In Hippo’s Best of 2024 readers’ poll, we asked readers to vote for the “Restaurant That Brings The Heat.” Looking to spice up your dining routine? Here are the top 11 winners in that category.
Destination India Restaurant and Bar
14 E. Broadway, Unit A, in Derry, destinationindianh.com, 552-3469
Destination India won “best of the best” in the heat category. Indian food has a reputation for being hotter than most New Englanders are used to. Destination India, for instance, has three levels of spiciness on the menu: “Mild,” “Medium” and “Indian.”
According to Destination India Chef and owner Navi Avhad, there is a nuance to spiciness that many don’t appreciate; it’s not so much a matter of being “hot” or “mild.” One of the critical factors in how good a spicy dish is, he said, has to do with the flavors the chiles bring along with the heat.
“We never use powdered chiles,” Avhad said. “We only use fresh, organic green chiles. It’s more expensive for us, but it means we can serve a higher-quality food.” He said that the most dependably high-quality chiles that he can get from his distributor are small “Thai” chiles, which he feels are healthier to eat than powdered red ones.
“Some people complain that hot food makes their stomachs hurt; that doesn’t happen with good-quality, fresh chiles,” he said.
Hottest dish: Vindaloo (chicken, lamb, goat or shrimp), $16. Vindaloos come from Goa, on India’s west coast. They are curries made with a vinegar-based sauce, which complements the green chiles with its sharpness. Chef Avhad said that regulars usually start with a “mild” level of heat. “It’s a spice level that lets customers appreciate the actual flavor. Later on they can build up the spiciness,” Avhad said.
Daw Kun Thai
93 S. Maple St., No. 4, in Manchester, dawkunthai.com, 232-0699
Desmond Holman, the co-owner of Daw Kun Thai, agrees that spiciness isn’t binary — either hot or mild.
“Thai food isn’t just hot,” he said. “It allows you to taste all other flavors as well.” With that said, there’s no denying that Thai cuisine can be extremely spicy. “Spicy food usually comes from tropical parts of the world,” he said, “and Thailand is tropical.”
Pad Ped Kai. Photo courtesy of Daw Kun Thai.
Holman said that getting customers used to Thai levels of spice was challenging initially. “People who grew up in New England like me are very cautious at first,” he said. “They don’t have a lot of experience with spices, but they’re learning.”
Hottest dish: Pad Ped Kai (spicy chicken stir-fry), $17.75
Holman said this dish — a stir-fry of curry paste (a version sometimes called “Thai Jungle Sauce”) with chicken, eggplant and bamboo shoots — is far and away the spiciest dish Daw Kun Thai makes; nothing else is even close.
“It’s two times as hot as anything else we have on our menu,” he said with enthusiasm. “It’s the only item that has two stars. And that’s its mild version. We have maybe five or six people who can order it ‘Thai Hot’ — that’s eight times as hot as the mild version. It’s so hot that I have to caution people who’ve never been in the restaurant before. It’s really too hot for some people, even at its mildest.”
Curry Leaf
6 Pleasant St. in Concord, 715-5746, curryleafus.com
Inder Saini, the Chef and owner of Curry Leaf, is pretty sure most of his customers come into his restaurant looking for a little heat.
Curries and karahis can be made with different levels of heat. Photo courtesy of Curry Leaf.
“I believe,” he said, “that it’s because of the spices. American food is good but a little bland. During cold weather, spicy food opens up your body.”
Hottest dish: Karahi (chicken, lamb or goat), $19.95
Karahi — which is named after the wok-like pan it is cooked in — is a South Asian curry that is an important part of North Indian, Afghan and Pakistani cuisine. According to Chef Saini, the chicken version is made with all dark meat, onions and peppers. “The customer can pick any meat,” he said, but the sauce is the same. Like dishes at many of the restaurants on this list, the heat comes from fresh green chiles.
A Lot of Thai
360 Daniel Webster Hwy., Unit 121, Merrimack, 429-8888, alotofthainh.com
According to the staff at A Lot of Thai, there are several spicy dishes on their menu — Drunken Noodles and Curry Chicken Basil, for instance — but their recommendation is for the spicy dipping sauce that comes with many of the dishes and allows each customer to adjust their level of heat.
Kashmir Indian Cuisine
396 S. Broadway in Salem, 898-3455, kashmirindianfood.com
Kashmir doesn’t fool around when it comes to spice. According to server/host Khem, even some of the Indian staff often order their food “medium.” Like many of the restaurants on this list, Kashmir depends on green Thai chiles for much of its heat.
Hottest dish: Vindaloo, $16.95 (chicken or lamb), $17.95 (shrimp)
Unlike most of the dishes at most of these restaurants, the vindaloo at Kashmir only comes in one level of heat: “hot.” It is cooked in a traditional style, with a paste made of dried red chiles, fresh herbs and vinegar.
Kathmandu Spice
379 S. Willow St. in Manchester, ktmspice.com, 782-3911
Kaji Maharjan, the manager of Kathmandu Spice, said that Nepalese food isn’t actually very spicy. “Well, it is,” he said, “but not Indian-spicy.” Kathmandu Spice clearly isn’t afraid of serving spicy food but Maharjan said there is a different framework of flavors behind the Indian food the restaurant makes and the Nepalese.
Rayo Ko Saag. Photo courtesy of Kathmandu Spice.
“Indian cooking uses a lot of spices and chiles,” he said. “Nepalese food is much lighter. We don’t use nearly as much dairy or chilies.”
He gives the example of Saag, which is on both sides of the menu. “Our Indian Saag is made with spinach,” he said, “but we make our Nepalese Rayo Ko Saag with mustard greens.” It’s also made with mustard seeds and fried in mustard seed oil, each of which carries a different level of horseradish-like heat that is felt in the nose and sinuses as much as it is in the mouth. “We also put some chile seeds in it,” he said with a grin.
Hottest dish: Indian Curry (chicken or lamb), $17.95
Like every restaurant on this list, Kathmandu Spice will make any dish at any level of spice, but even its “Medium” level is on the hot side. Maharjan said one of the reasons the food at Kathmandu has such a vibrant flavor is how the staff processes the ingredients. “We grind all our spices here,” he said. “We don’t buy anything pre-ground.”
Hermanos Cocina Mexicana
11 Hills Ave. in Concord, 224-5669, hermanosmexican.com
A margarita with house-infused pineapple/habañero tequila. Photo courtesy of Hermanos Cocina Mexicana.
Every dish at Hermanos Cocina can be customized for different tastes, but according to General Manager Melissa Thompson one of the restaurant’s spiciest offerings is a surprising one.
Hottest dish: house infused pineapple/habañero tequila, $11
“We’re a scratch kitchen,” Thompson said, “so any of our dishes can be spicy, especially our enchiladas or our pastor de avocado, but our house infused tequilas are something special.” Hermanos infuses Lunazul blanco tequila with either jalapeños or pineapple and habañeros.
“It depends on what is available and seasonal,” Thompson said, adding that most customers have it in a margarita.
Puerto Vallarta Mexican Grill
865 Second St. in Manchester, 935-9182, vallartamexiannh.com
Puerto Vallarta is another restaurant that prides itself on its heat flexibility. Many of the dishes on its menu are fairly mild even by New England standards, but according to bartender and manager Christobal that is easily remedied.
“Customers come in all the time and ask us to make one of our regular dishes extra spicy,” he said.
Hottest item: Hot Tomatillo Salsa, $2.99
There are several dishes at Puerto Vallarta that are spicy to begin with — Camarones Endiablados (Shrimp Diablo), Aguachile, and Burritos Caliente (literally “hot burritos”) — but none of them packs the punch of its house-made tomatillo salsa. Unlike many tomatillo salsas, it isn’t green, but a red color. It is pureed, but not so finely that there aren’t tiny bits of chiles and vegetables. It is extremely hot, but with a lovely, fresh herbal flavor that puts in a quick appearance before the heat comes crashing down.
“A lot of our customers who want their food extra spicy get a side of this, and mix it into whatever they’ve ordered,” Christobal said, “so they can customize it just the way they like it.”
Smoke Shack Cafe
226 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, 404-2178, smokeshackcafe.com
Habañero Melt. Photo courtesy of Smoke Shack Cafe.
The key to the Smoke Shack’s spiciest food, said owner and manager Melissa Lafontaine, is in its sauces. “It’s the real deal,” she said. “We are a scratch kitchen, so we reduce habañeros [one of the spiciest chiles in the world], then run them through the mill and use it in our sauces. For instance, our cornflake fried chicken isn’t very spicy on its own, but our sauces are, like our Habañero Honey.” She said that even she has trouble with her restaurant’s hottest sauces. “Me personally?” she said, “I can’t handle it. I’m good with heat up to the jalapeňo level, but the habañero is too much for me. But people love it.”
Hottest dish: Habañero Melt, $11.99
The Smoke Shack’s menu describes this as “Smoked brisket on grilled Texas toast with mayo, habañero bbq sauce, sautéed peppers and onion, and smoked Gouda cheese.” “It’s our No. 1 selling sandwich,” Melissa Lafontaine said.
Bangkok Thai Food
44 Nashua Road in Londonderry, 426-5162, bangkokthaifood.biz
The staff at Bangkok Thai Food wants to make it very clear that not all Thai food is hot.
“We have many things on our menu that aren’t hot at all,” said spokesperson An, translating for her mother, the owner and chef. “Most Thai dishes are a mixture of hot, sweet, salty and sour.” With that said, many of the dishes at Bangkok are hot, and can be made even hotter at a customer’s request.
“We use green Thai chiles,” An said. “That’s the authentic Bangkok style.” Her favorite dish to have extra-spicy is Noodle Coconut Tom Yum, a creamy coconut soup with noodles, shrimp paste and scallions.
Hottest dish: Green Curry, $15
Described on Bangkok Thai’s menu as a “choice of meat, eggplants, bamboo shoot, bell peppers and basil leaves in green curry with coconut milk,” the Green Curry comes with 15 choices of meat, including crispy pork, shrimp, duck, seafood, and ground chicken, and comes in “medium,” “hot” or “very hot” levels of intensity. “Mild” is not an option.
Thai Food Connection
1069 Elm St. in Manchester, 935-7257, thaifoodconnection.com
Reige, a server and bartender at Thai Food Connection, said they have customers along the entire spectrum of heat-tolerance.
“I don’t feel like we have any spice seekers,” she said, “just everyday people who want something different, then they keep coming back.” She said that she has noticed a change in recent years of area diners’ attitudes toward foods and cuisines that might have been intimidating even a few years ago.
Krapow. Photo courtesy of Thai Food Connection.
“I think it has to do with changing demographics,” she said. “The Manchester area has become a real melting pot. As this part of the state becomes more of a suburb of Boston, there’s been an uptick of different cultures. I think that being a college town helps, too.”
Reige says it’s hard to pick out one particular spiciest dish at her restaurant.
“Everything can be made spiciest,” she said. “Probably, the hottest everyday dish that we make is krapow.” Thai Food Connection’s menu describes this as “stir-fried choice of ground chicken or tofu (substitute beef +$2, shrimp +$3 , crispy chicken +$3) with garlic, fresh chili, onion, bell pepper and Thai basil seasoned with hot basil sauce (fried egg on top +$2).” The base cost of the dish is $13.99. But the run-away hottest dish that the restaurant serves is Kua Gling, a dry southern Thai dish made with ground chicken, aromatics like lemon grass and lots of chiles.
Saturday, May 4, is a double celebration for comic book and pop culture fans — it’s May the Fourth (the annual celebration of the Star Wars universe) and Free Comic Book Day, the annual celebration of all things comics-related. We take a look at local plans for this day as well as next weekend’s Kids Con New England on Saturday, May 11, in Concord — a comic book convention for the younger comic book fans. We also talk to a few artists about their work and get advice on how to get started drawing your own comics.
On Saturday, May 4, comic book stores across the globe will celebrate Free Comic Book Day to honor Marvel, DC, Dynamite and all things pop culture related to the medium. The free comic books that eager participants can acquire include titles from X-Men, Hellboy, Jonny Quest, Pokemon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spiderman, Archie Comics, Popeye, Doctor Who, Flash Gordon, and Star Wars, just to name a few.
Locally, Double Midnight Comics, which has stores in Manchester and Concord, and Jetpack Comics and Games in Rochester will be hosting elaborate shindigs for fans, Merrymac in Merrimack will host some artists and shops like Collectibles Unlimited in Concord and Pop Culture in Raymond, among others, will have selections from the Gold- and Silver-tiered free comics available for the holiday as well as lots of sales. Depending on where you are and what level of party you want, New Hampshire has your Free Comic Book Day fix covered.
