Author: John Fladd

A world of food and music

Concord Multicultural Festival celebrates the community

Concord will hold its annual Multicultural Festival on Sunday, Sept. 20, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Keach Park, on Newton Avenue.

“It’s an annual festival with food and music and art and activities and community,” said organizer Jessica Livingston. “We come together every year to celebrate all of the different cultures [in the Concord community]. And when I say all, I mean all of the different cultures, not just the newer ones. We come together to celebrate everybody’s culture and share with each other through everybody’s favorite universal things: food, music and art.”

Livingston said one of the throughlines of the Festival, something that ties everything together, is the music.

“We have a whole lineup of music, like we always do,” she said, “but it changes. Sindy [Chown], our performance coordinator, is really great at keeping all of the favorites while also bringing in new types of performances. We get access to all different types of music and performances and dance from all over the world.”

For many festivalgoers the main draw is the food.

“We have commercial food vendors, food trucks, like most festivals do,” Livingston said, “but we also open [the festival] up to community members to share their food and sell their food.” She said that by partnering with the New Hampshire Food Bank, the Festival makes it fairly straightforward for community cooks to sell their food and still meet food licensing and safety regulations. “Our community cooks will go down there [to the New Hampshire Food Bank commercial kitchen] and cook and prep all of their food. It’s this big production that everybody loves. The cooks get to work in this great beautiful state-of-the-art commercial kitchen and work with the cooks from the Food Bank. There are chefs there, but then there’s also people working and training for some of their culinary programs. It’s a great experience for everybody, including the volunteers. I had a volunteer tell me one year that we should start charging for experience. It’s like a VIP kind of access to how food is made, but also you get to try the foods before they’re served.”

“We have a lot of community cooks this year,” Livingstone continued, “which is wonderful. We have a Jamaican food vendor this year; we’ve never had Jamaican food there before, other than some of the vendors do sort of Caribbean-style food, but this person is from Jamaica. We have the usual Nepali favorites like samosas [South Asian fried dumplings] and the roti [a laminated Indian flat bread]. And we have food from the Middle East and just a whole array of different types of food. People are definitely going to want to come with an appetite.”

Livingstone said that this year, even more than in previous years, the arts will play a big role in the Multicultural Festival.

“One sad thing,” she said, “is that we used to have the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts work with us and, as you know, [that agency] has all but closed, which is very sad for the whole state for so many reasons. But it was always great to work with them, because they were able to sponsor some of the traditional artists who continue to practice traditional crafts and making, like basket weaving and things like that. We have artists who will come and sell their work. We have, of course, [Iraqi painter] Saad Hindal, who is a gem in our community. He will be selling his paintings. We also have other artist-vendors who will be selling their handmade products — either handmade, specific cultural products or immigrant-owned creative businesses.”

Concord Multicultural Festival
When: Sunday, Sept. 20, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Keach Park in Concord Heights
More: concordnhmulticulturalfestival.org

Featured photo: Multicultural Festival. Courtesy photo.

A is for Apple

An alphabetical look at the tasty fall foods of nh

Fall is a great time for food in New Hampshire. With so many tasty things to eat this season, we decided to take an A to Z tour of some of autumn’s delights, both traditional and unexpected.

A is for Apples

“It seems like anything with a ‘crisp’ in it is hot right now,” Cameron Hardy said. Hardy is the owner of Brookdale Fruit Farms in Hollis. He said apple enthusiasts are constantly on the lookout for new varieties of apples, and this is the best time of the year to search them out. “People like to try different ones,” he said. “Evercrisp, for example, is a cross between a Honeycrisp and a Fuji. You get some of the strengths from both apples. But just being able to get out with the family and actually pick from the tree is a great experience. We’re always trying to stay ahead of the time. You can’t pivot overnight into new varieties, so a lot of it takes a couple years of planning until [our trees] are fruit bearing, and then we can open them to the public. [We have] Cosmic Crisp, Crimson Crisp, Evercrisp, and that Ludacrisp actually has a juicy fruit-style, like the gum flavor to it. It’s got really cool pineapple, red grape, strawberry tones in it. It’s a cool tasting apple.”

Brookdale Fruit Farm (41 Broad St., Hollis, 465-2240, brookdalefruitfarm.com)

B is for Beaujolais Nouveau

“The French label their wines by the region [where they are made] as opposed to the variety of grape,” said Emma Stetson, the owner of Wine on Main in Concord. “Beaujolais is a region famous for red gamay wines.” She noted that every year Beaujolais fans eagerly wait for something called “Beaujolais Nouveau,” which has not been aged. “It’s completely fresh and untouched,” she said. “They harvest the grapes, bottle it right away and send it out so it’s very fruit-forward and fresh and it’s meant to be the debut of the vintage. It’s a big deal; everybody waits for it to come out the third week of November.”

