Author: John Fladd

Now showing

Red River Theatres’ Simchik Cinema is open again

After several months of repairs and refurbishment, the Simchik Cinema at Red River Theatres in Concord is showing movies again.

The Simchik, one of three screening rooms that make up the Red River Theatres, has been closed for several months to repair water damage, according to Angie Lane, Red River’s executive director. The 25-seat Simchik shows exclusively digital media and is the smallest of the theater’s cinemas.

Like the Red River’s two larger screens, the Simchik is currently showing Oscar-nominated movies in the lead-up to the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, March 10. The Simchik has been screening The Zone of Interest, a nominee for Best Picture as well as Best Sound and Best Director.

On Friday, March 1, Simchik will start screening Hundreds of Beavers, a surreal independent film. Set in 17th-century Wisconsin, this black-and-white farce tells the story of a man who learns to become a fur trapper after “diabolical beavers destroy his applejack distillery,” according to the description on Red River’s website. In the trailer, the trapper, played by Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, who is also credited as a co-writer, faces off against buck-toothed beavers of the person-sized mascot costume variety. Mike Cheslik wrote and directed.

“I can guarantee that this will be its New Hampshire premier,” Lane said.

“We hope that folks will come in and enjoy it,” she said, referring to Hundreds of Beaver. “It’s totally not what a typical movie viewer in this area is used to seeing.”

Red River has been fighting its way back up to speed after having to close down during Covid.

“It’s been a three-year recovery process,” Lane said. “We only got back to showing movies seven days a week last June.”

Hundreds of Beavers
When: Friday, March 1,- Sunday, March 3, 5;15 & 7:30 p.m.; Monday, March 4, – Thursday, March 7, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Red River Theatres, 11 S. Main St. in Concord (224-4600, redrivertheatres.org)
More info: See hundredsofbeavers.com for a movie trailer and more on the film.

Granola

  • 2½ cups (222 grams) old-fashioned rolled oats
  • ¼ to ½ cup chopped nuts
  • ¼ cup sesame/poppy seeds
  • 3 Tablespoons brown sugar
  • ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon black pepper
  • ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • ¼ cup vegetable oil
  • ⅓ cup maple syrup
  • 1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat oven to 310ºF.

In the largest bowl you have, mix the dry ingredients together. In a smaller container, mix the wet ingredients together.

Combine the dry and wet ingredients, mixing them thoroughly. Clean hands work well for this.

Spread the raw granola loosely on a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Stir, then pack down firmly with a spatula or a wooden spoon. This will leave you with big clumps of the finished granola.

Bake for another 15 minutes, during which time your kitchen will smell very, very good. If you’ve managed to get yourself in trouble with a wife or boyfriend, this will boost you 50 percent of the way out of the hole you’re in.

Remove from the oven and let cool for at least half an hour.

Eat it with — Oh, come on! It’s granola. You know what to do with it.

This is a solid delicious granola with a hint of saltiness and a tiny kick of spiciness. The great thing about this particular recipe — or any granola recipe, when you come down to it — is how adaptable it is:

Oats – This is probably the only ingredient you can’t mess with too much, but if you happen to run across some rolled barley or something, I’m pretty sure that would work too. Granola is very forgiving.

Nuts – You’re pretty wide open to improvisation here. I generally use roasted, salted nuts; my favorites are pistachios or pecans, but I’ll bet peanuts would be delicious. I’m very much not a walnut guy, but if you like them, they’d probably be delicious. My wife has asked me to use shredded coconut next time I make this.

Seeds – Again, it’s probably hard to go wrong with any seeds. I tend to fall back on a 50/50 mix of sesame and poppy seeds, but I’ve had good luck with hemp seeds. Sunflower kernels or pepitas (Mexican pumpkin seeds) would probably be excellent too. If you end up using a higher volume of seeds, add a little more of the liquid ingredients.

Brown sugar – Could you replace this with maple sugar or jaggery (Indian fermented brown sugar)? I don’t see why not.

Seasonings – You have just as many options here, but you might want to take a moment to think through any spices you add to your granola. I took this particular granola to a potluck breakfast at work once and the cayenne pepper made an otherwise kind and gentle coworker almost take a swing at me. I grew up in Vermont, at a time when salt and pepper was seen as dangerously adventurous. I should have remembered that people in this part of the world feel vaguely — or apparently not so vaguely — threatened by spicy food. With that said, I misread my notes and almost added cardamom to this recipe instead of cinnamon, and I think that might actually work. Your mileage may vary.

Oil – This recipe calls for vegetable oil, because it has a fairly neutral flavor and a high smoke point, but I’ve substituted hazelnut oil before and was very pleased.

