Author: John Fladd

Lambs, lathes and lumberjacks

Lots to see and do at the NH Farm, Forest & Garden Expo

Kelly Bryer is the manager of the New Hampshire Farm, Forest & Garden Expo taking place Friday, May 1, and Saturday, May 2, at the Deerfield fairgrounds. She said the yearly Expo has changed considerably over the past several years.

“We’re in our 43rd year,” she said. “It’s put on by three agencies: the UNH Extension, the New Hampshire Division of Forest and Lands, and the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, Markets, and Food. We were in Manchester for 40 years, as a winter event. Then, three years ago, we moved out to the Deerfield fairgrounds in the spring, and the Expo is a whole new animal now.”

“Now,” she said, “we pretty much take over an entire end of the Deerfield fairgrounds. We’ve got tractors that will be running. We’ve got running sawmills. We’ll have a team of oxen running lumber between the sawmills — it’s a really cool thing. We have free horse-drawn wagon rides. There’s a barn space for the animals. There’s an open exhibition space. … We bring in a lot of partners to hold their events within our bigger event. The Dark Horse Lumberjack Show will go off on Friday. We’ll have the Wildlife Heritage Foundation’s ‘Forever Locked’ display there — that’s the two big taxidermied moose that are engaged in battle.”

Each exhibit or demonstration at the Farm, Forest & Garden Expo will be centered around New Hampshire’s agriculture, Bryer said, from general themes to very specific topics.

“For instance,” she said, “Concord Tractor is doing [a presentation] about safe loading of tractors, which is really fascinating. … We’ll have a chainsaw maintenance and sharpening workshop. We’ll have cider making for kids and maple sugaring for beginners. Averill House Vineyard is coming to talk about growing grapes and vine management.”

“[The Department of Transportation] will have their big trucks there. We’ll have lots of different types of machinery. Kids can sit on the tractors. We have a ‘Playpen’ running so you can actually try out a tractor,” she said.

The Expo will also showcase larger issues in modern agriculture, Bryer said. “Another really popular session that always fills up quickly is the homestead food rules, so if you want to make and sell your own products.”

Other organizations will make presentations of different rural skills, Bryer said. “We have demonstrators coming in. We have rug braiders and some spinners and some chair caners who will be coming in. The Guild of New Hampshire Woodworkers will put on some demonstrations, and they’ll have an opportunity for people to join in. There will be beekeepers. And they usually bring bees with them.”

“We are jam-packed,” she said.

The New Hampshire Farm, Forest & Garden Expo
When: Friday, May 1, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday, May 2, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Deerfield Fairgrounds, 34 Stage Road, Deerfield, 463-7421.
Tickets will be on sale at Gate E. Admission is $10 per person, free for children 12 and younger. Visit nhfarmandforestexpo.org.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Jam Bars

These bars involve no fancy ingredients. You don’t have to know how to temper eggs or anything. They are straightforward and will not add to your stress level.

  • 2 2/3 cups (320 g) all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon fresh-grated nutmeg – OK, yes. Trust me; grating it yourself is very much better than the powdered stuff you’ve had since the Obama administration.
  • 1 cup (two sticks) butter
  • ½ cup (106 g) brown sugar
  • ¼ cup (50 g) white sugar, or as you might know it, “sugar”
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla

12 ounces (340 g) jam. It can be any jam. Whatever kind you like. If you feel like playing around, grab a small jar of something cool when you’re picking up peanut butter at the store. Check the net weight at the bottom of the label. Most small jars of jam are very close to 340 grams. “Apricot jam?” you might ask yourself. Sure, why not? “Raspberry?” That sounds delicious, but maybe get the seedless stuff. “Grapefruit marmalade?” You do you.

(For this batch, I used a small jar of ‘Orange Jam”’ that had chunks of orange peel in it, which I picked up at a Middle Eastern market. I suspect it is pretty much orange marmalade with a Lebanese accent.)

Preheat your oven to 325°F.

Crumple up a sheet of parchment paper — really wad it up like it owes you money or something. Then open it up and smooth it out. Use it to line an 8×8” baking pan. It’s easy to overthink how to line a pan neatly. With what I call the “Crump-It-and-Dump-It” method, you can check that tiny bit of anxiety off your list.

