Author: John Fladd

Frozen Lemon Bars

  • 12 full graham crackers
  • 8 Tablespoons (1 stick) butter – melted and cooled
  • 2 Tablespoons sugar
  • ½ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • Zest of three large lemons
  • 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 1½ cups (340 g) heavy cream

Line an 8×8” baking pan with parchment paper. Set it aside, reassuring it that you’ll be back; you’re not breaking up with it.

In a blender or a food processor, grind the graham crackers and sugar into crumbs. Set aside 2 tablespoons of the mixture, then transfer the rest to a medium bowl, and mix in the melted butter, one half at a time.

Transfer the buttery graham cracker mixture to the baking pan, and smoosh it flat and into the corners with the bottom of a measuring cup. Set it aside again. It should be used to it by now.

In another bowl — or wash out the one you just used, because, come on! It’s not like you’re made of bowls! — whisk together the lemon juice, 2/3 of the lemon zest, the condensed milk, and salt. The condensed milk is thick and will want to splash the lemon juice around. Stir the mixture slowly with your whisk in the center of the bowl, and when the condensed milk gets tired and starts mixing with the other ingredients, you can make larger, dramatic whisk sweeps.

With a hand or stand mixer, whip the cream to medium peaks, then fold it into the lemon mixture. Work it gently, until all the clumps of whipped cream have given themselves over to the Lemon Collective.

Spoon the mixture into the baking pan, completely covering the graham cracker crust. Smooth it out, making sure you get into the corners. Top it with the remaining graham cracker mixture and lemon zest. Pat the toppings down to make certain they’re stuck to the lemon stuff.

Cover the pan with plastic. Yes, you could absolutely use regular, sticks-to-itself plastic wrap, but there is another way. Every few weeks I go to the dollar store and buy a couple packages of super-discount shower caps. These are really good at covering bowls of leftovers or the occasional frozen dessert.

Freeze for at least three hours — maybe all day.

When you are ready for frozen, lemony refreshment, remove the pan from the freezer, then use the parchment paper to remove the bars from the pan. Use a large knife to cut the block into nine Brady-Bunch like squares.You will probably want to eat this with a fork — the bottom crust sets up super firm.

The crust gives these bars a crunchy, buttery element, which contrasts nicely with the smoothness of the lemon layer, which tastes — not surprisingly — satisfyingly lemony, but with a creamy richness from the condensed milk.

Once your ingredients are prepped, these bars will take about 10 minutes to make — not counting the time in the freezer. They have an extremely high reward-to-effort ratio.

Featured photo: Frozen Lemon Bars. Photo by John Fladd.

Taste the terroir of home

NOK Vino serves New Hampshire in a glass

What does New Hampshire taste like? Dunkin’ coffee? Pine needles? Poutine gravy? For Nico Kimberly, the owner of the new NOK Vino Tasting Room in Hooksett, it’s a serious question with a serious and complicated answer.

There is a term in the wine world, “terroir,” that is used to describe the taste that comes from particular growing conditions in a particular location. For instance, two wines in the same style and made with the same variety of grapes, but one from South Africa and the other from California, will taste different from each other. Each will carry a flavor influenced by the amount of sunshine the grapes got, the minerals in the soil, the amount of rainfall they received, and a thousand other factors.

So, what is New Hampshire’s terroir?

“New Hampshire’s a really good place to grow wine,” Kimberly said. “We have really sandy, really rocky soils. They shed the water, which the grapes love. We’ve also got a lot of elevation — we’ve got these hillsides. Grapes love to grow on a hill because the water runs off and the cold air runs off. Also, when you grow on a hill it actually changes the angle at which the sun hits the plant, which maximizes the photosynthetic capability.”

Growing grapes on a hill also improves the vines’ access to airflow, Kimberly said.

“The enemy of fruit trees and grapevines is mildew,” he said. “It needs wet conditions. It needs some warmth. But if you’ve got wind and you’ve got sun, you’re going to keep that mildew at bay just naturally. All these conditions really concentrate the flavor of the grapes. When we really get down to it — because the grapes are growing in these sort of like difficult conditions, this austere soil — they don’t have a ton of energy to grow super big and vibrant. They tend to be smaller and stronger plants, which means that every part of them is stronger, and so we get these flavors that are really complex in the wine.”

