Author: John Fladd

Customers help out at Soel Sistas

By John Fladd

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Feeding the hungry is a priority for any restaurant, but Kendra Smith, the owner and chef of Soel Sistas Soul Food in Nashua, has worked to expand that mission statement. She remembers that it started with a hungry-but-broke customer.

“We had a gentleman come in,” Smith said, “and he asked for a meal and I kind of just looked at him and I was like, huh? But I made him a meal, and we just comped it [gave it to him without charge]. I was like, you know what? I can’t afford to feed everybody. But there was an idea I had seen on Facebook last winter. If [a customer] knows about it, they can come in, grab a ticket off of the board, bring it right to the cashier, they’ll bring it to the kitchen, and then we’ll bring out their food.”

“The Board” refers to a wall of a pillar near the front of the restaurant, where a selection of meal tickets are posted, the type a server fills out with a customer’s order to send to the kitchen. These tickets are for meals that other customers have already paid for, either in person or online.

“There was a post on Facebook, which had kind of gone viral a little bit,” Smith said, “and there’s a Venmo link on there that people can use, or they can come in and pay for a meal if they’d like. I’ve had some people donate who didn’t specify anything from the menu, and told me, ‘Use your discretion.’ So I wrote out orders for some eight-piece meals for families. They can come in and grab a meal because I know it’s hard. I had four kids too, so there were six of us. Every time we went out, it was like a grocery bill, right?”

Knowing how tough it can be to feed a family when someone is food-insecure, Smith has worked to keep some of her menu items priced to be within reach for a parent who is struggling financially. “We like to keep our kids’ meals at five dollars,” she said, “just because I feel like that’s easy for most people to be able to afford. So if somebody came in and they had four kids they could get four kids’ meals and that would only be $20. We print up the tickets, we put it right up on the board and then somebody can just come in and use it.”

Soel Sistas serves what Smith described as “Southern American Delicacies.”

“We serve fried chicken,” she gave as an example, “collard greens, smothered pork chops [which means that they are fried, then covered with gravy and onions], and shrimp and grits.” These are dishes from Smith’s childhood, and feed into her philosophy of community — in this case, bringing her family traditions into the broader Nashua community. Weekly specials at Soel Sistas can include, braised oxtails, chicken and waffles, sausage and chicken gumbo, cornbread and fried catfish.

Smith has put a lot of thought into food options on her menu that children and teenagers will actually eat and can buy inexpensively or grab a ticket off the board for.

“We have a lot of kids that come in here,” she said, “and they like our snack box, which is $10, because they can choose from the things that they’re used to. French fries, mozzarella sticks, pizza bites, onion rings, tops, chicken tenders. I have a couple kids that come in and they’ll get all corn dogs because you get to pick three [items]. That’s just, it’s kids’ stuff. It’s what they like. It’s easy. I like to try it. Corn dogs are just good stuff. Or I might point them to our Soul Plate. So again, if you got an eight-piece bucket, then you might have something left over for later. You get two large sides and then cornbread as well with the protein.”

Soel Sistas Soul Food

Where: 30 Temple St., Suite 202, Nashua, 943-1469
Hours: open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Fridays from noon to 8 p.m. It is also a full-service catering operation.
More: soelsistas.com
To buy a meal for another customer, pay in person or via Venmo @Soel-SistasLLC.

Owner Kendra Smith also runs Feed The Kids (soelsistas.com/feed-the-kids), a charitable organization to feed hungry children during school vacations, when many do not have access to regular meals, which would welcome help or donations. She is also part of the Meals on Wheels’ Dine Out program that allows food-insecure seniors to go out for dinner. Details of all these programs are available on the Soel Sistas website.

According to the food advocacy organization Feeding America (feedingamerica.org), 9.5 percent of the population of Hillsborough County, more than 40,000 people, are food-insecure.