In a mixing bowl, whisk the flour, salt and nutmeg together and set it aside.

Let’s face it: You probably decided to make Jam Bars on the spur of the moment and didn’t think to leave a couple sticks of butter out to soften up, did you? This is another baking anxiety you can let go of. You’re going to cream the butter and sugar together anyway, so just beat the butter with your mixer for a couple of minutes to soften it up, then add the sugars and beat it until the mixture is light and fluffy, then beat in the vanilla.

Turn the mixer down to its lowest setting, and spoon the flour mixture into the butter mixture, and mix everything until it forms a dough. Leave a quarter of the dough in the mixing bowl, then drop the other three quarters into your parchment paper-lined baking pan. (The “Dump” stage of “Crump and Dump”* system), and smoosh it to cover the bottom of the pan. Make sure you get it in the corners.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until it puffs up a bit, then remove it from the oven.

Scoop your jam (what kind did you end up going with?) on top of the half-baked dough, and spread it around with the back of a spoon or an offset spatula. Break the remaining dough blob into tiny, fingertip-sized bits, and cover the jam with them.

Return the pan to the oven, and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until the jam bubbles and the dough has turned golden brown.

Cool in the pan, then cut into nine pieces, tic-tac-toe style. Eat warm or cold, topped with ice cream, or buck naked. Err, the jam bar, I mean. But again, whatever reduces your stress is good for all of us.

*I should trademark that.

Featured photo: Jam bars. Photo by John Fladd.

Big hair meets tiny doughnuts

Cup of Ambition serves coffee too

The Cup of Ambition Mobile Coffee Bar (1170 Hooksett Road, Hooksett, 843-591-6146) is named after a line in Dolly Parton’s 1980 song “9 to 5,” because owner Barbara Davey is a big fan of the singer. The truck focuses on coffee and doughnuts, Davey said.

“I offer made-to-order hot mini doughnuts. I’ve got many flavors to pick from. I’ve got some all put together that are named, but you can make your own. And I do all specialty coffees, iced coffees, frozen coffees, lattes, that sort of thing. I have a doughnut machine. I come in at about three in the morning and I start my batter. And I cook small-batch batter all day; it’s all homemade. My glazes are homemade. And I make doughnuts as they’re ordered, so they come right off the fryer, and they’re decorated the way that the customer wants them, and they’re served hot.”

These are not full-sized doughnuts, Davey said. “They’re probably 2 inches — maybe an inch and five eighths — in diameter.” And each variety is named after something Dolly Partonish.

“I’m all Dolly Parton-themed,” Davey said, “so I’ve got a lot of Dolly Parton doughnuts. I’ve got ‘Smoky Mountain Home,’ which is kind of like a cookies-and-cream [doughnut]. I’ve got a ‘Dolly Dipper,’ which is doughnut glazed with sparkles. I’ve got a ‘Jolene,’ which has cinnamon sugar and glitter dust. I do an ‘Islands in the Stream,’ which is a warm breakfast blend, vanilla with cinnamon sugar. I have another one, ‘Coat of Many Colors,’ which is vanilla and chocolate glazed with rainbow sprinkles. I’ve got a ‘Gatlinburg Maple Magic,’ which is maple and brown sugar cinnamon. So I do a lot of different things.”

Like many food truck operators, Davey keeps her customers updated on social media.

“I’m on Facebook, I’m on TikTok, and I’m on Instagram,” she said. “I really keep up on my social media to let them know if I’m open 6 to 2 that day or if I’m open 7 to 2. I try to really nail down a time. Just because if people are going to work I want them to be able to plan, and I’ve got it set up where some of my regular customers have my cell phone number so they can just text me their order so when they get here it’s done. And I bring it right out to their car.”

At this point Cup of Ambition has been open about a month, so it’s still early days, but Davey said business has been good from the start.

“We’re actually doing great,” she said. “This past Saturday I had lines of customers waiting to order, so it was phenomenal. It was great. People have been talking about me on social media. They’re referring people over. They’re having great experiences, and that’s kind of what I wanted to bring. I didn’t want to just bring good heartwarming food. I wanted to bring a good vibe and just a happy, you know, a happy time when you’re there.”

