According to local chef Keith Sarasin, humanity wouldn’t be where it is today if it weren’t for fermentation.
In his latest cookbook, Mastering Fermentation, which will be released on Tuesday, Sept. 26, Sarasin aims to show readers the beauty of fermentation while walking them through the process.
“This was a topic the publisher approached me with … and I asked them to focus on certain techniques,” Sarasin said. “I think if we said to anyone off the street [to] name a fermented dish, people might say kimchi or sauerkraut, but I wanted to move beyond just those things and really talk about why fermentation is such a backbone of culture and food.”
Sarasin says his passion for cooking comes from his mom. Growing up in Nashua with just his mother, he wanted to find ways that he could help. He started washing dishes at various restaurants and establishments, working his way up to an executive chef position. He also started working with local farms and in 2012 established the Farmers Dinner, which hosts dinners on various farms all throughout the region. Over time, Sarasin developed a passion for Indian food and culture, an area he now specializes in.
“I was a really picky eater when I was coming up working in kitchens and I think I had a lot of misconceptions about Indian cuisine like many people might,” he said. “One day I walked into a spice shop in Nashua called Food & Fashion of India and there was this lovely little lady in the back … and she kind of took me under her wing. After a lot of coaxing she helped me understand that there was so much more to Indian food than naan and chicken tikka masala. She really gave me my passion for the cuisine and helped me understand it, and subsequently she ended up becoming like a mother to me.”
For the past 16 years Sarasin has dedicated his studies to the cuisine and culture of the Indian subcontinent. He runs a pop-up series called Aatma — the name translates to “soul” — working with farms to bring this food to a new audience.
In Mastering Fermentation Sarasin, whose previous books include Meat: The Ultimate Cookbook and Wild Game Cooking, continues to expose people to new things. He feels there is a lot of confusion surrounding fermentation, a process he says has been used since 6000 BC to make alcohol and preserve food.
“I think a lot of time people think if you leave food out it spoils. I think we’re all taught that. But leaving food out can also lead to fermentation, which is so beautiful,” he said. “Fermentation involves really allowing naturally present or added microorganisms like bacteria, yeast, fungi and those enzymes to work their magic in the absence of oxygen. This leads to the killing of any pathogenic bacteria and creates an environment where beneficial bacteria can thrive.”
There are three types of fermentation to produce fermented foods at home, according to Sarasin: lactic acid fermentation to make things like pickles, yogurt and sourdough; alcohol fermentation to make beer and other alcoholic beverages; and acetic fermentation to produce vinegar and kombucha, among other things. In his book he gives a recipe for yogurt and whey fermented berries.
“I think people will realize this is a book to help you safely understand how to leave food out and turn it into a beautiful, fermented food,” Sarasin said. “Another thing I think people are going to realize very quickly and be surprised with is the amount of food that you can ferment to create wonderful healthy flavors really quickly.”
New book Mastering Fermentation by Keith Sarasin (208 pages, Cider Hill Press) will be released Tuesday, Sept. 26.
Lacto-Fermented Carrots
From Keith Sarasin. Serving size: Makes about 1 quart of lacto-fermented carrots (4-6 servings) Active time: 20 minutes Total time: 3-4 weeks
Traditional methods of preserving food and improving its nutritional content include lacto-fermentation. It entails using helpful bacteria called lactobacilli to transform the food’s carbohydrates into lactic acid. The food is preserved during this process, and the environment is made hostile to dangerous microorganisms. In addition to improving the food’s vitamin and enzyme content, lacto-fermentation also makes it more nutrient-dense and digestible. Vegetables, dairy products and grains are among the foods that are frequently lacto-fermented. Foods that have undergone lacto-fermentation include sourdough bread, pickles, kimchi and sauerkraut. Carrots that have been lacto-fermented are … a delicious complement to salads, sandwiches and other foods and have a somewhat sour, crunchy texture. The following is a straightforward recipe for lacto-fermented carrots.
