Author: John Fladd

Ag in the spotlight

Hillsborough County Fair, with a focus on 4-H

The 68th Annual Hillsborough County Agricultural Fair will be held at the New Boston fairgrounds from Friday, Sept. 11, through Sunday, Sept. 13. Like all New Hampshire’s county fairs, it is an agricultural fair, but as Eric McCambly of Hillsborough County 4-H explained, the focus at this particular fair is more on agriculture than at some other, bigger fairs.

“It’s in New Boston,” he said, “which is a rather rural community. It’s a three-day event, whereas some of the other fairs around the state could be five [days] or an entire week long, with more that goes into them. It’s a little bit on a smaller scale.”

While other fairs might feature demolition derbies or classic cars, for instance, the Hillsborough County fair has events like rodeo events, line-dancing demonstrations, and a presentation from New Hampshire Fish and Game on bobcats. For an organization like 4-H, McCambly said, the fair presents an opportunity for members to have their work stand out.

“It’s a prime time for them to showcase their skills,” he said, “and … projects that they’ve been working on throughout the year and … demonstrate that knowledge within their realm of specialties. We are expecting 80 different entries all across the board in dogs, sheep, goats, chickens and poultry, cows, steers, rabbits. This also includes our 4-H exhibit hall, where kids do all kinds of projects. Maybe they did a STEM project for the year, maybe they did an art project that they’d like to show off, and it’s also an opportunity for our 4-H clubs to show the public exactly what they do.” McCambly pointed out that Hillsborough County 4-H sent a robotics team to a world championship in Houston earlier this year.

“Our fair is way more family-oriented than most of them,” said Michelle Tulip, the president of the Fair’s board of directors. “We have something for everyone. We’ve added a whole bunch of new events this year that we hope the families coming in will enjoy. And we are very agriculture-based.”

Tulip said people come to this fair from all walks of life.

“We have fans of all ages, I think, that come out,” Tulip said. “New Hampshire has a lot of fairs and they’re all great, but I think that ours not only attracts a different group of people, people get excited about it because it’s not overwhelming like some of the bigger ones. We don’t have the lines for the rides and the lines to get in the gate like you find at other ones. You can get great food. We have a ton of vendors this year. We do have rides, but not a ton. And there’s just a lot to see and do to keep you busy, but it’s not overwhelming. We do see a lot of repeat people, and we’re working to get a new crowd in, but we try to stay very family-oriented and very agriculture-oriented.”

The Fair’s website lists some events and competitions that will take place over the weekend, including gymkhana (horsemanship), horseshoe throwing, an apple pie contest, baking competitions across multiple categories sponsored by King Arthur Flour (including gluten-free baking), cake decorating, canned, preserved, and pickled goods, arts, crafts, sewing, needlework, quilting, photography and woodworking. As expected at an agricultural fair like Hillsborough County’s, there will be horse, mule and ox pulling. There will be food and craft vendors there as well.

Hillsborough County Agricultural Fair
When: Friday, Sept. 11, from noon to 9 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 12, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 13, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Where: New Boston 4-H Youth Center, 17 Hilldale Lane, New Boston
Admission: $10 for adults and $5 for military members, veterans with ID, and seniors 65+, cash only
More: hcafair.org

Fresh Corn Muffins

  • 1 cup (120 g) all-purpose flour
  • 3 teaspoons (= 1 Tablespoon) baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ cup (1/2 stick) butter
  • ¼ cup (50 g) sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup (227 g) milk
  • 4 cups (112 g) cornflakes
  • 1 cup (160 g) fresh corn kernels – 2 to 3 ears
  • 1 to 2 jalapeño peppers, finely chopped

OK, let’s talk about the jalapeños.

Yes, this is New England, and traditionally people here are nervous about spiciness. The odds are someone in your family is uncomfortable with the idea of putting salt and pepper on their sweet corn. But in the grand scheme of things, let’s face it, a jalapeño is not a life-changingly hot pepper. On top of that, the jalapeños in our supermarkets are especially mild.

Cut one of the peppers in half, then cut a tiny sliver from its side and taste it.

Not terrible, right?

It is? OK, feel free to use a small handful of diced bell pepper instead. It’s better to make a toned-down version of these muffins than to live in fear. (The rest of you, please use the jalapeños.)

