Author: Mya Blanchard

In the kitchen with Jillian Bernat

Jillian Bernat, Bar Manager at Greenleaf restaurant in Milford, began her career in the industry busing tables at the age of 15 at the Owl Diner in Lowell, Mass. She later worked as a server, a bartender and other positions at Lui Lui, a family Italian/American restaurant in Nashua, for 12 years. She later worked at 815 in Manchester, her first craft cocktail-related position. After a two-year stint at Bar One in Milford, she is now at Greenleaf in Milford.

What piece of equipment couldn’t you live without?

My must-have bar item is definitely my Japanese-style jigger. I was trained to always use one while working at 815 because consistency is key. You can free pour/count sometimes but it’s hard to do with squeeze bottles and not as reliable in my opinion.

What would you have for your last meal?

Lobster and steamers hands down. It’s a nostalgic meal for me, I grew up going to my grandparents’ house on the weekends to swim in their pool with my brother and cousins. Some of the most fun times and very New England. Lobster and steamers every weekend.

What is your favorite local eatery?

How do you even choose just one? No fair. I love Pressed Cafe as I’ve been going for years, even when they ran the Bridge Street Cafe back in the day. There’s a great Thai food spot in Goffstown also called Ubon Thai. The owner Nan is so sweet!

What celebrity would you like to drink one of your cocktails?

This one was tough but I kept coming back to one of my favorite musicians, P!nk. I think having her at my bar would be a riot. I am very not serious and love to laugh and make people laugh. I think I could chop it up with her easily. Plus, she’s a total badass and role model.

What is your favorite drink to make?

The smart alec in me says an easy glass of wine or a beer, haha! But I do love to make and drink a good negroni or variation with an agave spirit.

What is the biggest cocktail trend in New Hampshire at the moment?

I’m going to sound lame because I don’t really pay attention to trends. I think gin and agave spirits are still holding strong if I were to guess; perhaps that. It’s such a bummer that crap gin drinks back in the day have ruined it for people now; gin is so versatile!

What is your favorite thing to make at home?

I feel like I can speak for a lot of bartenders when I say, something simple! We don’t really like to work when we’re “punched out.” I love amaros and good vermouths, so usually a simple pour of something like that. Sometimes a good sour beer too.

—John Fladd

Something about Rosemary
2 ounces Uncle Nearest 1884 whiskey
1/2 ounce red wine/rosemary reduction syrup
2 dashes orange and angostura bitters
Stir and serve on a big rock, garnish with rosemary sprig.

Featured Photo: Jill Bernat, Bar Manager at Greenleaf restaurant. Courtesy Photo.

In the kitchen with Steve Hardy

General manager and head cook at Yankee Lanes (216 Maple St., Manchester, 625-9656, manchester.yankeelanesentertainment.com)

Steve Hardy at Yankee Lanes is working to change the perception of Bowling Food.“We’re trying to up the ante on our food preparation and service,” Hardy said. In spite of the casual atmosphere of a bowling alley, he tries to offer foods that appeal to a variety of palates, serving everything from fried pickles to steak tips. He takes even snack foods seriously. Case in point: his hand-cut french fries, which are soaked in cold water to remove some of the starch, then fried twice, once at a relatively low temperature to cook the potatoes all the way through, and then, after a rest, again at a high temperature to ensure a crisp exterior.

What dish do you have to have on your menu?

Steak tips, I have a really good following for the recipe.

What would you have for your last meal?

Steak, definitely steak. I’m clearly a steak guy.

What is your favorite local eatery?

Stumble Inn, besides here of course.

Name a celebrity you would like to see eating at the bowling alley.

Gordon Ramsay.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

Our burgers are GREAT! They’re half a pound and cooked to the customer’s specification.

What is the biggest food trend you see in New Hampshire right now?

Mexican and Asian-style food is on the rise here with some really great choices.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

Pot roast; it’s simple, easy and delicious.

Featured Photo: Steve Hardy, General manager and head cook at Yankee Lanes. Courtesy Photo.

In the kitchen with Ryan Lewis

It was always special for Ryan Lewis, general manager at Napoletana Pizzeria & Bar, when his family would go out to eat at restaurants when he was a child. At home he loved to make food for and with his family and experiment with ingredients, even if the result wasn’t always successful. Despite his love for cooking and restaurants, he didn’t consider a career in food service until he got a job at his favorite local spot while in college where he developed skills and enjoyed the work.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

I’ve never really been into gadgets. A clean, organized workspace is really the only thing a chef needs. I train my cooks to fold their kitchen towels when their prep is done. The cook with the largest, neatest stack of towels is unfailingly the best prepared for service on any particular shift

What would you have for your last meal?