Wine on Main (9 N. Main St., Concord, 897-5828, wineonmainnh.com)

Each year the Franco-American Centre holds a formal gala to celebrate the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau. John Tousignant, the Centre’s executive director, said Beaujolais is a good way to celebrate New Hampshire’s French heritage. “France has a long history with wine as an integral part of the culture,” he said, “and this provides an opportunity to celebrate the culture through a gala evening of wine and fine food.”

The 2026 Beaujolais Nouveau Gala will take place on Saturday, Nov. 21, from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., at the Stonebridge Country Club in Goffstown. Visit facnh.com/event-details/2026-beaujolais-nouveau-benefit-gala.

C is for Conchas

Sept. 16 is Mexican Independence Day, and according to Socorro Gonzalez, the owner of the Tex Mex Bakery in Nashua, there is probably no food more Mexican than conchas, a sweet, round bread served at breakfast throughout Mexico. “It has to be on the table every morning,” she said. “Everyone expects it. I made some conchas two weeks ago for a wedding. So instead of cake they made the centerpieces with conchas.” It made everybody think of home, she said.

Tex Mex Bakery (92 W. Pearl St., Nashua, 417-6857, facebook.com/texmexbakerynh)

D is for cider Doughnuts

Cider doughnuts are as much a part of apple season as apples themselves. Samantha Pitarys from Sunnycrest Farm in Londonderry said most customers see them as an essential part of visiting the orchard each fall. “It’s actually a popular item for us all year long,” she said. “We run them hot, especially during apple picking season, Saturday and Sunday, if we have enough staff. We offer them warm in the morning and then we also bake enough off to let them cool and wrap … to have in the store.” She said the farm’s fresh cider makes their doughnuts a step above traditional cake doughnuts. “We use apple cider for a nice batter with cinnamon and different sugars…”

Sunnycrest Farm (59 High Range Road, Londonderry, 432-7753, sunnycrestfarmnh.com)

E is for Espresso

There is a particular breed of coffee enthusiasts who wait impatiently all year for pumpkin spice season. According to Rachel Ormond, the owner of The Cure Cafe in New Boston, pumpkin spice is the tip of the fall coffee drink iceberg. “Right now we have a sea salt maple latte, which is espresso brewed over sea salt, and then we have a maple cold-foam made with pure maple syrup, and then we have a pumpkin cream cold brew, which is a cold brew with a cold foam that has pumpkin, vanilla, and cinnamon on top. Our core flavors are pumpkin spice, pumpkin pie, brown butter toffee, and caramel apple butter, but we will be playing with those flavors and doing different variations. People get the most excited about the fall flavors, because it’s kind of like a new chapter is coming, which I think makes people really happy.”

The Cure Cafe (8 Mill St., New Boston, 741-5016, curellc.toast.site)

F is for Fried Fair Food

Matt Reed is one of the brothers who run Brothers Concessions. They sell the fair-food-iest of fair foods at county and state fairs in the area. Reed said fried Oreos might be nature’s most perfect food. “I’ve been frying Oreos for almost 25 years now,” he said, “and I think that if you’re going to the Fair you’re not going to get kale or salad. And fried Oreos are so delicious. We [fry] double stuffed Oreos — we figure it’s cheating if you’re not going to go all the way.” But fried Oreos are just the beginning, Reed said. “We specialize in fried novelties. So we do fried Oreos, but we do Twinkies, which is my personal favorite, fried ice cream, funnel cakes for the faint at heart, and fried PBJ sandwiches.” That’s before he and his brother even start in on frying candy bars.

Brothers Concessions will be at this year’s Deerfield Fair at the Deerfield Fair Grounds, 34 Stage Road, Deerfield, Thursday, Oct. 1, through Sunday, Oct. 4, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., except on Sunday, when the Fair will close at 7 p.m.

G is for Grilled steak tips

We think of grilling as a summer activity, but according to Taylor Iantile from The Steak Out Butcher Shop this is the time of the year when serious backyard grillers start playing with adventurous flavors. “Our peach-bourbon steak tips started as a kind of an experiment,” he said. “We used that originally on our chicken, and now it’s one of our main originals. It really just takes off this time of year. We blend up the peaches fresh and then we use mixtures of our barbecue sauces. It’s definitely a good early fall way to cook steak; it caramelizes really well on the grill.”