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line 12 muffin tins with paper wrappers.

In a small bowl, mix the dry ingredients — the flour, baking powder, and salt. (Sugar behaves strangely and is, for whatever reason, considered a wet ingredient. Even though it’s dry. Because, reasons.)

With your electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together, then beat in the egg. Add the milk and cornflakes, and mix it for another minute or so. Spoon in the dry ingredients, and mix until it all just barely comes together.

With a large spoon or a silicone spatula, stir in the fresh corn and jalapeños.

Divide the batter between the 12 muffin cups, then bake for 25 minutes. Let them cool on the counter in the muffin pan for a few minutes. I’m always a little nervous about “What if these are done on the outside but gloppy in the middle?” Something called carry-over heat will take care of that.

Featured photo. Photo by John Fladd.

From hobby to homestead bakery

Conquered Bread gets creative

The thing about black sesame tomato bread, Alex Brown explained, is that you can’t find it just anywhere.

“To start with, I mill my own flour,” he said. “I mill some durum wheat that I scored in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and some spelt that was grown in western Mass. Then I use tomatoes from a farm up here in Warner called Kearsarge Gore, and they sell at the Concord Farmers Market. Anyway, I’ve gotten pretty friendly with the farmers there, so they gave me a bunch of really fresh tomatoes that couldn’t be sold — just ugly stuff that had been nicked and bumped. So I threw all of those on my grill with a wood fire and I fire-roasted them and simmered them down into a puree, so they were nice and smooth. That ended up being something like 25 percent of the hydration in this bread, and it was finished off with black sesame. I do a lot of that kind of stuff.”

Brown is the baker and owner of Conquered Bread, a from-home bakery in Concord. He said that his bakery started as a hobby that got out of control.

“I’ve been baking bread as a hobby for several years even before Covid,” he said. “But it certainly accelerated during the pandemic, and I got in the habit of bringing bread to friends and coworkers.” Brown said that although people encouraged him to start selling his bread, he wasn’t interested in selling his bread as much as he was in baking it. “But then, a couple of years ago, a colleague suggested the idea of doing like a CSA, where customers would buy a share, kind of a subscription, and pick up what I baked.”

“My original idea was to bake 12 loaves of bread a week and sell it to friends and neighbors. I have pickups and you can sign up for them and pay for the month in advance. But by October of 2024 I had sold out all of my spots through the following February, and at that point I was like, ‘Oh, I’m really sort of onto something here.’ So I bought an oven that’s small by brick and mortar bakery standards but can fit nine to 12 loaves at a time. So now I bake probably close to something like 90 loaves a week”

Brown said most of his bread is fairly conventional, but working at the scale he does gives him some freedom for experimentation.

“I’ve got a few sort of standard rotating loaves and then at least one week of every month,” he said, “sometimes two, I do a special, um, something that’s like baker’s choice — a surprise bread that I develop. I try to be pretty creative. I usually develop recipes around local ingredients that are available”

One of the breads that Brown has been working on for the fall, for instance, he said, will probably combine olives and fresh herbs.

“One of the farms that I’m in touch with grew a bunch of caraway and they’re going to give me some fresh caraway — the herb part of it, not the seed — and so I was thinking about doing a buckwheat hearth bread with caraway. I’ve been sitting on the idea of doing something like a Scandinavian rye. Because rye flour doesn’t have much gluten, in Europe it comes in a square loaf. It’s baked like that because it can’t sit up and support itself because there’s no gluten. So it has to be baked in a pan. And Scandinavian rye is usually baked with seeds and some other whole grains. They’re dense and super-nutritious.”

“The last thing that I’ve been thinking of,” Brown said, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to squeeze it in this season, but I’ve made a Normandy bread, Pom Normand, which is a French apple bread from the Normandy region. Once we get apples on the trees, that will be sort of a no-brainer.”

Conquered Bread
Conquered Bread (19 Laurel St., Concord, conqueredbread.com) is sold by subscription and can also be purchased at the Concord Food Co-op (24 S. Main St., 225-6840, concordfoodcoop.com) and Revelstoke Coffee (100 N. Main St., Concord, 715-5821, revelstokecoffee.com).

Featured photo: Roasted Tomato Durum. Photo by Conquered Bread.

