Year: 2024

Album Reviews 24/01/04

Save Ferris, “Xmas Blue” (self-released)

This one came in too late to be included in the pre-HannuChistmaKwanzaa column. This teaser single from a 2024 LP from the Orange Country, California, ska band comes with some interesting sidebars for us to go over, the first being the song’s background itself. It’s a girl-sung rootsy dancehall track that does have a Christmas-y feel to it; it’s not some sort of annoying ’90s-ska phone-in at all, but anyway, the lonely-at-the-holidays-steeped lyrics revolve around the trials of a friend of singer Monique Powell who “went through a hard divorce, and even two years later was still so obsessed with his ex-wife that it was borderline stalking.” Sucks that anyone has to be without a love connection any time of the year, but another thing to know is that this is the band’s first release under the newly launched music community platform We Are Giant, which, local musicians should note, helps give a social media edge to unknown bands who could use a boost, this by connecting more intimately with fans. Good for them, I say. A —Eric W. Saeger

Patrick Wolf, A Circling Sky (self-released)

Unbeknownst to most, this 40-something British singer-songwriter is one of the most talented and idiosyncratic musicians of his generation, with a run of critically hailed albums, notably Lycanthropy in 2003 and Lupercalia in 2011, the latter of which saw him incorporating viola, Celtic harp, dulcimer, baritone ukulele, piano, harpsichord, analog synthesizers and re-sampled field recordings in his music and collaborating with the likes of Marianne Faithfull, Tilda Swinton, Patti Smith and others. Imagine what you’d get if Mark Oliver Everett from The Eels wanted to make tuneage for steampunk conventions and you’re pretty close, at least going by this set of B-sides and rarities, which includes the front-facing “Godrevy Point,” a gently apocalyptic track full of from-the-mountaintop reverb propelling the odd little collection of instruments on board. Nick Cave is another touchstone here, if that’s your bag. A —Eric W. Saeger

Playlist

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Nice, way to hurry things along, 2024, the first general-issue CD release Friday of the year is Jan. 5! It is an election year, fam, and at this rate it’ll be the last one before the whole system melts down, so it was sure nice knowing ya, but whatever, there are albums on trucks headed to stores, including a new one from British grime rapper Ghetts, On Purpose With Purpose. You hip American kids probably know him from his days with the grime collectives The NASTY Crew and The Movement, but nowadays — wait, what, you’ve never heard of NASTY Crew or The Movement or any grime collectives to begin with? I’m kidding, of course you haven’t, bands and artists from the U.K. might as well be from the planet Neptune for all American listeners care, even though garage-grime has been a lot more fun and cool than American hip-hop for, what, 10 years now? Twenty? But that’s OK, when did American hip-hoppers ever get anything wrong, aside from all the PR stunts they fell for, in other words, absolutely, don’t pay attention to grime, just because it’s better than U.S. corporate hip-hop in every single way. Wait, don’t get mad, here, forget I said anything, let me go check out this album and report my findings, for your reading pleasure! So, the LP starts out with “Daily Duppy,” comprising a dream-time beat and Ghetts’ impeccably enunciated British blatherings; it has a little trap-drumming going on there so American audiences can understand that it’s some sort of rap or hip-hop or whatnot, be sure to listen to it with a parent or guardian in case you have any questions.

• LastWorld is a band whose music is targeted at “fans of Journey, Bon Jovi, Night Ranger, Alias & The Storm,” got that, guys?, and what that means is — wait, what does it mean, I’ve never heard of “Alias & The Storm,” am I being trolled (OK, I looked, there’s no such band, so they probably mean a band called Alias and another one called Storm, oh forget it)? Whatever, LastWorld, a two-piece consisting of Jim Shepard (all instruments) and David Cagle (all vocals) will release a new album titled Beautiful Illusion this Friday. The kickoff single, “Never Gonna Let You Go,” is a big bouquet of hair-rawk hooks that blends Journey, Bon Jovi, Night Ranger, and — wait, we already talked about this. Right? No, seriously, if you liked White Lion, a band that wrote all their songs to “Billboard specifications,” you’ll like this, probably.

• Hannah Kaminer is an Americana group from Asheville, North Carolina. They want people to stop saying they’re an Americana band and instead tell all their friends that they’re a country music band, which I refuse to do because of my journalistic principles, and because I am a jerk most days. The band’s third studio album, Heavy On The Vine, is on the way, and you can check out the title track on YouTube. The song is an Americana take on the typical Mazzy Star B-side, with lots of slidey dobro, a synth that sounds like dobro, a fiddle, and a drummer on a drum set that has like three pieces to it. It’s very pretty and dreamy for a totally Americana song.

