Category: Cover Stories

The art of supersizing your favorite treat

By John Fladd

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If you buy a cookie from a bakery, chances are you’re getting a cookie considerably bigger than you’d get from a supermarket box or even than you’d make at home.

For Kat Forkey, a pastry chef at The Bakeshop on Kelley Street in Manchester, even the “little” cookies are still pretty substantial.

“We [bake cookies] that are 5 to 6 inches across,” she said, “but we can make much bigger ones for cookie cakes. Those are a little bit thicker and we decorate them kind of like the old like Mrs. Fields cookies where you get them decorated with ‘Happy Birthday.’ They’re a good height, so they can be sliced like a cake. So if people don’t like cakes they can have cookie cakes.”

Forkey said the cookie cakes can be as wide as or wider than a traditional birthday cake.

Baking a cake-sized cookie

Kat Forkey advised against trying to bake extremely large cookies on a traditional sheet pan. She generally bakes them in a cake pan or in a spring-form pan.

“We don’t like our cookies thin here,” she said, “so [a cake pan makes them] nice and thick like a good 1 or 2 inches.” The other secret to baking a super-large cookie, she said, is giving it plenty of time to cool before removing it from the pan.

“Usually we try to let it cool overnight if we can. Because what really happens is the chocolate gets all gooey. You don’t want the frosting to melt on there because then it’s just a big hot mess.”

“We can do different sizes,” she said, “so for us, because a lot of our cakes are by the amount of people you want to feed, we can do them different sizes too, like a 6-inch, an 8-inch, a 10-inch or even bigger.”

Forkey said that, big or gigantic, her most popular cookies are the traditional ones.

“I would say chocolate chip or M&M cookies are the most popular,” she said. She only bakes — it’s tempting to say a handful, but even one big cookie is a handful — a modest number of cookies each day. Most customers buy one at a time, she said, and six to 12 of each variety are enough to sell in a day. By baking small batches, she said, she can rotate through her stock quickly and ensure each cookie is fresh when she sells it.

Brett Fleckner has a more stripped-down approach. He owns Bagel Alley in Nashua and focuses most of his energy on bagels.

“The cookies are a side thing that we do,” he said. “We make them big and that’s why they sell. The customers like them big. If they weren’t big, we wouldn’t sell as many.”

Fleckner only makes one kind of cookie. “We just do chocolate chip,” he said. “We used to do three kinds, but now we just do chocolate chip, nice and simple. We made it from scratch, with a traditional recipe, with shortening, brown sugar, and eggs.”

The dough for Bagel Alley cookies spreads out in the oven as the cookies bake. That’s on purpose, Fleckner said.

“They’re not real thick, because then they’d be either doughy or cakey. So I don’t want them to be thick. You want a little chew in the middle, and you don’t want it to fall apart.” Each cookie is 5 to 6 inches across, he said, and weighs about 7 ounces. He uses an ice cream scoop to measure the dough into 7-ounce portions. And, of course, they are thin, chewy in the center, and crispy on the edges.

Lighthouse Local in Bedford follows a different path. While not as wide as some other big cookies — maybe 4 inches or so across — theirs are about an inch thick. Trina Bird is the head baker.

“Our cookies are big,” she said. “We don’t skimp. They’re all thick. They’re all handmade.”

Brett Fleckner’s cookie advice

The only ingredient Fleckner uses in his cookies that you might not have in your pantry is cake flour. Just as bread flour has a high protein content to make bread chewy, cake flour — sometimes called pastry flour — has a low protein content to make baked goods tender.

He also advises keeping an eye on the cookies as they bake.
“Go by the look,” he said. It might be a good idea to take large cookies out of the oven just before they look dark enough.
“They’re going to keep cooking after they come out of the oven,” he said. Big cookies have more mass and hold onto residual heat more than little ones.

Bird and her staff spent a lot of time developing their cookie recipes to make sure every batch is nearly perfect. As long as conditions are the same and the recipes are followed to the letter, Bird said, the cookies are consistently excellent.

“All of our cookies are made in advance,” she said. “We scoop [the dough] out with ice cream scoops, and they go into the freezer. So that way, when they bake, they’re right from the freezer. So we have convection ovens, and they bake the perfect amount of time and they come out perfect.” Not only does freezing the cookie dough ensure that every cookie starts baking at the same temperature, she said, but it also keeps the dough from spreading too quickly in the oven. “You have to chill. Some cookies you can get away with not chilling, but most cookies you need to chill. You can kind of get away with it if you’re a home baker and you’re putting cornstarch in the dough [to stabilize it]. A lot of times those ones, they do it on purpose so you can bake them right away. But we don’t use cornstarch in our cookies. I have nothing against cornstarch. I love it. But not for cookies.”

Lighthouse Local bakes its cookies “low and slow”, Bird said. “At 300 degrees and for something like 15 minutes. Some cookies take a little longer, but most of them are right at around 15 minutes.

Bird said making her cookies big enough to share has been a priority from the beginning. “Everywhere I looked,” she remembered, “and every cookie that I wanted to eat was big. Bigger is always better for me and I can share it. I have a lot of children and they always want cookies, so I can buy less and then feed more.”

One of Bird’s standout big cookies is a thumbprint cookie the size of a tennis ball.

“Our thumbprints are huge,” she said. “We make them with almond flour, because it keeps them super moist and it’s just better that way. We already had our base cookies and we wanted something new. We actually bought a giant box of almond meal by accident. We didn’t want it to go bad, so I was like, ‘Let’s make a thumbprint.’”

For Bird, one of the best things about the thumbprint cookie is its versatility.

“We can use rotating seasonal jams,” she said. “We’ve been doing raspberry and strawberry for a lot of the winter but now we have guava because we’re getting into the spring. We can do blueberry or we can do lemon curd — we can literally fill it with anything. I just wanted them big. They’re just awfully perfect.”

The thick chocolate chip cookies at Lighthouse Local use two different chocolates. “Inside, chocolate chips,” Bird said. “On the top, chunks of dark chocolate. So it’s semi, it’s dark, it’s milk, and it’s salted.”

The most popular cookie with children, she said, is the Pop Tart Cookie.

“We order Pop-Tarts in bulk and we just crumble them up and we put them in the base cookie with sprinkles, and kids love it. It’s actually one of my favorites too. It’s a fun one. We rotate out cookies. Our really popular one at Christmas is the molasses cookie. That’s my personal favorite, but that’s a winter thing. And we have to phase out snickerdoodles too.”

Because the cookies are so beautiful and look so good, Bird said, many customers buy them as gifts.

Getting thick, flat cookies

Trina Bird advises keeping a close eye on the butter and sugar as they blend together at the beginning of a recipe — a process called “creaming.”
“We are really careful not to over-cream our butter and our sugar together, because sometimes when you do that it melts the butter, so then when you bake the cookies they’re runny. Are they still delicious? Yes. But is it what I want to see? Absolutely not.”

“People can order them in advance, however many they need. So these 4-inch cookies are our standard size but a lot of times people will be like, ‘I do love them, but I don’t want them that big,’ so we can halve them or quarter them. We can make mini cookies or we can do half sizes and we do a lot of that for corporate events weddings, but like when they’re for gifts, yes, we’ll take them and we’ll put them in the individual sleeves and people will give them as gifts.”

“We label each of our batches with the name and who did them and the date so if somebody gets a cookie that’s not up to our standards, we know what went wrong,” Bird said. A well-made cookie will stay fresh for a surprisingly long time, though.

“I’d probably say you were looking at four days before they go stale,” she said. “And if you keep them in a bag, like a Ziploc bag, you’ll get over a week out of them. Anyone who’s keeping a cookie longer than a week has amazing amounts of self-control and I need to know how to do it because it’s not happening in my house.”

Maggie Josti is the owner of Maggie’s Munchies, a retail cookie manufacturer in Nashua. Her cookies, which are sold individually, are substantial.

“They’re all a quarter pound,” she said, “and we like them to be thick and chewy, so the girth is there, with a toasty outer layer. The width is anywhere between 4 and 5 inches, depending on how much they spread.” Because they are thick, the cookies are chewy in the middle but crispy everywhere else.

“The way that we describe it for people,” Josti said, “the best way to describe it, is thick and chewy with a toasty outer layer.”

Josti said the size of her cookies was a secondary consideration when she and her husband started the business.

“Anything that we’ve ever made from our bakery,” she said, “—because we used to make whoopie pies to start — but anything that we did, we made it large enough that you can enjoy it and feel satisfied and not feel like you need to eat like 20 cookies. Because of the quality of the ingredients that we have, it doesn’t weigh you down so much that you can’t enjoy another one. Size wasn’t the main focus to begin with, but it’s just a pleasant characteristic of the product that we created that people seem to enjoy.”

Process versus ingredients

Maggie Josti said that a baker can use identical ingredients in two batches of cookies but end up with completely different products. Even if you don’t melt the butter by over-creaming it with sugar, it will add more air to the dough and change its texture.

“The difference between a cookie and a cake is that you just want to mix it until it’s combined, at least for the kind of cookies that we prefer. If you mix it too long, it aerates it too much and will give you an airier, lighter cookie, which is not what we would prefer. Also, when adding dry ingredients to wet ones, don’t over-mix the dough, which will develop gluten and make the cookies tough.”
“Always mix just to combine,” Josti said.

More important, Josti said, was perfecting the cookie-to-chocolate ratio.

“Anything that we make, I want to make sure it is something that I would want to eat myself,” she said. “So, when it came to the chocolate chips, I wanted to make sure that you had chocolate chips in every bite and not have any bites where there were no chocolate chips. So we basically just took a traditional New England recipe and we added a little bit extra.”

Maggie’s Munchies has five core cookies, with a seasonal sixth flavor.

“That way,” Josti said, “If you get a six-pack you can get one of every flavor. The five core flavors are chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, molasses, double chocolate peanut butter, and sugar cookies. Those are the ones you can always find from us and we’ll be rotating through different seasonal ones depending on the season.

One of the things Josti likes about cookies of any size is that they are an expression of culture.

“The cool part about being in New England is that it’s a melting pot, right?” she asked. “So you have everyone’s backgrounds coming together. And I think that’s what makes this so fun is that yes, we have our classic flavors that are traditional to New England, [and] there are so many different kinds of cookies and you can enjoy them all.”

Do an internet search for “BIG COOKIE, NEW HAMPSHIRE”, and you are likely to fall down a rabbit hole of food blogs, discussion boards and even conspiracy theories. But dig deep enough and you will find the Ogre Chip 1000, arguably the platonic ideal of a Big Cookie.

Made and sold by Lickee’s & Chewy’s Candies & Creamery in Dover, the OC1K weighs half a pound and contains a staggering number of chocolate chips per cookie.

Chris Guerrette is the owner and operator of Lickee’s & Chewy’s. He said the goal was for the Ogre Chip 1000 to be a symbol of his candy shop.

“We wanted to develop a very large cookie that was just a chocolate chip cookie,” he said, “but that kind of represented all the cool flavors we are able to create here. We decided to use what are called 10,000-count chips. These are extremely tiny chocolate chips and that resulted in well over 1,000 chocolate chips in every single cookie. Each one of them is about a half a pound and about an inch and a half to 2 inches tall because of the way we bake them.”

Unlike many Big Cookie bakers, Guerrette is a fan of a domed cookie.

Chris Guerrette’s tip for making the best chocolate chip cookies

Use the highest-quality chocolate you can find.
“The chocolate that we use is a premium top-of-the-line chocolate,” Guerrette said. “It’s not just a generic chocolate chip. It’s actually the same chocolate we use to make all of our gourmet chocolates here. We actually use two types of chocolate in [the cookies]. One of them is a semi-sweet with a cocoa percentage between 50 and 60 percent, and a second one that’s a little bit darker and a little larger. That one is 65 percent.”

“They’re tall; they kind of look like muffin tops. A lot of people ask if there’s something in the center. We cook them to look like that,” Guerrette said. His goal was the elusive tender-in-the-middle-crispy-along-the-edges texture.

“We spent maybe two months testing different recipes, making samples, and then finally settled on this recipe and we’ve been making it ever since. It got to the point where I didn’t want to try a single other chocolate chip cookie because I was tasting two or three batches a day at one point. I mean, the slightest thing, butter, sugar, refrigerated, non-refrigerated, as far as before baking, all sorts of testing until we were really happy with it.

Roan Brantley is a professional cook and a passionate home baker. She sees big cookies as something quintessentially American.

“I feel like Americans are just kind of generally drawn to big things,” she said. I feel like people are impressed by the sheer size of things”

Although she likes big cookies, size is not as important to Brantly as consistency.

“Uniformity is big,” she said. “I would recommend weighing the dough to make sure that you’re getting similar sizes. There’s really good hacks on getting them all nice and round if that’s a problem. I envy the people who manage to make extremely tall cookies. I can’t figure it out, so unless you’re sticking a marshmallow in the middle or something, I don’t know how we’re getting all that height in cookies.”

Brantley sees cookies as a glue that strengthens relationships between people.

“I really enjoy making snickerdoodles,” she said, “because that’s all of my friends’ favorites. So every time I’m making a few trays of them I know I’m about to make like 20 people really happy. I think that we should be sharing more of them. Bake more cookies. Bring them to your neighbors. Bring them to your friends.”

Roan Brantley’s cookie hack

“Chill your dough for 24 hours. It makes a world of difference. A lot of people don’t really acknowledge quite how much of a difference it makes, but your cookie’s just going to have such a better texture if you chill it and wait the full day. I think it definitely gives everything a chance to blend a bit more, to meld those flavors together as well, along with letting the dough hydrate and that gluten give it that chew and hold it together nicely.”

A Cookie Recipe to Build Friendships On – Butterscotch and Potato Chip Big Cookies

This is a recipe adapted from one by Christina Tosi of Milk Bar.

