompah and yodeling [playlist spoiler alert!], while making a killer strudel, that works too. That’s the beauty of après-ski, and dinner parties in general - they can be whatever you want them to be. All right, I’m outta here. See you on the slopes!
JK, see you on the internet.
Stay messy,
McBroom