Ingredients 4 cups grated carrots 2 Tablespoons fine sea salt 1 quart-sized jar with a tight-fitting lid
Directions: In a large bowl, mix the grated carrots with the salt. Using your hands, massage the salt into the carrots for about 5 minutes, until the carrots start to release their liquid. Transfer the carrots to the jar and press them down firmly. The liquid should cover the carrots. If necessary, you can add a little water to cover the carrots. Close the lid tightly and place the jar in a cool, dark place for 3-4 weeks. Check the jar every few days to make sure the carrots are fermenting properly and to release any excess gas. After 3-4 weeks, the lacto-fermented carrots should be ready. They will have a slightly sour, crunchy texture and a slightly cloudy appearance. If the carrots are not sour enough, you can leave them to ferment for a few more weeks.
While rehearsing the second act of Evil Dead The Musical HD, director Matty Gregg told the Actorsingers cast to “suspend all disbelief,” a phrase that is at the essence of this show.
The Nashua-based theater company’s production will run from Thursday, Aug. 24, to Sunday, Sept. 3, at Janice B. Streeter Theater in Nashua.
Sam Raimi’s 1980s horror cult classic film The Evil Dead was adapted into a musical in 2000 that combined the plot of the three Evil Dead movies, following five college kids at a cabin in the woods. Gregg reimagined the musical in 2016, creating an HD version.
“I started working on a different production of it,” Gregg said. “There’s some limitations of things you can do as a stage musical, so I tried basically to bring a lot of the movie side of things back to the musical.”
This resulted in the creation of a virtual set modeled after the cabin from the movie with a screen on the floor and wall that allows the set to digitally rotate. Gregg debuted this version while living in San Jose, where the production gained a following and he realized the show appealed to a variety of audiences. It also garnered the attention of George Reinblatt, the writer of the musical, and Bruce Campbell, who played the lead, Ash Williams, in the film version, both of whom Gregg would collaborate with and create the splatter zone.
“We have a splatter zone where we invest a lot of money in the ability to deliver blood to the audience,” Gregg said. “If somebody gets killed on stage the blood can splatter all over the audience at the same time … in the first two or three rows.”
Playing these iconic characters comes with challenges and pressure to live up to the role while still making the part one’s own.
“With such a cult following, there are lines that must be to the T because everybody’s going to come in and they’re going to remember from the movie,” said Phil Laks, who plays the role of Scotty.
Ryan Gibeau who plays Ash, adds, “There’s a lot of things that are already part of the character that Bruce Campbell developed and so there’s this duty to almost bring the original energy of the show that a lot of people are expecting,” he said. “I found places where there’s a lot of creative freedom for me, and so I’ve just tried to figure out what I think is going to be a fun audience experience.”
Performing the HD version also comes with challenges of its own, like having to work with the screens and follow the cabin while it is rotating, according to Christine Armenion, who plays Ash’s younger sister, Cheryl. Despite having just a six-week rehearsal period, Gregg said the process has been great.
“The actors are wonderful,” he said. “They’re very talented.”
Gregg describes the show as “a really fun, irreverent, campy, gory good time.”
“One of the main messages of this show in general is just to forget about all the stuff that’s happening in your life outside and just come have a really fun time,” he said.
Actorsingers present Evil Dead The Musical HD When: Thursday, Aug. 24, at 8 p.m.; Friday, Aug. 25, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 26, at 8 p.m.; Sunday, Aug. 27, at 6 p.m.; Thursday, Aug. 31, at 8 p.m.; Friday, Sept. 1, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, Sept. 2, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 3, at 6 p.m. Where: Janice B. Streeter Theater, 14 Court St., Nashua Cost: Tickets range from $25 to $30 More info: Visit actorsingers.org
With fall around the corner, we will soon see the days get shorter, the temperatures cooler, and many hawks in the sky. According to Chris Martin, wildlife and conservation biologist at the New Hampshire Audubon, September through November is the time frame in which hawks migrate to their wintering locations, making fall an ideal time for hawk watching.
Not all hawks migrate. What classifies these species of birds as what we call birds of prey is their feet, which actually makes “raptor” the more accurate term.
“Some people refer to them as birds of prey … but that is sort of an artificial category,” Martin said. “The fact is almost all birds are carnivorous [to] some degree. … What separates these birds of prey is the fact that they have feet that are adapted to grasp living food items. … ‘Raptorial’ refers to that sort of style of foot that includes long claws and strong grasping feet.”