150 grams (about 90 percent of a 7-ounce bag) of salt and pepper kettle chips, crushed into cornflake-sized pieces – so, eat a handful of chips, then pour the rest into a bowl and crush them lightly with your fist

1 cup (two sticks) butter

1¼ cups (247 g) sugar

2/3 cup (132 g) brown sugar

1 large egg

1 Tablespoon good scotch – I like Glenlivet

1¾ cups (210 g) all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder – this is a very small amount; these are going to be large, thin cookies

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1¼ teaspoons coarse salt

1¼ cups (125 g) mini marshmallows – about half a bag

2/3 cup (122 g) mini chocolate chips

10½ ounces (300 g) butterscotch hard candies

Break up the butterscotch candies. This will be the most tedious part of this recipe. After a lot of experimentation I’ve found that the most efficient way to do this is to lay five to 10 of the wrapped candies on your counter and tap each of them with something heavy — in my case the pestle from my largest mortar and pestle, which is the rough size and shape of a billy club. The idea here is to break each candy into three or four pieces, not to crush it to powder. Empty the pieces from their wrappers into a cereal-sized bowl. If you have a young but greedy child, offer to pay them one cent for each wrapper they empty. This will speed things along, and if they have the attention span to stick with it, it will set you back about three bucks.

Cream the butter and sugars together, then whip on high speed for several minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy. These cookies are going to spread out very thin, so beating air into the dough will help equalize things.

Add the egg and the scotch, and whip on high speed for another few minutes. You will probably want to scrape down the sides of the bowl at some point during this process. These cookies are complicated enough; they don’t need the emotional bitterness of cookie dough that got stuck to the side of the bowl and felt left out.

Mix in the dry ingredients — the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Start slowly, or they will puff out and cover you and your counter with flour, leaving you looking like a character from a classic Warner Bros. cartoon. You’re mixing this until it just barely comes together into a “shaggy” dough.

Mix in the butterscotch pieces, the marshmallows, the chocolate chips and the potato chip pieces. If you have a modest-sized mixer, the bowl may come alarmingly close to being completely full. Don’t panic. Mix things together as well as you can.

Form the dough into 2-inch balls and place on a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat, then flatten them slightly into small mutant hockey pucks. Cover them with plastic wrap and chill them for at least an hour.

(At this point, you might have some leftover debris in the bottom of your bowl that wasn’t doughy enough to form into balls. You can bake this at 350°F for about 10 minutes to make a crumbly topping for ice cream. You won’t be sorry.)

Place four or five cookie pucks on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat, spread as far apart as possible — they will spread a great deal. Bake at 350°F for about 12 minutes. When you take them out of the oven, they will look like a mess. Don’t panic. Let them cool entirely before removing them from the pan. If, unlike me, you don’t own an unreasonable number of baking sheets, when the cookies have cooled for 10 minutes or so, gently slide the parchment paper onto a cool counter, and lay down a new piece of parchment on the baking sheet.

These cookies require a bit of effort to make the first time around, but they are totally worth it. They are outrageously thin, yet chunky; crispy along the edges, but bendy and chewy. The butterscotch is shockingly good but totally works as a baked good. Making these will become an event.

Mentioned spots offering a big cookie

The Bakeshop on Kelley Street (171 Kelley St., Manchester, 624-3500, thebakeshoponkelleystreet.com) is open Thursdays and Fridays from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Bagel Alley (1 Eldridge St., Nashua, 882-9343) is open Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Sundays from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Lighthouse Local (21 Kilton Road, Bedford, 716-6983, lighthouse-local.com) is open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and weekends from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Maggie’s Munchies (therealmaggiesmunchies.com) cookies are available online and at events.

Lickee’s & Chewy’s Candies & Creamery (53 Washington St., Dover, 343-1799, lickeesnchewys.com) is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sundays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. According to Owner Chris Guerrette, customers will soon be able to order the Ogre Chips 1,000 cookie from his new website, ogrechocolates.com.

Attention bookworms of all stripes! This weekend features book fun for everyone. At the Derry Author Fest and Exeter LitFest, hear authors discuss their works and process — and maybe even get some tips on putting your own stories on paper. At the Old School Comic Show in Concord, enjoy the rows of comic books and meet some comics creators. And the Kids Con New England has chapter books, graphic novels and comic books — and artists and authors — to help younger readers grow their enthusiasm for books. Looking for some new reads? Check out this weekend’s many celebrations of stories, their creators and their loyal readers.

Derry Author Fest – Dive into the craft of books

By Zachary Lewis

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Erin Robinson is a genealogy and reference librarian at Derry Public Library (64 East Broadway, Derry) and has been part of the Derry Author Fest since its inception almost 10 years ago. This year’s Fest, with the tagline “Community. Collaboration. Confidence,” is happening on Saturday, April 5.

“It’s a full-day lecture series,” Robinson said. “The idea is that people who are interested in writing or illustrating can come and they can learn about the craft and business of writing.”

Gibson’s Bookstore will be providing an all-day book sale, and a door prize is being offered by New Hampshire Writers Project.

“We have a variety of different levels of writers that come to the program. Some are authors who’ve been published, some are writers who maybe published once and they’re working on new projects, and some who’ve never been published. We try to get an array of different levels,” she said. Robinson is an author as well but publishes under the name Erin E. Moulton. She recently came out with a fun guide on exploring cemeteries called The Beginner’s Guide to Cemetery Sleuthing.

Laura Knoy is the keynote speaker of the day. Knoy is a journalist who founded and was the host of The Exchange on New Hampshire Public Radio before she “stepped down from the host’s chair to pursue other interests, including writing fiction,” according to her bio.

“Our whole theme is community, collaboration, and confidence,” Robinson said, “and of course, Laura’s got that in the bag. That’s a huge theme for her…. She’s always talking about local New Hampshire books. She’s going to bring some of her years of storytelling to the table for us.”

Knoy is excited for the day.

“I spent my whole career in journalism trying to create community around ideas and problems and solutions,” Knoy said, “and collaboration was definitely a part of that as you try to bring people together in a talk studio and hoping that people can not only discuss the issues and maybe their differences but collaborate on possible solutions for New Hampshire. But my speech is really about the third word in the conference title. I want to talk about confidence and how that’s played a role in my own career as a journalist and how it’s now playing a role in my efforts to become a published author.”

Her book, The Shopkeeper of Alsace, “is historical fiction that starts in World War I and ends in World War II. It’s heavily based on a true story that was shared with me by a French family who I met 30 years ago when I lived in France. The heroine of the story is the mother of the family,” Knoy said.

Knoy expands on the deep connection between the two globe-stretching events. “That’s the thing that I think makes this book so different. I mean, yes, there are tons of World War II stories, but Alsace’s experience during World War II was unlike any other region of France…. They were annexed. They became part of Germany again. They were part of Hitler’s Reich and their men had to fight for Hitler so their experience is completely different from any other region of France and nobody writes about that,” Knoy said.

Knoy will spend most of her time speaking on the conference’s themes.

“I won’t be speaking that much about my specific book. I’m definitely going to talk about the role of confidence in my earlier career and how I’m kind of working,” Knoy said. Among Knoy’s other pursuits, she hosts a couple of podcasts. One is called ReadLocalNH and can be found on Spotify and other places where podcasts live.

“Once a month I interview a local author, and I’ve met some great authors … and I just feel like there needs to be more platforms for New Hampshire authors to shine. I’ve been running ReadLocalNH for two and a half years and I’ve met some incredible people. I’ll probably see some of them down in Derry,” Knoy said.

Knoy believes many paths exist to the land of writing.

“There’s no one right or wrong way to do it. And I’m kind of suspicious of anybody who says this is the right way. That works for them, but maybe that doesn’t work for you. … There’s the people who say, ‘Sit down every morning and write for four hours’ and that’s great for some people but that’s not my lifestyle,” Knoy said.

Robinson discussed other presenters on the schedule.

“Then we’ve got, of course, Gina Perry. She is doing a picture book process and she has multiple picture books. She writes and illustrates. She does a wonderful job. Terry Farish and Sara Leslie Arnold, that’s like an author librarian team, and they’re going to talk about author visits, presenting your stories to diverse students,” Robinson said.

Robinson hopes writers from around the state are able to go to the event.

“I think we do find that writers are often quite introverted, so it can be a challenge to find those groups to talk to and mingle with and connect with, so they’re going to be discussing that, Susan Drew and Scott Gray. Then the one I’m also really looking forward to is Sarah Lamagna. She does these New England hiking books, which I just love,” Robinson said.

With the event being free it will be hard for writers to pass up.

“Registration is recommended. We wouldn’t bar anyone from going if they showed up but it’s recommended just so we make sure we put out enough tables and chairs and get ample room for everybody,” Robinson said.

“It’s really for every level and it’s wonderful too because it really is a wonderful writers community and people come from Massachusetts and New Hampshire so I think the second best part besides being, just being a really enriching experience is the community that comes together. All the writers come out of their quiet little houses and come and collaborate and communicate for a day and it’s really nice to see. Some people honestly just come because they want to hear interesting speakers. They might not even have a project in the works yet, and they’re welcome to come too. It’s not just about that, you know, really strict group who, you know, call themselves writers. It really is open to all, anyone who’s interested. Great for teachers too,” Robinson said.

Derry Author Fest

When: Saturday, April 5, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Derry Public Library, 64 East Broadway, Derry
Free (registration encouraged)
More: derryauthorfest.wordpress.com/schedule

Schedule
10–10:05 a.m. – Welcome
10:05–10:50 a.m. – Keynote with Laura Knoy
11:10–11:55 a.m. – Picture Book Process: From Your Light Bulb Moment to the Bookshelf with Gina Perry
12:15–12:55 p.m. – Lunch break
12:55–1:40 p.m. – Author Visits: Presenting Your Stories to Diverse Students with Terry Farish and Sara Lesley Arnold
2–2:45 p.m. – Get Out of Your Spare Bedroom and Find Your People with Susan Drew and Scott Gray
3:05–3:50 p.m. – Plot Twist: You Don’t Need an English Degree to be an Author with Sarah Lamagna
3:50 p.m. – door prize by New Hampshire Writers Project

Meet-and-greet and book signing will immediately follow each session.
All-day book sale provided by Gibson’s Bookstore.

Comic con fun — for kids – Telling stories, drawing pictures

By Zachary Lewis

[email protected]

This year is the 10th anniversary of the founding of Kids Con New England, said founder Emily Drouin.

“I’m a comic book artist and children’s book illustrator and founder of Kids Con New England. It’s a fun comic con for kids and children’s book event,” Drouin said.

The event is scheduled for Sunday, April 6, at the Sheraton in Nashua.

“We’re all about promoting art education and literacy through family-friendly comics, children’s books, art, and creative workshops, and lots of fun activities for the kids. They can meet over 130 comic and children’s book creators, exhibitors, middle grade authors, as well as lots of superheroes, princesses, pirates, Pokemon characters, characters such as Bluey, Mickey & Minnie, and Star Wars characters and more,” Drouin said.

“We do Jedi training, musical performances by the Clemenzi Crusaders and the Foo Family Band, magic shows with Sage’s Entertainment, and we have Gamers Sanctuary providing fun video games, and we also have indie game makers that do tabletop games, and we’re having Lego builds with the Lego Store, coding and robotic demos, and art contests, kids and family cosplay contests, scavenger hunt and more. So there’s a lot of things going on,” she said.

What drove Drouin to start this saga?

“I was self-publishing and started going to comic cons,” she said. “I noticed that … there weren’t a lot of family-friendly activities for the kids. I would often be next to a lot of adult-themed comics. And I wanted to create a fun event for the kids so that there’s lots of things for the kids to do, as well as to inspire them to create comics, so I started running kid zones at comic cons where I was teaching creative workshops. Then I decided to create a whole convention devoted to fellow family-friendly comic creators and children’s book illustrators to showcase their work.”

Families will feel at home at this event.

“This is a family-friendly space, all the materials are family-friendly appropriate, you know, no bloody gore and inappropriate books for the kids,” Drouin said. She hopes to “inspire them with the creative workshops and get kids excited about reading and creating art and comics.”

Drouin is creating as well as offering the space to other creators.

“I just had a new comic that came out. It’s superhero-themed about saving the environment, kind of like Captain Planet. It’s by a company that does textile recycling, Apparel Impact. I worked on their second book in this series. The first was done by another comic artist but this one is Apparel Impact Toxic Takedown and it’s about this textile production causing their waste to go into the waters and it’s creating this toxic environment for the animals and the people in the surrounding community. The superhero team, they go to put a stop to that and save the day.”

Toxic Takedown is the second story in Apparel Impact’s Team Impact! comic book series. Selections from this story as well as more of Drouin’s work can be found on her website emilyatplay.com

“I work mainly with authors. I illustrate,” Drouin said. “I also had a couple of children’s books that came out too last year, or [in the] past couple of years. I had one about adopting a puppy called Kona Finds a Family. And I did another one about the environment, Buddy the Bass and the Gooey Green Slime.” Selections from these titles and more can be found on her website as well.

Comic strips in the newspaper were a big inspiration for Drouin.

“I loved reading all those and that inspired me to start writing and creating my own comics and stories, and I also loved going to the library, all the books that I could get, and it inspired me to write and illustrate my own stories. When I was a kid I was inspired by Brothers Grimm fairy tales. I loved fairy tales, and so I would write my own fairy tales. I did co-write a comic book series called Eplis with my husband, Jeremy. I’m glad to still be doing this as an adult…,” she said.

Access to art as well is a big catalyzing factor for Drouin to put on Kids Con.

“One of the reasons why I wanted to do Kids Con New England was I wanted there to be a resource, a place for kids to learn and create comics. Through our workshops we’re hoping to inspire the next generation of creators. I wish there were more of these types of events when I was growing up … it’s a really awesome opportunity for kids to meet all these artists and authors and to get inspired … we have storytelling workshops [and] writing workshops to get kids better at how to write stories as well as creating comics.”

