Author: John Fladd

News from the local food scene

• Kofta and cocktails: A new Mediterranean restaurant and craft cocktail lounge has opened in Salem. Beiruti Mediterranean Restaurant at 355 S. Broadway (870-0045, beirutiresto.com) had its grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this month. According to its website, the restaurant will provide “a welcoming family atmosphere, while serving authentic Mediterranean comfort foods and classic craft cocktails.” The menu is devoted primarily to Lebanese and Greek dishes. It is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

• Deeply discounted birthday libations: To celebrate their 90th anniversary, New Hampshire State Liquor and Wine Outlets (liquorandwineoutlets.com) will offer a discount of 18.66 percent on most alcohol until Sept. 29, triple the average tax rate on liquor in neighboring states. “We’re proud of the fact that New Hampshire is sales tax-free and want to remind our customers, especially those in neighboring states, about this benefit,” a Sept. 3 press release from the Liquor Commission quoted NHLC Chairman Joseph Mollica. Visit the Liquor and Wine Outlet website for details.

• Feeling cordial: Bedrock Gardens (19 High Road, Lee, 659-2993, bedrockgardens.org) will host a class called “The Art of Making Cordials and Liqueurs” led by Bedrock Garden’s Executive Director and author of The Heirloom Gardener, Jon Forti. Cordials and liqueurs are often used to mix flavors, stimulate the appetite and create a relaxed and “cordial” mood for social occasions. The class is limited to 15 people — adults only. Each ticket includes a day pass to Bedrock Gardens that day. Tickets are $60 for Bedrock members, and $65 on eventbrite.com for nonmembers. Visit eventbrite.com.

• A beer-forward block party: Derry After Dark (cask.life/derry-after-dark), an annual event described on its website as “a block party with 1,800 of your closest friends and neighbors, complete with craft beverage samples, local eateries and music,” will return to Derry on Saturday, Sept. 21, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Cask & Vine (1 E. Broadway, Derry, 965-3454, cask.life/cask-and-vine) will host the event, supported by more than a dozen sponsoring businesses. While event coordinators work closely with town departments to create a safe and fun event, it is not put on by the town of Derry. All fire and police details are paid for by the event. Both GA and VIP tickets provide access to craft beverage samples being offered by more than 40 breweries. Tickets are $15 for designated drivers, $40 for general admission, and $60 for VIP admission.

• A match made in Salem (and Bedford): Copper Door (15 Leavy Drive, Bedford, 488-2677, and 41 S. Broadway, Salem, 458-2033, copperdoor.com) will host aSeptember Fall Harvest Wine Dinner as part of its Forks & Corks Dinner Series. The five-course dinner will include Thai dumplings, grilled prawns and pork tenderloin, all paired with companion wines. The dinner will begin with a 6 p.m. reception and a 6:30 p.m. seating for the first course. The dinner will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 24, in Salem, and Wednesday, Sept. 25, at the Bedford location. Tickets are $95 each through Copper Door’s website. Tickets must be purchased online and are non-refundable.

Enjoy a world of eats at Nashua’s Multicultural Festival

Nashua is one of the most diverse cities in New Hampshire. According to Data USA (datausa.io), 13 percent of Nashua’s population is Hispanic, and 15 percent were born outside the United States. Seven percent of Nashuans are Asian, two percent identify as Black, and another four percent are multiracial.

This year’s annual Nashua Multicultural Festival, on Saturday, Sept. 14, will be a celebration of food, art, dance and more, from some of Nashua’s many cultures. Jasmine Allen is part of the Festival’s planning committee and is in charge of outreach and social media for it.

“Nashua is considered a Welcoming City,” Allen said, “and we are planning the Multicultural Festival around the National Welcoming Week as a city that is welcoming to all diversity and cultures. And so we’ll be having a flag parade, we’ll be having some wonderful cultural dances and poetry — things like that. So just a fun mix of great stuff.”

One of the best gateways to learning about other cultures is through their foods. One of the focuses of this weekend’s Festival is food that many people in New Hampshire are likely unfamiliar with. Soel Sistas Soul Food (30 Temple St, Suite 202, Nashua, 943-1469, soelsistas.com) will be providing some of the food. “They do mostly soul food, things like chicken and collard greens, things like that,” Allen said.