Double Midnight Comics
Double Midnight Comics is ready to use their Willow Street location in Manchester at the Factory for Free Comic Book Day.
“They gave us free rein of the whole campus so we’re just going to have fun with it,” said Chris Proulx, co-owner of Double Midnight Comics along with his brother, Scott, and best friend from high school, Brett Parker.
“We’ve all been big comic book guys. Scott and I got into comics in the ’80s. Marvel had a G.I. Joe and a Transformers comic book that tied into the cartoon, which was tied into the toys, so we got sucked into that and eventually made our way into the Marvel Universe. I met Brett in high school and he was like, ‘You’ve got to read the X-Men,’ and I was like, ‘OK,’ and then became obsessed with the X-Men.”
Naturally all three are excited for the annual celebration that started on May 4, 2002.
“Over the years [it’s] turned into a big party … have a lot of fun, geek out over the day. Up in our region the fans are pretty blessed to have some awesome stores that do it big…. We like to have fun with it.”
Weekly events that occur on Saturday will still go on, “but they’ll kinda be shrunk down for the day.”
So which comic books are free? Can I get that Superman Action Comics First Edition behind adamantium-infused glass for free?
“I’ll have people go, ‘I can get that $3,000 comic book for free?’ No, no, no, they [comic book publishers] make specific books for the day meant to be something new readers can get into. A full list of the comics can be found on freecomicbookday.com. We usually have extras that we throw in,” Proulx said. “We get people that travel from out of state for this.”
Comic book storylines are a lot like Legos. Sure, there is the preset factory-made form, which is a lot of fun, but the ability each new comic book has to morph characters into different versions of themselves, such as a Batman in Victorian-era London, offers endless possibilities and is the perfect treat for the imagination and allows readers to really make the stories their own, and is one of the reasons why so many people become enamored with the limitlessness of the medium.
Fans are so enamored that people start lining up the day before.
“It’s our busiest day of the year. One of the fun things that happened over the years is people started camping out for it…. It’s a cool little community event that happens there. The first person in line gets a special prize. The first 10 people in line get prizes. There are prizes for being in line. We’re pretty generous with it because we know if you’re going to spend a day waiting, you don’t want to be like, ‘Here’s an extra comic book,’ like, it’s pretty substantial,” he said.
On top of the possibility of winning cool swag just for standing in line, there are more activities than you can shake a magic-imbued stick at. These include lightsaber training on the lawn, and cars from movies that could take you back into the future or away from running T-rexes along with other signature vehicles throughout the complex. There will also be droid racing, live music from the Clemenzi Crusaders, face painting, representation from New England Kids Con, and a mobile video game truck called Gamer Sanctuary as well as a costume contest. Participants can even learn to shoot as poorly as a Stormtrooper.
Free Comic Book Day would not be complete, though, without a cinematic universe’s allotment of comic book artists.
“They will have tables, some of them will be sketching, some of them will have comic books for sale, some of them will have art prints for sale. It varies by artist. Some of them will have free things to give away,” Proulx said. Artists scheduled include Misty Martell, Ed Smith, Erica Fog, Craig Holland and others. A full list of artists and vendors — there are more than 40 — can be found on their website.
Getting to dress up like your favorite character is another aspect that is a huge plus for fans, even if they are not competing for the glory of best cosplay.
“We do encourage people to come in costume. Kids, if they want to dress up, if you want to dress up your dog, just come have fun. Families coming together in costume, it’s really neat,” he said. There will be prizes as well, although walking around as the Mandalorian all day is already a win.
Another win is that the non-stop comic book action occurs all day, from 10 a.m to 4 p.m.,and the labor involved is totally worth it for Double Midnight Comics.
“It’s our favorite day of the year. It’s a lot of work…. We love doing it, we love getting the community out together. Bringing another positive event to the city and we just love our new home here at the Factory because they get it and they let us have fun with the event,” he said.
Merrymac Games and Comics
Artists attending include Tabatha Jean D’Agata, Todd Dezago, Craig Rousseau, Jesse Lundberg, Mike Norton, Joseph Schmalke, Chrissie Zullo Uminga and Christopher Uminga.
“They’ll be here from 10 to 3 signing books, doing sketches,” Bob Shaw, manager of Merrymac Games, said. Apart from personal projects, some titles they have worked on include stories from Marvel, DC, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Star Wars, among others.
The store will be handing out comics and having a small sale, 20 percent off most things in the store besides Magic Products.
Jetpack Comics and Games
In Rochester, Jetpack Comics and Games will be blasting off with the celebration as well.
“We definitely do Free Comic Book day a little bit different than a lot of places. I know at one point we had the biggest one in the world because we spread it out all over town,”said Rich Brunelle, manager of the store. They, “try to make it bigger every year.”
“These days we end up having it all around town where we have a list online, a big map of all the businesses that are involved where you can take a trip to each one and get some additional free comics, which is a neat idea.” In comic book town, every establishment holds a possibility to find your next favorite comic, or even your first.
This will be the last year Jetpack Comics organizes the event for the whole town. The owner “wants to mix it up and try something different,” Brunelle said. They want to put more focus on bringing in artists and the other great aspects of FCBD, but they hope businesses around Rochester still decide to take part. With great power comes great responsibility.
Jetpack Comics. Photo by Stolen Soul Photography.
“It gives a good chance for all the local businesses to get some new eyes on them. It’s definitely an interesting way to do it because the town has definitely embraced it over the years. There are signs on the edge of town and every road leading to downtown warning folks a week ahead of time of Saturday, May 4, there’s going to be costumed heroes and villains in the streets. So everyone knows that that’s a big day in Rochester here. We usually bring in at least a few thousand people to downtown,” Brunelle said.
Their biggest year was when they had Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, signing together at the event. Although that record may get broken this year.
It all starts at 10 a.m. but there is a way to start sooner and bypass the inevitable line by opting for a VIP pass.
“In addition to getting you a big bag of stuff right off the bat, you also get to skip the lines. Those VIP customers get to come in an hour early,” Brunelle said. “It’s pretty cool for them because for a little bit extra cash you don’t have to wait in a big line, and our line is definitely pretty long on Free Comic Book Day, but we have it down to a science these days where even times when the line goes from the shop and wraps all the way around the block where it’s like hundreds of people we have a great system that moves them through the shop really fast and an awesome crew that knows what they’re doing so we get people through the line incredibly fast these days, it’s pretty awesome.”
A large amount of action goes down at the Governor’s Inn, where participants can interact with comic book artists and vendors, live music will be played, and the ever popular cosplay contest happens at 4 p.m.
“Over the years that’s become a huge thing for us,” Brunelle said.
First, second, and third place winners will be chosen from categories that range from 0-17 and 18 and older. “All the prizes are different denominations of Jetpack Comics gift cards and we have a judges choice and host choice as well,” he said.
The construct and build of the attire runs quite the gamut.
“We have everything from people that have spent thousands of dollars to get a movie-accurate costume to kids that have literally built theirs with stuff at home. We realized pretty early in this [that] it’s not quite fair … we try to break it up and have a whole bunch of categories so that everyone gets spotlighted, a bunch of prizes, and it’s so fun,” Brunelle said.
“We had an almost realistic Master Chief from Halo a couple of years ago. We had some great Thors, there’s always a bunch of awesome Harley Quinns, Deadpools that show up as well as characters from popular animes these days. There’s been some spectacular Demon Slayer cosplays the last couple years…. It’s always cool to see what people come up with because our folks down this way are quite creative. We get some interesting costumes every year,” he said.
Before the caped crusaders take the stage for the contest a band composed of Jetpack Comics interns called Spectre Moose will perform to welcome in the attendees and contestants. They’re also podcasters — the band members, that is.
“They do a show called the Geek Gossip Podcast and they are like superstars, they’re teenagers, they do everything,” Brunelle said. Another band will perform after the cosplay contest for the afterparty.
A common thread these comic book stores share is the sense of belonging and understanding. “We have a lot of people who come in that don’t have any people in their life that want to talk comics or movies or TV shows and so they come in here and they know they’ve got a community they can chat with. I probably read way too many comics but all my customers like recommendations and like to know what’s good and what they should be reading so I try to keep up on a ton of it,” Brunelle said.
An older cousin introduced him to comics, but it was a major event like FCBD that led Brunelle to that comic book life.
“The Death of Superman was what got me into comic shops every single week. Back in the ’90s they tried to do all kinds of crazy events that would drag people in and that’s like one of the craziest ones of all time,” he said.
“We have like a mini-convention hall over there so we have a bunch of local guests as well as big-name guests that work on mainstream comics, and that ends up being a big focal point for everyone during the day … you get to meet some folks that are doing the comics you love,” he said.
“We have Paul Pellitier here this year. He’s well known for working with DC and Marvel … currently working on some of the new G.I. Joe stuff.” Others include Chris Campana, Gregory Bastianelli, Jeannine Acheson, Tom Sniegoski, Rich Woodall (who, “may be the hardest-working man in comics,” according to Brunelle), Vero Stewart, Jeremy Robinson, Mark Masztal and Jeff Kline. More information about these artists can be found on Jetpack’s website.
“This year is just the widest berth of different genres,” Brunelle said.
No matter which comic book party you attend, the organizers say, you’re going to have a good time.
“I honestly think this is the best year of Free Comic Book Day books in the history of the event…. People are pretty excited. It’s a great free day for the whole family and if you want to take a nice walk around town you can end up with a giant bag of free stuff, all kinds of comics to read,” Brunelle said.
Free Comic Book Day
Find a list of comics, some with previews of their FCBD book, additional locations, and more at freecomicbookday.com.
Collectibles Unlimited 25 South St. in Concord, collectiblesunlimited.biz, 228-3712 When: 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The store will have the free comics to hand out with no need to purchase anything, although the store will be open for regular business.
Diversity Gaming 1328 Hooksett Road in Hooksett, diversitygaming.store, 606-1176 When: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. They’re collaborating with the Hooksett public library by giving them free comics to hand out. The store itself will have a big mix of free comics, a storewide sale on 700 Funko! Pop figures for $5 and a Star Wars sale as well, according to Diversity Gaming.
Double Midnight Comics 252 Willow St. in Manchester; dmcomics.com, 669-9636(XMEN) When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 341 Loudon Road in Concord; dmcomics.com, 715-2683 When: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Jetpack Comics and Games 37 N. Main St. in Rochester; 330-9636(XMEN), jetpackcomics.com When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. VIP passes range from $15 to $54.99
Merrymac Games and Comics 550 D.W. Highway in Merrimack, merrymacgc.com, 420-8161 When: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Pop Culture 66 Route 27 in Raymond, popculturenh.com, 244-1850 When: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Free comics that are offered for Free Comic Book Day. There will be multiple sales on graphic novels, Pokemon cards, magic cards and more. All non-framed posters will be two for $25. All statues will be half-off, Board games will be 25 percent off, any comic books that are $10 or more will be 25 percent off and all cornhole sets (featuring the Hulk, Spiderman — “we have nerdy ones, all that stuff”) will be $50 off the listed price, according to Pop Culture.
For the younger fans
Kids Con brings in today’s readers, tomorrow’s creators
Emily Drouin is the creator, organizer, owner and promoter of Kids Con New England’s, which hosts a spring event in New Hampshire and a fall event in Maine.
This year’s Kids Con NE in Concord will feature a exhibitors, cosplayers, authors, artists and more.
“It’s a fun-filled one-day show,” Drouin said. “Parents know that this is a safe place and that all the material is family-appropriate.”
A dozen writers, illustrators and cartoonists will lead workshops like “Learn to Draw Robots,” “Sketch to Superhero Creation,” “Draw Anime Chibi-Style Characters,” “Superhero Mask-Making,” “Pokemon Crafts” and many others. Perhaps the biggest name among the guest authors and artists is William Patrick Murray, the creator of Marvel Comics’ The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
Other Kids Con activities include “Jedi Training with Calm Passion,” a magic show and a rock concert, which is followed in turn by “Superhero Training.” (Drouin said that Jedi Training is the runaway favorite among children.) There are also storytimes and sing-alongs and children’s improv classes. Drouin’s favorite part of the day — as well as most parents’ — is a cosplay contest.
Cosplay — when a fan dresses up as their favorite character — is one of the highlights of adult comic conventions. For kids, it is a dress-up dream come true. Given the scope of children’s imaginations, costumes can run the gamut from your standard Captain Americas and princesses in pink to indescribable alien life forms or whole families dressed to a theme.
“I am in awe of the costumes in the Cosplay Contest,” Drouin said.
For children who get too wound up, there are supervised areas outside where they can run around and scream.
“That’s really popular after Jedi Training,” Drouin said.