Many well-known and award-winning artists and illustrators will be in attendance, including Mark Parisi, Rick Stromoski, Chuck Dillon and Joe Wos.

Wos has won six Emmy awards as host and creator of PBS’ The Cartoon Academy. He is also an educator and has been the Charles M. Schulz Museum’s resident cartoonist for more than 20 years.

“He’s going to be doing a presentation at Kids Con…,” Drouin said, “teaching kids how to do cartooning, how to draw, and so it’s really a great place for kids to learn a lot. We also have several members of the National Cartoonist Society. So famous cartoonists are there.”

“I think the visual aspect of storytelling is really engaging to kids…. In the ’80s and early days, you know, there were mainly adult-themed comics, and now comics are very popular for kids. They have Dog Man and others out there. It’s just really a way for kids to get excited about reading, I think, through the visuals and the colors, and it brings the characters to life. … It’s a really fun and exciting way to create and tell stories.”

Drouin reflected on her journey running comic cons for kids.

“Since we’ve been running this for a decade [we’ve seen] all the kids that have been coming back each year to the shows … it’s really fun seeing the kids grow with us,” Drouin said.

Kids Con New England

When: Sunday, April 6, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Sheraton, 11 Tara Blvd, Nashua
Tickets: Admission costs $16. Kids under 5 get in free. Discounts for family-of-four pack, military and seniors.
More: kidsconne.com, emilyatplay.com

Nothing but comics – Little Giant show brings big-name artists

By Zachary Lewis

[email protected]

Jason Brodnick and his wife are hosting their Old School Comic Show at the Everett Arena in Concord on Saturday, April 5. They started the event in 2018 and typically expect to see a couple thousand comic book fans.

“So the Old School Comic Show is a true ‘old-school,’ in my opinion, what an old-school comic show was. I grew up in the ’80s in Philadelphia and I went to some comic shows back then and I remember them to be nothing but comics, artists, and art,” Brodnick said.

He’s interested in the fundamentals.

“There weren’t cosplay parades, and there wasn’t the Geico truck trying to sell you car insurance. There wasn’t a vinyl siding guy, you know? I think comic cons have become something that I don’t like, which is like a pop culture con, you know? They’re fun, but I go to shows for comic books, and I think a lot of other people do as well.”

Brodnick and his wife run Little Giant Comics in Lawrence, Mass., and they originally had a storefront at the Rockingham Mall in Salem, New Hampshire.

Their main focus at the Old School Comic Show is the comic books.

“All the other stuff kind of gets in the way for me, so I created a show how I remember them to be with nothing but comics, artists and art, and it’s resonated within the community. It’s now arguably one of the best shows in the country. We have the best vendors in the hobby — Heritage Auction House, Metropolis Comics comes and sets up. Terry O’Neill comes from California, Harley Yee, Greg Reese, these guys are legendary vendors in the hobby, and they converge on the capital city of New Hampshire at this little arena and it’s an incredible event.”

Brodnick says attendants should expect to find countless comics when they walk in Saturday morning.

“It would be nothing but comic books as far as the eye can see and comic book art. So when you walk into the arena that’s what you’re going to get smacked in the face with is some of the best comic books and comic book art that’s out there.”

Comic book artists will be in attendance as well.

“We have some of the best artists that ever worked on a book, legends in the hobby. Jim Steranko; David Michelinie, who created Venom and Scott Lang. We have Jim Shooter, John Beatty, Donny Cates. C.G.C. Grading Company is going to be on site. It’s a pretty awesome event.”

These visual stories have shaped Brodnick since he was a kid.

“I had moved from Tennessee to Philadelphia and I was kind of like a little outcast, didn’t have a lot of friends, spoke in a Southern accent. One day I was walking home from school and I found a copy of ROM #18 and I read it and it was a story about the X-Men fighting this robot alien guy, Spaceknight they call him, and I got hooked…. I had my father bring me to Comic Universe to look for the first part of the story so I could find out what really happened, and it was fun. I enjoyed it, so I started collecting comics at that point.”

The Old School Comic Show grew out of a difficult period in Brodnick’s life.

“In 2013, I lost my job and I threw my back out,” he recalled. “It was six years before I could stand upright again. I was getting shots in my back. I had gotten severely overweight and depressed. Life was beating me up a little bit. My wife took me to a yard sale event at the Everett Arena in 2013. I remember walking in and it was like the horns of Valhalla started playing and it was the perfect venue for a show. I inquired about it and the guy said, ‘We only do dry floor events three months out of the year and vendors get right of first refusal,’ he said, ‘so for something to open up, it’s really hard. It takes a while for something to open up, but if anything happens, I’ll call you.’ So I left my number, I didn’t think anything about it. Five years later, in January of 2018, I get a phone call. ‘We got one day in April, it’s a Saturday.’ I said, ‘I’ll take it.’”

Little Giant Comics Old School Comic Show

When: Saturday, April 5, doors at 10 a.m. (9 a.m. for VIP)
Where: Everett Arena, 15 Loudon Road, Concord
Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at gate, $50 VIP (pre-purchase only, limited to 250 tickets)
More: oldschoolcomicshow.com

Exeter LitFest returns – Free panels, author chats

By Zachary Lewis

[email protected]

On Saturday, April 5, the Exeter Literary Festival happens at the town hall and the library. Katie Adams, the Chair of the Exeter LitFest board, spoke with the Hippo about the event.

“The group was founded by a group of people who wanted to highlight and celebrate and cultivate their long literary tradition in Exeter,” Adams said. “We’ve had so many writers here, from Dan Brown, people with a tremendous amount of success, and John Irving, to a whole slew of self-published authors who really add to that literary fabric that we all really appreciate.”

The LitFest has taken years to get to its current shape.

“When the festival began, it mainly focused on hyper-local authors, authors who were right in town or right nearby. In recent years we have expanded, and we’ve been able to balance out a lot of our homegrown authors with a little bit of a broader group from the New England area,” she said.

Two authors topping the bill this year are novelist Courtney Sullivan and historian Dr. Tiya Miles.

Sullivan “writes a lot about New England, a lot about big families, multigenerational, a lot of women’s stories,” Adams said. “She’s really wonderful, and her latest book, The Cliffs, is set right in Maine, so we think she’ll be a terrific fit for our audience.”

Miles’s All That She Carried won the 2021 National Book Award for nonfiction. “Her latest book, Night Flyer, is a kind of biography of Harriet Tubman [but] not just a straight cradle-to-grave account of her life. It is an account of her life through the lens of both her faith and her relationship to the natural world, so it’s really special,” Adams said. “We’re very lucky to be able to have these two authors who write such different books that are both so vibrant and relevant in our town.”

The fest is held on the first Saturday of April every year.

“This year we’re starting at 11 [a.m.] with our first event for adults and then our last event is at 4 [p.m.]. And we have events in the downstairs of the Town Hall as well as upstairs going on throughout that period of time,” Adams said.

“We also have a children’s event. This is our second year having a children’s event…. That is at the Exeter Public Library at 9:30 when children have been awake for many hours, as I well know.”

Aside from the featured authors, Lit Fest includes panel discussions. Four writers will join a panel about self-publishing. “We know we have a lot of writers and aspiring writers in this community, so that should be a really useful panel,” Adams said. “We have a panel on romantasy, the combination of romance and fantasy, which is one of the hottest and most rapidly growing genres for readers, so I think that will be a popular one,” Adams said.

Sports writing and baseball will be discussed too. “We have Keith O’Brien, who is a local author, who has written a great baseball book this year. He’s going to be coming back to Exeter Literary Festival this year with that book, and he’s being interviewed by Dan Provost, who both teaches English at the high school and is also a baseball coach. So I think that should be a really fun conversation,” she said.

“I like where we are right now. I like being able to be fundamentally a one-day event because the Exeter Town Hall is this really cool historic building and it’s also right in the middle of downtown where we have so many great shops, including our bookstore and restaurants. It’s great to be able to bring people here and collaborate with the local businesses and make it sort of a great community day,” Adams continued. “We have really worked on offering a variety of authors, perspectives, genres, so that we can both meet our readers where they are and also help introduce them to some new voices. That is definitely the balance I’d like to keep going forward,” she said.

Exeter Lit Fest

All events are free and open to the public.

Saturday, April 5

9:30 a.m. – Cynthia Copeland, author of middle-grade graphic novels Drive and Cub, at Exeter Public Library

​Town Hall Main Events (Exeter Town Hall, 9 Front St.)

​11 a.m. – J. Courtney Sullivan in conversation with Katie Adams
12:15 p.m. – Keith O’Brien in conversation with Dan Provost
12:15 p.m. – ​Independent Publishing in the Modern World featuring authors Renay Allen, Michael Cameron Ward, Justin Corriss and Sara North, moderated by Lara Bricker
1:30 p.m.– Damsels and Dragons: Romance, Fantasy, and Marrying the Two featuring authors Jacquelyn Benson, Laura Mayo, and Lyra Selene, moderated by Naomi Farr
1:30 p.m. – Echoes of Now: Poets of the Present Moment featuring poets K. Iver, Cate Marvin and Nathan McClain, curated by Diannely Antigua
2:45 p.m. – Family and Finding Home featuring authors Jane Brox and Alexandra Chan, moderated by Stef Kiper Schmidt
2:45 p.m. – Exeter High School Student Poetry
4 p.m. – Dr. Tiya Miles in conversation with Caleb Gale

More: exeterlitfest.com

Featured photo: Kids Con NE. Photo courtesy of Emily Drouin.

A look at the growing scene of indie music, art and style

By Michael Witthaus

[email protected]

On the first day of February, a packed gathering of the goth-clad, pierced and tattooed felt the rumblings of a revolution. To the untrained eye, it was a modest milieu, a back room of a Manchester American Legion Post lined with rows of booths, each offering everything from taxidermy to tarot card readings, art and apparel.

For Janelle Havens, however, the Queen City Black Market was a dream come to life.

The New Hampshire native had experienced similar events below the border in Massachusetts and at tattoo conventions. Along the way she was inspired to open a platform shoe store in Manchester, Lustshroom, Etc. She wondered why there weren’t similar efforts in her home state, and decided to launch one of her own.

Hoping for the best, Havens had scheduled an afterparty at the nearby Shaskeen Pub. The market’s success made the three-band show, organized by Aaron Shelton, that much more momentous. Shelton’s Kinetic City Events books regularly at the Shaskeen, helping to boost bands like Cytokine, who headlined the afterparty.

A slashing heavy metal band, Cytokine’s lineup includes guitarist Rob Kulingoski, another thread of the many moving this community forward. Along with Shelton, who spent a lot of time in punk and metal bands before focusing on being a promoter in the early 2010s, Kulingoski kept the fire burning after many venues closed mid-decade.

With nowhere else to go, Kulingoski repurposed the basement of his home in Litchfield for shows, and lived the metaphor for five years until the town shut him down.

“I’ve been a part of the underground hardcore and metal scene probably since I was 16, and I’m 39 now,” he said recently.

Kulingoski and many others are buoyant these days. The New Hampshire alternative scene is by all accounts thriving. Along with Kinetic City at the Shaskeen, BAD BRGR in Manchester has been open over a year and is, Kulingoski said, “a breath of fresh air for us” as it showcases original music. Over on Canal Street, Jewel Music Venue continues to host EDM, punk and other fringe events.

To illustrate the interwoven nature of the scene, Havens will be at Jewel’s Goth & Industrial Night in May, she and Shelton are at work on new projects, and Kulingoski’s Five/Nine Printcore makes T-shirts for bands and businesses like Fishtoes, a new vintage clothing store in Manchester where many scenesters shop.

“Underground” may not be the best word for this bustling community. “It’s almost misleading … it makes it sound secretive,” Aaron Shelton said by phone recently. “It’s just a broad term for things that aren’t quite in the mainstream. I mean, a band that claims to be underground could be mainstream the next day, if they get signed to a record label.”

Once upon a time, Metallica was underground. Now their logo is on premium whiskey bottles.

Shelton does allow, “it’s a term that people are comfortable with that adds a sense of belonging; this is ours, it’s not the mainstream. This doesn’t belong to Spotify, or MTV, or major record labels, this is our scene, we control it. It’s our community. We decide the successful bands, not the radio.”

It’s also not synonymous with an oath of poverty. This philosophy drives a Nashua-based organization that works with creative independents looking to make a career of their art. Clients include musicians, like Whole Loaf and 6 Minds Combined, along with graphic artist Keegan Fitzgerald’sMyArtbyKF and author Ellie Beach.

New Hampshire Underground is a micro entertainment complex that serves as a comprehensive resource for artists, musicians and writers. Founded by music business maven Eleanor Luna, it offers business guidance to creative professionals to assist with branding, marketing and financial management.

How to turn art into enterprise can get lost in the act of creation, Luna explained in a recent phone interview.

“When you’re really talented and focused on your particular passion, you might not know how to get yourself out there like a business would,” she said. “That’s what I do. I guide people.”

It’s modeled after a fitness center; Luna has also worked in that world. She acts as personal business trainer for her customers. Services are membership-based; VIP “Rockstar” level members have weekly meetings to go over topics like how to optimize an online presence and effectively reach out to industry insiders.

“These are the paths that you can go down,” she tells them. “This is the avenue that I recommend, these are the people that I would talk to. This is what I would do for your social media or your personal brand presence on the Internet.”

Like a lot of efforts to boost the independent creative scene, Luna’s started when the world started to emerge from the pandemic. Everyone was still unsure what that meant for the music business, and she saw a chance to finally use her Berklee MBA and multiple decades in marketing to make a difference.

“I sat on it for a number of years kind of wanting to do something like this, but not really knowing if there was a market,” she said. “But then I started to see lots of people asking questions. How do I copyright? How do I sign up for MusicPro? How do I navigate social media? How do I become a brand? I’m thinking, I know the answers … I literally could start a business.”

Luna picked a price point reasonable enough for the scrappy artists she hoped to mentor.