NOK Vino — which stands for “Not Otherwise Known” — is a collective of six New Hampshire vineyards that produces 18 hyper-local wines and ciders. To understand the relationship between New Hampshire wines and their terroir, Kimberly said, you have to understand the history of grapes.

“Up until Prohibition,” Kimberly said, “American grape and wine culture was thriving and it was all based on native grapes that grow here. Once Prohibition happened, a lot of those producers went out of business.” NOK Vino grows hybrids of those original native grapes.

“We’re coming back into more acceptance of those grapes,” Kimberly said, “mainly because of a few people who said, we’re going to treat these grapes as if they were the fancy European ones. We’re going to grow them.”

NOK Vino has opened a new tasting room in Hooksett to show off some of these wines.

“Our mission is to really change the way people think about New Hampshire wine,” Kimberly said. “We are providing this unfettered, clear view of what New Hampshire really tastes like. What we’re really passionate about is helping educate people about the difference between a grocery store wine and a wine that’s made in New Hampshire.”

The tasting room, which is open Friday, Saturday, and Sundays, is tucked away in an industrial park off the Londonderry Turnpike and seats 20 tasters.

“If there’s a holiday that lands on a Monday,” Kimberly said, “we also open up for that. We’re trying to make this a place you can come and learn about New Hampshire wine and meet the farmers. Everyone who works here is somebody who works in the vineyard and also participates in the winemaking. So no matter who’s working here you’re going to get the real-deal experience. They can answer any question you have about our wines.”

NOK Vino tasting room
Where: 146 Londonderry Turnpike, Building 3, Unit 23, Hooksett
When: open Fridays 5 to 8 p.m., Saturdays 3 to 9 p.m., and Sundays 3 to 7 p.m.
More: 315-5272, nokvino.com
A selection of cheeses, salami and olives is available for pairing.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

The Weekly Dish 25/07/10

News from the local food scene

• Agave dinner: Unwined Wine Boutique (1 Nashua St., Milford, 213-6703, unwinednh.com) will host an Agave Dinner on Tuesday, July 15, beginning at 6 p.m. This will be a five-course dinner crafted to complement Unwined’s favorite tequila and mezcal picks. Weather permitting, dinner will be served on the deck. Tickets are $125 each through eventbrite.com.

• Make pasta: There will be a hands-on cooking lesson at Tuscan Market (Tuscan Village, 9 Via Toscana, Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) Wednesday, July 16, from 6 to 8 p.m. Learn to make Pasta ala Bolognese. A server will be available so attendees can order food and beverages during the class, which will be added to the final bill. This class is open to pasta enthusiasts age 14+. Tickets are $71.21 and are available through eventbrite.com.

• Picnic with bees: The New Hampshire Beekeepers Association will hold its Muster Field Picnic at Muster Field Farm Museum in North Sutton on Saturday, July 26, from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., featuring guest speakers and a smoker contest. Thanks to a donation from the Pemi-Baker Beekeepers Association, the picnic is free to all regardless of club membership. Bring a veil, a chair, and a side dish or dessert. RSVP is required; register for the picnic at nhbeekeepers.org.

• Wine ice cream: Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com) is now serving WineCream, which its website describes as “your new favorite frozen indulgence … perfect for sunny days, girls’ nights, or a romantic treat under the vineyard lights.” Flavors include Strawberry Zinfandel wine swirled with vanilla cream and cheesecake bites, Mango Maple Moscato wine swirled with mango chunks and vanilla cream, and Peach Chardonnay wine with almond cream & peach slices.

Kicker Rock

Allegedly, this cocktail is named after a famous rock in the Galapagos Islands. Who knew that there were any famous rocks anywhere?