In addition to all this, there will be tables set aside for table-top games, a trailer to play video games in, and the vendors drawing caricatures, painting faces and selling toys, children’s books, comic books, posters and memorabilia, and more.
Kids Con NH 2024 Where: Everett Arena, 15 Loudon Road, Concord, 228-2784 When: Saturday, May 11, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets: $15, $12 for seniors 65+ and military. Children under 5 get in free. Kids under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult guardian. Tickets can be purchased at the door or through Kids Con’s website. More info: kidsconne.com
Telling a visual story
Ed Smith discusses his projects
Ed Smith is a comic book artist from Bedford who will be at Double Midnight Comics on Free Comic Book Day (Booth 27). He has worked on numerous titles including Tellos, Danger Team, a Giant Girl Adventure Series spin-off, and a project with his wife called Skies Over Gutenberg, among many, many others.
Is there a difference between working on commissioned work versus a personal project?
Ed Smith. Courtesy photo.
When you’re working on commission work usually it turns out that the client gives you free rein. You should always have your own individual set of standards so ideally doing commission work to someone else’s standard is only going to be slightly different than working on your own projects. There’s always that level of personal investment, you know — when you’re working on something near and dear to you it’s going to be a little bit different than if you’re working on something that’s near and dear to someone else. It really depends on the individual artist’s ethics. Mine personally, I find there really should not be a difference. I always do my best to involve myself in projects that I would want to be proud of in the future. I try to bring that same level of emotion to every project that I work on.
Do you have a specific color scheme you like to use?
Not particularly. Honestly it depends on the project. I try to use the colors that will work best for what the mood of the overall project is. You want to match colors that are in line with what it is that you’re working on. You don’t want to use drab and sad colors for something that’s supposed to be bright and cheery and make everybody smile. I do my best to kind of read the script or understand what the project is about and choose my colors accordingly.
How did you get into comics?
That’s a really good story. I grew up liking to draw. I grew up watching a lot of cartoons. I actually found my first comic book when I was a little guy. I found it when I was at school having breakfast one morning and ever since then I got more or less hooked because it was a Batman comic book. At the time I watched a lot of the Super Friends, so seeing Batman in a comic book just having adventures that were different than what I was seeing on the screen where he was surrounded by other superheroes, it just seemed a lot more adventurous to me. It was a lot more personal. I don’t know if I drew parallels from it or what have you, it was interesting to see Batman having his own individual adventures and it just inspired me and energized me to pick up my crayons and my pencils and whatever was around the house and just draw. My mom at the time kinda saw what I was doing and she would sit me down at the kitchen table and she would cut open paper grocery bags and we would use markers, industrial markers that my dad had brought home from work and she would show me how to draw things. The standard cube, turn the cube into a house, and then the house had the chimney with a curlicue of smoke, the three circles for Mickey Mouse’s ears, little flowers, things of that nature, she would teach me to draw them and I just kept going at it and over time it just developed into a little bit of skill. I just really kept at it. It was something that made me happy, drawing pictures, making everybody else smile while I’m drawing pictures. That’s really where it went.
Do you have any particular favorite screen adaptations of comic book stories?
Man, you know there are so many that I just can’t choose one…. Not because I’m trying to be wishy-washy and I realize that this article is going to go to print and different fandoms have different volatile reactions or supportive reactions to choices, but there are a lot of movies out there that you just wouldn’t believe were comic books and they are great cinematic movies. 300. 300 is a Frank Miller book that was based on old Greek legends and history. Road to Perdition with Tom Hanks, that was a really good graphic novel. There are just so many that people overlook as being true comic book movies that it’s hard to choose just one. I like what they’ve done with the Tom Holland Spiderman movies. They took old Steve Ditko and Stan Lee’s premise of Peter Parker being this high school nerd and they’ve made it really contemporary. They took it and really put him in today’s society…. A huge fan of Captain America, so I like what they did in the Captain America movies. I like Shazam as well and I think Zachary Levi does a great interpretation of a child being given some pretty great powers and having to deal with those…. I can’t put my finger on just one of them honestly.
What do you like about Free Comic Book Day?
People will show up for free books and they’ll be introduced to things they’ll grow to like and get attached to, and they really don’t understand that all of that harkens back to cave paintings. When you’re a comic book artist one of the things you strive for is to be able to tell the story without the word bubbles or the sound effects. You really want to be able to make a visual story that doesn’t need words but the words support the pictures. That goes back to when cavemen didn’t have a fixed language and they communicated on cave walls to record their history…. When you pay attention to comics, they’re pretty deep, they’re pretty in depth. There’s a lot of psychology that goes into really good comics. There’s a lot of visual representation and subtlety in storytelling that people just overlook. It’s great to watch little kids come in and unknowingly just become fans of something that’s a lot bigger than them and it’s actually a part of history and modern culture. — Zachary Lewis
Meet Ed Ed Smith will be at Double Midnight Comics in Manchester (Comic Con Booth 27) on Free Comic Book Day. See dmcomics.com.
The thing about drawing comics, Marek Bennett said, is it’s more about leaving things out, rather than putting them in.
Bennett — a cartoonist, the author and illustrator of the Freeman Colby series of graphic novels, and art educator — frequently teaches cartooning workshops to adults and children. Working with children is usually more straightforward than it is with adults, who get self-conscious and intimidated, he said: “It’s much easier for adults to make comics if there are a few kids scattered around the room.”
“Older people end up using simpler pictures,” he said, often stick figures. “I have to remind them that even if a comic uses stick figures, it’s still a narrative.”
Children, on the other hand, feel less restricted about what they include in their comics. “[When I work with children] I start with a stick figure and ask the kids to suggest three details to add to it.” Because Bennett is often a novelty in a classroom full of children, many times they want him to draw himself. He will start with a stick figure. “Then when I ask them for three details, they always name the same three — a hat, a beard, and glasses.” That gives them a framework for their narrative.
The simplicity of the comic medium, he said, is what makes it so powerful and accessible.
“It allows an idea to be as clear as possible,” he said. “A sequence of images is exponentially more powerful than individual pictures. It’s more than the sum of its parts. By limiting the amount of detail, we open ourselves to a more intimate understanding of each other through our art work.”
One of the reasons comics are so well-suited for kids, Bennett said, is that there is such a low barrier to entry. “Unlike video games, sports, or musical instruments, kids and their parents don’t have to invest any money on something a kid won’t be interested in the next week.” If they have a brown paper bag and a crayon, they can make a comic.
Comics make sense to kids, he said. “All my life, I’ve drawn pictures. I would show them to adults or other kids, and they’d ask, ‘What happens next?’ So I’d draw a picture of what happened next, and then what happened after that. The next thing I knew, I’d have a complicated, sequential narrative. That’s a comic.”
The best way to start cartooning, Bennet said, is to put together a booklet and draw a series of boxes on the pages. “Start with a box at the beginning, and a box at the end, then work with them to fill in the details in the middle. Start with a simple character — a rabbit, or a stick figure, or whatever. I had a kid tell me once that he wanted the story to be about him and he said, ‘I want to be a dolphin!’ I asked him why, and suddenly he had a narrative.”
If all that is a little overwhelming for a particular kid, he said, break it down even further. “Use a sketchbook or a drawing pad and have them draw one picture per page.” Then, like the adults in Bennett’s life when he was a kid, guide them along with “What comes next?” questions. “They’ll end up with something like a flipbook. That’s still a story told with sequential pictures; it’s still a comic.”
Bennett said that when he works with groups of children, they will often start with eight-page mini comic books. With minimal guidance kids quickly start addressing some fairly sophisticated concepts.
“They’ll break into pairs or small groups,” he said, “and ask each other who their readers will be and what kind of story will those readers like. It’s empowering; they get to try ideas out on test readers and how to refine artwork and tailor it for the community.”
One of the powerful aspects of comics for kids as creators is the immediate feedback they get and a sense of achievement, Bennett said.
“They see themselves as part of a reading community. Making comics is an entry into graphic novels, which is an entry to reading anything.” If you told a child that they could write a 500-page graphic novel, he said, “they’d be completely intimidated. But if they draw a page a day, with six panels to a page, that’s 3,000 images to tell a story.”
Ultimately, Bennett said, comics are a way to know someone better. He tells a story about leading a cartooning workshop in the United Arab Emirates. The adults he worked with were confused at first; comic art is not a traditional part of their culture. As Bennett led them through the “What next? What next?” process, they became more and more enthusiastic. “One of them told me, ‘This is a way to understand somebody’s heart.’”
More Marek Find out more about Bennett’s works and where he is headed to teach and talk comics at marekbennett.com.
More from the Vampiverse
Jeannine Acheson and Tom Sniegoski discuss their new work
Massachusetts-based Jeannine Acheson and Tom Sniegoski, the writing duo behind Vampirella: Dark Reflections from Dynamite Comics, which has a release date scheduled in June, discuss their process.
What comes first — the picture or the words?
Jeannine Acheson. Courtesy photo.
Jeannine Acheson: The ideas come first, the story comes first, I think in my head anyway. And we start by writing everything out. The plot, the characters, we start with that and it’s kind of a step-by-step process. Now we’re working on a graphic novel and we’re laying things out and that’s where the pictures come in, for me anyway. Although, I feel like you’re [Tom] more fluid in that.
Tom Sniegoski: When I think of an idea, a lot of the time, especially for comic ideas, imagery is what drives the process. It’s kind of like, ‘Oh, that would be really cool. This could be a good moment in this kind of story if you had this kind of thing.’ There’s a lot of that, but what Jeannine says, we do sit down with a notepad. In the earlier stages it’s just notes. It’s just ideas. It’s almost like a gigantic puzzle that slowly starts to get pieced together so you’re in your proper order by the time you get all your ideas, hopefully, you see the logical story progression and then from there it will go to the next stage … breakdowns, stuff like that.
Tom Sniegoski. Courtesy photo.
How did the collaboration for Dark Reflections, which is coming out in June, come about?
JA: That one was born from the Vampiverse, which we did for Dynamite in 2021 or 2022.
TS: Yeah, I think that’s 2022.
JA: And that is one of the stories from the many threads of the fabric that are the Vampirella stories in the Vampiverse, and this one focuses on a downtrodden Vampirella and Lilith, a daughter of Vampirella, of a Vampirella. It just kind of came up from there because we thought she was an interesting character [and] we wanted to explore what she had to say.
TS: The concept of the Vampiverse is the fact that the character, Vampirella, exists in many different realities and different forms so there’s like, we call them the threads, so every thread is a different story and a different Vampirella. So you could have a western Vampirella and a sci-fi Vampirella, an animated cartoon Vampirella, all these different stories. What it does is allows us to tell as many stories as we can think of with these different kinds of Vampirellas while keeping things fresh. It’s not the same character, she’s slightly different in all of these worlds. Dark Reflections is just another Vampirella in her world interacting with that character who is actually her daughter of a deceased Vampirella. It was fun to do. It allows us to do so much. We’re not completely rooted to continuity, a specific continuity. It allows us to play with that continuity if we wanted to, or ignore certain aspects of that continuity. It’s fun.
What draws you to a particular story?
TS: What draws Jeannine is that I say, ‘Hey, I got an idea.’
JA: Exactly, I can do that.
TS: ‘What is it this time?’ Honestly, you never know. A lot of the times, things just kind of click. You might see something in the news, you might read something in a newspaper, you might be walking around your kitchen and you trip and all of a sudden there’s just this germ of an idea that you then see if it’s worthy. You give it a poke, kick the tires and you start to expand on that idea. A lot of the times, Jeannine will get a text that just says, ‘got an idea,’ and I’ll give her a sentence and I gauge her reaction on the sentence whether we should probably continue to try to develop it or not.
JA: Sometimes it feels like things that come to fruition are things that keep coming up for us. They kinda won’t leave us alone. We have another comic coming out in July and that idea was born about four years ago and it just kept coming back to us and every time we’d be working on something else, this idea would just come back to us and we’d say, ‘Oh, remember that one that we talked about, that old lady living in the nursing home?’ and they just keep coming back and kind of keep expanding. We think about new facets to the character or different things that they could be involved in. The ideas get insistent, they have to be told I think.
TS: You know it’s a good one when it won’t leave you alone and you should pay attention to it. As a writer, here’s some writerly advice: If it keeps coming back it’s probably good and you should keep developing that idea.
Is there an IP or storyverse that you’d like to work on that you haven’t yet?
TS: The thing is, my dream character was Hellboy and I write Hellboy now, so I got that one out of the way.
JA: I don’t know if I have a dream one. Honestly, I think since I started writing with Tom my life has been a series of ‘yeses.’ There’s nothing that I’ve said no to with respect to writing. ‘You want to write Vampirella?’ Well, I’ve never written that before but sure, why not? We finished a novel together during the pandemic. For me, I’m very new to this whole world of comics and writing so I come along for the ride, I say yes to everything.