Iraida Muñoz is the lead for the Multicultural Festival, the chair committee, and Equity Officer for the Division of Public Health and Community Services in Nashua. She is very excited about this weekend’s food, particularly from Soel Sistas.

“Of course, we’re going to have Soel Sistas,” Muñoz said excitedly. “She is planning to bring some Hispanic food that is going to be a surprise for us. But she’s very well-known in the city by her mac & cheeses, which are quite good. People love it. [Another restaurant] is going to be Sabor Brasil. Their specialty is obviously some red meat, some chicken as well, and they are planning to bring some pasta, some salad and some appetizers. And they are going to do like sample sizes, so people can enjoy all of them in a very affordable way. So that’s one of the things that we are focusing on — affordability, so people will have options from very affordable food to a little more on the expensive side.”

Another vendor that Muñoz is excited about is Empanellie’s. “This is a couple,” she said. “They do cook Hispanic food, obviously, especially empanadas. Their empanadas are very well-known in this area and they have more than 15 kinds. They are also bringing the typical Hispanic food like rice and beans. So it’s going to be Puerto Rican style and Colombia style that they are bringing to the table.”

A wide variety of drinks will be available, from horchata (a Latin American rice drink) to Asian fruit teas and juices. Muñoz emphasized that there will not be any alcohol served at the Festival. “This is a family-friendly event,” she said. But there will be beverages from Gong Cha, a Taiwanese-style beverage shop. “They have green tea, black tea, watermelon, winter melon, Muñoz said. “They have some based in cream, so the creme brulee, and brown sugar milk tea is very popular. And those kinds of drinks, people love it. They sold out last time and they are looking forward to coming back.”

Jasmine Allen said the breadth of types of food at the Festival is symbolic of a major cultural change that New Hampshire, and Nashua in particular, is going through. “I literally feel like New Hampshire is going through a renaissance period,” she said. “It’s very exciting.”

Nashua Multicultural Festival
When: Saturday, Sept. 14, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Nashua Public Library (2 Court St., Nashua) and Library parking lot. Festival parking is available at any City lot.
Footage from last year’s Festival can be viewed on YouTube, under the heading “Nashua Multicultural Festival 2023”

Planteray Rum, rebranded from Plantation Rum and owned by Cognac Ferrand, If you ask people about their banana preference, they will probably back slowly away from you and make excuses about forgetting their children at day care. But suppose you are in an elevator or something, and they can’t get away easily. Put on the spot, most Americans will tell you that they like their bananas very yellow, with no soft or brown spots on them — maybe even a little bit green along the stem.

Which is a little strange when you think about it — though, in fairness, not any stranger than asking people about bananas in the elevator — because solid yellow, firm bananas don’t taste particularly banana-y. And they hurt the roof of your mouth a little. Bananas are at their most flavorful when they are covered with freckles over about half the surface of their peels.

Because most shoppers like their bananas barely ripe, it can be difficult to find truly ripe, sweet, banana-y bananas in the supermarket. True, you could just buy some not-quite-ready bananas and leave them on your counter until they are truly ripe, but bananas are extremely sensitive emotionally and don’t deal well with this type of aloofness on your part.

After living in an area for a while, most of us discover the best places to buy particular foods – the best place for fresh rhubarb, for instance, is in the grocery department of a big box store that rhymes with “Glooper Ball Cart.” The best place to find truly ripe, ready to eat bananas is in front of the cash register at a convenience store, where they are optimistically placed for hurried shoppers to grab a healthy snack on the run.

True, they start out the week firm, yellow, and full of joie de vivre, but by Thursday or Friday they have been completely devastated emotionally and are freckly and pitifully eager to go home with you to bake. Reassure them that they are safe with you now and that everything will be alright. It won’t be, of course; this is a lie to lull the bananas into a false sense of security, but it will make the experience less traumatic in the short-term for everybody involved.