Maple syrup – Honey works well here. If you’ve made syrup for cocktails — ginger or raspberry syrup for instance — that would work well, too.

Chocolate chips, M&Ms or gummy bears – Save them for your trail mix. If you decide to try them in your granola, mix them in after it is made and cooled. They wouldn’t make it through the baking process intact.

Featured photo: Granola. Photo by John Fladd.

The Brain Cell

About a week ago I found a truly excellent photo online of Walter the Muppet and the Great Gonzo posing for a selfie at Epcot Center. If you are unsure who Walter and Gonzo are, just know that they are extremely cool to nerdy Muppet enthusiasts.

I saved the picture to a file on my computer, not entirely sure what I would do with it. I have a habit of doing this; I have a collection of hundreds of funny, strange or just interesting pictures to attach to emails or use in presentations. I never know when one of them might come in handy, so I keep them around, just in case. Yes, I suppose this is hoarding, but it’s digital hoarding, so at least I can still navigate my living room.

After an hour or so, I thought, “You know who would love this picture? The Artist.” Our only child is a freshman at art school in Chicago, and this might make a nice surprise.

So I uploaded the photo to a drug store to be printed. Later that afternoon I picked up my prints, then went to an art supply store and bought a frame. I had to juggle a couple of cards and my cellphone at the register while I tried to find a coupon for the frame, and ended up throwing everything into my bag as I left the store, because I didn’t want to hold up the line behind me.

When I mailed the framed Muppet photo to The Artist, I used the art supply store bag as cushioning, to protect the glass in the frame, and long story short, I’m pretty sure I mailed my debit card to Chicago.

I’ve dedicated this week’s cocktail to my lone remaining brain cell.

The Brain Cell

  • 1 ounce Ol’ Major Bacon Bourbon
  • 1 ounce Howler Head Banana Bourbon
  • 1 ounce Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey
  • 1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
  • 1 ounce ginger beer – not ginger ale; this drink needs the extra bit of ginger
  • 4 drops Tabasco sauce

Combine all three whiskeys, the lime juice, and the Tabasco over ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake to chill.

Add the ginger beer and stir gently.

Strain over fresh ice in a rocks or coupé glass.

Sip, while listening to “Yalili Ya Aini,” by Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart. It’s a strange and beautiful song that will match your — OK, my — mental state.

This can be a slightly befuddling cocktail, even before you make it. The list of its ingredients are surprising, perhaps even intimidating. Bourbon, bacon, banana and peanut butter don’t seem to make a lot of sense together. And yet the combination works.

Many people are familiar with an “Elvis Sandwich” — peanut butter and banana. It seems pleasantly wacky, but the sweetness of the banana complements the proteiny solidity of the peanut butter. What most people don’t know is that the sandwich Elvis Presley actually loved was a grilled peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich. There’s a common thread there of saltiness, sweetness and umami. (Clearly, my own exhausted brain cells have a strange priority in what they are dedicated to.)

So there’s our drink’s whiskey taken care of. We know that bourbon pairs well with sweet tastes, and certainly with other whiskeys. But won’t that leave this drink too sweet? It would, if not for the lime juice, which brings everything back in line. Its acidity and fruitiness pair well with the peanut butter and banana flavors.

The ginger beer and the Tabasco give a little bit of a bite to the operation, and the ginger beer also adds a slight tingle of effervescence.

This is one of those cocktails that comes at you in waves. The bacon and peanut butter hit you first, followed by fruity, tingly aftertaste. You’ll know that you like it, as soon as you taste it, but you will probably drink at least two of these, trying to wrap your head around it.

Without having to go to Chicago.

Featured photo: The Brain Cell. Photo by John Fladd.

Corn Chowder

Corn Chowder

It’s been a week.

You don’t even have the brain cells to describe what kind of week it’s been. You just want to go home and eat something hot and homemade. Unfortunately, that involves thinking, which you just can’t do at the moment. You feel cold, hungry and stupid. That’s OK. Here is the easiest impressive food you’ll ever make. The only things you’ll need to measure are the seasonings, and you’ll use the same amount — a teaspoon — for each of them.

You’ve got this.

Corn Chowder

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter

1-pound bag of frozen corn

1-pound bag of frozen chopped onions – if your supermarket is out of frozen onions, there will almost certainly be half-pound containers of chopped onions in the produce section; just grab two of them

1 pound (half a 2-pound bag) frozen diced potatoes, usually labeled as “hash browns” or “O’Brien potatoes”

1 half-gallon container of whole milk

1 teaspoon salt – I like coarse sea salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

Put a large pot on medium heat. I have a 3-gallon soup pot that I like a lot, but anything you have that holds more than a gallon will work fine.