How does collaboration work between you two?
JA: Most of the time we work in Google Docs over Skype. A couple a days a week I go to his office on the South Shore but all the other times I’m here at my home office on the North Shore. We generally, I would say like 99 percent of the time, work on things together in real time. Occasionally Tom has work outside of our work and I have a little bit of stuff myself. Occasionally he’ll have to go to a meeting and I’ll say I’ll try laying out these few pages and finish up this scene. Sometimes it works OK, sometimes it has to be revised, but I’m still learning. Most of the time it’s literally a team effort. Somebody will write a sentence, somebody will tweak it, somebody will write another sentence, somebody will tweak. It’s very much in real time, writing together, almost all the time, everything.
TS: It’s interesting. I’d never worked that way before. I was solo for many, many, many, many years, so it’s very interesting to spend as much time working on so many different things with Jeannine. I’ve worked with Chris Golden, I’ve worked with Mike Mignola, I’ve worked with all kinds of people. Those relationships are kind of like, you discuss the project, you kinda know what you’re doing and everybody goes to their separate corner and does their own thing. Whereas working with Jeannine, and I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that she’s still learning a lot of this stuff since she’s so new to comics and book writing that we spend a lot of time talking about the process….
If someone stops by your booth on Free Comic Book Day, what can they expect to encounter?
TS: Jeannine will most likely be asleep.
JA: No, you’ll probably give them a hard time.
TS: Never.
JA: Honestly, this will be our third or fourth [FCBD] together at Jetpack Comics in Rochester. Hey Ralph! For me, It’s so exciting just to meet people that enjoy comics. It’s so cool. I think the first Free Comic Book Day we gave out, did we give out posters?
TS: Yeah, we had Vampirella, Vampiverse posters.
JA: Yeah, and that was so cool. It was so exciting to see people who were excited about Vampirella and loved the character and liked the new take we had to come up with. I think it’s exciting for me just to talk to all the people who are interested in comics. We have stuff for sale, but, you know.
TS: We bring like stock of stuff and people buy it, we autograph it and it’s fun. It’s very fun.
JA: It really is, it’s wild. I especially love seeing the families that come in. Parents with their younger kids or like grade-school kids, I think that’s fabulous. I think that’s so cool. Training the next generation. — Zachary Lewis
See Jeannine and Tom Jeannine Acheson and Tom Sniegoski will be at Jetpack Comics’ event at the Ballroom at the Governor’s Inn in Rochester. See jetpackcomics.com.
Gardening Advice from Local Green Thumbs Plus Garden Clubs & Plant Sales
Everyone’s thumb can be a little greener.
In this week’s issue, we offer tips for better gardening — or even just a better gardening mindset — from local experts. Whether this is your first spring putting seeds in the dirt or you’ve been tending to a yard full of plants for years, these experts have helpful advice.
Longtime gardener and gardening writer Henry Homeyer gives his advice for a successful vegetable garden this season. We asked some local garden club members for their tips for better gardening — want more from them? We also have a list of when and where to meet up with local garden clubs to get more hacks from longtime green thumbs. And whether you’re just starting with your gardening journey or expanding your garden every year, there’s no better place to get good advice and hardy plants than those clubs’ plant sales.
Despite late snow storms that dumped deep snow over much of New England, spring is right around the corner. Let’s take a look at some keys to a successful year in the vegetable garden.
1. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Yes, I grow about 40 tomato plants each year, but most folks don’t want to can or to put up many pounds in the freezer. A well-tended small garden is better than a huge weedy one. Select plants that you love, and just plant a few. Don’t crowd them. You don’t have to start everything from seed — most garden centers have plants for sale in six-packs, and a good selection of varieties.
2. Don’t use any chemicals in the garden. Mother Nature doesn’t, and you shouldn’t either. A chemical fertilizer is largely made of salts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Too much of these salts can kill the microorganisms that work with the roots of your plants to feed them. A bag of 10-10-10 is 70 percent filler, and the content of this portion is not specified — it’s a “trade secret.”
This potato beetle will lay orange eggs under potato leaves. Remove them all! Photo by Henry Homeyer.
3. Compost is your best friend in the garden. Unlike chemical fertilizers, it provides most or all of the micronutrients needed by plants, things like magnesium, calcium and sulfur. And it contains living organisms, the bacteria and fungi that work with your plant roots to provide nutrients to your plants. Mycorrhizal fungi coat the roots of plants. They produce acids that dissolve minerals and share them with your plants. The plants pay the fungi with excess sugars they produce on sunny days.
4. Build up mounds of soil and compost to create raised beds, or build wood-sided ones. You can hoe soil from the walkways into your raised beds, and maybe buy a pickup truck load of compost to mix in and enrich your soil. Most landscapers will deliver compost. Raised beds provide nice loose soil and discourage kids and dogs from walking through them. And in a rainy summer like the last one, raised beds drain well,
5. Enrich your soil with organic fertilizers like Pro-Gro and Plant Tone. They are made from things like ground peanut hulls, soybean meal, seaweed and oyster shells, with a few naturally occurring minerals. They are broken down in the soil and released slowly — just a small amount is water-soluble. They are a big help in poor soils, but don’t overdo these either.
Raised beds are easier to weed and harvest. Photo by Henry Homeyer.
6. Make a habit of walking through your garden every day. Look for problems: Are your newly transplanted tomatoes looking limp? If so, they probably need water. Are there potato beetles? The Colorado potato bug can be a real problem. But if you watch for orange egg masses under the leaves and scrape them off, and pick larvae and beetles every day, you can control the problem in a home garden. One adult lays many eggs that can produce new adults in 30 days or so.
7. Don’t let weeds blossom and produce seeds. Ever. Make 10 minutes of weeding every day a part of your daily ritual, just like you brush your teeth every day. Use a good weeding tool — I really like the CobraHead Weeder because it easily gets under weeds and can be used to tease out long roots. Some weeds spread by root, so getting out entire roots is important. A scrap of root from many grasses will survive and produce new plants.
8. Water judiciously. Those flip-flop overhead watering devices may be good for a newly planted lawn, but they waste a lot of water in your vegetable garden. Water with watering can, or attach a watering wand to your hose. A good watering wand allows you to water around your plants, but not your walkways or empty places. Too busy to water, or off to the beach? Use a water timer and soaker hoses. They can do the job for you.
9. Why weed your walkways and around your tomatoes many times in a season if you can prevent it? I put down four to six layers of newspaper, then a layer of straw or mulch hay to keep it in place and help hold in moisture. Most weeds won’t grow though the newspaper, and earthworms will eat it up by the end of the season. Inks in newspapers now are soy-based, but I avoid the colored sections.
10. Don’t get discouraged, no matter what. Last summer we had lots of rain and not so much sunshine, and many vegetables did not perform well for me — or anybody. Your garden will do better in times of drought or persistent rain if the soil is rich in organic matter and biologically active. Regularly re-plant some things you know how to grow, perhaps lettuce, and rejoice in fresh salads. And remember, there is never a good reason to spray chemicals on your plants — after all, if it kills the Japanese beetles, it can’t be good for you. Good luck!
Henry eats something from his garden every day of the year by storing and freezing things from his not-so-small garden. Send him questions or comments by email at [email protected], by mail at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. Please include SASE if you wish a response by mail. He will be writing just one article a month henceforth.
Plant sale season
Get greenery and advice
Looking for new perennials, annuals, herbs, vegetable seedlings and more? Head to a local plant sale, often held by local garden clubs. Not only can you find our-region-friendly plants; you can also find experts who can help you find success with that butterfly bush or early-producing tomato. And here’s a plant sale shopping tip: Show up early to have your pick of plants or show up near the end of the sale when remaining plants are often priced to move.
Know of a plant sale not mentioned here? Let us know at [email protected].
• Amherst Garden Club will host its plant sale on Saturday, May 11, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Wilkins School (80 Boston Post Road in Amherst). According to their website, they will be highlighting native plants this year. They encourage participants to come and learn why these are important for our environment by visiting the many vendors who will be selling vegetables, herbs, hanging pots, houseplants, garden ornaments, used garden books and magazines, container pots and more, according to the same site. There will also be delicious home-baked items to eat or for gifting, according to the same site. See amherstgardenclub.org/plant_sale.
• Bedford NH Garden Club will hold its plant sale Saturday, May 18, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Bedford Village Common, 15 Bell Hill Road. See bedfordgardenclubnh.org.
• Candia Garden Club will hold its annual plant sale Saturday, May 18, from 9 a.m. to noon at Rockingham Lodge #76 (12 South Road in Candia). The sale will feature annuals, herbs and vegetables. Members dig up perennials from their yards. There is a raffle of garden-related and other items.
• The Friends of the Daland Memorial Library will hold a plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Daland Memorial Library, 5 N. Main St. in Mont Vernon.
• The Derry Garden Club has a plant sale Saturday, June 1, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Robert Frost Farm on Rockingham Road in Derry. “We’ll have anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 plants to sell,” said Diana Hill, club president. Their club puts a lot of focus on perennials, she said, “but we also do have members that start annuals and herb and vegetable plants as well. We sell trees.” See derrygardenclub.org.
• The Colonial Garden Club of Hollis will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 11, at Lawrence Barn Field on Depot Road from 9 a.m. to noon. The event is their annual fundraiser and provides the funds for their monthly educational programs, community contributions, charitable contributions, scholarships, town plantings, seasonal decorations and more, according to hollisgardenclub.org.
• The Friends of the East Kingston Public Library will hold a book, bake and plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the East Kingston Public Library, 47 Maplevale Road in East Kingston. See eknh.org.
• The Goffstown Community Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 8 a.m. to noon at the Town Commons (at the corner of Main and Elm streets in Goffsotwn).
• Great Island Garden Club in New Castle will hold a plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from noon to 3 p.m. at New Castle Recreation Center, 301 Wentworth Road in New Castle. See greatislandgardenclub.org.
Calla Lilies. Photo by Carolyn Taylor of the Hooksett Garden Club.
• Hooksett Garden Club plant sale will take place at the Hooksett Public Library, 31 Mount St. Mary’s Way in Hooksett, on Saturday, June 1, from 9 a.m. until noon, rain or shine. The event will feature annuals, perennials, vegetable plants, herbs, houseplants, a garden-related yard sale, and Ask A Master Gardener booth where you can find out all about the plants you are buying, a children’s table and raffle items from local businesses and crafters, according to hooksettnhgardenclub.org. Most plants are from Hooksett Garden Club members, the website said.
• Hopkinton Garden Club’s 2024 spring plant sale takes place on Saturday, May 11, between 8 a.m. and noon at the Hopkinton Town Common, where club members will sell a wide variety of annuals and perennials, many grown in their own gardens, and includes flowers, vegetables, herbs, native plants and hanging baskets, and cash, check and credit card payments will be accepted, according to their website. The spring plant sale is the Hopkinton Garden Club’s major annual fundraiser. See hopkintongardenclub.org.
• Massabesic Garden Club in Auburn will hold a plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Griffin Free Public Library (22 Hooksett Road in Auburn). See massabesicgc.org.
• The Merrimack Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, Aug. 3, beginning at 8 a.m. at Saint James United Methodist Church, 646 D.W. Highway in Merrimack. See merrimackgardenclub.org.
• The Milford Garden Club will hold its annual plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Community House Lawn, 5 Union St. in Milford. The event will feature a variety of perennials as well as a raffle table, a bake table, other vendors and a performance by the MHS Jazz Band, according to milfordnhgardenclub.org.
• Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum, 18 Highlawn Road in Warner, will hold its annual plant sale on Saturday, June 1, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The New Hampshire Herbal Network will also hold its annual Herb and Garden Day in the museum’s Powwow Field. See indianmuseum.org.
• The Nashua NH Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 8 a.m. to noon at the Nashua Historical Society, 5 Abbott St. in Nashua.
• The Newfields Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 25, from 9 a.m. to noon at the Town Hall, 65 Main St. in Newfields. Find them on Facebook.
• Project Inspire 603, an organization that helps New Hampshire classrooms get school supplies, will hold a plant sale on Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 88 Kelsey Mill Road in Northwood. Find them on Facebook.
• Tailgate Transport and Rescue, a dog rescue nonprofit, will hold its second annual plant sale on Saturday, June 1, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Burger King parking lot at 737 D.W. Highway in Manchester.
• The Unitarian Universalist Church of Manchester (669 Union St. in Manchester) will hold its annual plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Persian Shield. Photo by Carolyn Taylor of the Hooksett Garden Club.