“And everybody’s happy when they get coffee for sure.”

Featured photo: Mini doughnuts at A Cup of Ambition. Courtesy photo.

What does a chef want to cook for you?

The Ash Street Inn’s Chef’s Table

Nick Provencher has been a professional chef for more than 15 years. That sounds very impressive, he said, but in fact the job can be very frustrating.

“Most of the time, it’s kind of a burnout job after a while,” he said. “It’s the hours and the people and the this and that, like you just get discouraged.”

His new position as the chef at the Ash Street Inn in Manchester has restored his sense of joy in the kitchen, he said.

“It’s essentially like a chef’s table that we’re doing inside the Ash Street Inn B&B,” he said. “They don’t normally serve dinner except when you’re doing a chef’s table.” On Chef’s Table nights, 12 guests sign up to have a multi-course meal prepared for them by Provencher.

“It’s a five-course dinner that we’re doing,” he said. “The menu changes every single week, depending on regional themes or just locally inspired menus. It’s super food-oriented, which is something that gets lost sometimes in a restaurant setting. There are none of those outside distractions. There’s no employees. There’s no one running operations or a general manager or a front-of-the-house staff. It’s just me cooking and interacting with the people who are there and just trying to create a really special night for everyone.”

For instance, Provencher said, “This week’s menu is a French-Indian fusion. It’s centered around some Indian flavors and Indian concepts done through the lens of a French chef and French technique. One of the dishes is going to be a slow-roasted and braised cabbage vindaloo. So there’s kind of a mix between two techniques. It has the sauce-building of Indian cuisine. and then the high regard and respect of fresh ingredients. The cabbage gets treated like meat, and cooking it is a three- or four-hour process. The finished dish is essentially like butter chicken, except it’s going to be with French-style Parisian gnocchi. There are going to be things at every meal that people haven’t tried before, or combinations they haven’t tried, or cuisine they haven’t tried.”

Cooking for 12 people at a time has opened up opportunities to follow his creativity, Provencher said.

“It’s 12 people. It’s so small that I can realistically accomplish whatever I have in my mind. There’s no, ‘Oh, we need to make sure it scales to 30 seats. We need to do this. We need to make sure that the line cooks are competent enough to cook it properly….’ There are really no holds barred on whatever we can do.” As the chef, he doesn’t have to design menu items that would be viable to make at volume, in and out of season, he said. “It only needs to be viable for three days, so you can bring in really cool ingredients, really fresh ingredients.”

Because liquor laws don’t allow the Ash Street Inn to sell wine, Provencher encourages diners to bring their own.

“It’s B. Y. O. B.,” he said. “We send out wine recommendations with the menu for the people who make the reservations, but it’s hyper-focused on what will pair with really, really high-quality food.”

That freedom and relaxed atmosphere allows Provencher to interact directly with the people eating his food, something that isn’t usually possible in a traditional restaurant experience, he said. He can explain the choices he made in preparing their dinner, and point out how ingredients enhance or complement each other.

“There are no distractions,” he said, ”no conflict of interest, no arguments. It’s just a calm, enjoyable dinner in a common enjoyable space where the focus is just around creating amazing food and interacting with people.”

“The hope of that is what has kept me in the game so long,” he said.

Chef’s Table
There are three seatings per week of the Chef’s Table at the Ash Street Inn (118 Ash St, Manchester, 668-9908, ashstreetinn.com), on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Seating is by reservation only. Visit ashstreetinn.com/ash-restaurant.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 26/04/23

• Make Dubai chocolate bars: Van Otis Chocolates (341 Elm St., Manchester, 627-1611, vanotis.com) will hold a Dubai Bar Making workshop Thursday, April 23, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. During this hour-long class guests will enjoy a tour of Van Otis’ Chocolate Factory, make their very own Dubai bar (customized with favorite flavors and mix-ins), and indulge in handmade chocolates. Guests 21+ are welcome to bring their favorite bottle of wine. Participants will also take home the chocolate bar mold to make more bars on their own. The cost is $65.87 per person through eventbrite.com.