A beer release party: On Sunday, Feb. 3, the Candia Road Brewing Co. (840 Candia Road, Manchester, 935-8123, candiaroadbrewingco.com) will hold a release party for a new beer it has developed in collaboration with the band BIGFÜT, “little bigfüt.” Candia Road describes the new beer as a “nice and classy Thai Basil x Lemongrass saison.” The bands Time Eater and BIGFÜT will play from 3 to 5 p.m.

• Chef’s Table dinners in February: The Chef’s Table Dinner Series of monthly dinner events at Flag Hill Winery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com) continues with February’s dinners of mushroom Wellington, lamb chops, crispy pork belly, and mango-lime cheesecake. The dinners have community seating for six to 10 people per table. Dinner reservations are $75 per person, through eventbrite.com, which includes the four-course dinner, wine/spirit/cocktail pairings with each course, tax and hospitality.

• Cheers and happy birthday: Tickets are on sale now for Unwined Wine Bar’s (1 Nashua St., Milford, 213-6703, unwinednh.com) Birthday Dinner, to celebrate its first anniversary on Thursday, Feb. 13, beginning at 6:30 p.m. There will be a wine dinner featuring five courses, curated by Executive Chef Matthew Berry and Claudio Andreani of Santa Margherita wines. Tickets are $150 each, through Eventbrite.com.

• Farmer’s Dinner tickets: Tickets for 2025 dinners by The Farmers Dinner (farmersdinner.com) are on sale now. For the 13th year, Chef Keith Sarasin and his team will work with local farms and producers to bring the freshest farm-to-table fine dining to life. Tickets sell out quickly. Visit thefarmersdinner.com/events-1.

• Organic farming knowledge and networking: Registration is open for the New England Organic Farming Association’s (84 Silk Farm Road, Concord, 224-5022, NOFA.org) 23rd Annual Winter Conference, which will take place on Saturday, Feb. 8, at Southern New Hampshire University (2500 N. River Road, Manchester, 800-668-1249, snhu.edu).

By John Fladd

Grape-Nuts and Raisin Pie, from the 1932 General Foods Cookbook

¾ cup (100 g) Grape-Nuts cereal

¾ cup (128 g) golden raisins, chopped

¾ cup (160 g) brown sugar

2¼ cup (510 g) hot water

¼ cup (57 g) apple cider vinegar

3 Tablespoons butter

Dough for a two-crust pie (see below)

Combine the Grape-Nuts, raisins, brown sugar, water, vinegar and butter in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. As you do this, the mixture will seem far too soupy and thin to ever be a self-respecting pie filling.

The thing is, the raisins and Grape-Nuts, deep in their hearts, feel a little self-conscious. The raisins remember their grapey background and realize intellectually that they could take back all the liquid they gave up in their youth, but they feel hesitant to relax completely and suck up all this fluid. The Grape-Nuts are ever so dry and know that they too have the theoretical ability to suck up all this fluid but are bashful about it at first.

So here is what you as the Pie Facilitator will do: Take the soupy, syrupy mixture off the heat and set it somewhere to cool completely. This might take an hour or more. Because it will take a while to cool, the Grape-Nuts and the raisins will have time to relax in this syrupy hot tub and really hydrate deeply.

After the mixture has cooled for an hour or so, preheat the oven to 425°F and prepare the pie crust.

There is of course absolutely nothing wrong with using a store-bought pre-made crust. If, on the other hand, you feel up to making it, an all-butter crust will add to the flavor of the finished pie. Perfecting your own personal crust-making technique can be a long and spiritual endeavor that deserves its own discussion, but here’s one tip that has helped me greatly: freeze the butter, then grate it into the flour, to help bump up the crust’s flakiness.

At this point your pie filling might be cool. If so, pour it into the bottom pie crust, then weave the strips of dough into a lattice top. This is way easier than it looks. If you don’t know how to do it, look it up online. It’s one of those tricks that everyone wants to show off as soon as they’ve learned it, so there are a million how-to videos that will show you what to do.