“Don’t know who needs to hear this … but, you’re a good gardener. The plant should have tried harder.” — a post on the Pelham Garden Group Facebook page.
Or, as a Canterbury Garden Club presentation put it, “Don’t sweat it! Whatever happens in the garden … just don’t sweat it!”
For more advice on how to approach your garden — from general philosophy to specific plant tips — we asked area garden club members to weigh in.
From the Bedford NH Garden Club
Jeanene Procopis, who handles publicity for the Bedford Garden Club, said, “In our garden club we concentrate on perennials, planting perennials, and we try to plant native plants, plants that are native to this region rather than plants that wouldn’t be acclimated to our conditions here, so we try to push those native plants.”
And you can plant what’s pretty, or easy.
“We all enjoy annuals for their pop of color during the growing season,” Procopis said. “Perennials come back every year and they can be divided. They can be shared with friends or neighbors. They’re kind of a workhorse of a plant but they can provide a lot of beauty and enjoyment to a garden.”
When asked for garden tips, she said, “I’m not a master gardener…. Daylilies usually will grow in lots of conditions. They’re an extremely hearty plant but they need to be divided after a while because they will start growing within the pot they are planted in and start crowding together…. A lot of people have daylilies in their yard because they come back every year and they’re very low-maintenance. In the fall you need to cut back the dead leaves to get them ready for winter but in the spring they push up their leaves. Some are early bloomers, some are a little later, so they’re just a really hearty plant.”
As for her views on gardening overall: “For most people it’s a fun hobby. You learn by trial and error sometimes. You might have the wrong plant in the wrong place, but it’s a hobby of discovery, and for most people it’s extremely relaxing and rewarding because you get to see something grow and it’s kind of fun and beautiful.”
From the Concord Garden Club
Gena Moses, president of the Concord Garden Club, encourages gardeners to “have less lawn and plant more areas that are friendly to native species, that are more friendly to animals … plant for wildlife value, reduce your nighttime light pollution. Don’t use fertilizers or sprays.”
From the Derry Garden Club
Diana Hill, president of Derry Garden Club, responded to a request for a tip on gardening by saying, “You mean 2,000 gardening tips.” After narrowing that number down, the first thing Hill spoke about was jumping worms and how to mitigate them. These are “horrible, invasive worms … and they eat the understory of our forests, and we don’t want to spread the jumping worm, so when we get plants in the community … we bare-root the plants, we take all the dirt off, we wash them and put them in clean soil so we’re not spreading these worms…. We have these huge parties where we wash [roots] and get together … have lunch and drink wine and just scrub pots clean so we know we’re not spreading any invasive species.”
Derry Garden Club is also into urban pollinator gardens.
“Don’t clean up your gardens too early in the spring.” Hill said. “The pollinators can’t survive under the temperature of 50 degrees at night and the pollinators and bees burrow in leaf litter and dead plant litter, and if you clean it up too soon the bees and pollinators will have no place to go at night … so don’t clean up your gardens until it’s 50 degrees in the day and the night.”
Her final tip was about the perennial flowering plant anise hyssop; these, she said, “will feed the pollinators with pollen, of course, and their nectar, but birds also eat the seed heads at the end of the season, so it becomes an empty tube for the bees to live in, in the wintertime. So it hits all three seasons. Some varieties are native to New Hampshire. They propagate very easily, they self-seed, which is nice, you can fill in your garden quickly and you can also transplant them to other areas of your yard and they are full-sun and drought tolerant, so they’re basically a hands-off plant.”
From the Epping Garden Club
Eunice Miller mentioned one of her favorite tips is that so many people buy something that isn’t the right fit, and that it is important to get the right plant for the right location. If it needs sun, put it where the plant will get sun, and so on.
From the Hooksett Garden Club
Carolyn Taylor, publicity chair for the Hooksett Garden Club, offered a gardening tip for a tropical plant that can live in New Hampshire: “A few years ago my brother gave me some canna bulbs, rhizomes actually, and I got hooked. Although they are tropical plants not native to New England you see them in large planters in front of stores, restaurants, etc. … I put them in the ground as soon as the soil has reached 50 degrees and no danger of frost, usually in May.”
They need space because the bulbs will multiply, and “each plant should have three to five ‘eyes’ planted facing up.” Canna bulbs love the sun and water. “They pretty much need full sun because they are tropical and they need quite a bit of water,” Taylor said. “They take about three weeks to come up … and once they come up, will bloom all summer into the fall. You can keep them blooming by cutting off dead flowers.”
Birds are big, if tiny, fans of the plant, she said. “They’re very attractive to hummingbirds. They really love the fact that they’re open, they can get into them.”
From the Litchfield NH Garden & Plant Enthusiasts (a Facebook group)
“Mulch, mulch, mulch. And weed right after the rain. Start small and then expand. When in doubt, ask! There are lots of people who have years of local experience. AND look around. See what other people in your community are growing and when. Then you will know what does well in your area,” posted Stacy Lamountain.
“Start small and get to know your plants. When you see and experiment with them in each stage, you can better understand and predict what techniques they might like and what they might not. Then you can start to recognize their sisters and cousins and predict what they might like too. And finally, because you’ve gotten to know them well, it isn’t quite work anymore to care for them. It’s more like visiting a friend,” posted Kate Stevens.
From the Manchester NH Garden Club
“Spending some time in the fall putting your garden to bed will make your job much easier in the following spring.” — Fiona McKenna
From the Merrimack Garden Club
“If you start plants from seed indoors, harden them off by leaving them outside during the day and bringing them back inside at night for a week. This will help prevent the seedlings from getting shocked when they get in the ground.” — Jennifer Mayer-Cox
From the Nashua Garden Club
“Stop the back-breaking work of adding mulch to your gardens each spring. Instead, use ground covers to block out weeds and add attractive flowers to the bare spots in your perennial beds.” — Terry Robinson Lemack
“In the fall, when I bring in plants that have spent the summer outside, I am very careful to hose off the leaves and roots in hopes that I don’t bring an infestation of insects into my house.” — Joan Bonnette
From the Salem Friendship and Gardening Club
“Plant native flowering plants that will feed pollinators. Please don’t spray your dandelions!” — Lorie Ball
From the Tailgate Transport Rescue, which is holding its second annual plant sale
“When you buy a new plant, find out what it needs, so you can plant it in your yard where it will get the right amount of sunlight.” — Jennifer Abericio
From the Unitarian Universalist Church in Manchester, which holds an annual plant sale
“Dig up plants for transplanting in the early spring, just as they are starting to bud. When planting transplants, water the hole thoroughly before burying the new plant, then again, after it’s been buried; this will give the roots a chance to have contact with moist soil.” — Jean Stfanik
Fellow gardeners
The Burleigh Triangle Garden. “The Burleigh” is a small trianglar garden at the intersection of Ministerial and Bedford Center roads. Photo courtesy of Jeanene Procopis of the Bedford Garden Club.
Here are some of the area garden clubs. Know of one not mentioned here? Let us know at [email protected].
• Amherst Garden Club meets monthly from September through June at the Messiah Lutheran Church (303 Route 101 in Amherst) on the first Thursday of the month except in September, when they meet the first Thursday after Labor Day. The meetings typically include a featured speaker, according to their website, amherstgardenclub.org, with their business meetings beginning at 9:15 a.m. and followed by a featured speaker at 10:30 a.m.
• The Bow Garden Club typically meets on the second Monday of the months of April, May, June, September, October and November while a special “Progressive Dinner & Garden Tour” is held in mid-July for members and their guests, according to bowgardenclub.org. There is no August meeting and the club’s annual business meeting and holiday brunch is held on the second Saturday of December, according to the same website.
• Candia Garden Club meetings are held the fourth Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m. in the meeting room of the Smyth Public Library (194 High St. in Candia)
• Canterbury NH Garden Club meets every other month beginning in October and alternating weekday and Saturday mornings to accommodate a variety of schedules. Frequent communications are maintained through their email list. Contact [email protected].
• The Concord Garden Club holds monthly meetings, typically on Thursdays, from September through May plus the CGC annual luncheon in early May. “We do member-focused events all year long,” said Gena Moses, President of the Concord Garden Club. One event that is open to the public happens “in conjunction with Concord Parks and Rec department called Habitat at your Home which is to try to help residents learn how to plant more sustainable gardens at their homes.” This event will be held at City Wide Community Center at 14 Canterbury Road in Concord on Wednesday, May 1, from 6 to 8 p.m. with tickets ranging from $10 to $20 and participants will need to register to attend. See concordgardenclubnh.com.
• Derry Garden Club meets the first Friday of every month with most of the meetings held at the Boys & Girls Club (40 E. Derry Road in Derry); get in touch through their website, derrygardenclub.org, since they are not able to use the space in the summer months.
• Dunbarton Garden Club will celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the Daffodils of Dunbarton project with five different daffodil packages: General John Stark Blend, Molly Stark Mix, Caleb’s Courage, Scipio Page Blend and Dunn Cottage Blend, with sale information to be updated soon, according to dunbartongardenclub.org. The club meets once a month from April through December, typically on the second Monday of the month at the library/old town hall (1004 School St.) on the second floor, according to the website.
• The Epping Garden Club has an annual pansy fundraiser in the spring after the Memorial Day parade, a pink petunia sale around the first week of June, and a Fall Color sale with mums, asters and ornamental cabbages from Wentworth Greenhouses in Rollinsford at the end of August, for which the Epping Garden Club will take pre-paid orders. Email [email protected].
• The Goffstown Garden Club meets March through December on the first Thursdays at the Odd Fellows Lodge, 42 Mountain Road, at 6:30 p.m. It’s a community garden club with plots for residents. Find them on Facebook.
• The Colonial Garden Club of Hollis holds regular meetings on the first Tuesday of October, November, December, February, March, April and May at the Lawrence Barn at 9 a.m., according to hollisgardenclub.org.
• The Green Team of Londonderry meets on the third Thursday of each month from 6 to 7:45 p.m. at the Leach Public Library, 276 Mammoth Road in Londonderry. Find them on Facebook.
• The Hooksett Garden Club holds monthly meetings at the Hooksett Public Library (31 Mount Saint Mary’s Way in Hooksett) on the fourth Wednesday of the month, February through October, with social time from 6 to 6:30 p.m., the meeting (often with a program) starting at 6:30 p.m. and then a business meeting at 7:30 p.m. See hooksettnhgardenclub.org.
• The Hopkinton Garden Club meets on the third Tuesday of each month, September through May, according to hopkintongardenclub.org.
• The Kingston Garden Club meets in person on the third Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m. at Kingston Community Library, 2 Library Lane in Kingston. Find them on Facebook.
• The Loudon Gardeners Club meets on the third Tuesday of each month, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Loudon Community Building, 29 S. Village Road in Loudon, according to the Loudon Town Calendar. Find them on Facebook.
• The Manchester NH Garden Club meets one Thursday a month (see manchesternhgardenclub.weebly.com for the upcoming dates) at Girls at Work, 200 Bedford St. in Manchester.
• The Massabesic Garden Club in Auburn has monthly meetings on its schedule at massabesicgc.org, where you can find more about membership. The next meeting is Wednesday, May 8, at 6 p.m. and wraps up the 2023/2024 season.
• The Merrimack Garden Club meets on the fourth Tuesday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at the St. James United Methodist Church, 646 D.W. Highway in Merrimack. See merrimackgardenclub.org.
• The Milford Garden Club meets on the second Monday of every month at 10:30 a.m. at the First Congregational Church Parish House, 10 Union St. in Milford. See milfordnhgardenclub.org.
• The Nashua Garden Club meets the first Wednesday each month from 7 to 9 p.m. at the First Baptist Church, 121 Manchester St. in Nashua and via Zoom. See sites.google.com/view/nashuanhgardenclub.
• The Newfields Garden Club meets on the first Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Paul Memorial Library, 76 Main St. in Newfields. Find them on Facebook.
• Salem Friendship and Gardening Club meets on the third Monday of each month from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. at the Kelley Library, 234 Main St. in Salem. See salemfriendshipandgardenclub.org.
• Weare Garden Club meets the first Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. at the Hand in Hand Senior Center and Thrift Shop, 33 N. Stark Highway in Weare. Find them on Facebook.
• Windham Garden Club meets on the third Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. at Windham Town Hall, 4 N. Lowell Road in Windham. See windhamgardenclub.org.
Garden tours Get ideas from other people’s gardens at area garden tours. Know of other tours? Let us know at [email protected].