Banana Pudding Cookies

Dry ingredients:

2 cups (240 g) all-purpose flour

3.4-ounce box of instant banana pudding mix

1¼ teaspoons coarse sea salt

¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

Wet ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

1 cup (213 g) brown sugar

1 egg yolk

1 large, very ripe banana

1½ teaspoons crème de banana, or vanilla

Stir-In ingredients:

24 Nilla Wafer cookies, broken into ¼- to ½-inch pieces

¾ cup (128 g) peanut butter baking chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium-sized mixing bowl.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. One at a time, beat in each of the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients, and stir until just combined.

By hand, mix in the cookie pieces and peanut butter chips.

Spoon out six cookies, about 2 tablespoons each, onto each baking sheet. Chill the remaining cookie dough in the refrigerator.

Wish the cookies Godspeed, and bake for seven minutes, then switch and rotate the pans, and bake for another seven minutes. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool.

Repeat with the remainder of the dough, for a total of two dozen cookies.

Your convenience store banana’s Last Grand Gesture was not in vain. These are solidly banana-y cookies, crispy along the edges and chewy in the middle, with random crunchiness from the Nilla Wafers, and random pops of salt. They are outstanding with vanilla ice cream.

Featured Photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Greek food worth the wait

By John Fladd
jfladd@hippopress.com

If you wanted to throw a world-class Greek food and culture festival, you’d need to start with a ton and a half of lamb shanks, half a dozen giant gale-proof tents, and an army of steely-eyed church ladies.

George Skaperdas is the President of the board of directors at Saint George’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral (650 Hanover St., Manchester, 622-9113, stgeorgenh.org) and the Chairman of Glendi, Manchester’s largest food and culture festival. He is in charge of everything from renting tents and arranging permits to ordering a seriously gigantic amount of fresh lamb. He said that even in Glendi’s 45th year it remains a logistical challenge.

“The planning for this really starts in February,” Skaperdas said, “even though we laugh and say it starts the Monday after Glendi’s over, with getting the permits, making sure we got the insurance, reserving the tents, the porta-potties, all of that. And then starts the real nitty-gritty. What do we have to order for supplies and all that? Some of the cooking starts taking place in the middle of summer so we can freeze it, and then it’s not completely cooked through. The lamb shanks start being cooked Thursday before Glendi and we start braising them at 5:30 in the morning on Friday morning so they’re ready for everybody to go, for everybody to have their lamb shanks.”

The amount of food to prepare for Glendi is staggering.

“We’ve got almost 2,500 pounds of lamb shanks,” Skaperdas said, “almost 1,700 pounds of lamb kabobs. I don’t even know how many pounds of chicken — you know, the half chicken, the marinated chicken that we do? There’s 200 spanakopitas [Greek spinach and feta pastries], thousands of meatballs, stuffed grape leaves, and stuffed peppers. It’s just astounding how much food we go through.” After a moment of thought, he clarified that by 200 spanakopitas, he meant 200 18- by 26-inch sheet pans of spanakopitas.

Glendi has been a fixture of Manchester’s culture since 1980.

“Before that, it was just a little harvest bazaar,” Skaterdas remembered. “It was done for the church, and [we’d] make a few dollars here and there to help with whatever ministries and things that the church needed. Then all of a sudden, it just started growing. So in 1980, the decision was made to have Glendi — Glendi means a good time — and it’s just grown leaps and bounds. The city of Manchester expects us to have Glendi now, and it’s a great time for everybody, just good food and great times. And an awful lot of work.”

In this year’s official program, Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais called Glendi “legendary” and wrote that it is an excellent representation of the city’s Greek population: “The Greek community has a proud, prominent heritage here in Manchester and Glendi is the perfect showcase for Hellenic culture.”

Gov. Sununu was also effusive. “St. George’s is known far and wide for the pride it takes in Greek heritage and the hospitality that the parish shows to all who visit,” he wrote. “Throughout the years, the members of St. George’s have treated my family with incredible kindness, and I thank them for always making us feel so welcome.”

Of course, there are many people who come to Glendi every year for Greek music or dance, or crafts, but essentially there are two main camps of Glendi fans: the pastry enthusiasts, and the lamb buffs.

