Year: 2024

Burgerama and Fondi Week

The Bedford Village Inn livens up March with two events: Fondi Restaurant Week and Burgerama.

According to the Bedford Village Inn’s website, Burgerama will feature uniquely inspired burgers served in the Inn’s Tavern, a quintessential New England pub, ranging in price from $16 to $22 and served with an unending amount of fries.

For those in the mood for Italian cuisine, Fondi Restaurant Week will showcase a chef-curated dining experience at the Inn’s Italian eatery’s Trattoria Fondi from March 5 through March 9. The cost for the three-course Italian meal is $49 per guest.

No reservations are required for either event.

“Burgerama was inspired and established as a BVI tradition due to the popularity of our Wicked Burger (a menu staple in the Tavern dating back to 2011),” said Bedford Village Inn’s Sales & Marketing Director Melissa Samaras in an email. “Each weekend, our executive Chef would create an inspired, oversized and indulgent burger to offer in the Tavern. The popularity of the wicked burger inspired Burgerama.”

The burger celebration has been held in March at the eatery since 2012.

“Over the past few years,” Samaras said, “we’ve added an in-house competition to up the ante…. Our chefs enter the contest to create a new burger (never before offered on the menu), and staff votes for their favorite — the prize for the winning Chef [is] we feature their burger on Facebook and Instagram.”

Burgerama starts March with Italian Week, showcasing a Wicked Meatball Burger, Wicked Chicken Parm and Italian Sausage Sliders, all served with garlic Parmesan fries. The theme for the second week of the month is Mediterranean, where a Wicked Lamb Burger, Wicked Falafel Burger and Wicked Keftedakia Burger will be offered, all served with Za’atar Fries. The third week has an Asian spin, featuring a Duck Burger, Wicked Godzilla Burger, and Bahn Mi Sliders, all served with Togarashi Fries. Ending March with a flourish, Burgerama will showcase the Tavern’s own specialties: the Wicked Local Burger, Original Wicked Burger and BVI Sliders, all served with herbed Parmesan fries.

About Fondi’s Restaurant Week, Samaras said, “We’ve reimagined the idea to capture Italian food lovers who have yet to experience … Trattori Fondi … a hidden gem inside the Bedford Village Inn’s Grand Boutique Hotel.” Describing Fondi as “casual, yet elevated,” she added, “In Fondi, you won’t find white tablecloths…. Instead, you’ll find a large bar and intimate dining tables with plenty of privacy….”

Fondi’s menu “pays homage to the classics and offers modern Italian cuisine. All pasta and pizzas are housemade, and Chef Scott Siff composes each dish alongside Fondi’s Italian food-loving culinary team,” Samaras said.

Fondi Restaurant Week welcomes diners to choose a first course of tuna crudo, prosciutto board or romaine salad. Second-course selections are roasted pork loin, rigatoni cacio e pepe, spaghetti alla scampi, or Dunk’s mushroom risotto. To cap off each savory meal, diners are invited to take their pick from a dark chocolate torte, tiramisu sponge cake, gelato or sorbetto.

BVI Events

2 Olde Bedford Way, Bedford
472-2001, www.bedfordvillageinn.com/experiences

Fondi Restaurant Week
When: Tuesday, March 5, through Saturday, March 9 (open Tuesday through Thursday from 5 to 9:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 4 to 10 p.m.)
Cost: $49 per guest; no reservation required

Burgerama

When: Friday, March 1, through Saturday, March 31 (open Monday and Tuesday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Wednesday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday, 2 to 10 p.m., and Sunday, 2 to 8 p.m)
Cost: $16 to $22 per burger; no reservation required

Featured photo: Granola. Photo by John Fladd.

The Weekly Dish 24/02/29

News from the local food scene

• Chef’s table dinners: Tickets are available for March Chef’s Table Dinners at Flag Hill Distillery and Winery (297 N. River Road, Route 155, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com). The events start at 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 9, and Saturday, March 23. These are small dinner events, with four-course dinner. Each course will be paired with wine, a spirit or a cocktail made with one of Flag Hill’s house spirits. Tickets are $75 per person, including tax and gratuities, and are available on Flag Hill’s website.