• And finally we have someone from Florida recording under the stage name Tegu, with a new album titled Forest Hills, which was recorded in one 24-hour block of lo-fi improvisational mayhem. It features an ingredients list consisting of, and I quote, “field recordings, tape loops, vocal haze, FX, and thrifted Yamaha keys.” Given that, you already know pretty much what it sounds like: breezy soundtrack-ish stuff, with hazy synths, bluebirds chirping, etc. It’s OK. —Eric W. Saeger

Saved by a salad

I have to admit there have been a lot of cookies over the past month or so.

And cake and homemade ice cream as well.

And, of course, beer and wine and cocktails.

And, now that I look back on it, a truly injudicious amount of melted cheese.

In fact, for the past week or so there has been a herd of angry wildebeests rampaging through my digestive tract. If I don’t eat something green soon, I’m not entirely sure I can control them. I’m long overdue for a salad.

Looking for an authoritative expert on salads, I consulted a tragically overlooked seminal treatise on the subject, Thomas J. Murrey’s 1885 classic, 50 Salads (By the author of 50 Soups). Mr. Murrey clearly took his salads seriously.

“Of the many varieties of food daily consumed,” he writes, “none are more important than a salad, rightly compounded. And there is nothing more exasperating than an inferior one. The salad is the Prince of the Menu, and although a dinner be perfect in every other detail except the salad, the affair will be voted a failure if that be poor.”

He continues, “It is therefore necessary for those contemplating dinner-giving, to personally overlook the preparation of the salad if they wish favorable criticism.”

The Prince of the Menu, indeed. At this point I’m with him on Team Salad, although I have to imagine his cook or his wife was not impressed with his personally overlooking their salad-making to make sure there were no salad shenanigans going on.

His actual recipes, however, seem to be of extremely variable quality. There is a Cherry Salad, for instance, which sounds delicious — fresh cherries marinated in three types of alcohol. But others, like Pigeon Salad and Frog Salad, are clearly of a particular moment in history. And yet others really seem to have been phoned in. Eels Mayonnaise calls for two ingredients, eels and mayonnaise. His Mint Salad calls for adding fresh mint to a salad.

I seem to be on my own here. What I want is a proper tossed salad — not a macaroni salad, or a Jell-O salad, or a lobster salad — a simple tossed, green salad.

At the risk of sounding Murreyesque, I also have some strong feelings about salad:

(1) A tossed salad shouldn’t have more than six ingredients, including the dressing. Any more than that, it gets too busy and the flavors get in each other’s way.

(2) A good tossed salad should be exactly that: tossed. Individual bowls of lettuce with dressing poured over the top are clumsy at best, and at worst depressing and a sign of poor moral character. The salad should be made in a large bowl, dressed, then thoroughly tossed with a set of tongs.

(3) Lettuce: There are two tribes in Lettuce Nation: crisp lettuce and tender lettuce. I fall strongly on the side of tender lettuce, but if you are a Romaine enthusiast, could I ask that you chop it reasonably well, so your guests aren’t left gnawing on Romaine stems?

Here is the salad I made tonight:

My six ingredients are Bibb lettuce; canned diced tomatoes (obviously, fresh tomatoes would be better, but there won’t be any good ones for another eight months); a diced avocado; shredded, mixed Italian cheese; sesame sticks, and a maple Dijon vinaigrette.

Maple Dijon Vinaigrette

  • ¼ cup (80 grams) maple syrup
  • 3 Tablespoons (32 grams) finely minced shallot
  • 2 Tablespoons cider vinegar
  • 1 Tablespoon Canola oil
  • 1 Tablespoon whole-grain Dijon mustard
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
  • 1 garlic clove, finely minced

Put all ingredients in a bowl and whisk vigorously. If you have a miniature blender — a Magic Bullet, or something similar — that will work even better.

In addition to flavor, the mustard brings lecithin, an emulsifier that ties everything together. The maple syrup brings sweetness, and the vinegar brings acid, but the star of this dressing is the shallot. This is worth making once a week.

Featured photo: West 75th. Photo by John Fladd.

In the kitchen with Chelsea Annett

A self-taught baker and a caretaker by nature, Chelsea Annett has a love for baking and cooking that sprouted when she was a young adult conversing with farmers and learning how to use seasonal ingredients. She was a special education teacher for 14 years before establishing Table, through which she provides baked goods and locally sourced, seasonally inspired food at farmers markets and now at her new location in Concord (55 N. Main St., Suite B), open Fridays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

My must-have kitchen item is a bench scraper. It has so many functions: cutting butter into dough, slicing and lifting dough and scraping the counter to clean up.