Bake the pie at 425°F for 10 to 12 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350°F and bake it for another 35 minutes or so, then remove it from the oven and allow it to cool completely before serving it.

You’d think that without an egg or some other binder the filling would be too loose, hydration hot tub or no, but it sets up really well. The flavor is gently fruity; the shot of vinegar has rounded out the dried fruit sweetness and given it the very subtlest tang. The interesting thing here, though, is the apparent absence of the Grape-Nuts. It seems that upon giving itself up to relaxation and hydration, the cereal has become one with the pie. Has the Grape-Nuts spread its essence, or more specifically its protein filaments, throughout the filling, pulling it together texturally? It’s a good bet.

Regardless, the Grape-Nuts, formerly the gravel of the cereal world, has, against all odds, achieved a Buddhist ideal, releasing its identity to become with the Universe. Or in this case a pie filling., then strain the syrup. This will last for a week or two in your refrigerator.

Featured Image: Grape-Nuts and Raisin Pie. Photo by John Fladd.

The Halal Spot loads up on flavor

By John Fladd

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The Halal Spot in Manchester serves chicken and burgers, but with a twist. As its name suggests, the Halal Spot’s food is all halal; it meets stringent dietary guidelines.

The term “halal” refers to a set of dietary guidelines followed by Muslims, similar in many ways to Jewish kosher rules.

“Halal is the only meat that a Muslim person can eat,” owner Sip Woodod said. “The rules are that the animal must be raised in peace — not antagonized, not abused — in a safe environment and then put to sleep in a peaceful manner. This is a cultural tradition we’ve kept [as a family]. So we’re like, ‘If we’re eating it ourselves, it doesn’t matter where we are. This is the food we want to serve to the community’. And that’s been working for us.”

The menu focuses on a moderate number of items — a range of burgers and chicken sandwiches, with a few twists — chicken and waffles, for instance, and “Nashville Hot” chicken sandwiches. One menu item is the Loaded Fries, a potato-based take on nachos. French fries are topped with extra crispy chicken tenders, nacho cheese and shredded cheese, topped with a house sauce and a sprinkling of spices.

“I don’t think new customers understand how loaded these really are,” Woodod said. “One bowl is enough to fill up a couple of people. It’s just something that grew up in our family’s restaurant kitchen over 11 years, just experimenting.”

Sip, his brother Kareem, and their sister Hannah grew up in restaurants. The Woodods started out in New York City — Queens, specifically — but moved to New Hampshire in 2012, where their father, Rajim, opened USA Chicken and Biscuit in downtown Manchester. As the years passed the family eventually opened three chicken restaurants. The Halal Spot is an opportunity for the second generation of Woodods to establish a food legacy of their own and to demystify halal food for their customers.

“Our goal is to keep a simple menu and create a beautiful brand that gives back to the community,” Woodod said. “We want to create a brand that we can potentially franchise and open in different neighborhoods and give that cultural feel of halal food.”

The concept of The Halal Spot and its name are based on the idea of comfort food and the street carts his family ate from in Queens, Woodod said.

“In New York when you think about halal food most people think of chicken or beef with rice and a white sauce on top. When we would want to eat that food, we wouldn’t say, ‘Let’s go eat halal food.’ We would say, ‘let’s go to The Spot.’ When we came here [to New Hampshire], we just stuck with it. That’s where we got our menu and what inspired the name.”

That same love of Halal food carts has guided the Halal Spot’s menu development.

“We loved rice bowls you would get at the carts,” Woodod said, “and we’re going to continue to make it that way. When we add something to the menu or even when we’re tweaking something, we sit as a family. Everyone eats it, and we decide. … Everything that we’ve added so far has been a majority rule vote, from how the rice was made, to which add-ons were put on, to what sauce we use.”

“Our goal is to grow with the community,” he said. ”Because the more the community grows, the more our business grows. That’s something that our entire family believes in and it’s something that we continue to stand on.”

The Halal Spot

1875 S. Willow St., Manchester, 606-8796
Hours: Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.