The Weekly Dish 26/09/03

• Farmers market: The Pittsfield Farmers Market will run this Saturday, Sept. 5, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parking lot of Local, 1009 Upper City Road in Pittsfield, according to an organizer email. See facebook.com/sugarslocal for updates.

• New hours on the roof: According to an Aug. 25 press release, Rooftop Social (20 S. Main St., Concord, 406-5666, artsalleyconcordnh.com/portfolio/rooftop-social), the lounge atop Arts Alley in Concord, has changed its fall hours. Starting Sept. 1 it will be open Wednesday through Friday from 4 to 9 p.m., Saturday from noon to 8 p.m., and closed Sunday through Tuesday.

• When the bao breaks…: There will be a Bao Bun Making class for kids 12+ at The Culinary Playground (16 Manning St., Derry, 339-1664, culinary-playground.com) Saturday, Sept. 5, from 4 to 6 p.m. Kids will make fresh steamed bao buns to fill with garlic honey shredded chicken and a tangy slaw, then sit together and eat them. The cost is $60 per student through the Culinary Playground website.

• Sourdough 101: Tuscan Market (Tuscan Village, 9 Via Toscana, Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) has a class for the sourdough-curious. This beginners class, Wednesday, Sept. 9, from 5 to 7 p.m. is mostly a demonstration and instruction class walking you through the steps of making sour dough. The instructor will have each stage of the dough in class and bake off a loaf for tasting. You will leave with a starter and recipes to begin your journey. The cost is $60 per student through the Tuscan Brands website.

• Charcuterie and wine: There will be a Charcuterie Workshop and Wine Tasting with The Funky Squid, Wednesday, Sept. 9, at Wine on Main (9 N. Main St., Concord, 897-5828, wineonmainnh.com), from 6 to 8 p.m. Learn techniques to build your own charcuterie arrangement using fresh ingredients while enjoying a wine tasting. Tickets are $71.21 through the Wine on Main website.

• Wine and popcorn are secretly best friends: Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com) is offering Wine and Kettlecorn pairings Wednesdays through Sundays in September and October. The rich, fancy flavors of popcorn complement the nuanced flavors of the wine, creating a unique and satisfying experience. Combine gluten-free, kosher, non-GMO popcorn with Averill House’s artisanal wines. You select the wine and your associate will pair the perfect popcorn pairing. The cost is $22.53 per person.

Ride rides, cheer contests

Hopkinton State Fair offers fair season excitement

The Hopkinton State Fair kicks off this year’s fall fair season. It begins Thursday, Sept. 3, and runs through Monday, Sept. 7. Agricultural fairs like Hopkinton’s bring very different experiences to different fair-goers.

Yes, there are rides, and vendors, and people selling fair food that most of us only eat once per year — fried dough, fried Oreos, giant bowls of french fries, and every type of doughnut or apple product one can imagine. There are neon-colored T-shirts, and replica swords, and just about any handcrafted item made of wood, leather, or 3-D printed plastic that the mind can conceive. And this year, according to the Fair’s website, hsfair.org, there will be more than 25 rides, with names like Vertigo, Viper and Crazy Bus.

But for some fair-goers the State Fair represents the culmination of a year’s worth of effort. It is an agricultural fair. Professionals and hobbyists spend months preparing to show their prize sheep or blueberry pie or giant pumpkin and compete against their peers to see who really has game. According to the Fair website, this year’s livestock shows will include competitors of different ages and in different categories showing, among other farm animals, beef cattle, dairy cattle, dairy goats, draft horses, oxen, sheep, swine and working steers.

Presumably these contests will judge individual animals’ physical characteristics, calmness and show-worthiness. But there will be pulling competitions for horses, oxen and, most intriguingly, ponies. Some of the horse and oxen teams will pull more than 3,000 pounds at the top levels.

The Farmers Market Building will show off ribbon-winning agricultural products, including flowers, vegetables, maple products, honey, dairy products and even Christmas trees and wreaths. And in the Grange Hall are the giant pumpkins.

For more action-oriented fair-goers, the real action is at the Grand State Events — traditional events like tractor pulls and demolition derbies, and less traditional competitions, like a Battle of the Bands, and Lawn Mower Racing.