• Irish whiskeys and food: On Thursday, March 7, the New Hampshire Liquor Commission will host a “Spirit of Ireland” event at the Manchester Country Club (180 S. River Road, Bedford, 624-4096) from 5:30 to 8:30 pm. Eventattendees will be able to sample from a selection of 20 Irish whiskeys, try Irish whiskey-forward cocktails, talk with distillery representatives, and eat special Irish dishes. The whiskeys at the “Spirit of Ireland” event will include specially aged whiskeys from across Ireland, all of which will be available at New Hampshire Liquor and Wine Outlets in March. Tickets can be purchased for $65 at liquorandwineoutlets.com/bordbia.

• Murder mystery dinner: La Belle Winery in Amherst (345 Route 101, 672-9898) has added a second date for its murder mystery dinner. This encore event will be held on Saturday, March 9, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $79 and available at abellewinery.com/public-winery-events.

Bar stool marathon

Use your barstool-sitting superpowers for good on Saturday, March 9, at the Tap House Grill in Hooksett during On Tap for CASA, their fifth bar stool challenge to raise money for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), a nonprofit organization that advocates in court for children who have been the victims of abuse or neglect.

Teams of five to 10 competitors will each pay to occupy a bar stool for 10 hours. There will be an activity or a competition every hour throughout the challenge. The winning team will be the one that raises the most money for CASA.

According to CASA Director of Community Relations Erica Thoits, this is not a competition for lightweights. As at a high-stakes poker game, competitors have to put up some serious money to take part in the challenge.

“We require a minimum donation of $1,000 for a team to take part,” she said, “but the teams can fundraise right up to the end of the event. At the end, we give the winners a neat prize.”

Last year’s bar stool challenge raised approximately $65,000.

The rules of the challenge are that each team must have someone on their bar stool during the competition. Members of the team can rotate through stool duty. Over the 10 hours of the challenge the teams will compete against each other in hourly competitions, which can range from bingo to puzzle-solving to a beer stein hoisting competition sponsored by Sam Adams.

“I’m always surprised how much the teams just get into the competitive nature of the whole thing,” Thoits said. “This year, there’s a new coloring competition that I’m extremely excited about.” She said that the highest-profile competition is the stein hoist.

“I was curious, so I tried holding a stein out at arm’s length. I could only do it for a very short time. I don’t know how the competitors do it!” she said.

Participants will compete against each other in the hourly challenges for four hours, take a break — while still seated on their bar stools — for two hours, while the band plays, then compete for another four hours before a winner is announced. The band will be Rebel Collective, which describes itself on its website as “a New England based Irish/American pub rock/Celtic Folk-Punk band.”

The bar stool challenge began in 2017 and got progressively bigger and more popular for three years until being disrupted by the lockdown in 2020.

“We had to take an enforced break during Covid,” Thoits said. “This will be our second year post-Covid.” This year’s challenge promises to be the biggest yet, though there are still unclaimed bar stools, and time for new teams to register.

On Tap for CASA bar stool challenge
When: Saturday, March 9, noon to 10 p.m.
Where: New England’s Taphouse Grille (1292 Hooksett Road in Hooksett; taphousenh.com)
Register: Contact CASA at 626-4600, ext. 2111, or go to casanh.org/on-tap-for-casa or taphousenh.com/events/on-tap-for-casa-2

Featured photo: Photos courtesy of CASA from last year’s bar stool challenge.

Now showing

Red River Theatres’ Simchik Cinema is open again

After several months of repairs and refurbishment, the Simchik Cinema at Red River Theatres in Concord is showing movies again.

The Simchik, one of three screening rooms that make up the Red River Theatres, has been closed for several months to repair water damage, according to Angie Lane, Red River’s executive director. The 25-seat Simchik shows exclusively digital media and is the smallest of the theater’s cinemas.