“I wanted to make it accessible to people but still be able to give them good value, and I knew a membership model would work better than an a la carte or hourly rate,” she said. “It’s more comfortable for people to say, ‘I’m going to have a commitment, and this person will provide what I can’t get on my own on the art side of it.’”

There’s also an entry-level Community Member tier that offers access to the Musician and Artist Lounge, a networking hub best described as Panera Bread for cooler people. It has a wi-fi-equipped co-working space, along with couches and other amenities. The lounge is open Tuesday through Thursday from 7 to 11 p.m. and access can also be booked for an hourly rate.

Other on-premise perks include a podcast studio, a backline-equipped community jam space, and an art gallery. Finally, there’s Terminus Underground, a performance space that serves as NHU’s public hub. It hosts regular events — the next is Night of the Fools, with Sunset Electric, Dog 8 Dog, and Questing Beast.

The NHU complex is on the second floor of a suburban warehouse in Nashua. For several years it has served as a rehearsal space for Dead Harrison, the doom rock band Luna manages that’s led by her partner Andre Dumont. It grew into its present configuration when more room opened up and Dumont, experienced in construction, built out an expansion.

Its efforts to foster the underground scene extend to the Nashua arts community. NHU collaborates closely with the city, including participating in last year’s Fourth of July River Fest. They provided live music at the event and helped raise enough funds to feed 40 veterans, while drawing a crowd of 150 attendees.

Luna also serves on the Nashua Arts Commission, which meets monthly to facilitate, advocate, coordinate and educate on behalf of the city’s arts and cultural assets.

“A voice for underground or alternative music wasn’t there previously,” she said. “Now we’re bringing it to light, which is really exciting.”

All this supports NHU’s role as a one-stop shop for music professionals, Luna continued.

“People get advice on how to run their band as a business, how to do their taxes, how to market themselves, strategies for selling their products and merch branding. Anything you can think of that you can use to create a regular business, the same strategies can be used to create your music business.”

When asked to define “underground,” Eleanor Luna’s answer was as much about what it wasn’t. “Unsigned bands, independent artists, indie music, writers, anything independently driven … any genre really,” align with the term, she said. Ultimately, though, “Underground to me means anything that’s not of the mainstream.”

For the live music scene, mainstream was exemplified by venues who primarily book “cover artists that could make your club money,” she said. “Not that we’re not trying to make money … but it’s not the priority now. The priority really is to support the musicians. It’s almost like a labor of love.”

To that end, the majority of NHU shows are held at Terminus Underground, although they do promote some events below the border. The next one happens April 11, a Beats & Bridges hip-hop concert starring 6 Minds Combined at Koto Underground in Lowell.

Film from the underground

Johna Jo Toomey is a videographer, and her youtube.com/@johnajomedia archive is a treasure trove of punk and metal music, including full sets from many local shows. Toomey’s story reflects the scene’s tight knit community and the support it provides to its own.

“I got into punk rock as a teenager. I was drawn to the subversive lyrics, chaotic energy, and working-class ethos. It was also this mystical thing that I never got to experience in person because I grew up in a small farm town with no shows nearby. After high school, I moved to NorCal and earned my B.A. in photojournalism and cultural anthropology, so documenting (sub)cultures for posterity is really ingrained in me. It’s so important to have these archives to look back on, on both individual and collective levels. While living in San Francisco, I covered shows for local print media, and got to shoot some of my early favorites such as Social Distortion and Dropkick Murphys. Eventually I moved back to New England, and in 2017 I started photographing metal and hardcore shows near Boston. As a woman in a male-dominated space, I felt proud to be an active contributor instead of a passive observer (not that there’s anything wrong with that). When I started to focus more on hardcore instead of metal, I made the switch to videography, because everybody wanted to see the mosh pit, but nobody wanted to stand near it. Then in 2019 while filming a basement show in Lowell, Mass., I got punched by a crowdkiller and broke my nose and eye socket. What happened next was eye-opening (no pun intended). New England hardcore friends showed me love and support, and took care of me when I needed four surgeries in 13 months. Meanwhile, my other friends and family victim-blamed me and said, “you shouldn’t have been there, you should find better friends.” So then I doubled down and started a YouTube channel … I’ve been filming hardcore shows around the country ever since. My style is always evolving, but I’ve always been heavily inspired by gonzo journalism.

For Aaron Shelton, his business is a way to support the community he loves, not the other way around. When he began doing the emo-centric Live Free or Cry nights at Shaskeen Pub, his primary objective was to provide a gathering place for people who missed a bygone time the same way he did.

“I grew up in that community, I was in metal bands and post-hardcore bands and emo bands, so that’s where it comes from,” he said. “It’s not a cash grab for me, it is a revitalization of one of my most informative eras…. I think that for so many people, it is that same thing.”

In Shelton’s case, his evening of bands playing Get Up Kids, Taking Back Sunday and My Chemical Romance songs would turn Luna’s mainstream analogy upside down.

“A lot of these bands that play cover sets are original bands,” he said. “I’ve had bands tell me, ‘This has given us the opportunity to make extra money to pay for our recordings or meet bands that we’re playing original gigs with now.’ It still gives to the underground scene, and I think that’s one of the best parts about it.”

It’s also created a ripple effect. Down the street, smashburger restaurant BAD BRGR is offering live original music on multiple nights. Rob Kulingoski called the venue “the new saving grace for extreme music in New Hampshire.”

BAD BRGR owner Ian Tufts moved to Manchester a few years after opening in Hampton Beach just as Covid-19 upended everyone’s life. A musician himself, he held an all-ages hip-hop show in mid-2020 that ran afoul of social distancing requirements and nearly shut down his business.

His vision for the new location always included live original music.

“From the onset, we’ve totally been about embracing artistry,” he said by phone recently. “There’s such an energy that comes from original music, art, creativity. Harnessing that and allowing that to thrive, it’s so powerful.”

Tufts found help from a few area musician/promoters with shows there. Joe Chubbuck, who plays in both Ratblood and Bleach Temple, has been instrumental with booking. “He’s the most significant metal and hardcore promoter,” Tufts said, noting that he has help from his partner, photographer Ashley Seiferheld.

“I love the direction the scene is going in and love everything that Ian and BAD BRGR is doing,” Seiferheld said in a recent text exchange. She also co-hosts a podcast with Death’s Hand guitarist Ed Hamaty called Angry Advocate. “It’s about local artists and musicians, anything to bring more awareness to our scene.”

Others helping to fill the BAD BRGR calendar are Irongate lead singer Jeff Higgins, who’s booked some metal shows. On the indie/alternative side, Cade Earick, a prolific recording artist who’s also a producer and audio engineer, is doing promotion.

For many if not most, the underground scene goes beyond music and art; it’s a tool for survival.

Videographer Johna Jo Toomey, who frequently films Shaskeen shows, said that after a mosh pit injury in 2019, “New England hardcore friends showed me love and support, and took care of me. Meanwhile, my other friends and family victim-blamed me.”

Kulingoski credits the scene for helping his mental health. During his days running basement shows, he organized awareness days to support others in need.

“We would all come together and just talk about our problems and how much the scene has helped us, how much of a positive impact it’s had,” he said. “It’s so much more than just music. It’s art, it’s friendship, it’s small businesses. It really is a welcoming community that I think some people don’t know about, but it’s not hard to find out about.”

Upcoming events from the up-and-coming

New Hampshire Underground
Terminus Underground, 134 Haines St., Nashua.
Tickets: newhampshireunderground.org/shows.
All shows 21+, BYOB, $15 general admission, $20 VIPizza tickets

• Night of the Fools, Sunday, March 30, 6 p.m. – Sunset Electric (punk-flavored alt rock), Dog 8 Dog (dual female fronted indie/alt rock) and Questing Beast (concept-driven metal)
• Punk Rock Masquerade Ball , Saturday, April 12, 8 p.m. – Ragz to Stitchez (NH), Vallory Falls (Vermont), Marianne Toilet and the Runs (Mass.) and Lobotomobile (NH)
• Requiem for the Apocalypse: A Death/Doom Metal Explosion, Friday, April 25, 7 p.m. – Dead Harrison, Oxblood Forge, A World Worth Burning and Swarm of Eye
• Lily Angelique Desrochers (LAD) art exhibit, Saturday, April 26, 6 p.m. free
• Music Industry Networking Night, Wednesday, May 7, 7 p.m. free

Kinetic City at Shaskeen Pub
909 Elm St., Manchester, facebook.com/KineticCityEvents

• Saturday, April 12, 9 p.m. — Gina Fritz w/ Anaria, Proelium and Arcantica, $10 at the door
• Thursday, April 17, 8 p.m. — Showcase 603 w/ Black Hatch, 2000s, Cellar Door and Dead Time, $5 at the door
• Friday, April 18, 9 p.m. — Candy Striper Death Orgy, Psycho and Summoning Hate, $10 at the door
• Saturday, April 19, 8 p.m. — The Doldrums, Still Sleeping, Regals and Birds, In Theory, $10 at the door
• Saturday, April 26, 9 p.m. — Live Free or Cry Emo Night w/ Heely & the Moon Shoes and A Blockbuster Summer, $10 at the door

BAD BRGR
1015 Elm St., Manchester; schedule at instagram.com/bad_brgr

• Friday, March 28, 9 p.m. — Street Trash, Wrought Iron Hex, Joe Grizzly and Abel Blood, $15 at the door
• Saturday, March 29, 9 p.m. — Donaher w/ Better Sense and New Norde, $10 at the door
• Friday, April 11, 9 p.m. — Guns of Brighton (punk), Sotah and Glue, $10 at the door
• Friday, May 16, 9 p.m. — The Whole Loaf w/ Alana Corvette and Vale’s End . $10/door

Jewel Music Venue
Canal Street, Manchester; find them on Facebook

• Saturday, March 29, 7:30 p.m. — A Night of Black & Death Metal with Angel Morgue (NH), Shitangel (Vermont), Infernal Occult (RI), Commuted (Maine) and Respiratory Secretion (Mass./NH), 18+, $15 at dice.fm
• Wednesday, April 23, 7 p.m. — The Planet Smashers, PWRUP, Threat Level Burgundy, $20.77 at dice.fm

The calendar says spring begins on March 20. Whether this year’s spring is hot, cold or just muddy, here are some ways to have fun and celebrate the season from now until the summer vibes kick in Memorial Day weekend. The information here is from the presenting events’ websites and social media; did we miss some spring fun? Let us know at [email protected].

1. Who needs some laughs? There are many opportunities to check out Queen City Improv in the coming months. They have free open sessions at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Manchester (669 Union St. in Manchester) on Thursdays, March 20, April 17 and May 15, at 6 p.m. Register on their website. Or catch them at the BNH Stage in Concord on Friday, April 4, at 8 p.m., or at shows at Stark Brewing Co. (500 Commercial St. in Manchester) on Mondays, April 7 or May 5, at 7 p.m. See queencityimprov.com.

2. You can still catch the last two menus of burgers at Burgerama at the Bedford Village Inn (2 Olde Bedford Road in Bedford; bedfordvillageinn.com). Through Saturday, March 22, it’s Asian week (the menu includes Bahn Mi Sliders). Sunday, March 23, through Saturday, March 29, it’s BVI Favorites with a BVI Big Double Burger, a French Dip Burger and N’Duja Pizza Sliders).

3. Kathleen D. Bailey will discuss her book A History Lover’s Guide to New Hampshireon Thursday, March 20, at 6:30 p.m. at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St. in Concord; gibsonsbookstore.com). Other authors scheduled to appear at Gibson’s include Stephen Monier with his book No One Has to Die: Inside the Longest Armed Standoff in the History of the U.S. Marshals (March 27), John Scalzi (March 30), Andru Volinsky (April 2), Susie Spikol (April 12), Christopher Golden (May 6) and more.

4. The exhibit “Currents” continues at Pillar Gallery + Projects (205 N. State St. in Concord; pillargalleryprojects.com) through April 2. The gallery is open Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays, 3 to 7 p.m. Gallery co-founder and owner Fallon Rae spoke about the show to Zachary Lewis on page 6 of the Feb. 27 issue of the Hippo; find it in the digital library at hippopress.com.

5. The art gallery Outer Space (35 Pleasant St. in Concord; outerspacearts.xyz; open Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.) continues its recently opened “Worlds,” an exhibit of the works of Julian Kent and Emma Kohlmann.

6. Take the kids to watch the kids of the Bedford Youth Performing Company (bypc.org) perform the musical Bye Bye Birdieon Friday, March 21, and Saturday, March 22, at the Derryfield School theater in Manchester. Find the link to purchase tickets via BYPC’s Facebook page.

7. The Peacock Players present their second weekend of their Spring Youth Mainstage ProductionShrek The Musical Jr.with shows Friday, March 21, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, March 22, and Sunday, March 23, at 2 p.m. at Janice B. Streeter Theatre, 14 Court St. in Nashua. Tickets cost $15 to $18 for adults, $12 to $15 for students and seniors.

8. The Pinkerton Players will present the Elvis-y,Twelfth Night-yAll Shook Up at Stockbridge Theatre in Derry Friday, March 21, and Saturday, March 22, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, March 23, at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $15. See stockbridgetheatre.showare.com.

9. Catch Dueling Pianos twice at the Tupelo Music Hall (10 A St. in Derry; tupelomusichall.com) before Memorial Day on Friday, March 21, at 8 p.m. and Saturday, April 19, at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $22.

10. Get some insight into how our feathered neighbors weather the season change with a Birding Outing at the McLane Center (84 Silk Road in Concord; nhaudubon.org) on Saturday, March 22, at 8 a.m. The event is free but register online. The NH Audubon has several Birding Outings on the schedule as well as art exhibits and other events; see nhaudubon.org.