The Steak Out (118 Daniel Plummer Road, Goffstown, 518-8965, facebook.com/TheSteakOut2)

H is for Hard cider

From colonial times until Prohibition in the 1930s, hard cider was the drink of the people in New England. It has seen a huge resurgence over the past 20 years. Gould Hill Farm in Contoocook is one of the new wave of cideries in New Hampshire. Tim Basset, the owner of Gould Hill Farm, wrote in an email that using the farm’s own apples allows him to customize each batch. “Our cider is made in small batches so we can get great flavors. We have some single varietals made from just one type of apple and some great heirloom ciders, which have unique tastes.”

Gould Hill Farm (656 Gould Hill Road, Contoocook, 746-3811, gouldhillfarm.com)

I is for pumpkin Ice Cream

“We’ve already started serving our fall flavors,” said Keely Gallagher of Richardson Farm Ice Cream in Boscawen. This year we have Apple Crisp, Cranberry Harvest, Pumpkin, and Pumkin-Oreo. We’ll keep those until as close to Thanksgiving as possible.”

Richardson Farm (170 Water St., Boscawen, 796-2788)

J is for Jalapeño cheddar grilled cheese sandwiches

Peter Kress, the owner of and head cheese-maker at Swallow Ridge Farm in New Boston, said a really good cheddar cheese with jalapeños is ideally suited to a grilled cheese sandwich. “It adds a major flavor to the grilled cheese,” he said. “Our cheddar cheese melts very nicely and then the peppers add a nice little spice to it when you’re eating it. Most cheddars made with jalapeños are a jack-type cheese. We like doing it with cheddar because we feel that the cheddar mellows out the spiciness of the jalapeño. A lot of people like our jalapeño cheddar because it’s not biting; there’s no big spice surprise there. Both flavors mellow each other out, which makes for a really nice, smooth, nice melting cheese.”

Swallow Ridge Farm (170 South Hill Road, New Boston, 325-0477, swallowridgefarm.com)

K is for Kimbap and Kimchee

Susan Chung owns 603 Meal Prep and does the hard part of cooking Korean dishes for her customers. “Kimbap and kimchi are available,” she said. “Every Wednesday afternoon. I actually have a Kimbap VIP list that I keep. Every Tuesday or Wednesday morning I send out a group text of everyone included on the list, and they can pick up their kimbap every Wednesday afternoon. We also source a cucumber kimchi that is available.”

603 Meal Prep (603mealprep.com)

L is for Loukoumades

One of the most popular foods at any Greek food festival is loukoumades. “They are little fried dough balls that everybody waits in line for,” George Skaperdas, the organizer of the Glendi Food Festival. They are a dish that Greek families don’t usually make at home, so everybody looks forward to them at festivals, he said. “They are a lot of hard work, but so fun! They are similar to a fried dough ball with different toppings — honey, syrup, cinnamon, powdered sugar. They’re probably an inch in diameter, 2 inches in diameter. They are served warm, of course. Everybody loves their warm apple cider doughnuts, but you haven’t lived until you’ve had warm loukoumades. You could call them the nectar of the gods, and I won’t disagree with you.”

Glendi, the annual celebration of Greek food and culture at St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral (650 Hanover St., Manchester, stgeorgenh.org/activities/glendi, 622-9113), will run Friday, Sept. 18, through Sunday, Sept. 20, and will be open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.

M is for Mongolian

Sophia Ruiz is a bartender at 815 Cocktails & Provisions in Manchester, where the bar staff is encouraged to add new drinks to its menu, if they have been carefully thought out. She began by filling a cocktail shaker with ice. “This is a housemade rhubarb vodka,” she said, measuring and pouring a bright red spirit into the shaker. “We probably won’t make it again this year,” she said, “so I wanted to make the most of it…. Now, this also gets our homemade coconut milk cream, which gives this a slight play on a White Russian. So it has the rhubarb vodka, vanilla, a little bit of Baileys, the cream of coconut, and a float of chai tea.” She briefly shook the mixture in her cocktail shaker, then strained it into a rocks glass with one very large ice cube, and drizzled the chai over the back of a spoon, to float in a layer at the top of the cocktail. She garnished it with a cinnamon stick and a slice of lemon peel. “Originally, my first few versions of this had lemon juice,” she said, “which tasted delicious but made the coconut cream clump up, which is why the Baileys is here.”

“Anyway,” Ruiz said, presenting her fall cocktail with a flourish, “I call this The Mongolian.”