• See the Secret Gardens of New London in a tour of six gardens, held by the New London Garden Club on Thursday, June 20, from 9 a.m.to 3 p.m. Tickets cost $25 in advance; see newlondongardenclub.org. • The 35th annual Pocket Gardens of Portsmouth Tour will take place Friday, June 21, from 5 to 8 p.m. and Saturday, June 22, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The self-guided tour of eight private gardens and one public garden in the Little Harbor neighborhood will also include music, artists and more, according to southchurch-uu.org, the website of the South Church Unitarian Universalist Congregation, which is holding the event. Tickets cost $25 in advance and $30 on the day if available. • The Palace Theatre will hold its annual Garden Tour of nine gardens (plus other stops) around Manchester on Saturday, June 22, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tickets cost $25 in advance and $30 on the day. See palacetheatre.org. • The Bedford Garden Club will hold a “Follow the Blooms” garden tour of seven gardens in Bedford on Saturday, June 29, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tickets cost $25 when purchased in advance (see bedfordgardenclubnh.org) and $30 when purchased on the day from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Bedford Village Common at 15 Bell Hill Road.
“OK, these ones are great,” said Keith Sarasin, pulling a bag of Indian snack mix down from a shelf. “They’re made with black salt, which isn’t something that most Americans are really familiar with. It’s got sulphury back-notes that are a little freaky at first, but after they’ve tried it, most people get addicted to it.”
Chef Sarasin is the chef and owner of Aatma, an Indian-themed popup restaurant. He describes himself as “Indian-food obsessed.” We were at Patel Brothers, an Indian supermarket in Nashua, looking over an aisle of dozens of varieties of snack mixes. He explains that people in South Asia — India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh — are passionate about snack foods. As if to illustrate his point, for every aisle of produce or staple ingredients at Patel Brothers, there is another one devoted to a different type of snack food.
“These,” he said, pointing to a package of biscuits (cookies), “are what you would have with tea. If you’re Indian, you keep some of these around all the time to serve to guests. There is a saying in Hindi that translates to ‘The guest is a god.’” That’s how seriously they take their snacks.
Almost every culture around the world has snacks that the people eat on the street, or sitting with friends, drinking tea, beer, coffee, or tequila, gossiping and arguing about sports. More and more of these snacks are making their way to New Hampshire — in supermarkets, superettes or convenience stores.
So, let’s do some exploring.
The following snack foods represent a small fraction of what is available at four local international markets — one Indian, one Filipino, one Mexican and one East Asian. These stores, in turn, are a fraction of the international snack landscape around us. There are Bosnian, African, Middle Eastern, and Greek markets that we haven’t had the opportunity to get to.
The snacks have been sorted by the stores where they were purchased (with tasting notes provided by snackers at the Hippo office). Because these are all ready-to-eat snacks, each section of regional snacks is followed by a recipe for a traditional snack from that culture that you probably won’t find on a grocery store shelf.
Patel Brothers. Photo by John Fladd.
Patel Brothers:
Masala mix & West Indies potato chips
Patel Brothers (292 Daniel Webster Highway, Unit 8, Nashua, patelbros.com, 888-8009) is a large supermarket that is part of a national chain of more than 50 stores, according to the website. This one sits in Willow Springs Plaza in Nashua, next to Home Depot. It is a full-service supermarket with produce, groceries and products from all areas of South Asia and it features an in-store bakery.
Gharana brand Chakri (Muruku)
Where it’s from: Indian snack, made in New Jersey Description: A dry, crunchy churro-shaped cookie or cracker, wrapped in a spiral. Tasting notes: “A deep-fried flavor with a spicy back-end.” “Unexpectedly spicy”
Lay’s West Indies Hot & Sweet Potato Chips
Where it’s from: Lay’s, the PepsiCo-produced chips you’re familiar with, has produced flavors for the Caribbean and South Asian market Description: A ruffled potato chip with Caribbean flavors Tasting notes: “I taste paprika; the heat grows as you eat.” “Very reminiscent of Old Bay Seasoning.” “Wow, this excites my taste buds with the sweet, then the spice!”
Swad brand Mamra Laddoo
Where it’s from: Indian snack, manufactured in New Jersey Description: Hard, crunchy caramelized puffed rice balls Tasting notes: “Very crunchy.” “A second cousin to caramel corn.”
Where it’s from: South India Description: Nuggets of dried bananas covered with sugar and spices Tasting notes: “This would be good with tea.” “Slight banana flavor — mostly hidden under the jaggery and cardamom. I like this.” “It tastes a little like garam masala.”
Bombay Kitchen Mumbai Masala snack mix
Where it’s from: Central Indian snack, made in New York Description: A snack mix made of chickpea crackers, peanuts, raisins, rice flakes, lentils, green peas and spices. Tasting notes: “There is a wide variety of textures. The flavor is subtle at first, with an aftertaste of garam masala.” “There is a variety of very crunchy and not-so-crunchy textures, with a nice amount of spice.” “I was much softer than I had thought. Not bad, but you need a decent handful to get the true flavor.”
Haldiram’s Khatta Meetha snack mix
Where it’s from: India Description: A snack mix made of chickpea crackers, peanuts, mango powder, lentils and spices Tasting notes: “Sweet tasting, with many spices. It isn’t hot.” “It starts out kind of bland, but quickly becomes addictive, with a sweet, mild heat and a soft crunch.”
Snack to make at home: Slacker Vada
Slacker Vada. Photo by John Fladd.
Vada, a fried fritter-like food, are popular street snacks in Southern India. Passengers on trains will reach out the windows of their carriages at stops along their journey and buy them from vendors at each train station. They are a perfect on-the-go street food — crunchy outside, comfort-foody inside, and easily eaten on the go.
Let’s be clear about this: This recipe is not authentic vada. An Indian auntie would have a lot to say about how not-authentic they are. A vada wallah (a vada aficionado) on the streets of Mangaluru would take a bite of one, then shake his head at the state of this weary world. But, these vada are tasty, deep-fried and easy to make at home. Once you have a vague idea of how good a vada is, you will want to seek out one that is more authentic and involves intimidating ingredients like asafetida (a spice that requires a whole other conversation).
1 15-ounce can of lentils – I like Goya
½ 15-ounce can of chickpeas (sometimes labeled as garbanzo beans)
2 Tablespoon finely chopped cashews
½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
2 teaspoons finely minced fresh ginger
⅓ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
2 hot green chiles, finely chopped – New Hampshire chiles are notoriously unreliable; your best bet is probably serrano or Fresno chiles, which have a good flavor and a reliably moderate level of heat
2 Tablespoon rice flour, possibly more
½ teaspoon salt
vegetable oil for frying
Your best tip for Indian cooking — or any cooking — is to prepare all your ingredients and lay them out so you know where they are when you need them and don’t need to rummage through your cabinets or refrigerator looking for something that you forgot you were out of. Professionals call this mise en place; it’s just another phrase for being properly prepared. Do that with your vada ingredients.
Rinse the chickpeas and lentils in a strainer until they stop being foamy.
Blend the lentils and chickpeas in your blender until they look like peanut butter and smell like refried beans. If the mixture is too thick, add water, a spoonful at a time, until it gets to where you want it to be.
Transfer the puree to a bowl, and mix in the other ingredients. It should be just stiff enough to work with your hands. If it’s too sticky, add more rice flour, again a spoonful at a time, until you can hold it and shape it with your fingers.
Take enough of the mixture to roll into a ball about the size of a golf ball. Roll it, then poke your finger through the middle of it, and shape it into a miniature doughnut. Vada are doughnut-shaped for the same reason doughnuts are: to allow them to cook completely in hot oil before they get greasy. It also allows you to get a deep-fried crispiness on the increased surface area of the vada. Make two or three while your oil heats up.
Heat 4 to 6 inches of oil in a pot to 350°F. If you choose a small pot, the oil will come to temperature quickly and you won’t need as much of it. You will only be able to fry one or two vada at a time, though, and the temperature of the oil will drop more easily when you add the room-temperature vada to the pan. If you use a bigger pot you will have more oil, can fry more vada at a time, and will retain a good frying temperature.
Fry the vada like you would doughnuts — 2 or 3 minutes on each side — until they are crispy and the color of brown car upholstery. Drain them on paper towels.
Because these are doughnut-shaped, part of your brain expects them to be sweet, but they are entirely savory. There are bits of chewy coconut, but also brightness from the chilies, ginger and cilantro. The background flavor is undefinably savory but supports its co-stars. These are excellent hot from the fryer, or at room temperature, although they are at their crispiest while they are still hot. They go very well with chai or coffee, and with a chutney, preferably coconut chutney.
Make these, grow to love them, and then we’ll talk about asafetida.
Saigon Asian Market:
sweets and seaweed
Saigon Asian Market (476 Union St., Manchester, 935-9597) is a medium-sized supermarket with groceries and products from Vietnam, China, Taiwan and Thailand. It offers fresh produce and excellent fresh seafood.
Kaoriya Mochi Peanut Flavor
Where it’s from: Traditional Japanese snack, made in Thailand Description: Soft pillowy rice mochi, with a sweet, peanut filling Tasting notes: “Two distinct textures; it tastes like a peanut butter bun.” “Very chewy; peanut flavor is very prominent, but not like peanut butter.”
Ricky joy brand Strawberry Mellow Cone
Where it’s from: China Description: Brightly colored, ice cream cone-shaped candy. Tasting notes: “Fun filling inside.”
Mag Mag brand Thai Hote Madame Plum
Where it’s from: Thailand Description: Spiced dry plum Tasting notes: “Madame is beautifully sweet and sour.” “Not too spicy — a nice balance of sweet plum and heat. I’m voting this my favorite.”
Tao Kae Noi: Mala Flavor seaweed snack
Where it’s from: Thailand Description: Dried, seasoned strips of seaweed. Tasting notes: “It has some heat.” “The spice builds as you eat it. It’s very fishy.”
Koe-Kae Sriracha Chilli Sauce Flavour Coated Green Peas
Where it’s from: Thailand Description: Freeze-dried peas, coated with a sweet sriracha flavoring Tasting notes: “It has a good crunch and good heat in small doses.” “Excellent crunch! The heat builds then recedes nicely.” “Great crunch! Perfect amount of spice for a snack food.”
Teddy Bear Sweet & Sour Spicy Tamarind
Where it’s from: Thailand Description: Dried tamarind fruit with added spice Tasting notes: “This has a delicious sour tamarind flavor. There are large seeds.” “Interesting combination — I got the sweet, the sour, and the spicy (in that order), with a nice gummy texture.” “I was not prepared for the seeds, but otherwise, I loved it. Sweet and sour with an earthy taste.”
Snack to make at home: Kluay Thod
Kluay Thod. Photo by John Fladd.
These fried bananas are a specialty in Bangkok, where street cooks use small, finger-sized bananas. Those totally work in this recipe but can sometimes be a little hard to find. Half-inch rounds of a regular Cavendish banana will work just as well, as long as it’s properly ripe — yellow, with a lot of brown spots on it. If the convenience store you buy your morning coffee from has bananas up by the register, they will be just about perfect for this recipe, especially later in the week, when the bananas have seen too much of life and have given up hope. Think of this as helping them fulfill their destiny.
10-12 finger-sized bananas, cut in half, or ½-inch rounds of 3 large, ripe ones
1¼ cups (200 g) rice flour, plus more for dredging
1½ cups (200 g) all purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1 cup (200 ml) water
1 cup (200 ml) coconut milk
½ teaspoon salt – I like to use coarse sea salt
½ cup (50 g) sesame seeds
3 Tablespoons brown sugar
½ cup (50 g) finely minced coconut
vegetable oil for frying
Fill a pot with 4 to 6 inches of vegetable oil and set it to heating over medium heat. Keep an eye on it; you want it to eventually reach 350°F.
Meanwhile, mix the rest of the ingredients, aside from the bananas, in a large bowl. It will make a thick batter.
Pour a smallish amount, maybe half a cup, of rice flour into a small bowl. This is for dredging. When you’re deep-frying something, wet batter doesn’t like to stick to wet or damp ingredients, so it’s a good idea to cover whatever you’re frying with something dry and powdery — fried chicken often calls for seasoned flour or cornstarch, for example. In this case, you’ve already got rice flour on the counter, so we’ll use that.
When your oil has come to temperature, dredge several pieces of banana in rice flour, then dunk them in batter. Even with the rice flour, the banana might balk at being completely covered; you’ll have to convince it.
Carefully drop the battered banana pieces into the oil and cook them until they are a rich brown color. You’ll know when they’re ready; their beauty will stagger you. Fry a few banana pieces at a time to keep the oil at a consistent temperature.
Drain them on several layers of paper towels.
You owe it to yourself to eat at least a couple of these hot and crispy right from the fryer. They are lightly sweet, with banana notes in the background, and a savory, sesame-forward flavor from the batter. There’s a comforting contrast between the soft banana and the crispy/chewy texture of the sesame coating.