11. Concord-based Art Alley Cats (artalleycats.com) and DIY Craft & Thrift (diycraftandthrift.com) will present the art exhibit “Revive, Renew, Reconnect” at Kimball Jenkins (266 N. Main St. in Concord; kimballjenkins.com) through Wednesday, April 16, with a special showcase on Saturday, March 22, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and an opening reception on Saturday, March 29, from 5 to 7 p.m. “Over 15 local artists of varying backgrounds and artistic styles will be represented in this mixed media exhibition,” according to a post on Art Alley Cats’ Instagram. Also on March 22 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Kimball Jenkins in Concord, catch the Concord Arts Market Winter Arts Market & Activities. The event will feature Concord Arts Market vendors in the Carriage House along with demonstrations and other activities. See concordartsmarket.org.

12. Root for the lacrosse teams at Southern New Hampshire University. The men’s team’s next home game is scheduled for Saturday, March 22, at 11 a.m. at Mark A. Ouellette Stadium on the SNHU campus (the stadium is on Victory Lane in Hooksett) versus Saint Michael’s College. The women’s next home game is Saturday, March 22, at 2 p.m. versus University of New Haven. Regular season games are free to attend; see snhupenmen.com for the full schedule.

13. Cheer Nashua’s Rivier University Raiders men’s and women’s lacrosse teams. The next home game for the men’s lacrosse team will be Saturday, March 22, at 2 p.m., on Joanne Merrill Field at Linda Robinson Pavilion in Nashua against New England College. The women’s team’s next home game is Saturday, March 22, at 11 a.m. when they face Lasell University. See rivierathletics.com.

14. Bookery Manchester (844 Elm St. in Manchester; bookerymht.com) will feature author pop-ups on Saturday, March 22, with Dawn Aurora Hunt, who has books as well as her recent A Kitchen Witch’s Culinary Oracle, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Jezmina Von Thiele, Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling, 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. Other authors scheduled to be at Bookery include Tabatha D’Agata (The Old Scarecrow, March 29), Eskor David Johnson (Pay as You Go, March 29), Joshua Bresslin and Ian M. Rogers (April 5) and Leah Dearborn (Grenier Air Base, April 18).

15. Programming at the New Hampshire Historical Society (30 Park St. in Concord; nhhistory.org) includes Family Fun Day on Saturday, March 22, from 2 to 4 p.m. This free event features games, crafts, storytelling, tours of the exhibits and more. The event is geared to families with kids ages 6 to 10 but all ages are welcome, the website said.

16. Recycled Percussion celebrates 30 years of performances: “On March 24, 1995, three high school kids took the stage at Goffstown High School to perform a 4-minute drumming routine at a talent show. Little did anyone know that it would become a worldwide sensation over the next 30 years. With over 8,000 performances in over 40 countries, Recycled Percussion has become a household name and created the best live show experiences for families worldwide,” according to a description on the website for the Dana Center for the Humanities at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, where Recycled Percussion will perform two shows on Saturday, March 22, at 3 & 7 p.m. Tickets cost $50 (plus fees) or $100 for a VIP experience. See tickets.anselm.edu. Recycled Percussion will also be at the Flying Monkey in Plymouth (flyingmonkeynh.com) on March 29 at 3 and 7 p.m.

17. Chopin Piano Concerto the winter concert of the Nashua Chamber Orchestra takes place Saturday, March 22, at 7:30 p.m. at Nashua Community College and Sunday, March 23, at 3 p.m. at Milford Town Hall. See nco-music.org for tickets.

18. The Tupelo Music Hall (10 A St. in Derry; tupelomusichall.com) has a packed music schedule this spring, including Pete Best & the Pete Best Band on Saturday, March 22, at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $50 to $55. Other shows on the schedule include Walter Trout (March 27), Ally the Piper (March 28), Young Dubliners (March 30), The Record Company (April 13), John Oates (April 27), Gary Hoey (May 9) and more.

19. Catch Rivier University’s Raiders men’s baseball at home next on Tuesday, April 1, at 3:30 p.m., when they play Dean College at Holman Stadium (67 Amherst St. in Nashua). The women’s softball team plays at Raider Diamond and their next game will be a doubleheader against Lesley University on Sunday, March 23, at noon and 2 p.m. See rivierathletics.com.

20. The New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival runs Sunday, March 23, through Friday, April 11, with a line-up of in-theater and virtual screenings. An opening day lunch reception will be held at noon at the Spotlight Room in Manchester followed by a screening of the film Shari & Lamb Chop at the Rex Theatre in Manchester. Screenings continue at locations in Manchester, Merrimack and Red River Theatres in Concord (as well as in Hanover, Portsmouth and Keene) followed by a virtual screening bonus week April 6 (the day of the final in-theater screenings) through April 11. See nhjewishfilmfestival.com for trailers of most of the film as well as a schedule for screenings, both virtual and in theaters, as well as ticket packages that range from individual films to all access.

21. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy comes to the Flying Monkey (39 S. Main St. in Plymouth; flyingmonkeynh.com) on Sunday, March 23, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $45 to $75. Other shows at the Flying Monkey in the next few months include Redneck Castaway Band and Red Solo Cup (March 21), Duane Betts and Palmetto Motel (April 13), RDMTION (May 2), Mamma Mania (May 16) and more. The Flying Monkey also screens movies most Wednesdays (family movie night) and Thursdays at 6 p.m.

22. Studio 550 Art Center (550 Elm St. in Manchester; 550arts.com) will hold a Spring Cleaning Pottery Sale Monday, March 24, through Saturday, March 29, noon to 8 p.m. The pottery will include discount pottery made by members and staff, donated pottery with proceeds benefiting the Art for All Fund, and $1 abandoned workshop pottery, the website said.

23. Watch the Southern New Hampshire University Penmen baseball team play the Saint Anselm Hawks at Penmen Field on Wednesday, April 2, at 3 p.m. The women’s softball team will play a doubleheader against American International College at home on Wednesday, March 26, with games at 2 and 4 p.m. p.m. at the SNHU Softball Field (on Eastman Drive). See snhupenmen.com for more games and details.

24. Cheer on the Saint Anselm College Hawks baseball team, whose upcoming home game is Wednesday, March 26, at 2 p.m. versus Southern New Hampshire University at Sullivan Park on the Saint Anselm College campus in Manchester. The women’s softball team will play their next home games on Friday, April 4, at 2 and 4 p.m. against Franklin Pierce at the South Athletic Fields on the Saint Anselm College campus. See saintanselmhawks.com.

25. Get some Saint Anselm College Hawks lacrosse. The women’s team’s next home game is Wednesday, March 26, at 7 p.m. against Saint Michael’s College. The men’s team will play its next home game on Friday, March 28, at 4 p.m. versus Assumption. Both games take place at Grappone Stadium on the Saint Anselm College campus in Manchester. See saintanselmhawks.com.

26. Get serious laughs when comedian Leslie Jones comes to the Nashua Center for the Arts (201 Main St. in Nashua; nashuacenterforthearts.com) on Thursday, March 27, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $49. Other shows on the Nashua Center for the Arts schedule include Chazz Palminteri — A Bronx Tale Live ( March 29); Marc Cohn (March 30); the Wise Guys of Comedy with Ace Aceto, Frank Santorelli, and Brad Mastrangelo (April 12); Ari Shapiro: Thank You for Listening (May 9) and more.

27. Comedian Bob Marley has a packed schedule of New Hampshire dates over the next few months, starting with Thursday, March 27, at 7:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey (39 S. Main St. in Plymouth; flyingmonkeynh.com), where tickets cost $39.50. Additional shows include March 28-29 at the Music Hall in Portsmouth and May 16-18 at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, as well as shows across New Hampshire and New England. See bmarley.com.

28. Fans of “the Ton” can put on their Regency best for the Bridgerton Dinner Party with String Quartet on Friday, March 28, at 6:30 p.m. at LaBelle Winery (345 Route 101 in Amherst; labellewinery.com). The night will feature a four-course dinner with wine pairings and music by Yaeko Miranda string quartet, the website said. The cost is $89 per person. LaBelle also offers music, comedy, craft workshops and more this spring at its Amherst and Derry locations, as well as two murder mystery dinner parties (March 29 and April 26).

29. The Majestic Academy of Dramatic Arts youth and teens presents Matilda The Musical Jr. Friday, March 28, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, March 29, at 2 and 7 p.m., and Sunday, March 30, at 2 p.m. at the Derry Opera House (29 W. Broadway in Derry; majestictheatre.net). Tickets cost $12 to $16.

30. The Anselmian Abbey Players present Guys and Dolls Friday, March 28, through Sunday, March 30, and Thursday, April 3, through Saturday, April 5, at the Dana Center at Saint Anselm College in Manchester (tickets.anselm.edu). All shows are at 7:30 p.m. except Sunday, March 30, at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $20 for adults, $17 for seniors and non-Saint Anselm students.

31. The Capital City Craft Festival runs Saturday, March 29, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, March 30, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Everett Arena (15 Loudon Road in Concord). Tickets cost $10, children under 14 get in free. See castleberryfairs.com/capital-city-craft-festival-2025.

32. “Hollywood’s First Sequel” is how Jeff Rapsis has labeled his two-part screening on Saturday, March 29, and Sunday, March 30 at 2 p.m. at Wilton Town Hall Theatre on Main Street in Wilton. Part I on Saturday will feature 1920’s The Mark of Zorro starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Part II on Sunday will feature 1925’s Don Q, Son of Zorro, also starring Fairbanks. Both movies are silent films presented with live musical accompaniment by Rapsis, and admission to each film is free, with a $10 donation suggested. See silentfilmlivemusic.blogspot.com.

33. Ballet Misha will present Cinderella, performed by Ballet Misha’s professional adult dancers, apprentice company and students from Dimensions in Dance, on Saturday, March 29, at 2 and 6 p.m. at the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord). Tickets cost $31.60 for adults, $21.40 for children. See balletmisha.com.

34. Symphony NH with guest conductor Herb Smith will present Hollywood Hits featuring the music of James Bond, Lawrence of Arabia, Rocky, The Pink Panther, The Magnificent Seven and more. Hear the sounds of iconic scores on Saturday, March 29, at 7:30 p.m. at the Stockbridge Theatre in Derry. Tickets start at $40. Hollywood Hits will also be presented the following night at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord. Symphony NH has three more concerts on the schedule this season: “It’s All Overtures” on April 19 at the Nashua Center for the Arts, “Rhapsody in Blue” on May 10 at the Cap Center and “Illuminated Ensembles — Chamber Favorites” on May 18 at BNH Stage in Concord. See symphonynh.org and check out Michael Witthaus’ story about the symphony’s plans this season and beyond in the March 6 issue of the Hippo, which is available in our digital library at hippopress.com.

35. The Manchester St. Patrick’s Parade steps off at noon on Sunday, March 30, running down Elm Street from Salmon to Central. Join in the fun by running in the Shamrock Shuffle at 11 a.m. (a kids’ fun run starts at 10:30 a.m.). See millenniumrunning.com/shamrock for details on the 2-mile run/walk and visit saintpatsnh.com for more on the parade.

36. Southern New Hampshire Youth Ballet will present Snow White on Sunday, March 30, with shows at 1 and 4 p.m. The role of Snow White will be shared by 16-year-old dancers Madison Cleland of Bedford and Hadley Hornor of Amherst, and the cast is rounded out by Southern NH Youth Ballet dancers from across the southern New Hampshire region as well as guest artist Nate Duszny as Prince Charming. Tickets for the show at the Palace Theatre in Manchester cost $24-$29 and for an additional $20 ballet-goers can have tea with Snow White and friends 45 minutes before each show. See snhdt.org.

37. Author Anna Von Mertens will discuss her book Attention Is Discovery: The Life and Legacy of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center (2 Institute Drive in Concord; starhop.com) on Sunday, March 30. Tickets to a show at 3 p.m. in the center’s planetarium cost $7 (in addition to general admission which costs $10 to $13 depending on age). A Discovery After Dark event, which begins after the center’s usual 10:30 a.m.-to-4 p.m. hours, starts at 4:30 p.m. and includes a talk, a member Q&A, a guided art activity and book signing, the website says. Tickets cost $30 for adults, $25 for seniors, $15 for ages 13 to college and $10 for children.

38. Hispanic Flamenco Ballet will come to the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord) on Tuesday, April 1, at 10 and 11 a.m. Tickets cost $19 to $33 and are available by calling 305-420-6622. See flamencoballet.com for more on the company.

39. Spend an evening with David Sedaris on Tuesday, April 1, at 8 p.m. at the Tupelo Music Hall (10 A St. in Derry; tupelomusichall.com). Tickets cost $58.

40. Catch the NH Ukeladies at a free presentation as part of the Walker Lecture series at the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord) on Wednesday, April 2, at 7:30 p.m. See theaudi.org/events.

41. The music series at The Flying Goose Brew Pub and Grille (40 Andover Road in New London; flyinggoose.com) continues with shows in March and April through April 24 with Vance Gilbert. On Thursday, April 3, at 7:30 p.m. catch Lonesome Ace String Band and their Americana/bluegrass/folk. Tickets cost $25.

42. Curious George will visit for a story time at the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (6 Washington St. in Dover; childrens-museum.org) on Friday, April 4, and Saturday, April 5, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on both days. The visits are part of the museum’s Books Alive! programming and are included with admission, which costs $14.50 for everyone over 12 months and $12.50 for 65+. The museum offers sessions from 9 a.m. to noon or 1 to 4 p.m. on those days. Advanced ticket registrations are recommended.

43. Try samples and check out locally made items at the Made in NH Expo on Friday, April 4, from 1 to 7 p.m.; Saturday, April 5, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, April 6, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the DoubleTree by Hilton Manchester Downtown Hotel. Tickets cost $8 for adults and $7 for 65+; children under 14 get in free. See businessnhmagazine.com/events/made-in-nh-expo.