It’s delicious and adventurous and should be drunk very, very cold

  • 1½ ounces cachaça – this is a musky sugarcane spirit from Brazil; alternatively, you could use a flavorful rum
  • 1½ ounces pineapple juice
  • 1 ounces simple syrup
  • ½ ounces Campari
  • ½ ounces fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • ½ teaspoon jalapeño hot sauce
  • chili-lime seasoning powder – Tajin, or Trader Joe’s makes a good one
  • garnish – sprig of rosemary

Squeeze your lemon juice. Reserve one of the spent lemon halves; it still has more to give.

Sprinkle a tablespoon or so of the chili-lime powder on a small plate. Rub the rim of a rocks glass with the spent lemon carcass. Turn the glass upside-down, and press the rim into the chili-lime powder to rim the glass. Feel free to swirl the glass around to make sure that the entire rim gets coated with the powder.

Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. While you’re at it, carefully drop five or six ice cubes into the rocks glass, making sure not to mess up that handsome rim you’ve just coated.

Add all your remaining ingredients except the rosemary to the cocktail shaker. Seal it and shake it enthusiastically, until your hands start to get uncomfortably cold.

Carefully strain it into your rocks glass — again, avoiding the rim.

Bruise the rosemary sprig by rolling it briefly between your hands, then poke it into the cocktail.

The first time you make this cocktail, you will be tempted to sip it tentatively. Resist that impulse. Take a healthy pull on it, washing some of the powder from the rim, and filling your mouth with cold, spicy, fruitiness.

Is it spicy? Yeah, a little — not enough to be off-putting, but between the jalapeño and the rim, there’s no denying that there is a little bit of a kick. A tiny kick. Let’s call it a microkick. But more importantly, there is a push and pull between the musky sweetness of the pineapple — which, not for nothin’, pairs beautifully with the muskiness of the cachaça — and the acidity of the lemon juice. So you’ve got a sweet-and-sour situation going on, but then there’s a kiss of bitterness from the Campari.

(“Kiss of Bitterness” would be a great title for a noir detective story. Humphrey Bogart would be blindsided and almost killed by thugs while kissing Myrna Loy, who, it would turn out, had hired them. He would catch a flash of a thug’s bright red necktie in the mirror, drop to the floor, and roll away, pulling his revolver from his shoulder holster, and shoot the thugs in the knees, but not before they accidentally riddle Myrna Loy with the gunfire meant for him. He would leave a large tip for the cleaning lady.)

All things considered, this is a nice, adult cocktail — sophisticated and not too boozy. It will take at least two of these to wrap your head around the experience, but in the end this might become your pitcher drink for the summer.

Featured photo: Kicker Rock. Photo by John Fladd.

Coffee, cookies and art

Two Moons Coffee & Curiosities serves lattes with a side of books and puzzles

Meg Wright has spent a lot of her life working with food and beverages in a lot of very different places.

“I originally came from a culinary background,” Wright said. “I’ve had a little over two decades of culinary experience. I’m from Bar Harbor, Maine, but I just kind of went all over the world. I’ve lived in Texas a lot. I was a barista-slash-English liaison in Germany for Starbucks. When I came back to the U.S., I started back in kitchens, back in restaurants, and I just wanted to do my own thing.”

Her own thing, as it turns out, is Two Moons Coffee & Curiosities.

“Our idea,” Wright said, “was to bring a little bit of the unusual to Manchester and be a spooky-type cafe. I love Halloween more than a friend, some could say, and it was just kind of a dream I had. And so I brought the two together and I found this location.” Tucked between a nail salon and a yoga studio in the Millyard on Dow Street, Two Moons provides Wright an opportunity to showcase her enthusiasms.

“I’ve got art by somebody who does bugs,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “He puts bugs in frames and makes it pretty. We also sell a lot of curiosities like puzzles that have different ins and outs, and books, lots of gardening books and stuff like that. The curiosity part was just me bringing in something that’s unusual to Manchester.”

The cafe half of the equation is even more interesting.

Two Moons offers coffee drinks, teas, and smoothies, some of which are influenced by its neighbors.

“We have kind of a symbiotic relationship with Humble Warrior [Yoga Studio] as far as like smoothies and coffees. [The yoga students] love coming over and getting their smoothies right after class,” Wright said

And what goes well with hot yoga?