In New Hampshire, seven common categories of raptors are owls, accipiters, buteos, eagles, falcons, harriers and ospreys. Each is broken down further into different species as the result of evolution and natural selection, Martin says.
“The differences are based on their evolution and how they specialize,” he said. “Each group specializes in how they hunt, where they hunt, what they hunt for, and then they have specialties in the kind of habitat they put their nests in. The idea is [they] don’t want to compete with other types of birds of prey if [they] can create a specialty that works for [them].”
Common NH raptor species
Osprey
According to Martin, the driving factor for raptors to migrate is the availability of food.
Ospreys are the perfect example of how important this can be, as they rely almost exclusively on fish. With lakes being covered in ice here in New Hampshire during the winter, ospreys migrate to South America and the tropics in the fall. In the spring they return, except for the young ospreys, who, interestingly, don’t return until the following spring when they are 2 years old. While it is not clear why ospreys do this, Martin says it could be to hone their fish-catching skills.
Osprey. Photo by MaryFran Loggans.
“It’s certainly an odd strategy, but it seems to work,” Martin said.
The fishing strategy that ospreys use is unlike that of any other raptor, according to Martin.
“They evolved this style of diving into water and catching fish,” he said. “Other birds of prey use [their] feet to fish [but] in a different way than this. Osprey will fly over still water, like a lake, and see a fish near the surface and drop in on it from 50 feet above it. They go in feet first and grasp it as they hit the water, oftentimes [disappearing] into the water before [rising] back to the surface and [flying] off with a fish.”
According to hawkwatch.org, ospreys’ feet are specialized for grasping, with all four of their talons curved more than that of other raptors. They also have spicules, or small spines, on the bottom of their feet and the ability to rotate their outer toe backward to hold slippery objects and carry fish. They have black feathers on their topside, a white head with a black eye-line, and when in flight, they glide on bowed wings that form an “M” shape.
Returning to the north in the spring can be a gamble for osprey.
“[They] push the limits when they come back at the end of March,” Martin said. “Oftentimes the water around their nest site where they spend the spring and summer is still frozen when they get back [and] they have to resort to nearby flowing water and rivers. … That can be a challenge because it can be cloudy or muddy in the spring and they can’t see the fish that they’re trying to hunt.”
Many raptors are in a hurry to return and reclaim their breeding sites before they are taken over by another bird. Ospreys sometimes use dead trees that are exposed in marshes, a niche that most other birds of prey don’t occupy. They can also be found using transmission lines, telephone poles and electrical poles. In fact, Martin adds, it’s possible a quarter of our osprey population uses cell towers for their nests.
“They’re pretty adaptable to all sorts of environments,” he said.
Barred owl
At night, while other raptors are resting at their roosts, owls are active and on the hunt for voles, shrews, mice and other prey. These nocturnal birds have a series of adaptations that make them deft for nighttime hunting. According to Martin, in addition to their ability to see well in the dark, they rely on their hearing and are able to detect prey rustling and moving through blades of grass.
“Their ears are not uniformly placed on either side [of their head],” he said. “One is higher and the other is lower on the side of the skull and that helps them differentiate where a sound is coming from. I think a barred owl could probably locate prey and go after it … even if it was blind.”
The shape of their face also enables them to effectively locate sound.
“‘Facial disk’ is the term that we use for it,” Martin said. “[They have a] flattened face that puts their eyes forward and the face actually focuses sound and delivers it to the ears, so it helps with the process of pinpointing where a rustling sound is coming from.”
Of all the owls we have in New Hampshire, like the barn owl, which doesn’t currently breed in the state, and the snowy owl, which only resides here in the winter, barred owls are the most common.
“Barred owls are medium-sized forest owls that are very vocal and have a call that is easily recognized [that] sounds like ‘who cooks for you?’” Martin said. “It’s one that you often might find in a forested backyard or park and they often vocalize during the day as well. They are the owls in the state that you’re most likely to encounter just in your everyday activities.”