Tom Sheehan is the Vice President of the New England Lawn Mower Racing Association, which has organized this weekend’s lawn mower races. In a phone interview with the Hippo, he stressed that all competitors race actual riding lawn mowers: “We race lawnmowers that you drive, that you’d mow your lawn with. We take off the blades and we race them at fairgrounds. There are seven to eight different classes depending on engine size.” He said that although there are categories for stock and modified mowers “they have to have the appearance of a lawn mower. You cannot modify the whole thing; it cannot be a go-kart, nothing like that, just a regular lawn mower.”

Lower octane but just as exciting will be the Infield Events. According to the Fair’s website, these include dog frisbee, the Axe Women Loggers of Maine, dock-diving dogs, live chainsaw art, animal adoption, and the Bay State Bandits, a live show featuring gunfighting on horseback.

For families, a high point of the State Fair is the petting zoo run by Charmingfare Farm. The Fair’s website says to expect the usual sheep, goats and rabbits but also cows, llamas, alpacas, pigs, ducks and chickens.

John Pyteraf from Charmingfare Farm told the Hippo that the animals in the petting zoo are professionals.

“The animals are very friendly,” he said. “They’re used to it because it’s similar to the setup we have at the farm itself. We duplicate it here at the fairgrounds. We are USDA licensed under the Animal Welfare Act, and there is a rest area for the animals where they can move away from the public if they want to hang out and chill and not be bothered.”

The Hopkinton State Fair
When: Thursday, Sept. 3, from 5 to 10 p.m., Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Monday, Sept. 7, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
More: Visit hsfair.org. Ticket information is available at hsfair.org/buy-tickets.

Classic!

Manchester sends off summer with Cruising Downtown

According to Brad Fournier, this weekend’s Cruising Downtown event is New England’s biggest classic car show.

“It really is,” he said. “It’s just one big, huge car show with vendors and food trucks and music and families.”

The Manchester Rotary Club is the main sponsor of Cruising Downtown, and Fournier is the organizer.

“There will be classic cars,” he said, “muscle cars, import cars — sometimes even exotic cars; you get a handful of those.” It’s an opportunity, he said, for car people to spend the day surrounded by what they love and talking with other car people about their passion for old cars.

“That’s what makes it pretty awesome,” Bournier said. “It’s a pretty rare occurrence where you get a certain ambience, and you put a bunch of cars in the street, and you shut the streets down, and you allow everybody to be very passionate about their cars. They always have a story whether it be about their first car or the car that their father left behind and, you know, they restored it. There was one gentleman who had a car that he was doing like a father-son project and then unfortunately his wife passed away and before she passed she made them promise that they would get the car finished and enjoy it. So [when they were done] he had an airbrushed mural of her on the inside of the hood. And so that way it’s a tribute to her. When he pops the hood, you can see her painting on the inside of the car.”

“You’d be surprised how many different stories there are,” Bournier continued. “People say money isn’t everything, and this is one of those rare occurrences where that’s true. Because people will put thousands and thousands of dollars into these cars just because of what they mean to them.”

Cruising Downtown starts early, Bournier said. “For me, it goes all day, but the actual show cars registration starts sometime around 6 a.m., but cars will start showing up hours before that. We don’t let the show cars onto Elm Street until probably about 7:30-ish in the morning, and then that’s that, and that’s as the vendors are getting finished setting up before the actual show for spectators, but then it goes from 8 or 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon when it kind of wraps up.”

The goal, Bournier said, is to bring people together to raise money for area charities. “Mostly what we [at Manchester Rotary] target is the charities for families. We used to target just the youth, the children, but now we look to help any charity that benefits families … there’s Friends of Aine — that’s kids that have lost a parent or grieving children who have lost a sibling and don’t know how to process their feelings. They have a great program that helps families. We [Manchester Rotary] donate money back to them. Any charity that reaches out to us,if they are ones that help families in the surrounding areas, odds are we’re going to donate to them; we’re going to put this money back in.”

25th Annual Cruising Downtown
Where: Elm Street in Manchester
When: Saturday, Sept. 5. Car registration begins at 6:30 a.m.
More: cruisingdowntownnh.com.

Stay in the loop!

Get FREE weekly briefs on local food, music,

arts, and more across southern New Hampshire!