44. Time to play ball! Opening night for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in downtown Manchester is Friday, April 4, with their 6:35 p.m. game against the Binghamton Rumble Ponies. This season-opening stretch of games continues Saturday, April 5, at 4:05 p.m. and Sunday, April 6, at 1:35 p.m. The next stretch of games begins Tuesday, April 15, at 6:35 p.m. versus the Harrisburg Senators. See milb.com/new-hampshire for the game schedule, tickets and promotions.

45. Dance your cares away! Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock Live comes to the Capitol Center for the Arts’ Chubb Theatre (44 S. Main St. in Concord; ccanh.com) on Friday, April. 4, at 7:30 p.m. The show features walk-around versions of the Fraggles and puppet-sized Dozers, according to the website. Tickets start at $46.75 and a VIP option includes an opportunity to get a photo with the Fraggles for an additional $30. Other Cap Center events include comedian Whitney Cummings (March 22), comedian Nikki Glaser (March 26), The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs 25th anniversary Day 1 (April 8) and Day 2 (April 9), Paula Pondstone (April 11), Tracy Morgan (April 12), Lyle Lovett (April 27) and more.

46. Catch the Palace Theatre’s Short Play Festival at the Rex Theatre (23 Amherst St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org) on Friday, April 4, and Saturday, April 5. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. each night, featuring eight new plays a night, and tickets cost $24. Other Rex offerings include comedy (Ladies of Boston Comedy on April 11) and music (Britain’s Finest Beatles Tribute on May 10).

47. Meet comic book creators Jim Steranko, Donny Cates, David Michelinie, Jim Shooter, Al Milgrom, Mike Royer, Chris Campana and more at the Little Giant Comics “Old School” Comics Show on Saturday, April 5, at the Everett Arena in Concord. Doors open at 10 a.m. and tickets cost $15 in advance, $20 at the door. For $50, a VIP ticket includes 9 a.m. entry, a swag bag and more. See oldschoolcomicshow.com.

48. The Derry AuthorFest takes place Saturday, April 5, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Derry Public Library (64 E. Broadway in Derry) and features authors including keynote speaker Laura Knoy, Gina Perry speaking about picture books, Terry Farish and Sara Lesley Arnold and Sarah Lamagna as well as an all-day book sale hosted by Gibson’s. See derryauthorfest.wordpress.com to register. That’s not the only lit fest in the state today: The Exeter Lit Fest will take place at Exeter Town Hall on Saturday, April 5, and feature author talks starting at 11 a.m. as well as other community activities. See exeterlitfest.com.

49. It’s egg hunt season and Charmingfare Farm in Candia kicks off the fun early with its Egg-citing Egg Hunt Saturdays and Sundays, April 5 through April 20 (Easter Sunday). Kids between the ages of 2 and 12 can hunt for a dozen eggs in Grandpa’s Barn, the website said. The event will also include an opportunity to meet the Easter bunny, visit farm animals (including new spring babies) and more, according to the website. Time slots between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. are available on those days. Admission costs $29 per person.

50. Springfest! will take place at the Saint Anselm College Sullivan Arena Saturday, April 5, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The day will feature vendors, a kid zone, food concessions and more. Admission costs $5 for adults, ans is free for kids 12 and under. See goffstowncitizens.org.

51. Jeremih will perform Saturday, April 5, at 7:30 p.m. at SNHU Arena (555 Elm St. in Manchester; snhuarena.com). Tickets cost $40. Also at SNHU Arena is comedian/puppeteer Jeff Dunham (March 21).

52. Get weekly comedy shows from Headliners Comedy Club at its Doubletree by Hilton Manchester Downtown location on Elm Street and at Chunky’s Cinema Pub on Huse Road and elsewhere. On Saturday, April 5, at 8:30 p.m. catch Lenny Clarke and Friends at the DoubleTree in Manchester. See headlinersnh.com.

53. Your little royalty can enjoy a Royal Princess Breakfast on Sunday, April 6, at 9:30 a.m. at the Derryfield Restaurant (625 Mammoth Road in Manchester; thederryfield.com). Tickets cost $55 for adults, $45 for children. The day will feature breakfast, games, costumed princesses, stories and more.

54. Meet superheroes and villains, get Jedi training, discover new authors and so much more at Kids Con New England, which moves to the Sheraton Nashua (11 Tara Blvd.) this year and will be held on Sunday, April 6, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets cost $16 for adults and kids 5 years old and up. Discounts for a family of four, military and seniors; kids under 5 get in for free. See kidsconne.square.site for tickets and a list of authors, artists and others slated to attend.

55. See 2016’s Illumination Animation movie Sing(PG) on the big screen at Nashua Center for the Arts (201 Main St. in Nashua; nashuacenterforthearts.com) on Sunday, April 6, at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $10.

56. The Concord Community Concert Association will present the Klezmer Conservatory Band at the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord) on Sunday, April 6, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $20 at the door (door opens at 6 p.m.) or $23 online at ccca-audi.org.

57. It’s Free Cone Day! Ben & Jerry’s annual ice cream scoop give-away is Tuesday, April 8, from noon to 8 p.m. Head to the Ben & Jerry’s at 940 Elm St. in Manchester. See benjerry.com/scoop-shops/free-cone-day.

58. New Hampshire cartoonist Marek Bennett, author of historical graphic novels about Freeman Colby, a New Hampshire teacher who fought in the Civil War, will present “Rally Round the Flag: The American Civil War Through Folksong,” an overview of that period through the music of the time at Rodgers Memorial Library (194 Derry Road in Hudson; rodgerslibrary.org) on Wednesday, April 9, at 6:30 p.m. Find more New Hampshire Humanities programming in the coming months all over the state and virtually at nhhumanities.org.Learn more about Bennett at marekbennett.com.

59. Hatbox Theatre (hatboxnh.com) carries on with events at locations including Kimball Jenkins (266 N. Main St. in Concord). Catch Andrew Pinard Discovering Magic on Wednesday, April 9, and Wednesday, May 14, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $25 for adults, $22 for students and seniors. Hatbox will also present An Evening Wasted (With Tom Lehrer’s Music) April 12-13 and April 18-20 in the lobby of the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord). The shows will be at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays.

60. The Walker Lecture Series presents “Before They Could Speak: Laurel & Hardy in the Silent Film Era,” which features Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy silent films including Two Tars (1928), The Finishing Touch (1928) and You’re Darn Tootin’ (1928) on Wednesday, April 9, at 7:30 p.m. at the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St.). See silentfilmlivemusic.blogspot.com for more on this and other presentations of silent films with live music by Jeff Rapsis this spring.

61. Joining the recently opened “Ann Agee: Madonna of the Girl Child,” “Nicolas Party and Surrealism: An Artist’s Take on the Movement” will open at the Currier Museum of Art (150 Ash St. in Manchester; currier.org) Thursday, April 10, through Monday, Sept. 1. “In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Surrealist Manifesto (1924), Nicolas Party and Surrealism: An Artist’s Take on the Movement explores the lasting influence of Surrealism through the work of contemporary artist Nicolas Party,” according to the website.

62. LaBelle Winery in Derry (14 Route 111; labellewinery.com) will host An Evening with American Test Kitchen Chefs, specifically Bridget Lancaster & Julia Collin Davison, on Thursday, April 10, at 5:30 p.m. The evening will include five courses, each paired with wines. Tickets cost $150 or $200 for VIP tickets (which include a pre-event gathering and a goodie bag).

63. Described as a “unique blend of traditional brass instruments with a full complement of drums and percussion,” Dallas Brass will perform at the Stockbridge Theatre in Derry on Thursday, April 10, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $30. See stockbridgetheatre.showare.com.

64. WineNot Boutique in Nashua (winenotboutique.com) will host a Flavors of Spring: Five-Course Wine Dinner on Friday, April 11, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Courtyard Nashua (2200 Southwood Drive). The dinner will feature French wines paired with each course. The cost is $145 per person.

65. The Actorsingers Youth present Disney’s Frozen Jr. at the Janice B. Streeter Theater (14 Court St. in Nashua) on Friday, April 11, and Saturday, April 12, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, April 13, at 2 p.m. See actorsingers.org for tickets.

66. The teens of Ovation Theatre Company (ovationtc.com) will present Monty Python’s Spamalot School Edition on Friday, April 11, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, April 12, at 1 and 7 p.m. at the Derry Opera House (29 W. Broadway in Derry). See derryoperahouse.org for tickets.

67. Friends of the Amato Center will present Seussical The Musical on Friday, April 11, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, April 12, at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, April 13, at 2:30 at Souhegan High School in Amherst. Tickets cost $18 for adults, $12 for seniors and kids. See amatocenter.org/riverbend-youth-company.

68. Saturday, April 12, is Record Store Day when you can score special releases including some that will only be sold at indie record stores. See recordstoreday.com for updates on this year’s titles. According to that website, local participating stores include Metro City Records in Manchester; Music Connection in Manchester; Pitchfork Records in Concord (which is opening at 8 a.m. on Record Store Day); Toadstool in Peterborough; Bull Moose in Plaistow and Portsmouth; area Newbury Comics and more. See recordstoreday.com.

69. The Stonyfield Organic Earth Day 5K steps off at 9 a.m. on Saturday, April 12. The race, which is run by Millennium Running, also features a kids’ fun run and is followed by an Earth Day Fair with games, vendors and more. See millenniumrunning.com/stonyfield5k.

70. Former NH Executive Councilor Andru Volinksy will discuss his book The Last Bake Sale: The Fight for Fair School Funding at Balin Books (Somerset Plaza, 375 Amherst St. in Nashua; balinbooks.com) on Saturday, April 12, at 11 a.m.

71. The NH Philharmonic will present “Drawn to the Music —The Planets” featuring visuals by local students paired with Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” on Saturday, April 12, at 2 p.m. and Sunday, April 13, at 2 p.m. (with a livestream option for Sunday) at Seifert Performing Arts Center in Salem. Tickets cost $35 for adults, $30 for seniors, $10 for students. See nhphil.org.

72. Learn to make Italian dishes from an expert chef at Angela’s Pasta, Cheese & Wine (815 Chestnut St. in Manchester; angelaspastaandcheese.com). The next cooking class is Tuesday, April 15, from 6 to 8 p.m. Admission costs $95 per person; call 625-9544 to reserve a spot.

73. Attendees at the Manchester Historic Association’s annual meeting on Wednesday, April 16, at 5:30 p.m. at the Millyard Museum (200 Bedford St. in Manchester; manchesterhistoric.org) will get a look at the new exhibit “All Bottled Up! The History of Bottling in Manchester” featuring more than 100 glass bottles from Manchester that reflect the city’s liquor, soda, dairy and other bottling businesses, according to the website. The exhibit will be on display to August. Call 622-7531 or email [email protected] to RSVP.

74. Get some laughs with Lenny Clarke on Friday, April 18, at 8 p.m. at Tupelo Music Hall (10 A St. in Derry; tupelomusichall.com). Tickets cost $35. For more comedy at the Tupelo, check out the Tupelo Night of Comedy with Paul D’Angelo on May 10.

75. Milford Drive-In (531 Elm St., Milford, milforddrivein.com) is slated to open for the season on Friday, April 18. Tickets cost $33 per car with up to six people, according to the website.

76. What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening? The Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org) will present Jesus Christ Superstar April 18 through May 11, Fridays through Sundays plus Thursday, May 8. The Palace also wraps up its production of Escape from Margaritavilleon March 23 and has Palace Youth Theatre productions on its spring schedule.

77. Concord’s Giant Indoor Yard Sale is slated for Saturday, April 19, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Everett Arena (15 Loudon Road in Concord). Admission is $5 per adult, according to the event’s Eventbrite page.

78. Discover Wild New Hampshire Day brings the state’s outdoor adventures to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department (11 Hazen Drive in Concord) on Saturday, April 19, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The free event features more than 100 educational and experiential exhibits, live animals, archery, casting, flying, an air-rifle range, retriever dogs, crafts, a Fish and Game biologist, food truck alley and more according to the website. See wildlife.nh.gov/dwnh.

79. Celebrate National Poetry Month (April) at University of New Hampshire Durham’s Nossrat Yassini Poetry Festival on Saturday, April 19, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. The free festival features readings, workshops, a small press fair, performances, a celebration of the Nossrat Yassini Poetry Prize and the Granite State Poetry prize and more. See unhpoetry.com to reserve a spot.

80. Sunday, April 20, is Easter. Make those reservations for breakfasts, brunches or dinners early. For example, at Firefly Bistro & Bar (22 Concord St., Manchester; fireflynh.com) they will serve brunch from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and dinner from 4 to 8 p.m. with specials including baked ham and roasted lamb, according to an email. Or just make it a candy day — local candy shops such as Granite State Candy Shoppe (13 Warren St. in Concord or 832 Elm St. in Manchester; granitestatecandyshoppe.com) offer a wide array of treats from chocolate bunnies to pre-wrapped baskets with a variety of sweets.

81. Get an extra day to see SEE Science Center (200 Bedford St. in Manchester; see-sciencecenter.org), which is open Mondays, April 21 and April 28, for April school vacation in addition to its regular Tuesday-through-Sunday days of operation. SEE is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. Admission costs $14 for ages 3 and up.

82. Celebrate “25 years of ska punk party mayhem” with The Planet Smashers along with PWRUP and Threat Level Burgundy Wednesday, April 23, at 7 p.m. at Jewel Music Venue (61 Canal St. in Manchester). Find them on Facebook. Other shows coming up at Jewel include Tynan with Brainrack (March 21), a night of black and death metal (March 29), Plaidstock: An Evening in Seattle (April 11) and more.

83. Tuesday, April 22, is Earth Day. The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests will celebrate the day with a volunteer event on Mount Major in Alton. See forestsociety.org.

84. Catch “A Tribute to Duke Ellington with the Aardvark Orchestra,” a free presentation of Walker Lecture, on Wednesday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord). Doors open at 7 p.m.; see walkerlecture.org.