Although they don’t live in wetlands — they nest in cavities in large trees in forests — barred owls are often associated with wetlands, as much of what they eat is located on the forested edge and in grass along the edge of a marsh, like salamanders and leopard frogs. They also hunt on roadside edges, particularly in areas where there are ditches that can collect water, as much of their prey is associated with water. This, however, poses a great risk.
“A lot of times they’re so focused on hunting that when they make a dive at sort of a 45-degree angle from their perch to the ground to grab [their prey], if that dive includes going over a roadside, they often get hit by vehicles,” Martin said. “One of our key wildlife rehabilitators in Henniker … at Wings of Dawn receives many injured barred owls that [are] injured on one side of their head because of impact with a vehicle. That’s a very common injury.”
Peregrine falcon
Among the fastest of all raptors are falcons. With their speed and long, pointed wings, they have adapted to dive and chase their prey down in midair. Three well-known falcons in New Hampshire are kestrels, merlins and, perhaps the most famous, the peregrine falcon. Although their plumage varies, adult peregrines tend to be white below and bluish gray above while juveniles start out with a buff color on their underside and brown to a slate-like color above, according to hawkwatch.org.
Peregrine falcon. Photo by Al Hospers.
“That’s the one that’s been subject to a lot of restoration efforts nationwide in the 1980s through early 2000s, and we’ve pretty much recovered them from a point where they were almost extinct in the U.S.,” Martin said. “They’re still on our New Hampshire state threatened list, but their population has been growing gradually.”
Peregrines take advantage of vertical landscape features for their nests, whether natural like cliffs, or manmade structures such as buildings and bridges. From their perch they have an optimal view to look for prey, which consists mostly of other birds such as starlings, blue jays, robins and other medium-sized birds, or birds as big as pigeons, mourning doves and occasionally a small duck, according to Martin. While birds of prey will take what’s abundant in their environment, he says the size of the prey is a factor.
“There’s a limit to the size of the food item that they can bring back,” he said. “[A] pigeon is probably the biggest, bulkiest thing that they will eat regularly, and that’s a real challenge for a male peregrine because they are the smaller of the two sexes and they do most of the hunting. A pigeon is a big item for them. It probably weighs close to the same amount as a male peregrine.”
In addition to other birds, young peregrines will train for hunting by catching dragonflies and bats.
Something that helps peregrine falcons hunt is their ability to sense weakness or vulnerability in other birds, Martin says. For example, if a bird is fatigued from migrating and struggling to find a place to land, peregrines can pick up on that and home in on that bird as a target.
“[It’s] just remarkable that they can recognize something that is out of its element and utilize that as a food source,” Martin said.
Broad-winged hawk
If you’ve seen a hawk soaring in circles in the open over a field, or dropping down onto a highway median, it was likely a buteo. Their long, broad wings make wide open spaces suitable for these birds to hunt, as they are well-adapted to using thermal lifts to bring them up high where they can scan for food, according to Martin.
“They’ll fly in circles over a field or a forest and look for an item that’s vulnerable and then dive on that,” he said. “Or in some cases they’ll perch on phone poles or wires and drop down on a mammal they see in the grass.”
New Hampshire buteo species include red-shouldered hawks, broad-winged hawks and rough-legged hawks, the last of which are only here during the winter months. While the red-tailed hawk is most commonly seen, the broad-winged hawk is likely the most numerous, nesting in tree canopies in the forest and feeding on prey like squirrels and mice.
According to hawkwatch.org, broad-winged hawks are small buteos with a compact body, bulky chest, a large head and about a 35-inch wingspan.
“[Broad-winged hawks] are very abundant in the state as a breeder, and are famous in the fall for kettling, a whole bunch of them getting together in a group and … migrating south,” Martin said. “Thousands of broad-winged hawks will travel all the way down to the tropics and into northern South America in September mostly, and so hawk watches where you can see these birds kettling and migrating are actually very popular in the eastern U.S.”
Sharp-shinned hawk
While buteos have long wings that enable them to soar through the open sky, accipiters have short wings that allow them to navigate between trees and around obstacles to go after prey, which in most cases are other birds, according to Martin.
Sharp-shinned hawk. Photo by Robert Reynolds.
