Author: John Fladd

The Weekly Dish 24/06/13

News from the local food scene

• Martini-cupcake pairing: The monthly martini-cupcake pairing at the Copper Door (15 Leavy Drive, Bedford, 488-2677; 41 S. Broadway, Salem, copperdoor.com) for June will be Key lime themed. The Key Lime Martini — vanilla vodka, Tuaca, lime juice, and cream, with a graham cracker rim — will cost $14. The Key Lime Cupcake — a lime-zested cupcake, white chocolate cup, lime curd, cream cheese frosting, a fresh lime wheel, and a graham cracker — will cost $11.

• Chocolate cabin-making: Van Otis Chocolates (341 Elm St., Manchester, 627-1611, vanotis.com) will host a class to teach participants to decorate their own chocolate lake cabin, Thursday, June 6, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Guests will enjoy a tour of Van Otis’ Chocolate Factory and indulge in handmade chocolates, as well as decorating their cabins, which have been prepared ahead of time to allow participants as much time as possible for decoration. Guests are welcome to bring their own wine or Xhampagne to enjoy during this 21+ class. Tickets are $95 each, available from eventbrite.

• 21 Forever party: Celebrate your 21st birthday — regardless of what your birth certificate says — at a 21 Forever Party at Averil House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com) Thursday, June 6, at 12:30 or 3:30 p.m. You and up to five friends will have a decorated themed birthday party with a charcuterie board, wine tasting, birthday cupcakes and a bottle of 21 Averill Road wine for the birthday person to take home. This event includes up to six adults. Children are welcome; those 12 and under can share your plates at no charge. Tickets for ages 13 to 20 include non-alcoholic drinks. Tickets cost $199 through eventbrite.

• Potato planting workshop: Do you love gardening but lack the space for a full garden? Have you ever wanted to grow your own potatoes at home? Learn how to plant and grow delicious potatoes right on your balcony, patio or any small space using containers, at a potato planting workshop at Cole Gardens (430 Loudon Road, Concord, 229-0655, colegardens.com) on Saturday, June 8, from 10:30 a.m. to noon. Learn from experienced gardeners who will teach you the best practices for growing potatoes in containers. Get your hands dirty and plant your own potato container to take home. Cole Gardens supplies the seed potatoes, soil, containers and tools. This workshop costs $20 per person.

• Brunch and Bubbles: Flag Hill Winery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com) will hold its June Brunch and Bubbles event Sunday, June 9, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sparkling Cayuga White wine is included with brunch; there will be a make-your-own mimosa bar as well. The cost is $65 per person. Reservations are required.

Rhubarb Sidecar – very cold

The stem of a glass — a wine glass, a Champagne flute or a martini glass — is there to help you keep your drink at the proper temperature. Glass is an excellent thermal insulator, and if you hold your glass by the stem very little of the heat from your hands will travel up to the drink, so it will stay cool longer.

Which is very useful for drinks that you want to drink very, very cold, like a sidecar.

Rhubarb Sidecar

Rhubarb Syrup

Rhubarb, chopped and frozen

An equal amount of granulated sugar, by weight

The juice of half a lemon

Sidecar

2 ounces cognac

1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice

¾ ounce rhubarb syrup

Cook frozen chopped rhubarb and sugar over medium heat, stirring occasionally. By freezing the rhubarb, you have caused jagged crystals of ice to form and puncture most of the cell walls in the rhubarb. The sugar is emotionally needy and draws the juice from the rhubarb and bonds with it. It is unclear how the rhubarb feels about this, but it doesn’t really have any choice in the matter, because under heat the sugar is drawn into solution in its juice with a happy sigh. If you want to encourage this chemical matchmaking, you can use a potato masher to hurry the process along.

Bring the mixture to a boil, and wait a few seconds longer to make sure all the sugar has completely dissolved. Remove from heat, add the lemon juice to the mixture, then strain it with a fine-mesh strainer. Leave it to cool. (Don’t throw away the rhubarb solids; they are delicious.)