True to their street food origins, you and whoever else is in the house with you will probably eat this standing in the kitchen. If there are any left, they will still be good for several hours, especially with a glass of Thai iced tea.
GFM Pinoy Food Mart:
ube and adobo
GFM Pinoy Food Mart (224 North Broadway, Salem, gfmpinoyfoods.com, 458-1957) is a very small, snack-heavy Filipino grocery store. There are some refrigerated and frozen foods from the Philippines, but most of the stock is dry goods.
Fritzie’s Ube Cheese Pandesal
Where it’s from: Filipino pastry, made in New Jersey Description: A purple bun (ube is an Asian purple yam) with a mild cheese filling Tasting notes: “This tastes a lot like a croissant.” “It reminds me of pan dulce slightly. I can’t really taste the cheese.” “It … has a nice taste, like a sweet bread.”
Jack ’n’ Jill brand Chicharron ni Mang Juan (vegetarian pork rinds), Sukang Paombong flavored
Where it’s from: Philippines Description: Light golden-brown fried snack that is curled to look like pork rinds Tasting notes: “Salty and savory with more depth of flavor than I was expecting.” “Mild and crunchy; they would be excellent with three or four beers.”
Boy Bawang Cornick: Adobo Flavor
Where it’s from: Philippines Description: “Marinated Meat-Flavored Fried Corn” Tasting notes: “Chickeny-tasting corn nuts.” “Crunchy puffed corn with a mild flavor.” “Fave! I love these. They are like Corn Nuts, but not tooth-breaky.”
Jack ’n’ Jill brand Chippy Barbecue Flavored Corn Chips
Where it’s from: The Philippines Description: Barbecue-flavored corn chips the size and shape of Fritos Tasting notes: “The taste is a mix between a Bugle and a Frito.” “It’s light on the barbecue flavor, but I love the corn chip for a nice change-up.” “Savory, meaty taste at the end.”
Jack ’n’ Jill brand V-Cut Potato Chips
Where it’s from: The Philippines Description: Lightly smoky rippled potato chips Tasting notes: “It reminds me of a barbecue sandwich in a chip form.” “I really enjoyed the barbecue flavor of this one. Not too strong; just perfect.”
Snack to make at home: Tambo-Tambo
Tambo-Tambo. Photo by John Fladd.
Tambo-Tambo is a coconut pudding with tapioca pearls and rice balls from the Philippines. Because the Philippines is made up of more than 7,000 islands, each with its own culture, and because it is in the middle of several major trade routes, you never know what you’re going to get in a Filipino snack. The food culture of the Philippines has been impacted by East Asian, Indonesian, Spanish and even American influences. This particular snack leans heavily into three ingredients deeply rooted in the Filipino landscape: coconut, cassava (which tapioca is made from) and rice.
½ cup (75 g) small tapioca pearls
1 cup (250 ml) water
1 cup (150 g) glutinous rice flour – it will probably be called Sweet White Rice Flour in your supermarket, but it’s the same thing
another ½ cup (125 ml) water
1¾ cup (400 ml) unsweetened coconut milk
another ½ cup (125 ml) water
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (100 g) sugar
diced fresh fruit – mangos are traditional, but I think fresh cherries would be fantastic
Soak the tapioca in a cup of water for half an hour, then rinse thoroughly.
Meanwhile, mix the rice flour with half a cup of water, then roll it into half-inch balls with wet fingers. (Your fingers should be wet. Giving the rice balls fingers would be disconcerting.) Cover them with a damp cloth until Game Time.
Mix the coconut milk, salt, sugar, and the last half cup of water in a small saucepan, then bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently.
Crash the heat to low, then stir in the rice balls. Cook them for about 4 minutes, until they are cooked through and chewy. Stir pretty much continuously, to keep the rice balls from sticking to each other.
Bring the heat back up to high, then stir in the rinsed tapioca, and stir until the tapioca has been cooked, another 3 or 4 minutes. The tapioca will thicken the mixture noticeably.
Remove from heat, and let the pudding cool, maybe 20 minutes. Serve, garnished with fresh fruit.
This snack is full of contrasts — the coconut pudding is creamy, the rice balls are chewy and the tapioca is, err, tapioca-y. The coconut is sweet — perhaps even a little too sweet on its own — but it is balanced out by the mildness of the rice balls. This snack is great warm, but even better cold and refreshing. I can imagine standing in a market in Manila, desperately hot and completely overwhelmed, then grounding myself with a dish of tambo-tambo.
La Michoacana Market:
Takis and Zambos
La Michoacana Market (112 Pine St., Nashua, 882-0271) is a small neighborhood market with Mexican snacks and products. It serves a small selection of American-style hot food, some with a Mexican twist.
Bimbo brand Nito snack cakes
Where it’s from: Mexico Description: Dry, chocolate-frosted and -filled snack cake Tasting notes: “A strong cocoa flavor.” “The sweet bread enhances the sweetness of the chocolate icing; it isn’t too sweet.” “Nice and chocolatey.”
Takis Hot Nuts Fuego
Where it’s from: Mexico Description: Peanuts with a spicy/sour coating Tasting notes:“The spiciness is all in the electric red dust.” “Very acidic.” “All the spice of a Takis with a peanut finish.” “Shockingly spicy at first, but ends nicely. It makes you want more!”
Yummies brand Ceviche Flavored Zambos
Where it’s from: Honduras Description: Ceviche-flavored plantain chips Tasting notes: “Outstanding lime and salt flavors; the fishy background is distracting.” “This tastes sort of like a seaweed chip; it’s pretty good.”
Diana Brand Jalapeňos tortilla chip
Where it’s from: El Salvador Description: Seasoned tortilla chips Tasting notes: “Tiny triangles. Delicate corn flavor with mild heat.” “not as hot as I expected but tasty and easy going with a great touch of spice.” “I’m obsessed with these! They are perfect, and almost no flavoring sticks to your fingers.”
Bimbo brand Choco Bimbuňuelos
Where it’s from: Mexico Description: The packaging describes it as “Sweet Crispy Wheels with Chocolate Flavored Coating” Tasting notes: “Extra crunchy. The chocolate is very melty.” “These are very dangerous! You could eat a whole package if you weren’t careful. The chocolate is so creamy and the crisp is light.”
Snack to make at home: Pemoles
Tambo-Tambo. Photo by John Fladd.
Mexico is another country that has had its food shaped by a huge number of influences — indigenous, Spanish and even French. Mexico has a complex and sophisticated baking tradition. There are Mexican cookies that would blow your mind. Pemoles are wreath-shaped cookies made with masa harina (corn flour) instead of wheat flour, and are flavored with coffee.
2 cups (250 g) masa harina (corn flour)
¼ teaspoon salt – again, I like to use coarse sea salt; it plants little salt bombs in the finished cookie
1 Tablespoon finely ground coffee
1¼ sticks (125 g) butter — authentic pemoles are made with lard, which tastes fantastic in baked goods but can be intimidating, so we’ll use butter instead; feel free to use the full-octane fat, though; you will not regret it
½ cup (125 g) sugar
1 egg
¼ cup (2 ounces) coffee liqueur
Toast the masa harina in a dry skillet, stirring constantly, until it darkens to a golden-brown color — about the same color as a lion. Transfer it to a bowl to cool.
Add the salt and coffee to the roasted masa harina. Stir to combine.
Using your electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until they are pale yellow, light and fluffy.
Beat in the egg and then, once the egg is incorporated, the coffee liqueur.
Gradually mix in the dry ingredients.
When the dough has come together, refrigerate it for half an hour.
OK, this is where things get a little weird. Every recipe for pemoles says that you should knead the dough until it is smooth before chilling it. This seems impossible. The pre-chilled mixture is much too soft to work with your hands. Additionally, because there isn’t any wheat in this recipe, there is no flour to produce gluten, the stuff that makes bread and other baked goods pliable. I’m sure that the Mexican nuns who invented pemoles could do it; I haven’t worked out a way to.
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
Pinch off a tablespoonful of the chilled dough and form it into a 6-inch-long snake. Apparently, rolling it is recommended — and that would probably work if you could manage to knead the dough — but I’ve found that squeezing it in my palms works better. Put your snake on the baking sheet and form it into a circle. You should be able to form about a dozen cookies.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. You won’t be able to tell by the color when they are done, but if you poke a pemole and it feels like a cookie that hasn’t firmed up yet, they are ready to take out of the oven.
Let the pemoles cool, then eat them.
These have a crumbly, sandy texture, much like a really good shortbread. This is something bakers call sablé. The roasted corn flavor is deeply satisfying — a little like a good cornbread — and the not-over-the-top coffee flavor gives you an emotional anchor to hang the “Ooh-I-like-this” part of your brain on. It goes without saying that these are a natural to have with coffee.
A look at some of the gathering spots that offer their own unique character, entertainment and, of course, beer
What is a pub? With a name derived from “public house,” it’s mainly a community gathering place. At the best ones, as the song goes, “everybody knows your name” and there are plenty of reasons to be there. A proprietor at one of the six area pubs profiled in this story spoke of theirs as a respite from stress at work or home: “If either of those aren’t great, we’re that third place.”
Each has something that sets it apart and makes the place special — a signature dish, musical gathering or standout staff member. It all adds up to a vibe that can’t be replicated. Much of it is by design, particularly in Manchester. A venerable watering hole is careful to schedule events that don’t compete directly with other downtown spots, so everyone does well.
Another common thread is evolution, often disruptive, always necessary. A move to a new location, rising from a death blow delivered by the pandemic, switching things up with a new music night, expanding the spirits menu ahead of, not in response to, a boom, or cultivating a particular demographic that was previously neglected.
In the case of one venue getting ready open in May, disruptive evolution simply means taking a leap of faith, something each of these does every single day.
The Forum Pub: Friendly zone
When Area 23 opened mid-decade, it quickly became known as a hard place to find but definitely worth the effort. Set at the end of a winding road off State Street, decorated with offbeat bric-a-brac and offering a tastefully curated beer list along with craft ciders and a smart pub menu, it also welcomed the Concord music scene. More than a few performers got their start there, and jam sessions were a magnet for creatives of all stripes.
Last year, however, owner Kirk McNeil was forced to move, due to what he called “irreconcilable differences” with his landlord. In early October he began occupying a space that formerly was an Asian restaurant in Penacook’s Thirty Pines Plaza. With a vibe much different than the cavernous Area 23, McNeil gave it a new name, The Forum Pub.
Before deciding on the change, McNeil asked one of his regulars to identify Area 23’s “main feature,” he recalled while standing behind the bar in mid-March, during the Forum Pub’s third week of business. “He said, ‘you could have good discussions with people; it wasn’t just a lot of sports on TV, a lot of people getting frustrated about this thing or that thing. You could actually have discussions.’ I said, ‘I think you just named it.’”
That said, Forum Pub is a haven for civil discourse; a House Rules list at the end of the bar includes “No Politics.” This is aimed at anyone “who’s not listening but only talking,” McNeil said. “I’m happy to talk about policies … we can talk about whether or not you think this thing or that thing should happen. What makes it a better show? I just don’t want to talk about why this nimrod or that nincompoop should be running the show.”
The process of moving 3 1/2 miles down the street wasn’t easy.
“As we all know, New Hampshire doesn’t have a ton of available real estate right now,” McNeil noted, and regulatory hurdles were also challenging. What saved the day were his people. “The best part of this entire move has been our staff, because a bunch of cooks and bartenders and sound men and servers … became construction workers and decorators.”
Adjustments between the new and old location include live music. There’s a nicely lit stage, an expertly tweaked sound system, but less room means solo, duo and trio performances instead of raucous bands. Don Bartenstein hosts a weekly song circle in the center of the room, there’s a growing list of Wednesday night singer-songwriter nights, and Saturday open mic is back, but no one’s loading in big amps anymore.
One upside of relocating is that the kitchen is four times the size of the old one, increasing the number of menu options.
“We’re doing some pretty terrific food here; we don’t have anything on the menu that I don’t like,” McNeil said. Among the customer favorites is an item that was also popular at Area 23. “I can’t say enough good things about the gyro; we do our own lamb roast.”
McNeil’s daughter Anastasia, home from college, echoed her father’s sentiments. “My friend Raphael is Greek as the day is long,” she said. “He took one bite and ran to get the chef to tell him it was the best gyro he’s ever had stateside.”
The Forum Pub 15 Village St., Concord, 552-0137 Must-try: Lamb gyro. Big fun: Saturday afternoon Acoustic Circle
The Local: Rebirth in Warner
Like a lot of places, The Local, a small but scrappy and vibrant restaurant/bar on Main Street in Warner, couldn’t survive the pandemic. Owner Bill Meadows packed things up in May 2021. “We got through it and back,” he said by phone in late March. “When everything opened back up, we had people, but we were just so burned out by then that it just wasn’t worth continuing.”