What would you have for your last meal?

I have way too many favorites to choose a last meal but probably freshly picked strawberries that are still warm from the sun or a perfectly ripened tomato. I feel like you can actually taste the sunshine.

What is your favorite local eatery?

My favorite local eatery right now is probably Sour Joe’s pizza. Greg, the owner, is another person with a passion working so hard to pursue his dream. And I love that he uses a sourdough crust. It’s unlike any other pizza around here.

Name a celebrity you would like to see eating in your restaurant?

I would love to see Erin French from The Lost Kitchen enjoying something I made. She has exquisite taste and is involved in her community of food growers and makers.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

I always get asked [about] my favorite thing that I make. Right now I offer a galette on Saturdays that is pretty outstanding. It’s flaky dough that is folded around cheddar cheese and thinly sliced sweet potato and then we crack an egg over the top and bake it until it’s just set and top with a sprinkle of sea salt. The original favorite which is still at the top of the list is the brown butter chocolate chip cookie that is made with sourdough. It’s incredible.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

I don’t really know what the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now is. I tend to steer away from trends. I am interested in food that comes from someone’s heart and is their passion. That’s the best food. Not trying to be anything else.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

My favorite thing to cook at home is sourdough bread. I love all the components of it and I’m fascinated by the process.

Rosemary Shortbread
From the kitchen of Chelsea Annett

2 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup cold butter
Maldon sea salt

Heat oven to 325°F. Pulse the sugar, salt and rosemary in the food processor. Add flour and pulse several times. Cut butter into small pieces and add to the flour mix. Pulse until the mixture looks like sand. Press dough into an 8” parchment-lined pan. Prick dough with a fork and sprinkle with Maldon salt. Bake until golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes.

Featured photo: Katie Pope of Confections by Kate. Courtesy photo.

Live free and dine

Gourmet takeout market and culinary school opens in Nashua

On Wednesday, Dec. 20, Hollis resident Karen Calabro opened the doors to Live Free and Dine, a gourmet takeout market in Nashua offering meals made with locally sourced ingredients and cooking classes for all ages.

Calabro knows first-hand how transformative healthy eating can be, having started her own journey to a healthier lifestyle 15 years ago by making healthier food choices and creating meals from scratch, resulting in a 152-pound weight loss. As a professional chef, she aims to bring healthy options to those in her community.

“During Covid I was watching how restaurant after restaurant was going under, how quality was going down … [due to] the product shortages and the fact that there’s less and less variety now to some extent ….’’ she said. “I make things from scratch and I live very close to the earth and I wanted to make [that] kind of food for other people as well. … I just felt like somebody who has a background in culinary as long as me who has so many friends who are just fabulous, fabulous chefs and all these really great farms around me, I thought, ‘Gosh, this is really a no-brainer for me.”

Working with local farms and stores, Calabro offers ever-changing seasonal breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert menus with vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free and gluten-free options that can be ordered a la carte in store or online for pickup. Items include Italian sausage, Korean candy pork belly, blueberry poppyseed pancakes, valhalla rose turkey, ginger molasses cookies, tiramisu, fruits of the forest pie and more.

Calabro’s professional journey in the food industry started when she was 13 years old, but her cooking experience dates back before that when she would help her mother cook in the kitchen for parties she would host.

“I [remember] as a child being the one in the kitchen doing the food and production with her by her side. … We would host parties for upward of 80 to 100 people. This was just the two of us and this is as a young child I learned knife skills.”

Knife skills are among the things Calabro will teach in her classes, beginning with rudimentary skills and tricks of the trade.

“I almost feel like people want to learn to cook a different dish and meal and everything, and that sounds romantic, but really it would be better for you to learn basic skills and [for me to show] you how to do those things and then [you can take] those skills back to the kitchen ,” she said. “It’s a professional culinary education, and you’re going to be working in a commercial kitchen that has commercial equipment.”

With safety in mind, classes for young children won’t have them working with anything hot or sharp, but will instead teach them how to measure, mix and combine ingredients while introducing them to the idea of making their own food.

With decades of experience, even working her way up to sous chef at the Torrey Pines Sheraton Grand in San Diego, Calabro says the creating Live Free and Dine has been a learning curve.

“The problem has been nobody has ever done this before, so we’re kind of trying to figure out how we can service people in the best way we can and what kind of food we can produce,” she said.