Wrap a double-handful of ice in a tea towel and beat it vigorously with something heavy (I use the pestle from my largest mortar and pestle, but a meat tenderizer or the bottom of a small pot will work well, too). When you have crushed your ice, fill a martini glass with it and set it aside for five minutes or so to chill. This will give you time to squeeze the lemon juice for the cocktail — unless you’ve got a particularly selfless one that gives generously of itself, this will probably take a whole lemon’s worth.

Combine the cognac, lemon juice and your now-cool rhubarb syrup (cool in a temperature sense; the mere fact that you are making this cocktail makes you cool in a social sense) over ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake extra-thoroughly; you want this cocktail to be colder than a penguin pawnbroker’s heart.

Dump the ice out of the martini glass; you’ve left it in until the last possible instant, to make sure the glass is as cold as possible. Strain the cocktail into it, with a hum of satisfaction at its color, a pinkish shade of apricot, like a bolt of silk in a hidden corner of a Turkish bazar. Find someplace quiet and comfortable — a screened-in porch, perhaps — and sip the drink while thinking about that time at that party when you were actually witty and attractive.

A sidecar is a classic cocktail in the same family as margaritas, whiskey sours and gimlets: a healthy belt of liquor, some sort of citrus juice and something sweet. In this case the brandy works really well with the fruitiness of the homemade rhubarb syrup. Rhubarb’s tartness plays well off the lemon juice. When a sidecar is skull-shrinkingly cold, the cognac takes a leading role in the taste, as it slowly warms up — because you’ve remembered to hold your glass by the stem — and the more delicate fruity flavors become a little more pronounced.

A sidecar is much like many of us, who start out cold and sharp but mellow out a little with age.

Featured Photo: Rhubarb Sidecar. Photo by John Fladd.

In the kitchen with Jeremy Hart

Jeremy Hart, owner, Stash Box Restaurant in Manchester

“I started bartending in college, and just never stopped,” said Jeremy Hart, owner of Stash Box restaurant in Manchester. “That was 26 years ago, so at this point, I’ve been behind a bar for more than half my life.” Hart was the Bar Manager at The Birch on Elm starting in 2016 and left just as the Covid shutdown started, he said, and since then he and his partner Dan Haggerty have opened two restaurants: Industry East in February 2021, and Stash Box in October 2023.

What is your must-have bar item?

The one thing I can’t live without is my glass rinser. Other than looking cool, it definitely makes me more efficient.

What would you have for your last meal?

Probably a lobster roll and steamers. Is there anything more New England than that?

What is your favorite local eatery?

El Rincón for sure! I love Mexican food, and nobody does it better than them!

Who is a celebrity you would like to see drinking one of your cocktails?

Anthony Bourdain for sure! Mostly because I would want an honest opinion about what I served him, and I’m sure he wouldn’t sugar-coat anything.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

For me, there’s nothing better than the Penny Slot Jackpot. I love how the mint and the strawberry flavors go together. [Stash Box’s menu describes this cocktail as “Tequila, Branca Menta, lemon juice, simple syrup, and strawberry.”]

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

Drink trends come and go so quickly, but the espresso martini has come back huge lately.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I’m usually only home for breakfast, so I’m going with scrambled eggs.

Toronto
One of my favorite cocktails is called a Toronto:
2 ounces rye whiskey
½ ounce Fernet Branca
¼ ounce Demerara simple syrup
Combine all ingredients, then stir and garnish with an orange peel.

Featured Photo: Jeremy Hart. Courtesy photo.

Touching down on barbecue

Aviation Museum holds its summer get-together

By John Fladd
[email protected]

There is a phenomenon familiar to pilots called the Hundred Dollar Hamburger. Allegedly, hobbyist pilots, wanting a destination to fly to in a day or an afternoon, will pick a small, local airport a few hundred miles away, fly to it, eat at the diner or cafe there, then fly home. Ten dollars for a burger plus $90 in fuel makes for a Hundred Dollar Hamburger.