815 Cocktails & Provisions (815 Elm St., Manchester, 782-8086, 815nh.com)

N is for NH Pink Boots

On its website, Concord Craft Brewing describes NH Pink Boots as a “Hoppy golden ale” that is “5.2% ABV [Alcohol by Volume], 8 IBU [International Bitterness Units]” and says, “This edition of our rotating hop series is about celebrating women in the craft beer industry. Each year members of the Pink Boots Society work … to put together a special blend of hops.” $3 per pound of hops sold is donated to the Pink Boots Society, the website said. The Pink Boots Society works to “assist, inspire and encourage women and non-binary individuals” in the brewing industry, according to pinkbootssociety.org.

Concord Craft Brewing (117 Storrs St., Concord, 856-7625, concordcraftbrewing.com)

O is for Oktoberfest

Other than coming out in the fall, what makes an Oktoberfest beer different from other beers?

According to Aaron Share, co-owner and head brewer at To Share Brewing in Manchester, “typically, an Oktoberfest beer is either a marzen or a ‘fest’ beer style. It’s just a particular style that is made typically in Munich. They usually brew the beer in the spring and let it lager all year round. [Lagering is the process of storing beer at near-freezing temperatures for several weeks or months after fermentation, to clarify and smooth out its flavor.] And so Oktoberfest is the celebration where they tap that beer. Oktoberfest actually runs through September, not usually in October. When we first opened we weren’t [making] strict lagers. So we did an altbier for our Oktoberfest, and it was so popular that we can’t change that anymore. It’s like a hybrid lager ale. So you use an ale yeast instead of a lager yeast, but you will ferment it like a lager, [at] colder temperatures, and then you let it sit for a lot longer than you would an ale before you package it and release it.”

To Share Brewing (720 Union St., Manchester, 836-6947, tosharebrewing.com) will host its seventh annual Oktoberfest on Saturday, Sept. 26, starting at 1 p.m.

P is for Pot pie

Caroline Arend, the owner of Caroline’s Fine Food and The Pot Pie Bar in Manchester, contends that a pot pie is the perfect fall food. “It’s one dish all composed together,” she said, “and people are back at school, there are activities, people have sports, and a lot of families want to sit down and have a nice meal together. They don’t want to get fast food or takeout, and it’s just like a good family-style hearty homemade comfort food.”

Not surprisingly, Arend recommended serving one of her own pot pies.

“It’s homemade and it’s warm and it’s comforting,” she said. “You just take it from the freezer and put it into the oven. And it’s like having some, you know, your grandma in your kitchen, but she’s not there making your pie.” Everything under the crust is homemade and all natural, she said.

Caroline’s Fine Food (649 Mast Road, Goffstown, 404-6500, carolinesfood.com)

The Pot Pie Bar (649 Mast Road, Manchester, 432-1927, thepotpiebar.com)

Q is for Quinoa, where you least expect it

Caleb Kippin, from Loon Chocolate, described Loon’s Maple Crunch Bar: “It’s a 50 percent milk chocolate, with maple sugar, cinnamon sugar, and puffed quinoa on the back. Most crunch bars will have puffed rice, but we went with the puffed quinoa to avoid some compounds in rice that people might be sensitive to.”

Loon Chocolate (195 McGregor St., No. 121, Manchester, 932-8887, loonchocolate.com)

R is for Ramen

Fall is the start of soup season, and according to Jason Paige, the owner of Go! Go! 88, a ramen food truck, there is no soup more appropriate for fall than ramen. “I would say the fall is the best time just because it’s cooled off and it’s perfect for a blazing hot ramen that’s coming at you. I think most people are just used to having something heartier and something hot as things cool down. I’m totally good with ramen in the summertime too, but especially curries and some of the hotter ramen really fit with the fall vibe and the fall flavors. Right now we’ve got five different ramen, mostly [based] on either miso bases or shoyu. The plan is to have a few core ramen and then test out different [recipes] and rotate them in.”

Go! Go! 88 Ramen (thegogo88.com)

S is for Sweater Weather Pie

According to Lauren Klein, owner of Slightly Crooked Pies in Manchester, her Sweater Weather is the first seasonal pie to make an appearance this year. “It’s actually the first award-winning pie that Slightly Crooked Pies made,” she said. “It is an apple pie with pear in it. And for the spices we keep it really simple with a little bit of cinnamon and just a touch of cardamom. That cardamom gives it a very warm, comforting feeling like you’re being hugged by your piece of pie, but it also, because of its floral notes, brings out the fruitiest fruit quality of the apple and the pears. We also braid the crust top so that it mimics a cable-knit sweater.”