Live Free and Dine
Where: 650 Amherst St., Suite 6, Nashua
Hours: Wednesday through Friday, noon to 7 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Weekly Dish 24/01/04

News from the local food scene

• Paint night at Spyglass Brewing: Paint a 16×20-inch canvas while enjoying a free drink included in the ticket price with All Ways Art at Spyglass Brewing (36 Innovative Way, Nashua) on Thursday, Jan. 11, at 6 p.m. Tickets are $45 and can be purchased at allwaysart.com.

• Winemaker’s dinner: Enjoy a winemaker’s dinner on Friday, Jan. 19, at 6:30 p.m. at Zorvino Vineyards (226 Main St., Sandown). A seasonal charcuterie and artisanal bread display with Vintner’s Select Semillon and Z Labs Chocolate Tangerine wine will be served at the welcome reception. The first course will be roasted winter squash grilled leek and Gruyere savory bread pudding with Zorvino Vineyards Gewurztraminer, followed by fig and pomegranate glazed “kurobuta” pork with Zorvino Vineyards Estate Grown Marquette for the entree. Dessert will be chocolate ganache and caramelized banana tart with Z Labs s’mores. Tickets are $85 and are available at eventbrite.com.

• Cookie decorating: Kate Soleau from Posy Cottage Cookies will be at Station 101 (193 Union Square, Milford) on Tuesday, Jan. 23, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. for a winter-themed cookie decorating class. All necessary supplies will be provided for you to take home a box of six or seven cookies. Station 101 also offers beer, beverages and snacks for additional charge. Tickets are $70 and can be purchased via eventbrite.

• Willy Wonka wine dinner: LaBelle Winery’s (14 Route 111, Derry) Vineyard Ballroom will be decorated with Willy Wonka-themed decor for their four-course Willy Wonka wine pairing dinner on Saturday, Jan. 27, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. The first course will be tomato, basil and smoked Gouda bisque paired with a fizzy lifting drink. For the second course, baby green beans, shaved Brussels sprouts, roasted squash, cranberries, farro, herbs and honey rosemary balsamic will be served with LaBelle Rose. The entree will include LaBelle Red Wine braised short ribs with whipped potato, roasted herbed carrots and demi glace, paired with LaBelle Malbec. Dessert will be blueberry crumble cheesecake with red wine blueberry and streusel crumble paired with blueberry pie martini. Tickets are $85 and can be purchased at labellewinery.com.

On The Job – Neva Cole

Museum communications director

Neva Cole is the communications director for the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire in Dover.

Explain your job and what it entails.

I get to promote all the awesome things that the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire offers, including its two floors of hands-on exhibits, field trip opportunities, classes, play-based learning and parent and educator resources.

How long have you had this job?

It will be nine years this June, 2024.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

I previously worked at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester as a communications specialist, but on top of that I work as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator, specializing in children’s books.

What kind of education or training did you need?

I went to Syracuse University for Illustration, then got an MFA from Lesley University. People joke a lot about how an art degree is pretty niche and you can’t do much with it, but in my experience it taught me to think outside the box and how important it is in any position to be able to prioritize quality work and creative problem-solving.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

Well, working at a children’s museum definitely makes dressing for work fun. My favorite thing to wear is a dress decorated with dog drawings, rainbow leggings and T. rex earrings. And of course all staff dress up according to the season or holiday — the entire month of October is open season for costumes.

What is the most challenging thing about your work, and how do you deal with it?

Unfortunately, most of the work I do occurs behind a computer. But all of our staff, regardless of title, take time every day to get out from behind our desks and walk through the museum to interact with the guests, wave to babies, play trains with toddlers and offer help to parents and grandparents.

What do you wish you’d known at the beginning of your career?

If only all 20-somethings could have the confidence of 40-somethings. At this stage of my career I know when to say no. I know when to admit I don’t know the answer to something, and that that’s totally fine.

What do you wish other people knew about your job?

Nonprofit work is so challenging and rewarding. I love what I get to promote and how it impacts the community. And I love that I get to be a part of something that I experienced as a kid and carry traditions forward for my own daughter.

What was the first job you ever had?

My very first job was a respite provider for a family with a child on the autism spectrum. I was 13 and I loved it. We would play games, run around his backyard, go for walks and play.

What’s the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received?

My ideas matter, and it’s important to speak up and speak out for the things you believe in. — Angie Sykeny

Five favorites
Favorite book: East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Favorite movie: The Princess Bride
Favorite music: Taylor Swift
Favorite food: Guacamole
Favorite thing about NH: The fall

Featured photo: Neva Cole. Courtesy photo.

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