“At this point it’s more like a $150 hamburger by the time you factor in the price of fuel,” said Jeff Rapsis, the Director of the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire in Londonderry in a telephone interview. The Aviation Museum is capitalizing on the Hundred Dollar Hamburger tradition for one of its major fund-raising events of the year, its annual Father’s Day Weekend Fly-In Barbecue, which will be held Saturday, June 15, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

This year’s Barbecue will be held at Nashua’s Boire Field (Nashua Airport, 83 Perimeter Road). Pilots are invited to fly in, with vintage airplanes and home-built aircraft especially welcome.

“This is a good opportunity for families with children to get really close to real airplanes and check them out. We have some very unusual aircraft coming,” Rapsis said. It’s an event that pilots and enthusiasts both benefit from, he added. “The public is welcome to see a student-built plane, experience aerobatic flying via virtual reality, and enjoy some excellent barbecue.”

The barbecue itself will be prepared off-site by Celebrations Catering of Manchester and served buffet-style in the hangar of Nashua Jet Aviation, so the event will be held rain or shine. The meal includes salads, pasta, barbecued chicken, pulled pork, baked beans, desserts and drinks, including Moxie.

“This is a New England event,” Rapsis said, “so we have to serve Moxie.”

The chicken and pork are a perennial hit, said Rapsis. The chicken, for instance: “These are boneless chicken breasts that have been seasoned with a special rub, then wood-grilled. This is really special chicken.” One of the surprising but essential elements to serving the pork is the bread at the buffet, Rapsis said. “There are some people who absolutely insist on having pulled pork on white bread; other people have other ideas. These are very strongly held beliefs.”

“We’ve been doing the food service for this event for many, many years,” said Amy Strike, the Director of Events at Celebrations Catering, “and the members really like it. Our recipes have been crafted over many years.”

A case in point is the Texas-Style Baked Beans. “For me, this is the real stand-out dish,” Rapsis said. “I’ve had some left over from a previous event and I’ve been rationing them out. They’re magical.”

This makes Amy Strike laugh, but she agrees that a lot of work has gone into developing baked beans that are more than just a side dish. “They are made with our special homemade barbecue sauce,” she said, “the one with 50 ingredients. Our chef, Don Robey, uses three different types of beans — pinto, great northern, and kidney — and we use a bacon/onion blend that was developed by our president, Fred Manchuck.”

Father’s Day Weekend Fly-In Barbecue
When: Saturday, June 15, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Where: Hangar of Nashua Jet Aviation at Nashua Airport, 83 Perimeter Road, Nashua
Tickets: Purchase BBQ tickets in advance to avoid a sell-out at aviationmuseumofnh.org; ramp tickets to visit planes will be for sale at the door. Adult barbecue, $30; Ages 6-12 barbecue, $10; ramp ticket (no barbecue), $10

The Weekly Dish 24/06/06

News from the local food scene

• Martini-cupcake pairing: The monthly martini-cupcake pairing at the Copper Door (15 Leavy Drive, Bedford, 488-2677; 41 S. Broadway, Salem, copperdoor.com) for June will be Key lime themed. The Key Lime Martini — vanilla vodka, Tuaca, lime juice, and cream, with a graham cracker rim — will cost $14. The Key Lime Cupcake — a lime-zested cupcake, white chocolate cup, lime curd, cream cheese frosting, a fresh lime wheel, and a graham cracker — will cost $11.

• Chocolate cabin-making: Van Otis Chocolates (341 Elm St., Manchester, 627-1611, vanotis.com) will host a class to teach participants to decorate their own chocolate lake cabin, Thursday, June 6, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Guests will enjoy a tour of Van Otis’ Chocolate Factory and indulge in handmade chocolates, as well as decorating their cabins, which have been prepared ahead of time to allow participants as much time as possible for decoration. Guests are welcome to bring their own wine or Xhampagne to enjoy during this 21+ class. Tickets are $95 each, available from eventbrite.

• 21 Forever party: Celebrate your 21st birthday — regardless of what your birth certificate says — at a 21 Forever Party at Averil House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com) Thursday, June 6, at 12:30 or 3:30 p.m. You and up to five friends will have a decorated themed birthday party with a charcuterie board, wine tasting, birthday cupcakes and a bottle of 21 Averill Road wine for the birthday person to take home. This event includes up to six adults. Children are welcome; those 12 and under can share your plates at no charge. Tickets for ages 13 to 20 include non-alcoholic drinks. Tickets cost $199 through eventbrite.