“You might encounter an accipiter when you’re hiking in the woods,” he said. “It might come right down the path at you because it’s flying through that gap in the forest. It’s not trying to attack you necessarily, but it’s using those narrow lanes to maneuver and oftentimes surprise its prey.”
The most common accipiter, and the smallest hawk in North America, according to hawkwatch.org, is the sharp-shinned hawk.
“They’re only slightly bigger than blue jays, so that’s a bird most people would recognize … although they’re a little tough to see because the forest canopy hides them much of the time,” Martin said.
In flight, these birds appear stocky with short, rounded wings and a long, slender tail, as reported by hawkwatch.org, which describes them as adeptly maneuverable and buoyant. From below, adults are barred white and rufous, with upper parts being a grayish blue with a blackish head. Their eyes start out yellow as juveniles, eventually turning orange, then dark red as they age.
Bald eagle
While famous for their bright white head, yellow beak, blackish-colored body and expansive wingspan — eagles are the largest of all raptors — bald eagles do not look this way until they are fully mature. As juveniles they appear brown overall with a dark bill and eyes and a black tail with some white mottling, according to hawkwatch.org.
The bald eagle population in New Hampshire has drastically increased in the last 30 years, according to Martin, thanks to efforts to give them better conditions.
“Near a river or a lake you have a really good chance of seeing a bald eagle,” he said. “[People] would not have said the same thing back in the 1960s, ’70s or ’80s, so that’s a really obvious change.”
The slope of the population continues to climb, doubling every six or seven years.
“I’m waiting for it to curve and flatten off,” Martin said. “I assume we’re going to reach a carrying capacity at some point soon, but the charts aren’t showing it yet.”
While not exclusively fish eaters, bald eagles are rather aquatic-focused and build their nests near large lakes and rivers. Rather opportunistic hunters, they’ll eat a variety of prey such as muskrats, herons, duck and turtles and will even scavenge on roadkill and carrion when turkey vultures aren’t around to do so in the winter.
“They’re very adapted to cold weather,” Martin said. “Once an eagle pair establishes a territory for breeding, almost all of them will be on that territory within 5 miles of the nest site year-round through the coldest part of our winter season. They’ll do nest maintenance … and defend their territory from rivals that might want to move in and take over the site.”
Northern harrier
The only type of harrier in North America, appropriately named the northern harrier, is among the rarest raptors in the state.
“In New Hampshire currently their populations are listed endangered,” Martin said. “We probably only have 10 to 20 pairs of them anywhere in the state.”
What sets these birds apart from other raptors is that while most nest on cliffs, trees or other elevated areas, harriers nest on the ground. The breeding population is concentrated up north in Coos County, where there tend to be more hayfields, swamps and shrubby areas.
Northern harrier, Salisbury MA. Photo by Jack Dorsey.
“They go to great lengths to hide where they nest by landing away from the nest and walking through the grass and shrubs to get to it, as opposed to landing right on the nest, which can pinpoint where it is to anything that might be watching,” Martin said.
They build their nests in high, dry spots of wetlands in areas with shrubs and vegetation. This serves as a platform for their nest and keeps their eggs out of the water. This also means that they are surrounded by water on all sides like a moat, which adds another layer of protection. Like owls, harriers rely a great deal on their hearing, and they even have the facial disk that is characteristic of owls. Adult male harriers have a white underside and gray upper side with black wingtips and yellow eyes, according to hawkwatch.org. Below, adult females are a buff color with streaks of brown and dark brown above. Their eyes start out a dark brown but change to yellow over about three years. Juvenile harriers resemble adult females but have distinct rufous underparts.
In the wetlands they feed on frogs and small wetland birds, but they also travel upland to grassy areas and hayfields where they will follow farmers who are tending to their fields to find other prey.
Martin says, “Harriers will follow these mowers because … they’re oftentimes displacing mice and voles that nest in the grass … [and] creating grasshopper and white footed moth mortality. That makes those things just available … for the picking, for the harriers to grab and then take back to their young.”
Migration and hawk watching
With September through October being migration season for raptors, the fall (and the spring, when they return) is the perfect time for hawk watching.
Phil Brown, bird conservation director and land specialist for the Harris Center for Conservation Education, says the ideal places to spot hawks are along ridge lines with a clear opening to the north, and coastlines, as some species, like ospreys and eagles, will follow the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers, hunting fish along the way.