Slightly Crooked Pies (1209 Elm St., Manchester, 661-4575, slightlycrookedpies.com)

T is for chicken Tenders

One of Manchester’s cultural icons is the chicken tender. Residents are so passionately fond of them that in July 2023 Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig officially declared the city the “Chicken Tender Capital of the World.” The New Hampshire Fisher Cats, which wrapped up their season last weekend, fielded teams on Tuesdays throughout baseball season as The Manchester Chicken Tenders, with tender-themed uniforms and even an occasional appearance by a tender-costumed mascot. Chris Jarrod, the broadcast and media manager for the Fisher Cats, said this was a very good year for The Tenders. “This year we added our third different [chicken tender] identity,” he said, “the Manchester Chicken Tenders, the original identity, with the Buffalo Tenders and the Coconut Tenders in our back pocket. The team always loves the Manchester Chicken Tenders jerseys. We wear them every Tuesday for Tender Tuesdays.”

Manchester’s most famous chicken tenders come from the Puritan Backroom Restaurant (245 Hooksett Road, Manchester, 669-6890, puritanbackroom.com), where they were reputedly invented in 1974. Some passionate chicken tender enthusiasts champion the ones from Goldenrod Restaurant (1681 Candia Road, Manchester, 623-9469, goldenrodrestaurant.com).

U is for tropical drinks with

little paper Umbrellas in them, for when you need a return to summer vibes

Mary Beth Carcellino is the owner of CodeX, a speakeasy in Nashua. She has had a rough summer. She said that more than anything she needs a series of tropical cocktails with little paper umbrellas. “Fortunately that’s something we do very well,” she said. “I’d say, for me, an umbrella drink is like vacation or beachside mode. If I see an umbrella, I feel like I am on a tropical vacation. After the summer I’ve had, I need that. If someone tries to talk to me, I can just be like, ‘Hey! I’m on vacation!’”

CodeX B.A.R. (29 Main St., Nashua) specializes in craft cocktails, with or without umbrellas.

V is for Vegan chili on a baked potato

According to Lauren LeFevvre, co-owner of The Potato Concept in Manchester, you’d have to search very carefully to find a better fall food than one of their chili-topped potatoes. “Potatoes are the perfect food year-round,” Lauren said, “but fall is comfort food time and so something hot and something hearty like a baked potato and chili, chock-full of beans and fresh vegetables, made fresh on the daily, is fantastic.We make it in small batches in-house, each morning ” She said they are relatively conservative when it comes to the spiciness of their chili. “We keep it moderately spicy,” she said. “We like it to be palatable for everybody. You can always add spice to your plate, but you can’t necessarily take it away. So it’s like a medium.”

The Potato Concept (119A Hanover St., Manchester, 667-0714, thepotatoconcept.com)

W is for Wienie Weekend

According to Jimmy Purcell of the Candia Road Brewing Co. in Manchester, the staff’s favorite time of the year is Wienie Weekend. “It is a kind of celebration of the release of our Vienna lager,” he said. “We take our food menu away and replace it with 20 to 24 different styles of hot dogs. It’s all kinds of wacky combinations and fun things that you wouldn’t really expect to see on a hot dog. We try to keep it entertaining, interesting, tasty, of course, and it’s always a blast every single year. As of right now, when it will happen is kind of up in the air. We have to wait for the beer to be ready, which takes about eight weeks from starting point.” He said to expect it sometime at the end of October. “We can maybe do like a Halloweenie Weekend if the timing is right, so that gives us another month to brainstorm new hot dogs.”

Candia Road Brewing Co. (840 Candia Road, Manchester, 935-8123, candiaroadbrewingco.com)

X is for eXtra eXtra large

At Sal’s Pizza in Manchester the philosophy is that if you’re going to have a large pizza you should probably go all in. Ed is a shift-leader at Sal’s. “It’s 19 inches [in diameter],” he said. “That can probably feed five or six people, but it depends on how hungry they are. It’s really good; you should try it.”

Sal’s Pizza (296 S. Willow St., Manchester, 623-6565, and 2 Lenox Road, Derry, 425-2626, sals.com)

Y is for Yankee pot roast

At this time of the year, one of the most satisfying memory-laden dishes is an old-fashioned yankee pot roast. On its menu, The Circle Restaurant in Epsom describes its pot roast as “tender, slow-cooked, braised beef.” According to Morgan, from The Circle, “It’s a tender pot roast topped with gravy, and it comes with two sides. It’s really popular.”