• Make espresso martinis: Local Street Eats (112 W. Pearl St., Nashua, 402-4435, local-streeteats.com) will host Espresso Yourself – The Ultimate Espresso Martini Showdown Thursday, April 23, from 4 to 8 p.m. This will be a night filled with caffeine and cocktails. Local bartenders will battle it out to see who creates the best espresso martini. Espresso martinis are $15. There will be one grand prize winner, and voting will be people’s choice.

• Watch a cooking demo: Harper’s Eden Catering (35 Manchester Road, Derry, 416-0509, harperseden.com) will host the first dinner in a cooking demo series on Friday, April 24, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at The Gathering Grounds (104 Route 13, Brookline, 978-225-0066, thegatheringgroundsnh.com). Follow along while Chef Amanda from Harper’s Eden Catering does a live cooking demo. Tickets are $81.88. RSVP at harperseden.com/event-calendar.

• Cook as a couple: It is Spring Break Date Nite at The Culinary Playground (16 Manning St., Derry, 339-1664, culinary-playground.com) Friday, April 24, at 6:30 p.m. as well as Sunday, April 26. As a couple, learn to make fun spring-break-inspired dishes. Tickets are $165 per couple through the Culinary Playground website.

• Last winter market: Saturday, April 25, will be the final Concord Winter Farmers Market (7 Eagle Square, Concord,downtownconcordwinterfarmersmarket.com) of the season, from 9 a.m. to noon. Beginning in May the Farmers Market will return outside on Capitol Street.

• Grow your own: Learn to grow your own oyster mushrooms at the Nashua Public Library (2 Court St., Nashua, 589-4600, nashualibrary.org) Saturday, April 25, from 11 a.m. to noon or at a second session beginning at 1 p.m. Join farmer Elizabeth Almeida of Fat Moon Mushrooms to learn how to make your own oyster mushroom grow kit using recycled food containers and cardboard. Take your kit home and watch your mushrooms grow. Supplies are limited to one kit per household.

• Make risotto: Tuscan Market (Tuscan Village, 9 Via Toscana, Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) will host an asparagus risotto cooking class on Sunday, April 26, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Learn how to make creamy asparagus risotto in this hands on class. The Tuscan Market’s instructor will guide you through the techniques for building rich flavor and perfect texture. The cost is $59.60 through the Tuscan Market website.

• New NH foods: In an April 14 press release, Nashua-based coffee company Rare Breed Coffee (2 Pittsburgh Ave, Nashua, 578-3338, rarebreedcoffee.com) announced the release of a new product, Brain Waves, which it described as “a new functional coffee engineered to deliver ‘locked-in energy’— sustained cognitive focus and mental clarity without the typical caffeine jitters.”

In an April 15 press release, Gate Drop (getgatedrop.com), “a new energy gummy company built by two childhood friends from NH” announced a new energy gummy, also called GateDrop. “GateDrop is an energy gummy brand inspired by motorsports and built for motion,” the press release read. “The brand was built to challenge traditional energy drinks. By delivering clean, precisely dosed caffeine in a convenient, portable gummy, GateDrop is positioning itself as a true challenger in one of the fastest-growing categories in consumer products.”

Books, prizes, golden tickets

Local shops celebrate indie bookstore day

According to Michael Joachim, the general manager of Balin Books in Nashua, what sets independent bookstores apart from corporate chain bookstores is the personal relationships they build with their customers.

“The bookstores I’ve worked at and run are very much connected to the community,” he said. We do a great deal of business with almost all the local school systems. There are dedicated people here who work with specific teachers and librarians to make sure they get the books they need at the best price we can get them. And we handle all the work of getting the books sorted, packed up, and delivered to the schools. Individuals will just call us personally and say, hey, here’s a list. Can you help me with this? Can you find out some information on these books that we need? And we take care of that for them.”

Joachim and his staff are ramping up for this Saturday, April 25, Independent Bookstore Day, which the American Booksellers Association (bookweb.org/independent-bookstore-day) describes on their website as a “national one-day party held the last Saturday in April to celebrate independent bookstores across the country, online, and in-store, through exclusive books and literary items, contests, cupcakes, and everything in between.”