The most popular pastries, especially with children, are loukoumades: hot, fried dough balls that are soaked in syrup and covered with cinnamon and powdered sugar. Other popular cookies and pastries include kataifi(shredded phyllo dough mixed with walnuts and syrup), koulourakia (sweet butter cookies), finikia (honey-dipped walnut cookies) and at least two varieties of baklava. Skaperdas’ favorite is a dessert called galaktoboureko. “It is layers of phyllo with like a custard in between, just, it’s like heaven on earth, that stuff,” he said dreamily.

In the other camp are Glendi attendees who wait all year for the lamb.

How tender or tough a cut of meat is is determined by how much an animal exercised it before making its last great sacrifice. Tenderloin, for example, is a cut of meat that comes from the center of an animal, and because it has never had to work very hard it is extremely tender. One of the hardest-working muscles in many animals is the shank — the muscles around the shin bone. Lamb shanks are one of the most eagerly awaited dishes at Glendi, but to make them moist and tender, they must be cooked “low and slow” for 12 or more hours. “It takes more than a couple of hours to make sure that they’re nice and soft and tender,” Skaterdas said. The shanks are braised in Pappou’s sauce. “You know, ‘Pappou’ means grandfather in Greek. Every grandfather has his secret recipe for a sauce and all that and the different spices that go into it.” By the time the shanks are served, they are fall-off-the-bone tender.

The lamb kabobs and chicken are grilled over charcoal.

“I don’t know what the exact number is,” Skaterdas said, “but I think that we can have 16 skewers [of lamb] per machine. And there’s two machines, where you stack all the charcoal in the middle and it rotates the skewers around so it’s getting a nice even cook on it. The pit guys just do an amazing job marinating them and having them ready to go. It is pumping out food and the kitchen is pumping out food. Every once in a while we get behind. But we’re very fortunate that people are patient. Sometimes they’re waiting in line up to 45 minutes to get into the food tent to get food. But it’s worth it; the food is worth it.”

Glendi
When: Friday, Sept. 13, and Saturday, Sept. 14, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 15, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Food service will end at 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Where: Saint George’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 650 Hanover St., Manchester
Additional parking will be available beginning at 5 p.m. Friday at the McDonough School near Derryfield Park, with free shuttle service to the Festival.
Glendi will be held rain or shine.
More: stgeorgenh.org

News from the local food scene

• New tiki bar: What The Pho! (836 Elm St. in Manchester), described on its website whatthephorestaurant.com as an “Asian Noodle Bar & Bamboo Tiki Bar,” had its ribbon-cutting ceremony Aug. 16. The food has an East Asian focus, including pho (a spicy Vietnamese noodle soup), noodle bowls, rice bowls and banh mi sandwiches. Beverages include tiki drinks, specialty craft cocktails, local craft beer and wine. Reservations and takeout orders can be placed over the phone; online ordering will be available soon, according to the website.

• Oktoberfest: To Share Brewing (720 Union St, Manchester, 836-6947, tosharebrewing.com) will hold its annual Oktoberfest Saturday, Sept. 14, from 1 to 9 p.m. Celebrate the release of To Share’s October Altbier, with special food, branded dimpled mugs and draft specials, a stein-holding competition and more.

• Ice cream and the arts: The Friends of the Audi will host their 34th annual season-opening Gala, Arts Fair and Ice Cream Social, Sunday, Sept. 15, at 6 p.m. at the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St., Concord, 228-2793, theaudi.org). This will be a free, ticket-less, fun family event. Enjoy Arnie’s Ice Cream and visit displays of the area’s exciting arts groups, and don’t forget to take a chance on the $2,000 Gala raffle. Visit the Auditorium’s website.

• Old blue eyes: Fulchino Vineyard (187 Pine Hill Road, Hollis, 438-5984, fulchinovineyard.com) will host a five-course Sinatra Wine Pairing dinner, Sunday, Sept 15, from 5 to 8:30 p.m. Chris Jason and Joelle Rhigetti and the nine-piece Sinatra Live Big Band perform classic favorites from Sinatra to Dean Martin and more. Tickets are $189 through the Vineyard’s website. Space is limited.