Country Cook’n At The Circle Restaurant (935 Suncook Valley Highway South, Epsom, 736-8169, countrycooknrestaurants.com)

Z is for Zinfandel

According to Al Fulchino, owner of Fulchino Vineyard in Hollis, as the weather gets cooler and the food people eat gets heartier, the light white and rosé wines of the summer give way to more full-bodied reds, like zinfandel. “We make three of them, actually,” he said. “Zinfandels are a family tradition. Zinfandel was my grandfather’s favorite wine, so we started with that back in around 1981 or ’82. We make a dry, a semi-dry, and then we do another one that goes through a special aging process and we run it through four different wine barrels to get different characteristics. That one is called Fulcinius, which is just a Latin name from literally 2,000 years ago.” (According to Google Translate, it’s from the Latin term for “forked,” presumably describing particular grapevines.) Fulchino said it is hearty enough to stand up to the flavors of the fall. “It’s perfect for cold weather,” he said, “[with] pasta dishes or veal Parmesan. You know what? You can have it with a pizza. We age most of ours on French oak.”

Fulchino Vineyard (187 Pine Hill Road, Hollis, 438-5984, fulchinovineyard.com).

Paris Between the Wars

  • 3/4 ounce Campari
  • 3/4 ounce scotch, or maybe Buchanan’s Pineapple Drink (see below)
  • 1/2 ounce simple syrup
  • 1/2 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 ounce super-sparkling wine, like prosecco, to top

On the face of it, the recipe is fairly daunting.

For one thing, a lot of scotch drinkers would look at the whole idea of putting Scotch whisky in a cocktail as pretty blasphemous to begin with. Scotch is supposed to stand on its own – maybe with ice. That would be like using, I don’t know, Champagne in a cocktail.

You mean, like a Champagne Cocktail?

Oh, right.

But equal parts scotch and Campari? The bitter, red, Italian liqueur? That seems like a lot of intensity in one place. Sure, there’s simple syrup and lemon juice to drag the mixture back to civilization, but still.

On the other hand, you’ve been looking for something a little outside your comfort zone, and this sounds like it would be far enough outside it to send it a vacation postcard.

So you drop a handful of ice into a mixing glass and add everything but the bubbly. You break out your special long-handled spoon and mix and chill it thoroughly, then strain it into a coupe glass. You top it with an ounce of prosecco.

Wow, that is red. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. “To your very good health.”

Yeah, that’s a choice, right there. It is, as expected, PDB (Pretty Damn Bitter), but nuanced, with a complexity under the bitterness. You can see how this might become somebody’s go-to drink. But golly, that bitterness sure goes on and on, doesn’t it?

So, let’s try this: Set it down on the counter. We can come back to it; it’s not going anywhere. Let’s try swapping out the scotch for something scotch-adjacent. Buchanan’s Pineapple Drink is made from scotch, with a few tropical ingredients added in. Maybe, without the scotch and the Campari ramming into each other like big-horn sheep, this will be a little less bracing.

Let’s try that again.

**Sounds of rinsing mixing glass, the clatter of fresh ice, and a hum of concentration as new Campari, Buchanan’s, lemon juice and simple syrup are poured. The rattle of everything being stirred, the strained. The fizz of the sparkling wine.**

Hmm. That looks very much the same as the first one. Taking a tentative sip.

The first thing you notice is the fizziness on your tongue from the prosecco. And then, yes, this is a little sweeter, slightly fruitier. Less, “I’d like to speak to your manager!” It’s still bitter and red, though. There’s still some complexity there.

And yet.

The first version sits on the counter where you left it, openly mocking you. “Oh, good! I hope you have fun with Little Miss Country Club Over There! Go on! You were made for each other!”

(Of course, it’s bitter. It’s half Campari.)

Sometimes you want a drink that challenges you. On the other hand, sometimes you just want a drink.

And somewhere, a devoted scotch drinker stokes their sense of righteous indignation that you’d put scotch in a cocktail in the first place.

Featured photo. Photo by John Fladd.

Warm spices

Egyptian Food Festival in Nashua

For the past nine years the St. Mary and Archangel Michael Coptic Orthodox Church in Nashua has opened its doors to welcome the community to an Egyptian Food Festival.

“[The Festival] has been growing steadily since we started,” said Kyrillos Gobran, the church’s priest. “It started very small and it started to grow year after year. People would come to try a taste of Egypt. It’s a good family-oriented atmosphere, very safe. People come and enjoy it and look forward to this event year over year.”

Because many cultures around the Mediterranean Sea have similar food traditions, people familiar with Greek cooking will recognize many of the dishes at this Egyptian Festival, Gobran said.