Unwrap the stick of butter and toss it into your big pot. I say “toss,” and that’s fine — there’s something very satisfying about the dull thud it makes as it hits the bottom of the pot.

Take a couple of minutes to pour yourself a glass of wine. If you have a bottle of something bubbly in the back of your refrigerator for a special occasion, this might be a good time to open it up.

Check on the butter. If it’s melted and foamy, or just melted, or almost melted, cut open the bag of frozen chopped onions. If the bag gives you any trouble at all, use your kitchen scissors or a wickedly sharp knife to slash it open. Don’t worry about making a nice, neat cut; you’re going to use the whole bag anyway. The onions will make a satisfying hiss as they hit the hot fat. Let them cook down until they are translucent and maybe the tiniest bit golden-brown. Stir from time to time.

When your kitchen starts smelling like fried onions, turn on the fan above your stove and empty the bag of frozen corn into the pot and stir it. Let that cook down for a few minutes.

Drink some more wine.

After a few minutes, add the potatoes. Don’t bother measuring them. I mean, you can, if you want to, but the whole point of this recipe is how undemanding it is. Stir them from time to time.

This is the only thing that you’ll have to measure: Add a teaspoon each of salt, pepper and smoked paprika. Stir them into the corn mixture.

Add the entire container of milk. Stir your proto-soup, then reduce the heat to a simmer, and go into the other room and do something for yourself. The key here is to shout, “I’M MAKING SOUP!” if anyone tries to make any demands on you.

After an hour of simmering, your chowder will be ready to eat. It will look a little pink from the paprika, but a quick stir will bring everything together. Ladle it into cups or bowls, and eat it with bread and butter. Just plain bread and butter. And more wine, if there’s any left.

This is a hearty, comforting, delicious chowder. It tastes like — surprise! — butter and corn and sweet onions and potatoes. It is perfect for dunking bread and butter into. Pretty much any adult will like this a lot and will grunt with satisfaction. It’s good, but not fancy enough that they will feel obligated to make a big deal out of it. Nobody has the energy for that this week.

Will children like it? There’s absolutely nothing in this chowder that a child would not like. Therefore, one of your kids will decide that they don’t like it. In which case, just tell them to eat their bread and butter.

John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.

Featured photo: Corn Chowder. Photo by John Fladd.

Irish Coffee

If you listen to Irish Coffee Enthusiasts, you will be taken aback by how complicated the process for making one is. The ICEs will go on at some length about how such-and-such a bar makes a pretty good Irish Coffee, considering it isn’t a real Irish Coffee. Apparently, an Irish Coffee isn’t legitimately authentic unless:

(1) it is made by an old, gnarled bartender with an actual Irish accent and a list of stories about growing up in a thatched hut.

(2) who pours the whiskey from an otherwise unmarked jug with three Xs on it,

(3) into a mug with coffee so strong, vaporous little ghosts float screaming from it as he stirs it

(4) while three or four drunk guys at the bar sing “Danny Boy” and weep openly.

The truth of the matter is that making good Irish Coffee isn’t particularly difficult, and it’s definitely not complicated. It is simply a matter of paying attention to details.

Making a Very Nice Cup of Irish Coffee

Fill a glass coffee mug with boiling water. Leave it to heat while you brew the coffee.

Brew 1 to 2 cups of very strong, good coffee. It doesn’t have to be expensive, single-source, hand-picked beans that have passed through a civet. Chock Full o’Nuts will do fine. Make it a little stronger than you normally would. Wash a couple of dishes or watch the prize task on Taskmaster while the coffee brews and the mug heats up.

Pour the water out of the mug, thanking it for a job well done.

Mix 1 tablespoon of brown sugar in the mug with a little of the hot coffee, to dissolve it, then add 2 ounces of decent Irish whiskey. Again, you probably don’t want to use your $45-a-bottle top-shelf stuff, but a good, self-respecting Irish whiskey like Paddy’s will do nicely.

Top off your mug to within half an inch or so of the top with more coffee. Stir gently.

Finish the mug off with two dollops of lightly sweetened whipped cream.

This drink will be hot, so unless you’re a professional you probably won’t be able to swig this down, but you should definitely attack it with enthusiasm. If you don’t give yourself a whipped cream mustache, you lack commitment.

Classics are classics for a reason. This is delicious. It tastes of coffee, and caramel, and dairy, and whiskey, and something else — maybe destiny. It will take a great deal of adult restraint to not pound this down far too quickly and then make another. And conceivably many more.