According to Brown, broad-winged hawks make up the majority of the birds counted during the Pack Monadnock Raptor Observatory hawk watch at Miller State Park in Peterborough.
“We count about 15 different species of raptors that migrate throughout the fall,” Brown said. “We see hawks that [nest] in New Hampshire and surrounding New England, also species that are coming from farther north that are passing through. … The very common species, the broad-winged hawk … makes up about 75 percent of our annual count.”
The Harris Center is a regional land trust and environmental education organization in Hancock. One of its main missions is land protection, and in its 50-plus years it has helped protect 26,000 acres of land. The Center also focuses on the conservation of species in need and educates the public on these topics. The Harris Center has taken sole responsibility for the Pack Monadnock Raptor Observatory, which was founded by NH Audubon in 2005. Every day from Sept. 1 through Nov. 20, staff or volunteers count and document raptors during fall migration while also engaging with the public.
“It’s a perfect combination of education and research,” Brown said. “It’s a great way to engage with thousands of visitors every year. I think last year we had over 6,000 visitors, which was about average.”
Second to the broad-winged hawk is the sharp-shinned hawk, with smaller numbers of other raptors like bald eagles, osprey, peregrine falcons and red-tailed hawks.
“Sometimes … we have really excellent days where there are 4,000 to 5,000 hawks seen in one day from the observatory from one point, so that tends to really be something that surprises folks,” Brown said.
As far as what kind of bird you will see on a given day, this varies depending on the point in the season, as they don’t all migrate at the same time. They each respond to different triggers in the environment, whether that be availability of their food source, change in daylight length, thermal formations or the presence of ice or snow, according to Brown.
“As a result, you never know what you’re going to see at the hawk watch from day to day,” he said. “We have a good idea of who’s coming next and generally what numbers, but we get surprised up there every day to some degree.”
According to the observatory, some birds, like the red-shouldered hawk, pass through at a fairly steady rate throughout most of the migration season. The data for broad-winged hawks, however, is heavily skewed.
“[Broad-winged hawks] all fly together within a two-week period typically,” Brown said. “It’s thought to be more of a social gathering of convenience. They all have to get to where they’re going in the same conditions, so they travel on particular weather days that are advantageous to their migration, and that tends to bring them together in the same places at the same time.”
Transmitters affixed to some of these birds have located raptors traveling as far as South America, with broad-winged hawks being located in Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia, according to Brown. He adds that others, like the bald eagle and peregrine falcon, have less of a journey, traveling a short way south of the state border.
Population and conservation
According to Brown, hawk populations are still in their recovery phase.
When populations were dangerously low in the 1960s, with some breeding species completely gone from the state, efforts were taken across the nation to recover them, Martin said.
“The two species that we’ve focused on the most in the last couple decades have been the bald eagles and the peregrine falcons, and both have seen great recovery,” said Sandi Houghton, wildlife diversity biologist with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.
According to Martin, in the 1960s all breeding peregrines and bald eagles in New Hampshire were gone. The culprit was DDT, an insecticide heavily used in the ’50s and ’60s that worked its way up the food chain to top-level predators like raptors, preventing them from breeding successfully. The chemical caused the shells of their eggs to be brittle and thin, which caused them to break during incubation and hindered the shells’ ability to preserve moisture and regulate gas exchange from inside and outside the egg.
“The problem was the adults didn’t die from it, so for years both eagles and peregrines were trying to breed and failing, but for all intents and purposes you’d look at them and you’d see healthy birds,” Martin said. “So the problem snuck up on us when all of a sudden those older adults started to die [and] there were no young birds to replace them. The population just plummeted.”
NH Audubon has worked with other organizations like New Hampshire Fish and Game, The Peregrine Fund and White Mountain National Forest Fund to restore the peregrine falcon population since the early 1980s. This included steps involving the land, the health of the birds and the behavior of people.
“For peregrines, the biggest problem at the beginning was they were all gone,” Martin said. “So there was an effort to return them to the state by releasing young ones that had been raised in captivity [through] a process called hacking.”