85. Get advice on the transition of seasonal cozy sips at “Tea Tasting and Tea Production: Spring and Summer Teas” at The Cozy Tea Cart (104 Route 13 in Brookline, thecozyteacart.com) on Thursday, April 24, from 5 to 6:30 p.m., one of many tastings and events at the Cozy Tea Cart this spring. Admission to this event costs $30 per person.

86. Majestic Productions will present Jack of Diamonds, a comedy about four residents of a retirement home trying to regain their savings stolen by a crooked financial adviser, on Friday, April 25, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, April 26, at 2 and 7 p.m. and Sunday, April 27, at 2 p.m. at Majestic Theatre (880 Page St. in Manchester; majestictheatre.net). Tickets cost $15 to $20.

87. Nashua Theatre Guild presents the New Hampshire premiere of Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a play by Katie Forgette, on Friday, April 25, and Saturday, April 26, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 27, at 2 p.m. at the Court Street Theatre (14 Court St. in Nashua). According to the play description, the story is a “bittersweet memory play about a Catholic childhood in the 1970s … a gently funny, often hilarious and touching production directed by Vicky Sandin,” according to nashuatheatreguild.org. Tickets cost $20 for adults, $18 for 65+, students and military.

88. Independent Book Store Day is Saturday, April 26. Offerings usually include previews of upcoming books as well as in-store celebrations. Bookery (844 Elm St. in Manchester; bookerymht.com), for example, has plans for local authors, giveaways, discounts, live music and more, according to an email from the store. Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St. in Concord; gibsonsbookestore.com) is also making plans which will include “exclusive merch, giveaways, maybe even some games and activities,” according to an email from the store. Check with your favorite indie bookstore for updates.

89. Saturday, April 26, is the home season opener for the NH Roller Derby at JFK Memorial Coliseum (303 Beech St. in Manchester). See nhrollerderby.com for updates and details.

90. Andres Institute of Art (106 Route 13 in Brookline; andresinstitute.org) continues its “2025 Act 1” lineup of music, with concerts scheduled through the end of June. On Sunday, April 27, at 6 p.m. catch pan Latin Sol Y Canto. Tickets cost $25. Other highlights include the Earth Day Benefit Show on April 19 featuring Jamdemic, Amorphous Band featuring Joe Birch and Peter Prince of Moon Boot Lover and Evan Goodrow Band on April 6.

91. The New Hampshire Farm, Forest & Garden Expo will offer workshops, demonstrations, a Dark Horse Lumber Jack Show and more on Friday, May 2, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday, May 3, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Deerfield Fairgrounds (34 Stage Road in Deerfield). Tickets cost $10. See nhfarmandforestexpo.org.

92. Celebrate the life-giving miracle that is coffee at the Northeast Coffee Festival Friday, May 2, and Saturday, May 3, in Concord. A community market (admission is free) featuring vendors, demonstrations and live music will run 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday. Coffee education and a Latte Art Throwdown require passes. See northeastcoffeefestival.com.

93. First Friday Concord returns on Friday, May 2, from 4 to 8 p.m. In addition to shopportunities, the evenings feature food trucks, community activities and more. On May 2, Concord Arts Market (concordartsmarket.org) will be on the scene along with food trucks Wicked Tasty and The Gravy Train, and The Wandering Souls are slated to play in Bicentennial Square, according to firstfridayconcord.com. The event is put on by Intown Concord, intownconcord.org.

94. Community Players of Concord will present Thornton Wilder’s Our Town on Friday, May 2, and Saturday, May 3, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 4, at 2 p.m. at the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord). Tickets cost $20 for adults, $18 for 17 and under and 65+. See communityplayersofconcord.org.

95. Actorsingers presents Legally Blonde The Musical Friday, May 2, and Saturday, May 3, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 4, at 2 p.m. at the Keefe Center for the Arts, 117 Elm St. in Nashua. Tickets cost $25 for adults, $23 for students and seniors (plus fees).

96. If it’s the first Saturday in May (May 3 this year), it must be Free Comic Book Day! Special comic books are produced to be handed out at area comic book stores — see this year’s offerings at freecomicbookday.com. Comics are all ages, teen and adult and feature familiar characters as well as new stories. Last year, Double Midnight Comics held a one-day comic con at its Manchester location (252 Willow St.) as well as costume contests and more while its Concord location (341 Loudon Road) was a little more low-key but still offered the special free comics. In Rochester, there is a celebration involving multiple locations in the downtown; check with Jetpack Comics at jetpackcomics.com for details. Other local participants, according to the Free Comic Book Day website, are Merrymac Games and Comics in Merrimack and area Newbury Comics shops.

97. Outdoor farmers markets begin their return! Concord Farmers Market opens for the season on Saturday, May 3, and runs Saturdays, 8:30 a.m. to noon, through Oct. 25. See concordfarmersmarket.com for vendors and more information.

98. The Aviation Museum of N.H. (27 Navigator Road, Londonderry, aviationmuseumofnh.org) will hold its annual Run the Rail Trail 4-Miler on Saturday, May 3, with the race starting at 9 a.m. Sign up at runsignup.com; search for “Aviation Museum” under “Find a Race.”

99. The Seacoast Cat Club will hold its annual show on Saturday, May 3, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, May 4, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Everett Arena (15 Loudon Road in Concord). See cfa.org/event/seacoast-cat-club for details.

100. Catch the talented dog performers of Mutts Gone Nuts! at the Dana Center at Saint Anselm College in Manchester on Saturday, May 3, at 4 p.m. Tickets cost $45 at tickets.anselm.edu.

101. The Camienne Financial Cinco De Miles 5K will start on Sunday, May 4, at 9:15 a.m. in Bedford. The route begins and ends near Bedford High School. See millenniumrunning.com/cinco.

102. The Flying Gravity Circus, featuring children and teens who learn the circus arts, will perform a show called “One Man’s Trash” Tuesday, May 6, at 7 p.m. at Pine Hill Auditorium at the HIgh Mowing School in Wilton. Tickets cost $16.30 for adults, $11.20 for kids. See flyinggravitycircus.org.

103. The 23rd Annual Rock’N Race, which raises money for HOPE Resource Center at Concord Hospital Payson Center for Cancer Care, is slated for Wednesday, May 7, at 6 p.m., according to a press release. The race starts at the Statehouse and racers can choose a 5K run, 5K walk or 1-mile walk. The cost to enter is $40 for adults at rocknrace.org.

104. The Taco Tour Manchester takes place Thursday, May 8, from 4 to 8 p.m. in downtown Manchester. Bring cash to buy $3 tacos from 60+ participating restaurants. See tacotourmanchester.com.

105. The Nashua International Sculpture Symposium will have its opening ceremony Thursday, May 8, at 5:30 p.m. at the Picker Artists’ Studios, 3 Pine St. in Nashua. Visit the sculptors at work Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m,. between May 12 and May 28. The closing ceremony will be at 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 31.

106. Make some cookies for mom in advance of Mother’s Day at the Mother’s Day Cookie Decorating Workshop at Alan’s of Boscawen (133 N. Main St. in Boscawen; alansrestaurant.com) on Thursday, May 8, at 6 p.m. The cost is $45 per person and you get to take a decorated cookie set home.

107. The Taste of the Towns will run Thursday, May 8, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Sheraton Nashua (11 Tara Blvd. in Nashua) and offers bites, sips and more in support of Nashua Center (nashuacenter.org). Tickets cost $75 per person. See nashuacenter.org/taste-of-the-towns.

108. The Majestic Academy of Dramatic Arts teens will present Sweeney Todd School Edition on Friday, May 9, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, May 10, at 2 and 7 p.m., and Sunday, May 11, at 2 p.m. at Derry Opera House (29 W. Broadway in Derry; majestictheatre.net). Tickets cost $15 to $20.

109. The Peacock Players present their Spring Teen Mainstage ProductionChicago Teen Edition with shows Fridays, May 9 and May 16, at 7 p.m. and Saturdays, May 10 and May 17, and Sundays, May 11 and May 18, at 2 p.m. at Janice B. Streeter Theatre, 14 Court St. in Nashua. Tickets cost $15 to $18 for adults, $12 to $15 for students and seniors.

110. Give plants and get plants at The Perennial Exchange on Saturday, May 10, from 8 a.m. to noon at the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord). The event, put on by the Friends of the Audi and Concord’s General Service Department, urges gardeners to split overgrown plants to bring to the Audi to swap and share, with plants available for new gardeners and a Great Gardening Raffle, according to theaudi.org. Call 344-4747 for info.

111. Load up on plants. Spring is plant sale season, usually with area garden clubs hosting. The Amherst Garden Club (amherstgardenclub.org) will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 10, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Wilkins School (80 Boston Post Road). The Milford Garden Club (milfordnhgardenclub.org) will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 17, 8:30 a.m. to noon on the Community House Lawn. The May Plant Sale for the Bedford NH Garden Club (bedfordgardenclubnh.org) is Saturday, May 17, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Bedford Village Common (15 Bell Hill Road). Know of an upcoming plant sale? Let us know at [email protected].

112. The Granite State Trading Cards & Collectibles Show will be Saturday, May 10, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Everett Arena (15 Loudon Road in Concord). Admission costs $5; ages 12 and under get in free. The show will feature sports cards, memorabilia, celebrities signing autographs and more. See jimmysplacesportscards.com.

113. The New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival will run Saturday, May 10, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, May 11, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Deerfield Fairgrounds (34 Stage Road in Deerfield). The event will include a sheep show, fleece sale and judging, lectures and demonstrations and more. See nhswga.org/festival for tickets and more details as they are updated for this year.

114. Hark! The New Hampshire Renaissance Faire will take place Saturdays, May 10 and May 17, and Sundays, May 11 and May 18, in Fremont. Check back for updates on schedules and tickets for 2025. See nhrenfaire.com.

115. “Impressions” an exhibition of pieces that fall in the scope of printmaking, will be on display at Mosaic Art Collective (66 Hanover St. in Manchester; mosaicartcollective.com) Saturday, May 10, through Friday, June 27, with a reception on May 10 from 4 to 8 p.m., according to Mosaic’s Facebook page. “Moving Parts,” an exhibit of kinetic energy in art, opened in March.

116. Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 11 — make those special meal reservations soon.

117. The Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass Band will perform at the Stockbridge Theatre in Derry on Wednesday, May 14, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $30. See stockbridgetheatre.showare.com.

118. The Concord Kiwanis Club Spring Fair will run Thursday, May 15, through Sunday, May 18, at the Everett Arena (15 Loudon Road in Concord). The event will feature midway rides and games, carnival food and more, according to a post on the Concord NH Kiwanis Facebook page.

119. The Mo Willems book comes alive when Don’t Let the Penguin Drive the Bus hits the stage at Stockbridge Theatre in Derry on Friday, May 16, at 10 a.m. Tickets cost $12. See stockbridgetheatre.showare.com.

120. Greek food festival season kicks off with the St. Philip Greek Food Festival on Friday, May 16, and Saturday, May 17, at St. Philip Greek Orthodox Church (500 W. Hollis St. in Nashua; 889-4000). See nashuagreekfestival.com.

121. The Majestic Academy of Dramatic Arts youth and teens will present The Emperor’s New Clothes The Musical on Friday, May 16, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, May 17, at 2 and 7 p.m., and Sunday, May 18, at 2 p.m. at the Majestic Theatre (880 Page St. in Manchester; majestictheatre.net). Tickets cost $10 to $15.

122. Kids Coop Theatre (kctnh.org) will present The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical at Derry Opera House (29 W. Broadway in Derry) on Friday, May 16, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, May 17, at 7 p.m., and Sunday, May 18, at 2 p.m. See derryoperahouse.org for links to tickets.

123. The kids at Bedford Youth Performing Company will present Disney’s Moana Jr. at the Goffstown High School Theatre on Saturday, May 17, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, May 18, at 1 p.m. Find the link to purchase tickets via BYPC’s Facebook page.

124. The NH Philharmonic will present “Swashbucklers and Superheroes,” described as a “spring pops concert that celebrates the iconic music behind some of the greatest adventure films in cinematic history,” on Saturday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 18, at 2 p.m. (with a livestream option for Sunday) at Seifert Performing Arts Center in Salem. Tickets cost $35 for adults, $30 for seniors, $10 for students. See nhphil.org.

125. The New England Fiddle Ensemble (nefiddleensemble.org) has several concerts slated for May and beyond. See them at Derryfield School (2108 River Road in Manchester) on Sunday, May 18, at 2 p.m. They will also perform Sunday, May 4, at 2 p.m. at Interlakes High School Auditorium in Meredith and Saturday, May 10, at 6:30 p.m. at Exeter Town Hall. See the website for tickets.

126. The Nashua Choral Society will present Vive La France,“a choral journey celebrating French composers” on Sunday, May 18, at 3 p.m. at Immaculate Conception Church (216 E. Dunstable Road in Nashua). See nashuachoralsociety.org.

127. Wherefore art thou, hiccup, Romeo? Catch the Sh*t-Faced Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet on Saturday, May 18, at 8 p.m. at BNH Stage (16 S. Main St. in Concord; ccanh.com). Tickets cost $40. Other BNH Stage events include Don White (March 20), the Wild and Scenic Film Festival (March 28), author Katee Robert (April 3), Mother of a Comedy Show (April 5), Jamantics reunion with Superfrog (April 11), Senie Hunt Project with Rachel Berlin (April 12) and more.

Chefs describe the surprising side of maple syrup

When you think of maple syrup, you are much more likely to think of pancakes or waffles than smoked fish, but Michael Williams would like the opportunity to change that.

“Maple-smoked fish is very, very good,” Williams said. “A maple-smoked sturgeon would be mind-blowing.”

Williams, who operates Eden’s Table Farm in Dunbarton, a farm and market dedicated to high-end, locally produced foods, with his wife, Pastry Chef Addie Leader-Zavos, believes that American eaters have always looked at maple products too narrowly, particularly in New England.