“We usually have like traditional types of food,” he said, “like beef kebab, lamb kebab, chicken kebab [and] kofta. We have shawarma, of course — beef and chicken. We have vegetarian food as well — falafel, and there is an Egyptian famous vegetarian food called kosheri, which has lentils, rice and pasta. And there is fried onion on top, with chickpeas, and a marinated red sauce on top. We have desserts, music, a bazaar as well. We have a church tour where we tell people who we are. Of course, we have a kids’ corner, ice cream, cotton candy, popcorn and different types of things. It will make it very friendly and family-friendly to everyone.”

Gobran said a major difference between Egyptian dishes and similar ones from other countries comes from the way the ingredients are used and the spices they are cooked with.

“Our marination is a little bit different,” he said, “especially for the meat. The falafel itself, whether the base is beans or chickpeas, or peas by itself — it all depends on where was the origin of it and … what’s added to the taste of it plus the marination.”

Egyptian cooking makes use of “warm” spices in savory foods that many Europeans and Americans associate with sweets, Gobran said. “Usually the norm is salt and pepper, but we have a [mixture] with something like seven types of spices, like nutmeg and cinnamon. There’s so many different types of things that we use in there to give it that flavor.”

While one goal of the Food Festival is to introduce Egyptian food and culture to the larger community, Gobran said, for Egyptians like him the sounds and smells are a reminder of home. “One of the things I personally love,” he said, “is the grill. That’s one of my favorites, even in my own home. I usually do a lot of [grilling] just because it brings that memory back of a little taste of Egypt.” He said that in Egyptian culture, both men and women are encouraged to cook. “If [men] like it, if they enjoy it, absolutely, you will find both genders most of the time.” He said that at his church’s festival men tend to be around the flames and smoke of the grill. “For us, the women serve most of the food.” The men, he said, take the flame grilling very seriously.

The Festival will take place at the church, Gobran said. “There are no admission fees. Everybody is welcomed and we are going to be there rain or shine. There is a huge tent that nobody can miss. And if they miss the tent, they won’t miss the smell.”

The 9th Annual Egyptian Food Festival
Where: St. Mary and Archangel Michael Coptic Orthodox Church, 39 Chandler St., Nashua, stmarycoptsnh.org
When: Friday, Sept. 11, from 4 to 9 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 12, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 13, from noon to 6 p.m. Admission is free.

Featured photo: Egyptian Food Festival. Courtesy photo.

Food, beer and games on the beach

Sending off summer with the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival

2026 marks the 37th year the Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce has held the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival. John Nyhan, the president of the Chamber, said that at this point the Festival is an institution.

“It’s an institution, a tradition,” he said. “[We’re] carrying forward for another year, the largest seafood festival in all of New England. Thirty-seven years ago, the Seafood Festival was a very small group of business owners from Hampton Beach [who] decided that they wanted to extend the summer months. So they all got together and created what we now know as the first Seafood Festival, made up of, oh, maybe 20, 25 food vendors. They held it at the state park’s South Beach area, but then soon after that, it got to be big and they wanted to expand not only providing food but entertainment, craft, and special events. So they moved the Seafood Festival to Ocean Boulevard, which is where we have it today, where we take over Ocean Boulevard from H Street all the way up to the Ashworth Hotel. And so this year we have over 40 food booths, we have over 70 crafters selling their products and services, we have live entertainment from noontime on Friday … until six o’clock on Sunday. We’re also known for having the largest beer festival on on a beach in all of New England.”

Each day of the Festival will have special events, Nyhan said.

“We have a food tasting contest on Friday afternoon, Nyhan said. “What we do every year is we give the opportunity for our food vendors to select from six different items what they would like to compete. So, for example there might be four vendors that do some type of chowders. Then we have nine judges [who] judge all the chowders and pick the first-place chowder winner. We do that in six categories. It’s a lot of fun, and they get a ribbon and then they put the ribbon on their food booth during the weekend to show that they have the best chowder or the best lobster roll or the best whatever.”

“We have a special 9/11 event Friday night,” Nyhan continued “which will consist of a number of young men and women [who] have now enlisted into the armed services. They will be all sworn in on a special swearing-in ceremony at 6 o’clock on Friday.”

“And then come Saturday,” Nyhan said, “we have a cornhole contest that’s already been sold out that takes place down at the Beer Tent area during the day. And then we have great fireworks at 8:30 at night.”

On Sunday, Nyhan said, there will be a 5K road race starting at 6 a.m.