He said that two release sites were established in northern New Hampshire, as well as others in surrounding states. Audubon, along with New Hampshire Fish and Game, started asking and training volunteers to look and listen for the presence of peregrines, as well as checking cliffs for nests. In the ’80s, occupied cliffs began being documented. Signs would eventually be put up asking people to not climb in these areas. The Peregrine Fund also collected unhatched eggs to check for high levels of chemicals and the thickness of the shells. Rock climbers were enlisted to put identification bands on peregrine chicks for the purpose of documenting where they would eventually go and where they would nest.
NH Audubon provides a livestream video of a peregrine falcon nest at the Brady Sullivan Tower on Elm Street in Manchester. Martin says an adult pair lives there year-round and fledged four young this past June, marking the 23rd consecutive year the peregrines on Elm Street have produced offspring.
While peregrines are still listed as threatened in New Hampshire, according to Houghton, there have been promising signs of recovery.
“We’ve gone from seven pairs in 1990 to almost 30 pairs currently,” Martin said. “That’s been 30 years, so the population has been growing very gradually.”
Martin says similar efforts were taken to recover the bald eagle population, which has gone from zero documented pairs in the ’60s to 10 sites nests around 2000 and now 100 territorial pairs in the state.
“In 2017 we were able to delist them from our threatened and endangered species list due to their recovery, and since then we’ve continued to see exponential growth,” Houghton said. “They’re in many ways a conservation success story that serves as a model for other species.”
Hawk watches
Visit hawkcount.org for information.
Alton Bay Hawk Watch Alton Fall: Sept. 10 to Oct. 15
Carter Hill Observatory Concord Fall: Sept. 1 to Nov. 15
With food, music, dancing, games and even a petting zoo, Our Lady of the Cedars Church’s Mahrajan food festival is just what the Arabic phrase translates to: a wicked good time. This year the festival will be held Friday, Aug. 18, through Sunday, Aug. 20, at the church in Manchester.
“We have been having this festival for 50-plus years,” said the church’s pastor, Tom Steinmetz. “It centers really around Middle Eastern, in particular Lebanese, food and culture, so the food, the music [and] the dancing.”
While the church started as a mission church in the 1950s, eventually becoming a full-sized parish in 1963, its origin dates back to the 1930s when people from Lebanon immigrated to New Hampshire, wanting to establish a church that aligned with their Melkite Catholic faith. The church has grown considerably since then, having outgrown its previous location and moved to its current one about 17 years ago.
“The makeup of the church has [also] changed,” said Steinmetz. “There’s a real mixture now of people … predominantly people not of Middle Eastern origin but who love the faith and the traditions. We’ve continued this tradition of making this food. We get a big turnout over [the] three days.”
Marlou Lazos, who has been running this event for 15 years along with her cousin, estimates that 3,000 people come over the course of the weekend.
“We don’t actually count exactly how many people come through but we know what we sell and it’s been about 2,000 of just the kabobs,” she said.
The chicken and the lamb kabob dinners are served with rice pilaf, lubyeh, which are green beans in tomato sauce, and bread.
“Our dinner entrees are kind of what you would expect for a Middle Eastern festival,” Lazos said. “The recipes that we use at mahrajan are handed down to us from members of the church.”
In addition to the kabobs, which is one of the most popular meals at the festival, other traditional Middle Eastern meals include shawarma, thinly sliced seasoned meat served on a wrap with vegetables; mujaddara, which consists of rice and lentils cooked down with caramelized onions; and kibbee.
“Kibbee is pretty much the national dish of Lebanon,” Lazos said via email. “It is a meatloaf made of beef burger and lamb with cracked wheat, onions and pine nuts.”
Dessert options include baklawa, a version of baklava, filled with hazelnuts and chocolate or walnuts. Orders can be placed online or in person at the event.
“Our church is growing. Last year we sold out of everything, so we’ve spent time making more food this year and I’m just so pleased that we have people that have been with the church for years and years now,” Lazos said. “Now we have new crowds coming in … and they’re joining in the fun too. … I’m just grateful for all the help that we have.”