Like the Red River’s two larger screens, the Simchik is currently showing Oscar-nominated movies in the lead-up to the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, March 10. The Simchik has been screening The Zone of Interest, a nominee for Best Picture as well as Best Sound and Best Director.

On Friday, March 1, Simchik will start screening Hundreds of Beavers, a surreal independent film. Set in 17th-century Wisconsin, this black-and-white farce tells the story of a man who learns to become a fur trapper after “diabolical beavers destroy his applejack distillery,” according to the description on Red River’s website. In the trailer, the trapper, played by Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, who is also credited as a co-writer, faces off against buck-toothed beavers of the person-sized mascot costume variety. Mike Cheslik wrote and directed.

“I can guarantee that this will be its New Hampshire premier,” Lane said.

“We hope that folks will come in and enjoy it,” she said, referring to Hundreds of Beaver. “It’s totally not what a typical movie viewer in this area is used to seeing.”

Red River has been fighting its way back up to speed after having to close down during Covid.

“It’s been a three-year recovery process,” Lane said. “We only got back to showing movies seven days a week last June.”

Hundreds of Beavers
When: Friday, March 1,- Sunday, March 3, 5;15 & 7:30 p.m.; Monday, March 4, – Thursday, March 7, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Red River Theatres, 11 S. Main St. in Concord (224-4600, redrivertheatres.org)
More info: See hundredsofbeavers.com for a movie trailer and more on the film.

Kiddie Pool 24/02/29

Family fun for whenever

Lacrosse season

• Catch some Saint Anselm Hawks lacrosse at Grappone Stadium (Saint Anselm College in Manchester). On Saturday, March 2, at 1 p.m. the women’s lacrosse team plays Saint Michael’s College. On Tuesday, March 5, the men’s team plays the Franklin Pierce University Ravens at 4 p.m. Admission to lacrosse games is free.

Theater candy bingo

• Chunky’s Cinema Pub (chunkys.com) has sessions of Theater Candy Bingo on the schedule this week: Thursday, Feb. 29, at 6:30 p.m. in Nashua (151 Coliseum Ave.) and Friday, March 1, at 6:30 p.m. in Manchester (Huse Road). The cost is $10 per person, which gets you a $5 food voucher for use that night, one bingo card and a box of candy to go in the pot, according to the website.

Young scientists

• The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (6 Washington St. in Dover; childrens-museum.org) will have a four-week “Junior Science: Shapes & Patterns” class running Tuesdays in March, March 5 through March 26, from 1:30 to 2:15 p.m. The class is geared to ages 3 1/2 to 5 and will feature a story, a fun experiment and a take-home art project, according to the website. The museum is closed to the public on Tuesday afternoons; grownups and siblings can stay in the building during the class. The cost is $60 ($48 for museum members).

Save the date

• Have tea with the Matriarchs of Manchester on Sunday, March 10, at noon at the Millyard Museum (200 Bedford St. in Manchester; manchesterhistoric.org). The event, an American Girl Doll program, will feature refreshments and women from Manchester’s history as portrayed by American Girl Dolls. The cost is $60 per person; purchase tickets in advance online.

Treasure Hunt 24/02/29

Dear Donna,

What do you do with old paperback books? Is there value or are they to be put in recycling?

Thanks, Donna, for any help.

Cindy

Dear Cindy,

Antique books and even more modern books are in a field of their own. I might be able to give you some information. You might also want to try a used bookstore or do some online research on each book, the value of which will depend on the author, the specific title, whether it is signed by the author and other factors. Then remember as always condition matters. I would think this rule follows all books through the ages.

Your Western books look fun and interesting to read. Figure out how many editions there were of each book as well as those other factors to see if some could be worth trying to sell. If not, you could donate them to a library or used bookstore or recycle them. I prefer donation, so someone else could enjoy reading them.

Thanks, Cindy, for sharing, I hope you find a new home for your books — or maybe even a tiny treasure in the pile.

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