Joachim said the day is a good chance to show customers some of the things independent bookstores like Balin Books can do for them.

“Having knowledgeable people in the store,” is important, he said, noting, “People who have their whole lives in book selling usually wind up in an independent store … and that goes an enormous amount of miles in results, in speaking to someone intelligently about finding a book you’re looking for, recommendations, or just how the store inventory is shaped to be responsive to the local community. All that comes out of experience.”

Erin Magoon, one of the lead booksellers at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, said Independent Bookstore Day is one of the most fun days of the year for book fans.

“There’s an Indie Bookstore Ambassador every year,” Magoon said. “This year it’s LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow, so we’re doing kind of like rainbow-themed decorations, some rainbow-themed search and find activities for kids over on the kids’ side of the store. We’ll have a golden ticket hidden somewhere in the store, and that’s redeemable for 12 free audiobook credits available for someone to find in the store. One of our booksellers, Kate, did a booth last year called Book Zoltar [named for the fortune-telling machine in the 1988 Tom Hanks movie Big]. She gives fortunes to adults and kids about what books they should read. And then, of course, we’ll have some local authors here to meet our customers and sign books.”

Manchester’s Bookery is also hiding prizes and a Golden Ticket audiobook voucher, said event coordinator Alex Pellerin. “This is a special ticket that’s going to be hidden around the Bookery,” she said, “and we’re going to be giving clues throughout the day as to where that ticket is. And whoever finds that ticket gets 12 free audiobooks for the year from Libro.fm, which is really fun.” There will also be visiting authors throughout the day, she said, and live music.

According to Pellerin, independent bookstores like Bookery are able to provide their customers with “curated” experiences. “[Independent bookstores] are all unique,” she said, “and a lot of our books reflect our communities. We take a lot of recommendations from our customers for books and we really personalize which books we carry. Our staff is able to work with everybody and offer personalized recommendations, rather than a list of what a corporation says to.”

Indie Bookstore Day

Independent Bookstore Day is Saturday, April 25. Here are the plans at some local participating book stores. For a map of bookstores participating in Independent Bookstore Day activities, visit indiebound.org/independent-bookstore-day/map.

• At Balin Books in Nashua (Somerset Plaza, 375 Amherst St.), get exclusive Independent Bookstore Day tote bags and collectible pencils while supplies last, plus mystery grab bags of five books for a $5 donation to the Nashua Soup Kitchen. (A portion of the day’s sales will be donated to NSK.) Author Laura Knoy will be at the store at 11 a.m. for an event featuring her new book, The Shopkeeper of Alsace. p.s. There will be cake, according to the website. See balinbooks.com.

• Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord (45 S. Main St.) promises exclusive merch, balloon animals and a “Golden Ticket” for Libro.fm, source of indie audiobooks, as well as visits from authors Kari Allen, Patricia Zube, Jeff Lang and Sam Kelley Theodosopoulos; see gibsonsbookstore.com for details on their books.

• Manchester’s Bookery (844 Elm St.) is planning “prizes, discounts, live music, authors, and so much more!” according to their website, bookerymht.com.

• Wonderland Books and Toys (245 Maple St., No. 12, Manchester) will celebrate its second anniversary in conjunction with Independent Bookstore Day with a week of promotions, giveaways and family-friendly events. On Saturday, April 25, the store will have extended hours from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., featuring exclusive deals and interactive activities, according to a press release.

• At Water Street Bookstore in Exeter (125 Water St.), go on a blind date with a book, search for the Libro.fm Golden Ticket (worth 12 audiobook credits) and hidden gift cards, enter a literary trivia quiz (win a $50 bookstore gift card) and join other fun activities. See waterstreetbooks.com.

• In Portsmouth, the Book Nook is hosting an audio book walk to celebrate the day, starting with a free mini Loon chocolate bar in the store at 10 a.m.; see portsmouthbooknook.com for details.

Featured photo: A limited-edition tote designed by Tom Gauld, author of Physics for Cats, will be available at participating indie bookstores.

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