Mahrajan: Middle Eastern food festival When: Friday, Aug. 18, 5 to 10 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 19, noon to 10 p.m.; Sunday, Aug. 20, noon to 5 p.m. Where: Our Lady of the Cedars Church, 140 Mitchell St., Manchester Cost: Free to attend. Prices for meals can be found online or at the event.
When 23-year-old AJ Dodge passed away six years ago, friends and family created A Lift From AJ, a nonprofit that holds the annual AJ Doge Memorial Car Show to raise scholarship money for automotive students at Nashua Community College and to support suicide prevention. This year’s event will be held on Sunday, Aug. 20, from 1 to 5 p.m.
“AJ took his own life by suicide in 2017,” Stacie Pitts said. “When we lost AJ, we kind of all just came together really wanting to do something to give back. … [We] put this show on because we wanted to help in the way we could to keep AJ’s memory living on. He always had that helpful personality and caring for others, so this was a great way to couple that with his love for cars.”
Pitts organizes the car show along with AJ’s parents, Al and Terri Dodge, Jonathan Allen, Patrick Clement and Bryan Reece.
“[AJ] had the most intense love for other human beings,” Pitts said. “I mean, he would take the shirt off his back for anybody. He was always willing to help.”
AJ had gone to Nashua Community College to be an automotive specialist, which Pitts said wasn’t easy for him. In addition to taking out student loans, she says most automotive students don’t know they also have to buy their own tools, which can be around $3,000.
“That’s kind of the story line for this car show,” Pitts said. “We wanted to do something not only in his memory [and] his love for cars, he was always working on a project car, but make it a little easier for the students when they start that journey so that they can be successful.”
The free car show, which usually features anywhere from 75 to 150 vehicles, has grown a lot in its six years.
“We have some sponsors that have been with us since Day 1 of doing this car show,” Pitts said. “I still get phone calls from new sponsors every year. … We couldn’t do this car without our sponsors … and we’re just very appreciative of them.”
One sponsor, Axe Play of Hudson, will return this year with an ax throwing truck, and Just Chillin’ Cool Treats and Beverages, Cedi’s Tasty Treats and Wicked Tasty Food Truck will also be in attendance. Awards will be given out in 13 categories, from best car, motorcycle and truck, best painted, tallest and lowest in show and the Dodge family favorite chosen by Al and Terri. There will be raffles, with prizes like gift cards for Northwoods Brewing Co., Renu Salon, Enlighten Me Massage & Wellness and Papa Joe’s Kitchen, who are also among the list of sponsors.
“For the first time this year we’re also going to donate money to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention,” Pitts said. “Although our show is based on scholarships for automotive students, the foundation of it is suicide prevention and … we’re going to keep that alive by making a donation to a great foundation that will help.”
In early years, A Lift From AJ foundation awarded one or two scholarships. Last year they were able to give out four. This year’s recipients are Adam Tavarez and AJ’s cousin, Cameron Dodge.
“We’re actually ready to give out more scholarships — we just need the applications to come through,” Pitts said. “This year’s closed, but the process opens up in May. I feel like more and more people have become involved over the years and more people come back. You see more familiar faces. I think it’s a great thing for the community and every year we’re adding something new.”
6th Annual AJ Dodge Memorial Car Show When: Sunday, Aug. 20, 1 to 5 p.m. Where: Nashua Community College, 505 Amherst St., Nashua Cost: Free
Triet Le is the owner of Holy Moly Snacks, a beef chip company. All products are made from scratch and prepackaged at their commercial site in Manchester. Their beef chips are similar to beef jerky, but are thin and crispy and come in a variety of flavors, such as teriyaki and cracked pepper. Find them at the Bedford, Derry and Salem famers markets.
What is your must-have kitchen item?
Chili pepper since I love spicy [food].
What would you have for your last meal?
Spicy food like spicy noodle soups and snacks.
What is your favorite local eatery?
It varies depending on my mood… Masa Japanese Restaurant and Thai Connection.
What is your favorite thing on your menu?
Spicy Teriyaki beef chips because they’re savory, sweet and spicy.
What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?
Boba tea
What is your favorite thing to cook at home?
Spicy soup.
Featured photo: Triet Le, owner of the Holy Moly Snacks. Courtesy photo.