“Then in the afternoon at 2 o’clock we have our traditional lobster roll-eating contest, where this year we have contestants competing for the championship.” According to the Festival’s webpage, “Eight contestants take the Seashell Stage Sunday afternoon with one goal: eat as many lobster rolls as possible in 10 minutes.”

Because the Ocean Boulevard area is crowded with seafood and seafood fans for the three days, Nyhan said, the organizers have gotten very good at arranging shuttles from off-site parking areas.

“We have eight, nine different parking lots that we use throughout the entire weekend,” he said. “We are providing shuttle service … each day, starting on Friday at noon and going all the way to 7 o’clock on Sunday. The drivers actually work as volunteers; they don’t get paid. And so it’s a great local community partnership. To be honest with you, if we didn’t have a bus it would be very difficult to have the seafood festival because we would not be able to park 60,000 to 80,000 people along the beach.”

Hampton Beach Seafood Festival
Where: along Oceanside Boulevard in Hampton Beach
When: Friday, Sept. 11, from noon to 9 p.m.; Saturday, Sept. 12, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 13, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets are $17.85 per person per day, or $33.76 for the full three-day festival.
More: seafoodfestivalnh.com

Featured photo: Lobster dinner at Hampton Beach Seafood Festival. Courtesy photos.

The Weekly Dish 26/09/10

• Keep your hands and feet away from his mouth: According to an Aug. 26 press release from the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, “18-time Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Champion Joey Chestnut is headed to Delta Dental Stadium for New Hampshire’s game against the Harrisburg Senators on Thursday, Sept. 10. Fans can purchase a limited quantity of VIP tickets to the meet and greet with Joey Chestnut. VIP tickets start at $75 and include a guaranteed meet and greet with Chestnut, plus a Puritan Backroom chicken tender basket with fries and a 16 oz soda at the game.” Visit gofevo.com/event/Joeychestnutpuritan.

• Bourbon in the Alley: Arts Alley (20 S. Main St., Concord, 406-5666, artsalleyconcordnh.com) will host The Angel’s Share: A Bourbon Tasting Experience on Friday, Sept. 11, from 5 to 8 p.m. Discover standout bourbons from featured distilleries and distributors while enjoying live music, outdoor entertainment and more. General admission tickets are $50, and VIP tickets are $80, through the Arts Alley website.

• Coffee Liqueur dinner party: Join Flag Hill Distillery and Winery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com) Friday, Sept. 11, from 6 to 9 p.m. for a special dinner celebrating the release of its newest spirit, Coffee Liqueur. You’ll have the chance to mingle with fellow wine and spirit enthusiasts as well as meet the distillers who crafted these wines and spirits; sip coffee-inspired cocktails, lounge in vintage seating, have your cards read by Flag Hill’s tarot card reader and savor coffee-inspired dinner bites while enjoying live music. Tickets are $60.43 through the Flag Hill website.

• Able Ebenezer Beer Dinner: Thursday, Sept. 10, from 6 to 9 p.m. The Bedford Village Inn (2 Olde Bedford Way, Bedford, 472-2001, bedfordvillageinn.com) will host an evening celebrating New Hampshire craft beer and exceptional cuisine, the Able Ebenezer Beer Dinner. There will be a cocktail reception with hors d’oeuvres, and a four-course dinner, with each course paired with beers from Able Ebenezer Brewing Co. Tickets are $95++ per person and must be purchased in advance through the BVI website.

• Scales and suds: There will be a Reptile Pop-Up at Feathered Friend Brewing (231 S. Main St., Concord, 715-2347, featheredfriendbrewing.com) Sunday, Sept. 13, from 1 to 3 p.m. Jonesy’s Reptiles will be on hand for a petting zoo pop-up experience. Check out all the reptiles you’ve always wanted to hold, touch or learn about. This event is free. Register online at the Feather Friend website.

• Crime Scene Investigation with beer: On Sunday, Sept. 13, from 4 to 5:30 p.m., To Share Brewing (720 Union St., Manchester, 836-6947, tosharebrewing.com) will host an evening of fingerprinting, just like real CSI — learn how to dust for prints, analyze patterns, and solve mysteries like a real detective while enjoying a pint of To Share’s finest brews. The cost is $33.85.

• Cookbook Club: The Cookbook Club at the Whipple Free Library (67 Mont Vernon Road, New Boston, 487-3391, whipplefreelibrary.org) will meet Wednesday, Sept. 16, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. This month the Club will discuss and sample dishes from My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl. Copies of the cookbook are available for checkout at the Circulation Desk. After perusing the book, register online with the recipe you plan to bring.

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