The term last meal reminds me of someone on death row — when else would I know I was eating my last meal? That being the case, I would want to make as big a mess as possible when they give me the juice, like a spicy burrito and a couple beers.

What is your favorite local eatery?

Napoletana is my favorite restaurant. It continues to get closer to my vision over time. Of the other 300+ restaurants in the Portsmouth area, I enjoy Green Elephant, Lexi’s Joint, Barrio and Ore Nell’s most.

Name a celebrity you would like to see eating in your restaurant?

Celebrity is relative. I have fed many ‘famous’ people over the years. Were it possible, I would love to see Tony Bourdain and hear his thoughts and suggestions. Even just to be in his presence would be something. Jose Andres and Eric Ripert are other heroes, using their success in their craft to make life better for others.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

It’s kind of an evil question like asking who my favorite employee or family member is. There are things that are unique and those that are pretty pedestrian but well-loved by our guests. Today I ate our hanger steak and it made me pretty happy. It is a unique cut of meat that takes care to butcher properly, and our risotto rosso is a somewhat unusual but fitting accompaniment to it.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

I have no idea. We, as an industry and community, are still coming back to life after the struggles of the past several years. It is encouraging to see green shoots sprouting here and there. Young entrepreneurs opening new concepts and getting traction; those are the people to watch.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

Jambalaya. It’s almost as versatile as pizza as far as the number of stylistic twists and permutations. That said, I make it 95 percent the same way every time. I like to load my bowl with hot sauce until my eyes sweat.

—Mya Blanchard

In the kitchen with Lior Sadeh

Clinical herbalist Lior Sadeh has been growing herbs and making products for 12 years. Having closed the physical location of Bee Fields Farm, Sadeh works with people to reduce inflammation and heal their gut by making lifestyle changes, with herbs and supplements and bone broth, by reducing stress and making detox part of their everyday lifestyle. Her products include herbal tea blends, herbal infused honey, oils, salves, creams, extracts, elixirs and more. You can find her at the Concord Winter Farmers Market.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

I think a good knife and a cutting board are a must. … I love my slow cooker … I do bone broth in it so whenever I am eating meat I collect the bones and cook them for a couple of days with a little bit of vinegar to make bone broth and then I use it in all my cooking and it’s very healing for the digestive tract and it’s also filled with minerals.

What would you have for your last meal?

I love salmon.

What is your favorite local eatery?

Riverside Cafe in Milford.

Name a celebrity you would like to see trying something you made.

For me celebrities are farmers … farming is hard work that is not rewarded … farmers should be celebrities because in all kinds of weather farmers get up and go out and take care of the animals and the plants so we all do have food, so my celebrities are farmers and I would love it if farmers would drink my tea.

What is your favorite product that you make?

I love the teas because I think if a person takes the time to make themselves a cup of tea and sits down … and relaxes with it and really kind of all body experience, they start a good chance to follow … any herbal program and succeed in getting what they want from it. … I don’t believe in quick fixes, and there are a lot of herbal medicines like tincture that you can squirt … and then rush off to the next thing that you do, and I think that tea forces us to sit down … [and] forces you to breathe. … When you drink a cup of tea and you sit down with it you have this moment of breathing and letting go and just checking with yourself how it feels to be in your body.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

I don’t know … I’m not a trendy person.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I’m very seasonal. I really love soups in the winter, and in the summer I love salads, especially Israeli salad with a lot of cucumbers and tomatoes when they are in season.

Immune Supporting Bone Broth
from the kitchen of Lior Sadeh

Bones collected from chicken, lamb or beef organically raised or 100 percent grass-fed
4 quarts water
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 handful dried burdock root
1 handful dried astragalus root
1 handful dried reishi mushroom

I start my bone broth after eating a whole chicken. I collect the bones and place them in a slow cooker.
Cover with water. You want to use clean, not fluoridated water.
Add the apple cider vinegar.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer for a couple of days.
Check a couple of times a day to make sure you have enough water in the pot. If needed, add water.
You can always add other bones. My bone broth simmers for close to a week and I add bones to it as the week goes.
Twelve hours before you are ready to strain broth, add the herbs.
Strain, pour into a mason jar, cool and refrigerate.
You can drink a cup of warm broth daily or use it in cooking soups, stews and grains.

Featured photo: Lior Sadeh. Courtesy photo.