• Potato planting workshop: Do you love gardening but lack the space for a full garden? Have you ever wanted to grow your own potatoes at home? Learn how to plant and grow delicious potatoes right on your balcony, patio or any small space using containers, at a potato planting workshop at Cole Gardens (430 Loudon Road, Concord, 229-0655, colegardens.com) on Saturday, June 8, from 10:30 a.m. to noon. Learn from experienced gardeners who will teach you the best practices for growing potatoes in containers. Get your hands dirty and plant your own potato container to take home. Cole Gardens supplies the seed potatoes, soil, containers and tools. This workshop costs $20 per person.

• Brunch and Bubbles: Flag Hill Winery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com) will hold its June Brunch and Bubbles event Sunday, June 9, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sparkling Cayuga White wine is included with brunch; there will be a make-your-own mimosa bar as well. The cost is $65 per person. Reservations are required.

In the kitchen with Jason Duffy

Bistro 603 (345 Amherst St., Suite 1, Nashua, 722-6362, bistro603nashua.com)

Jason Duffy is the executive chef of Bistro 603. Born in Brighton, Mass., and raised on Cape Cod, Duffy got his start in the industry at the age of 14 as a dishwasher at the Chart Room restaurant before moving up the ranks there over the course of a decade. He and owner Jeff Abellard are also part of a close-knit restaurant team that has run Bistro 781 on Moody Street in downtown Waltham, Mass., since 2015. Like its predecessor, Bistro 603 features an eclectic menu of items out of a scratch kitchen, ranging from small shareable plates to larger meals with optional wine pairings.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

Dry towel folded in my pocket, tongs on hand and at the ready, and always a notebook and pen. With all the moving parts, I need to be able to grab and handle whatever’s needed with the tongs and towel, and keep track of priorities and fleeting thoughts with pen and paper.

What would you have for your last meal?

Whole roasted duck, tight scored and rendered for crispy skin tender meat. Herbs, potatoes, vegetables, demi glace or some kind of fruity compote…. For the flavor of it all and also to appreciate the perfection of it.

What is your favorite local eatery?

Unwined on Milford [Oval] in Milford. Opened recently by some friends of mine, great bar and food menu, great atmosphere, and I enjoy and applaud the people who made their vision become a reality.

Who is a celebrity you would like to see eating your food?

I’m a sci-fi geek. Maybe Patrick Stewart? Been on a Star Trek kick of late and been doing a full re-watch. Make it so.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

I’m a big fan of our Buddha Bowl. Not the flashiest item on the menu, but delicious and healthy in its own right. More delicious/less healthy if you pair it with a piece of our braised short rib to pull apart it as you dig into it.

What is the biggest food trend you’re seeing in New Hampshire right now?

Not sure if this is exactly answering the question, but I always look for the oddball items and order that. Something that was clearly someone’s passion project, a fusion of styles and intentions, something I probably wouldn’t have thought of. I like to try people’s creations and expand my horizons.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

Soups. Sounds simple, but I love building them out of whatever I’ve got to work with on hand and there’s always leftovers to go back to. I could be into any kind of soup with a crust of bread, but given a choice I make a killer chili. —John Fladd

Red Pepper Pesto Cream Sauce

4 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons minced shallot
1 Tablespoon flour (or GF flour)
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup roasted red bell peppers
1 Tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
4 Tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon grated black pepper

Pre-roast your peppers, then cover and set aside to steam. When cooled, remove the skin and seeds.
Saute the garlic and shallot in the butter until soft, then add the flour and mix on low heat for a minute to create a roux.
Stir in the rest of the ingredients, bring to a simmer for a few minutes, then run it through a blender.
We use this on our scallop dish, but it’s a great sauce for any protein or even pasta.

Featured Photo: Chef Jason Duffy. Courtesy photo.

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