“New England has always been a step behind, culinarily speaking,” he said. “I think it stems from the Puritans’ distrust of any kind of pleasure.”

Northern New England leads the nation in maple syrup production — according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA.gov), New Hampshire produced 149,000 gallons of syrup last year. (An impressive achievement, considering what a rough production year it was, although it pales in comparison to Vermont’s 3.1 million gallons.) But, until relatively recently, the region has taken a conservative approach to how maple has been used in food and drink.

In recent years, however, chefs and brewers in New England, and especially New Hampshire, have become more adventurous in their uses of syrup and have found a demand for them.

Dennis Molnar is the co-owner of Concord Craft Brewing in Concord. He said that in recent years maple-forward beers have become a regular part of his brewery’s seasonal rotation. This year he and his team have focused on Maple Bourbon Brown Ale, as opposed to last year’s Logger Lager.

“We kind of alternate,” Molnar said. “We did something a little bit different this year, but we also used maple. We [made] our brown ale and we aged it in maple bourbon barrels and added a little bit of maple syrup at the tail end to get just a touch of sweetness back into it.”

Molnar said that, compared to some other ingredients, maple syrup is fairly easy to work with. “We need to have it uncontaminated because any bacteria or wild yeast will change the character of the beer,” he said. But a simple heat-up of the syrup, or buying material that’s already pasteurized is the fix. The bourbon barrels that the beer is aged in come from a producer in Maine, he said. “Maple was already used in the bourbon,” he said, “[but it] doesn’t tend to impart much flavor to the barrel; we end up getting sort of the char and the burnt-y flavor, but it doesn’t change the alcohol content. There’s not sort of an alcohol shiver at the end or anything. So we get mostly bourbon [notes] from that, and then we add back a little bit of maple to sort of restore some of that sweetness.”

Sweetness, of course, is one of the primary characteristics of maple syrup, but Chef Keith Sarasin, chef/owner of The Farmer’s Dinner pop-up restaurant (thefarmersdinner.com) and of Aatma Curry House in Milford, says it’s maple’s musky, perfumy notes that make it such a versatile ingredient to pair with other strong flavors.

Maple Gastrique Recipe by Keith Sarasin
Ingredients
½ cup maple syrup (preferably Grade B or dark amber for deeper flavor)
½ cup apple cider vinegar (or balsamic for a richer gastrique)
1 Tablespoon shallots, finely minced (optional, for added depth)
½ teaspoon black pepper (optional, for mild spice)
½ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon butter (optional, for a silky finish)

Instructions
Reduce the Vinegar:
In a small saucepan over medium heat, add the vinegar.
Let it simmer until reduced by about half (5-7 minutes), concentrating the acidity.

Add the Maple Syrup:
Stir in the maple syrup and bring the mixture to a gentle simmer.
Allow it to reduce for another 5-8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it thickens slightly.
The consistency should be similar to a thin syrup—it will continue to thicken as it cools.

Season and Finish:
Stir in the salt and black pepper.
If using, whisk in the butter for a silkier texture.
Remove from heat and let it cool slightly.

Strain (optional):
If you used shallots, strain the gastrique through a fine-mesh sieve to achieve a smoother sauce.

“It’s funny,” Sarasin said. “At Curry House we use maple in two different dishes. We actually use it in our butter chicken, which is one of our secret ingredients. We use smoked maple syrup from Ben’s Sugar Shack. We add a little bit of that just as a quick touch, kind of our signature little special thing. Maple syrup works a lot like jaggery.” Jaggery, a raw sugar used in Indian cooking, has many similarities to maple syrup, he said.

“And since we study food from the subcontinent,” Sarasin continued, “we’ve learned that it’s a beautiful replacement for jaggery. Well, you know, jaggery’s got that little, that sourness to it, that kind of earthy quality.”

“That depends on where the jaggery comes from, too,” he said. “South Indian jaggery is a lot more like that. North Indian jaggery is floral, and so it reminded me of the different grades of maple syrup, like that dark amber kind of [syrup] mimics South Indian jaggery,” he said.

The theme of Sarasin’s pop-up restaurant The Farmer’s Dinner focuses on fine-dining applications of local and seasonal ingredients, so maple is prominent in many of his white-tablecloth dishes, he said.

“I think everyone thinks of maple syrup as this sweet dessert-based thing, but one of the things that we like to do is to use it in gastriques. A gastrique is basically a kind of a sauce or a glaze, with a soured, vinegar-like property. It’s like a reduction of a sauce. So I’ll do a maple gastrique with duck quite a bit because it works so darn well together. Anytime you have fat, you need to balance it with a high level of acidity.” And maple syrup helps round out that acidity, he said.

This is a use that Chef Chris Viauld of Greenleaf Restaurant in Milford puts maple to as well.

“I just did a maple-gochujang glazed duck breast for a dinner,” he wrote in an email. Gochujang is a traditional fermented salty chili paste from Korea. “And Emilee has a maple semifreddo on the current menu at Greenleaf and has done a maple creme brulee in menus past.”

Emilee is Viaud’s wife, Emilee Viaud, the pastry chef at his restaurants, and owner of Sweet Treats by Emilee (facebook.com/EmileesSweetTreats), a bespoke baking business. She said that maple syrup pairs well with the cream in a semifreddo. “It’s a frozen dessert,” she said. “It means semi-frozen. So really all it is is whipped cream and whipped cooked eggs and sugar. And then you can add really any flavoring to that, but I like adding maple because of the sweetness and how the richness of a dark maple complements that heavy cream.” She leans toward dark grades of maple syrup. “It’s got a more intense maple flavor. Yeah, and then really when you’re cooking with maple syrup, it is just so sweet. So you really want to try and find the balance, not make a dessert that ends up being overly sweet.”

Chef Viaud likes to pair maple with contrasting flavors. “One of the ingredients that I like to pair with maple is miso,” she said. Even though it’s a surprising combination, she said, “that’s actually probably my No. 1 thing I like to pair with maple. People always think of nuts, like a walnut or a pecan maple dessert, but with miso the fermentation and the saltiness really balances well with maple. If you just make a simple sugar cookie and want to put a maple glaze on it, you just add the miso. You can cook down miso to get it more flavorful — it’s very salty, where if you cook it down a little bit it actually gets more concentrated. You can add it to glazes. You can add it to fillings. It can go well in a caramel. You could also make a miso-maple ice cream.”

Miso Caramel by Emilee Viaud
“This is good to have on hand to add to ice cream or as a glaze to pies, cookies, and with coffee.”

Ingredients
1 cup pure NH maple syrup
2 Tablespoons room-temperature unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon miso paste (add more for more salty taste)
1/3 cup room-temperature heavy cream

Instructions
Bring maple syrup in a medium-sized pot over medium heat to a boil. Simmer maple syrup until candy thermometer reaches 230°F.
Turn heat down to low, add room-temp butter and whisk until incorporated.
Add heavy cream and whisk until combined.
Add miso and whisk in.
Pour caramel through a fine mesh strainer and let cool at room temperature

Pastry Chef Addie Leader-Zavos of Eden’s Table Farm agrees that maple syrup’s sweetness makes it an obvious choice to use in sweet applications. She likes to use it in European dishes, where it is nontraditional and adds an unexpected complexity.

“I like to base caneles around it,” she said. “They’re a French custardy pastry made with beeswax. They aren’t very common here, but there was a war fought over them.”

The two other applications Leader-Zavos uses maple syrup for are a little more traditional. One is her Maple Sticky Buns.

“We also sell a Maple Nut Pie,” she said. “It’s like a pecan pie, but with walnuts.” Again, the earthy notes of dark maple pair well with the slightly bitter flavor of the walnuts, and the velvety texture of the syrup contrasts with the crunchiness of the nuts. “During the holidays,” she said, “I bake it as a hand pie.”

Emily Sliviak is the Marketing Manager for Ben’s Sugar Shack in Temple, one of the largest producers of maple syrup in New Hampshire. She said that while much of the maple syrup Ben’s sells is widely used in traditional ways she has seen it used more and more in recent years paired with savory dishes.

“We literally glaze all of our bacon, all of our sausage, all of that stuff with maple syrup,” Sliviak said. “So, as far as savory things go, salmon is great; we do an entree here with the maple glaze on it. And then we have rotisserie chickens here. We use a maple glaze and then we stuff the chicken with a bunch of fresh rosemary and it comes out really good. That’s one of my favorites.”

Maple’s affinity for smoke has become widely recognized in recent years by the grilling and barbecue communities. Steve Chase is the owner of Steve’s Original Sauces in Belmont. He said that while one of his sauces is spicy, with a maple background flavor, he wants to be very clear that he makes it with barbecuing in mind.

Crispy Maple Dijon Panko Crusted Salmon from Ben’s Sugar Shack
Serves 4.

4 salmon fillets, skin on
1 cup panko bread crumbs
¼ cup Ben’s Maple Sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon black pepper
⅓ cup butter, melted
⅓ cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons of Dijon or whole-grain mustard

Preheat oven to 400°F.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Place salmon fillets on the prepared baking sheet, skin side down.
Combine the mayonnaise and mustard in a small bowl. Combine the breadcrumbs, maple sugar, salt, garlic powder, black pepper, and melted butter in another bowl.
Spread the mayo/Dijon mixture evenly on the tops of the salmon. Gently press the bread crumb mixture onto the top of the fillets, fully coating each one.
Bake in a preheated oven for 12-15 minutes. The thickness of each fillet will determine cooking time, the crust should be golden brown and the salmon should flake easily with a fork.
Serve immediately with your favorite sides.

“I’ve been teaching people for years that I’m not a hot sauce guy,” he said emphatically. “Because people come and they say, oh, they look at the name, you know, ‘SOS,’ and they think it’s hot. So I kind of just, over the years, I said, ‘OK, let me come up with something for these folks.’ So I took my sugar shack maple sauce as my base. I took that into the kitchen and redid it a little bit to make it hot for them. It created a little smoky maple. And because it’s maple, I added a little bit of cinnamon to it as well to go with it. Cinnamon is a spice that has some heat to it as well. I just used a cayenne pepper powder as my heat in that, and it just developed into just a really beautiful, like little sweet maple with the cinnamon, and then the back end gives you that nice heat hit that people love to have, and it’s just turned into just a wonderful flavor sauce that people love.”

For Chase, maple is a natural pairing for smoky flavors, which makes it well-suited for barbecued meats.

“[My sauces] have a very subtle smoky maple flavor,” he said. “It’s not overly sweet; the maple just enhances what is in the bottle. Some people really love the smoke. If you’re not able to do any smoking, you can marinate your meat, your chicken, your pork, your beef — you can marinate it in this sugar shack maple and it will give it a nice smoky flavor.”

That sounds fine for a home cook, but what about professionals? Do competition barbecuers look at maple sauces as a cheap trick and avoid it, or is it something you might actually see at a high level of smoking?

Maple Glazed Ribs from Dan DeCourcey, owner of Up in Your Grill Food Truck (493-3191, upinyourgrill.com)

Maple Glaze
1 cup NH maple syrup
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon coarse salt
1 Tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon granulated onion
½ Teaspoon of finely ground black pepper
½ Teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or more for extra kick)

Mix glaze ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat stirring frequently. Turn down heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.
Smoke ribs as you normally would. If you wrap the ribs during the smoking process add a half cup of glaze to the wrap as a braising liquid.
Glaze unwrapped ribs during the last 20 minutes of your cook. Enjoy!

Jayna Todisco is the head cook of the championship barbecue team A Mazie Q. She is a World Barbecue Championship competitor and the Grand Champion of the Back to BAYsics (Ironman) BBQ Competition. She said maple is her go-to special ingredient.

“In a competition environment,” Todisco said, ”maple to me lends itself with so many benefits over other sweeteners, so I use it in my injections. I use it in my sauces. I use it as a finishing sauce. It does really well. I just, I can’t sing its praises too much because to me it’s probably the one finishing glaze on most of my meats. We compete majorly, and … of my four meats three have it. I have a world champion recipe because I did win a world championship on that one alone. And when people are asking, like, ‘What is that? What makes it so well? And I’m like, ‘It really is maple syrup. It really is. Like, that’s what it is. That’s all it is.’ I just literally take a paintbrush and I paint it with maple syrup and that is it.”

Todisco said maple often takes judges by surprise.

“No one is expecting it,” she said. “And when you put it on hot meat, the way it mixes with the juices, you really can’t identify it because during the cooking process somehow it executes such a different flavor than when it starts. You can still tell it’s maple if you’re looking for it, but for the most part everybody’s like, ‘What is that?’ Because when you do barbecue, people are looking for honey or brown sugar or something like that, but no one’s expecting maple. I love it.”

Ultimately, Michael Williams of Eden’s Table Farm said, the growing use of maple in different cuisines and applications is a reflection of a sea change in the way the public thinks about its food. “Slowly,” he said, “we’re moving toward an awareness of eating locally and being more aware of where our ingredients come from. Maple definitely has a part in that.”

Maple Margarita by John Fladd
2 ounces jalapeño-infused blanco tequila – I like Tanteo
1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
½ ounce dark maple syrup

Pour the tequila, lime juice and maple syrup over ice in a cocktail shaker. Seal the shaker and shake it vigorously until you hear the ice start to break up.
If you were to ask your digital assistant to play “Tequila” by The Champs, who could blame you?
Strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass, and drink while considering that while the world is a messy and suboptimal place in many ways, there are compensations.
Many bartenders will limit their use of maple syrup to a Maple Old-Fashioned, because its sweetness often overwhelms other ingredients. Tequila has enormous strength of personality, however, and is not easily overwhelmed. Maple goes exceptionally well with acidic fruits, and lime juice, as has been observed on many occasions, is everybody’s friend. This cocktail is juicy-tasting, with a residual jalapeño heat. It goes down very easily. It’s something of a constant in life that one margarita can easily become two, then a party. This margarita could usher in a relaxing weekend, or perhaps a lost one.