Just like mom used to make

Manchester native opens homestead business to honor her mother and yia yia

On Nov. 11, 2023, Barbara George made her business debut at the Manchester Memorial Craft Fair with Auntie B’s Greek Pastries, a homestead baking company through which she bakes pastries from her mother and yia yia’s (grandmother’s) recipes.

“I watched my mom bake for so many years and kept notes to keep the recipes alive, as she never used recipes — the recipes were all in her head,” George said in an email. “I would ask her to make one of her specialties, and once she was ready to add the ingredients I would measure them out and that’s how I captured her recipe. As she gave me tips along the way as we baked together, I would write [them] down. They come in so handy to this day where I’m not able to ask her.”

Having grown up in the Manchester area, George attended Plymouth State University before starting a 38-year career in sales, with baking remaining a hobby. She spent 22 of those years in California, where she would bake for friends, before moving back to the Granite State. Back home after the passing of her mother, friends would request she bake her mother’s recipes for family events, and she started to imagine turning it into a business.

“It was Covid year and I followed a lot of people on Instagram [who] baked or opened up their own baking businesses,” George said. “It’s been over a couple years that has gotten me to this point and I just thought where people are enjoying them that I would … try my hand at [home baking].”

After seeing a post about the Manchester Memorial Craft Fair, she reached out to become a vendor where her baking would officially become a business and she would sell out of everything she brought.

“Something I learned was that a lot of people don’t know Greek pastries and it was fun telling people about it.” George said. “I was just used to the Greek festivals … I happen to be the parish president at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church … [and] I also volunteer at St. George for their Glendi … so it’s been fun telling people and sampling with them and seeing their reactions to foods they [have] never tried before.”

Out of her home, George makes Flo Flo’s nut rolls, her mother’s variation on baklava, koulourakia, which are Greek twist cookies, and custom orders that people request.

“I always hoped that I could get my mom’s and yia yia’s recipes out to more people and that seems to be happening,” George said. “I just always get excited that people want to try my products and they want to buy my products. I think that’s fantastic and I’m always appreciative of that.”

Auntie B’s Greek Pastries
Where: Bedford
Call or send an email to place your order. Visit auntiebsgreekpastries.com

Featured photo: Barbara George with a few of the featured items she sells. Courtesy photo.

Lights, camera, action

New Hampshire Theatre Awards return to the scene

Returning after a Covid-induced hiatus are the New Hampshire Theatre Awards on Saturday, Jan. 20, at 7 p.m. at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord. Professional, community and youth theater productions from the 2023 season will be awarded and parts of some of the shows will be performed.

“[New Hampshire Theatre Alliance] runs an adjudication process,” said Irene Cohen, the president of the organization and co-producer of the award show. “A theater company … will submit their works to be adjudicated … and [the adjudicators] complete a ballot and the ballot is scored. … Then we have an awards night for outstanding performance, very similar to the Tonys. … There was a group who spent time during the pandemic, about a year and a half, working on an entirely new ballot, so we’re excited about that.”

Adjudicated productions include Guys and Dolls by Weathervane Theatre, Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express by M&D Playhouse, Steel Magnolias by Carriage Lane Players, Disney’s Newsies at Ovation Theatre Company and Mean Girls: High School Version, also produced by Ovation Theatre Company. Awards will be given for outstanding actors and actresses in musical and play productions, outstanding supporting actors and actresses, choreography, lighting, sound design, costume design and outstanding professional, community and youth productions, among others. New this year is an award for playwriting.

“The theater community in New Hampshire is very vibrant and prolific. … Almost every weekend of the year you can find some type of community, professional or youth theater production,” Cohen said. “One thing that we’re excited about is that we’ve made a change in the awards to a non-gendered award name starting in the 2024 adjudication season and that decision came about with some feedback from our community. … it’s been very very well-received.”

According to Cohen, this change will set the New Hampshire Theatre Alliance apart from other theater organizations.

After the ballots are run, the top 10 finalists will be announced. Then, during the event, the semifinalists will be revealed, followed by the winner.

“The process and the organization … is all run by volunteers,” Cohen. “We don’t have a paid executive director, we don’t have paid staff. The adjudicators are going all over the state to adjudicate these shows and we wind up with this event at the end of all that based entirely on the volunteered time of this community. … I’m just in awe of the power and strength of this community of artists in New Hampshire.

19th New Hampshire Theatre Awards
Where: Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord
When: Saturday, Jan. 20, 7 p.m.
More info: get tickets at ccanh.com

Featured photo: Previous New Hampshire Theatre Awards. Courtesy photos.

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