“Right now, we have a Warrior Smoothie that actually one of the studio owners Talitha designed,” Wright said. “It is a banana, cashew butter, peanut butter powder and almond milk smoothie with collagen. With cold brew. So it’s got the energy part in it, but also it has all the benefits of the collagen and the protein.”

“We just introduced breakfast sandwiches and sandwiches and salads,” Wright said. “Our No. 1 seller is the cinnamon rolls; they fly off the shelves. And our chocolate chip cookies. … [O]ur pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies are huge and they’re just spectacular. We also do a lot of seasonal-themed things all year round.”

Most recently, to celebrate Pride Month, Wright has featured a selection of extra-sparkly foods and drinks.

“We’ve done a lot of Pride specials,” she said. “Right now, we have ‘Sounds Gay; I’m In,’ which is a cereal-milk latte with a vanilla cold foam and some cereal on top. And then we have the Pink Pony, derived from Chappell Roan’s ‘Pink Pony Club.’ It’s a watermelon-mint lemonade situation.”

Wright said her customers have been enthusiastic and quickly become loyal regulars. Her biggest problem, she said, is trying to explain how to find the cafe.

“This is definitely a tricky location,” she said. “Just describing how to get here is not easy. If you come through Humble Warrior, it’s super easy — just follow the hallway down. But if you come from upstairs, you’re going to go several floors to try to find us. In the future, I would love to not be in a shared space. That would be great, just to have a little more autonomy. But also, I do love that we are a part of the Tree Fort.”

Two Moons Coffee & Curiosities
Where: 155 Dow St., Suite 102,Manchester, twomoonscafenh.com). Two Moons can be accessed from Dow Street, where it is located next to Fratello’s Italian Grille, or from Humble Warrior Power Yoga.
When: open Tuesday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m, and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Featured photo: Two Moons Coffee & Curiosities. Photo by John Fladd.

The Weekly Dish 25/07/03

News from the local food scene

• Community pancakes: The Merrimack Rotary Club (portal.clubrunner. ca/2943) will hold its annual pancake breakfast featuring pancakes, sausage, juice and coffee on Friday, July 4, from 8 to 11 a.m. at Merrimack High School (38 McElwain St., Merrimack). The cost is $12 for adults, $10 for children and seniors, and free for children 3 and younger.

• Picking lavender: The lavender fields at Pumpkin Blossom Farm (393 Pumpkin Hill Road, Warner, 456-2443, pumpkinblossomfarm.com) will open for pick-your-own harvesting on Saturday, July 5, and will continue through Sunday, July 20, 10 a.m. through 6 p.m. daily, rain or shine. Call the farm or check its website for daily picking conditions.

• Open for the summer: The Nashua and New Boston farmers markets have opened for the season. The New Boston market takes place every Saturday on the Town Common from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.; all products are made or grown in New Hampshire by local farmers and artisans, and there is always live music. The Nashua market takes place every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with local food, art, music and community; the market will run through late October.

• The future of wine: Wine on Main’s (9 N. Main St., Concord, 897-5828, wineonmainnh.com) July wine class is “The Future of Wine” on Tuesday, July 8, or Wednesday, July 9, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Learn about the latest innovations taking the wine world by storm. The cost is $35 per person, which includes six wines, light snacks and fun education. Limited to 20 people. Sign up on Wine on Main’s website.

• Martini and cupcake: The theme for July’s martini-and-cupcake pairing at the Copper Door restaurants (15 Leavy Drive, Bedford, 488-2677, and 41 S Broadway, Salem, 458-2033, copperdoor.com) is “Life’s a Beach.” The Life’s a Beach Martini, $14, features whipped vodka, Sobieski Raspberry Vodka, limoncello, Monin Raspberry, and lemonade, and is garnished with Swedish Fish candies. The Life’s a Beach Cupcake, $11, is a funfetti cupcake with raspberry cream funfetti filling, topped with vanilla buttercream, a white chocolate cup, and garnished with Swedish Fish candies.

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