For that reason, here is your guide for drinking good Irish Coffee:

Drink it at brunch. The very best time to drink Irish Coffee is late on a cold, damp afternoon, while reading a good book and thinking of a lost love. Unfortunately, by the time you’re old enough to have any really juicy regrets, you won’t be able to drink coffee that late in the day. Drinking more than one of these in an afternoon or evening will give you more opportunity to reminisce than you were really looking for. Flipping through old photographs and crying at 2 in the morning is not compatible with your New Year’s resolution to be more productive.

If you decide to dive into the Irish Coffee pool with a bunch of friends on a Sunday morning, your boyfriend or Carlos, your Uber driver, can get you home in time to sleep it off before you have to Skype your parents that evening.

1 mug of Irish Coffee: You will feel more positive about life.

2 mugs: You will tell at least one of your friends how much you love them. At this point, your wife or friends should keep you away from Facebook.

3 mugs: There will be singing and uncontrollable laughter.

After this, you will probably forgo the coffee and drink directly from the bottle. There will be more singing, and probably crying.

After this, things get a little murky.

John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.

Featured photo: Irish Coffee. Photo by John Fladd.

Royal Pretender Cake

This is not an authentic Mardi Gras King Cake. An actual New Orleanian would sneer at this hard enough to sprain her lip. But a real King Cake is actually a member of the bread family and takes about five hours to make. This is a delicious, dense, moist almond cake that will serve you in good stead.

Cake

  • 2½ cups (300 grams) all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¾ teaspoon baking powder
  • ¾ cup (162 grams) whole milk
  • ½ cup (120 grams) sour cream
  • 2¼ cups (450 grams) sugar
  • 7 ounces (1 tube) almond paste – you can find this in the baking/spices section of your supermarket
  • 2 teaspoons orange zest – the zest of one large orange
  • 1 8-ounce package cream cheese
  • 4 eggs
  • 3 Tablespoon (45 grams) amaretto
  • ¼ teaspoon almond extract

Glaze

  • 2 cups (227 grams) powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract
  • pinch salt
  • 2 to 3 Tablespoons milk – enough to make a spoonable glaze

Garnish

  • Gold, purple, and green sprinkles or sanding sugar – you can find these online or at a craft store

A small plastic baby that you will bake into the cake for luck. You might or might not actually have a small plastic baby to hand. If you do not, you can substitute some other small non-poisonous object in its place, such as a foreign coin, a marble, or one of those small ceramic figures that are sometimes included in boxes of tea.

Bring all the cake ingredients to room temperature. This recipe will work if the cream cheese and almond paste are cold, but they will be temperamental and will require some persuasion to blend together gracefully.

Preheat your oven to 350ºF. Prepare a large Bundt pan — I brush the inside with a mixture of equal parts shortening, vegetable oil and flour.

In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients — the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside.

In a jar or measuring cup, combine the milk and sour cream. Set aside.

In a stand mixer, or using a hand-held electric mixer, combine the almond paste — cut into small pieces — and the sugar. Mix at slow speed; the mixture looks like damp sand. If you do not cut the almond paste into small pieces, it will fight against its fate and throw plumes of sugar out of your mixing bowl in protest. If this starts happening, cover the bowl with a tea towel and be careful that it doesn’t get sucked up into the beaters.

Add the orange zest and cream cheese. Mix to combine. Again, this will go more smoothly if the cream cheese is at room temperature.

Mix in the eggs, one at a time, then add the amaretto and almond extract. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if you need to. Once everything is thoroughly mixed, beat at a higher speed, until the proto-batter is a little fluffy.

Add the dry ingredients and the milk/sour cream mixture a little at a time, alternating between the two, until the batter is smooth and battery.

Pour half the batter into the prepared Bundt pan, which has been patiently waiting for you.

Drop your small plastic baby into the Bundt pan. “Godspeed, my friend,” would be a good sentiment to express at this point. Extra points if you say it in French.

Pour the rest of the batter into the pan, covering your Cake Baby.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean or it reaches an internal temperature of 200ºF.

Cool on a rack for 20 minutes before inverting onto a plate. Let it cool thoroughly before glazing and decorating it. Decorate a third of the cake in each of the colors of sugar or sprinkles. This is not a time to exercise restraint. “Garish” should be the absolute minimum level of decoration you are looking for.

This is a first-class snack cake. It is meant to be shared. A traditional King Cake is supposed to be eaten with friends. Whoever finds the baby in their slice is supposed to host the Mardi Gras party the following year. You should feel free to set the stakes to work with your particular group of friends, relatives, or co-workers.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Featured photo: Not King cake. Photo by John Fladd.

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