• Buzz buzz: Tuscan Market (Tuscan Village, 9 Via Toscana, Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) will host a class Thursday, Sept. 19, from 6 to 8 p.m.: Espresso Martini, Coffee Cocktails & Dessert. Mixologist Anthony Pino will bring participants through cocktail basics while teaching how to make a classic espresso martini along with other coffee cocktails. A dessert will be paired with the martini. A server will be available to take orders from the full menu. Tickets are $85 and available through the Market’s website.

The Pot Pie Bar takes being flaky very seriously

Like many recent food businesses, The Pot Pie Bar (132 Bedford Center Road, Bedford, 432-1927, thepotpiebar.com) got its start during the Covid-19 lockdown. Caroline Arend, owner of the Pot Pie Bar as well as Caroline’s Fine Food (132 Bedford Center Road, Bedford, 637-1615, carolinesfood.com), a well-established catering company, explained, “I found that some very loyal patrons of Caroline’s wanted to help us because we were basically shut down because we couldn’t cater. So they started purchasing meals for first responders. We found ourselves making a lot of pot pies and in fact it became just insanity. We kind of made a joke out of it and said, ‘Oh, I bet we can make anything into a pot pie.’ And we started just developing recipes. That was the birth of it, I guess. And then we opened up the pot pie bar.”

The original thought was to take orders online and ship frozen pies throughout the Northeast, but that turned out to be impractical. “Our shipping carriers were not reliable,” Arend said, “and the cost of shipping was prohibitive. I had no control over those costs because we’re a small company. So we switched gears and we sell all of our pies frozen out of our storefront.” Now customers place orders, either online or over the phone, and pick up their pies in person.

Although pot pies are a classic comfort food, Arend said a lot of work is involved to make them to her standard.

“Everything in the pies is made from scratch,” she said. “For example, for our braised short ribs [pot pie], we take the ribs, we put them in a rondeau [a short, wide pan similar to a Dutch oven], we sear them, we take them out, then we put the mirepoix [a mixture of chopped onion, celery and carrots] in, we deglaze with red wine, bring that down, and then put the bones back in, and braise it in the oven for three hours. Then we pull the meat off the bones, we reduce the braising liquid, and we mix it in with the filling. The only thing we don’t make from scratch is the puff pastry. And each pie has a different little puff pastry logo on it. So, for example, the chicken pie has a cutout of a chicken. The beef stroganoff has a cutout of a cow. The veggie [pie] is a carrot. So they’re all different.”

Arend is a classically trained chef, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), and a veteran of fine dining restaurants in the Boston area. She eventually branched off into high-end catering.

“And then I moved to New Hampshire,” she said. “I didn’t do it for a while and then I missed it.”

As of now, The Pot Pie Bar offers 14 different pies, from classic chicken or vegetable pot pies to more innovative choices such as a bratwurst, beer and cheddar pie, or a lobster pie made with whole lobster claws.

“We did a beef Wellington for the holidays,” Arend said. “It was delicious. It’s a duxelle [a French paste made from mushrooms, herbs and onions] in a thick layer on top of the beef. You have the puff pastry, then you have the duxelles, and you have the grainy mustard and the beef.” Arend said she and her team kept the beef from overcooking by just searing it before putting it in the pie. “And since it’s tenderloin, it’s not going to get too tough. It’s a center cut, muscle that’s not really exercised. It’s not like a shoulder.”

The Pot Pie Bar’s customer base has been surprising to Arend.

“I thought it was going to be primarily men because it’s like comfort food,” she said. “But it’s an older crowd. A bunch of people take them to dinner parties, which I didn’t even think of, but it makes sense. And one woman came in last week and she ordered four of them, [so she could have] people over for dinner at four different times.”

Arend has just purchased an existing restaurant in Goffstown and is hoping to move into it soon. “We’re currently looking into building out a USDA kitchen so that we can wholesale the pies,” she said.

The Pot Pie Bar
Orders for pot pies can be placed online at thepotpiebar.com or at 432-1927. Walk-in customers are welcome, but are advised to call ahead to find out what pies are in stock, as they sell out daily.