As its name implies, it was more than a watering hole, and the community felt its absence. Meadows took a corporate job on the Seacoast, where he was frequently reminded why The Local was special. Its staff felt more like family, not a branch in an org chart.
“It’s not like going into a generic restaurant and being waited on by somebody you’ve never seen before,” he said. “You’re seeing the same people as when you came in a month, two months ago. It’s not just the food, the beer, the music; actually, it’s the staff bringing people back.”
When an opportunity to reopen came, in the form of another Main Street restaurant coming available, Meadows jumped. He and the owner of The Foothills began talking, and on October 13, 2023, The Local’s sign, featuring an arm wreath with two hands gripping mugs in a toast, came out of retirement.
It’s a bigger place, Meadows beamed.
“It’s an actual restaurant,” he said. “We were running the old Local out of a vanilla commercial space as best we could, but there were always restrictions, mostly with refrigeration … we could barely bring in enough stuff to last until our next delivery.”
Amanda at The Local. Photo by Michael Witthaus.
Now there are more food specials, like a daily eggroll and burger, along with a doubling of beer taps, which Meadows has filled with all-local offerings.
“Our favorite thing to do is work with independents, breweries I go directly to for beer,” he said. “No. 1, it’s a great story, and No. 2, it’s not stuff people are going to find other places.”
Live music resumed recently, with April Cushman, Charlie Chronopoulos, Ryan Williamson and others appearing every Thursday night, courtesy of NH Music Collective’s talent service.
“It’s been really handy because booking was … it wasn’t difficult, but it was time-consuming,” Meadows said, so NHMC’s approach was welcome. “They book us great acts, and we don’t really have to do anything, so it works out.”
Along with that, Meadows leads a weekly trivia night on Wednesdays like he’s hosting a house party, surrounded as he is by mostly familiar faces.
“Our complete customer base came back when we reopened,” he said, adding that The Foothills’ old crowd still comes in.
Nine-to-five life compelled Meadows to rethink how he’d run The Local anew.
“I learned in a couple of years working for other people [about] things I used to do as a manager, not even knowing how toxic they were and how they affected other people, until I was that other person,” he said. “I came in with a completely different mindset as far as how to run a restaurant from a management standpoint; more how not to do it and trying to get away from that.”
The Local 15 Main St., Warner, 456-3333 Must-try: Eggroll of the day Big fun: Wednesday trivia
The Barley House: New notes
As befits New Hampshire’s Capital City, Concord’s Barley House is packed with a mixture of locals and out-of-towners during the work week. On a recent Wednesday just past six o’clock, the bar included two men who earlier in the day were at the Statehouse talking over beers and burgers. Nearby, a couple from Cleveland who were attending an academic book conference at the Grappone Center considered a bowl of the pub’s signature Guinness Beef Stew.
“Definitely all walks of life,” said Nikki Miller, a longtime bartender at the North Main Street mainstay. Every Friday night, though, is locals’ time, she said. “A group of people in the community, they just take over the bar; they love it here. There’s also a ton of bar regulars, middle-aged people, and I’d say we do have some younger folk.”
It’s a less raucous vibe than in past years, she continued, meaning before the pandemic. “We’re not open late anymore,” she said. “People typically aren’t coming late to the Barley House, or dare I say, going out late anymore in Concord at all. It’s a changed place.”
The Barley House is very much an Irish pub. An ample supply of Redbreast, Green Spot and Jameson is always on hand, and St. Patrick’s Day is the North Star of their annual calendar. This year’s came on Sunday, a day they’ve been closed in the past. That changed this year, but Miller and her team weren’t sure what to expect.
To their relief, “it was a great day,” she said. “We didn’t have any troublemakers anywhere. Everyone was having a good time, eating great food. We had Irish step dancers, and the Irish session players for three hours. Then we had a DJ in our downstairs bar; I think a good time was had by all.”
A weekly Tuesday night gathering of Irish musicians, led by Eugene Durkee, was around before the pandemic. “Right now, we have about eight men and women that come in on a rotating basis,” Miller said. “They’re playing Celtic music, and it really just brings an awesome vibe to our dining space.”
Recently, regular live music, which ended many years ago, returned to the Barley House. Acoustic performers began appearing downstairs on Fridays and Saturdays.
“We all feel now that the world has returned to its new normal, so we decided to be creative in bringing people back,” Miller said. “Making it a place where you want to go in the community again … I think bringing music back was just the way to do it.”
Food-wise, the pub’s burgers are a constant favorite.
“I always tell my customers we have a top five burger list, which is not helpful to anyone trying to make a decision,” Miller said. Another recent addition is a personal deep-dish pizza with allegedly addictive qualities. “I don’t think anyone expected it to take off the way it did … it’s this funny little thing; people are like, ‘do you have it? I need it. I’m here for the pizza.’”
Still and all, a tight-knit staff on a first-name basis with so many of its customers is what sets the venerable downtown pub apart for Miller. “We say it’s not a Barley House, but it’s a Barley Home.”
The Barley House 132 N. Main St., Concord, 228-6363 Must-try: Guinness beef stew Big fun: Tuesday Irish Session
Strange Brew Tavern: Peaceful coexistence
How does a business endure, let alone a pub? The National Restaurant Association reports an 80 percent failure rate within five years of opening. One local beat the odds. On April 6, Strange Brew Tavern marked its 25th anniversary. For pub owner Mitch Sawaya, however, the biggest milestone was making it to the end of Year 1.
He started in 1999 in a building that had stood empty for eight years, living on the third floor while he slowly built it out. Early days were quiet, but certain moments gave him hope, like when area restaurant workers stopped by after their shifts for a bite.
“I knew if we were doing something that attracted them we had a chance of making it, because they’re kind of harsh critics,” Sawaya said in a recent phone interview.
Fast forward to 2000. Strange Brew survived and, judging by a line snaking around the block on Market Street to mark the moment, was thriving. Sawaya could exhale a bit. “I thought, ‘You know what? I think we’re going to do OK, we’ll be here for a while.’ That was a big one; it was the first time I really felt comfortable or confident.”
As for lasting two and half decades, Sawaya worked to set Strange Brew apart from other Manchester bars, beginning with a big beer list.
“I had 18 draft lines when I opened, which everybody thought was ridiculous,” he said. With the craft beer boom years off, “I couldn’t fill them, but I refused at that point to put domestics on tap; I still do.”
Strange Brew. Photo by Michael Witthaus.
Sawaya also vowed to make his pub the go-to place for blues and R&B fans, partly because he’s a fan. A favorite memory is booking Dennis Brennan; he’d followed the Boston guitarist since his days in The Martells. “What was even more odd is he was with some guys that I knew really well, and he told them that he remembered me,” he said. “I was blown away.”
Another reason for leaning into the genre, which includes a Howard Randall-hosted blues jam every Sunday and live acts every Friday and Saturday, is that Sawaya believes staying in his lane helps the overall downtown scene. Early on, he did a press interview that said as much. The next day the owners of the now-defunct Black Brimmer stopped by to thank him.
“They said, ‘That’s the best thing we’ve ever heard,’ which was great,” he said. “We made a point not to book the same bands or do the same things on the same night. They’d have Mama Kicks every Wednesday, so we just steered away from that sort of thing. I think it was good for everybody. There were lines to get into all those places.”
These days, Jordan Quinn, along with Scott Armstrong, hosts a music open mic on Wednesdays. “Everybody loves her; I think she’s been the most successful person with it,” Sawaya said, noting that there’s a similar Thursday comedy gathering. “It’s grown significantly; it’s really open mic, anybody can get up on stage, and occasionally a couple of the big guys from Boston will come down to test out material.”
Some of the best recollections are from the many New Hampshire primaries he’s seen. “I always tell the story about John Kerry,” he said. “I had a Tufts banner hanging in the corner because that’s where I went to college, and he saw it. His son and his daughter went to Tufts, and he asked the significance of the banner. They told him the owner had gone there, so he grabbed me and bought us a beer…. We spent 45 minutes talking about growing up in Massachusetts.”
Another time, Drew Barrymore had dinner at Strange Brew, but Sawaya couldn’t be coaxed to ask for an autograph. He did meet Chris Matthews when the MSNBC host did a bunch of shows there, along with Tom Brokaw and Boston Globe columnist turned television pundit Mike Barnacle, who gave his burgers a television shout-out. “Those are huge things,” he said. “All these people were coming out of the woodwork for the elections.”
Asked about the future, Sawaya said, “I intend to keep going for a while,” noting that recently he’s put a lot of focus on food offerings; the Jambalaya and Guinness Meatballs are customer favorites.
Musically, he’s tried a few new things, like recently bringing in the youthful River Sang Wild for a night.
“I’ll always have entertainment, multiple nights a week,” Sawaya said. “I’m going to keep playing around to see what works. I have a son who will be 18 in July, and he’s not interested in being part of the business. I’ve got to figure that out. I’d like to be around for quite a few more years.”
Strange Brew Tavern 88 Market St., Manchester, 666-4292 Must-try: Jimmy “The Greek” burger. Big fun: One Big Soul Sunday blues jam
Wild Rover: Hometown handoff
Manchester’s bar and restaurant community is very collegial. A good example of this is the way Jesse Twarjan purchased the Wild Rover, the landmark Irish pub on Kosciuszko Street. A musician and entrepreneur who manages a few downtown residential properties, among other things, the “Manch-ghanistan born and raised” Twarjan has a long history here.
In a recent phone interview he talked about bumping into Bonfire owner Patrick Mills outside his Elm Street restaurant. “I made a passing comment like, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll call Bob for a shift or two at the Rover,’” he recalled, referring to pub owner Robert Scribner. “I believe Patrick’s words were, ‘He might sell it to you.’ That’s how the whole thing started.”
The deal was friendly and might not have happened otherwise.
“It wasn’t necessarily something that Bob was looking to advertise for sale,” Twarjan said. “It’s a place that requires the right kind of person, an owner-operator type of situation where people want to come in and see familiar faces, that type of thing.”
Twarjan took over the pub, which has been in business since 1990, on St. Patrick’s Day. With an outdoor liquor license in flux, everything happened inside, but crowds still showed up for what’s always their biggest day of the year. “We were at capacity all day,” he said. “It was a great vibe.”
With that essential celebration out of the way, an official grand opening is in the works, though the new owner is quiet on the details. He hopes it will happen before the end of April. To prepare for it, there will be new coats of paint, as he works on a stepped-up liquor offering and a reshuffling of the beer list.
Notso Costley Productions will manage live music, though Twarjan is ready to jump in when needed.
The Wild Rover. Photo by Michael Witthaus.
“We have them as a focal point every weekend, and they always have a rotating cast of extremely talented players,” he said. “My musician past leads me to have a fairly wide network of what I would consider to be extraordinarily talented people. They know if you’re going to come in here you’d better play as well as me or I’ll do it myself.”
Former chef Jeff Volker has been recruited to help with revamping the menu. Twarjan, who’s an alum of culinary-centric Johnson & Wales University, has big plans.
“We’re really going to lean hard into some of that Irish flair and fare,” he said, adding that Volker will strive to make the Wild Rover “the best place in town for fish and chips or shepherd’s pie…. We’ll be consolidating and doing it correctly. That comes down to quality over quantity, specifically with the kitchen.”
That said, the Rover won’t be going head-to-head with the downtown’s fine dining places. Twarjan’s thoughts go back to the way he acquired the bar.
“We need to be more collaborative instead of competitive in terms of making sure that there’s enough of a demographic out there for all of us to enjoy,” he said. “We’re definitely trying to fill some gaps in the food and make sure that we’re doing quality pub fare to a very high degree.”
Wild Rover 21 Kosciuszko St., Manchester, 669-7722 Must-try: Reuben sandwich Big fun: open mic night
Pembroke City Limits: Born in a barn
Even though he can’t play a note, Rob Azevedo has an absolute passion for music. Seemingly his every waking hour is focused on it, whether he’s hosting his Granite State of Mind radio show every Friday night, blogging about a new local act he’s excited about, or gathering a bunch of his friends to do a Tom Petty or Stones tribute concert at the Shaskeen or Rex Theatre in Manchester.
Lately Azevedo has been hosting shows in his barn, adjacent to the house in Pembroke where he moved a few years back. They’re intimate affairs, with typically fewer than 100 people in attendance. Most are people he already knows, but a few new faces always show up, which got him thinking.
Which led to a new venture, his wildest and most ambitious yet.
Pembroke City Limits will present live events, everything from concerts to book signings and poetry readings, five days a week. Azevedo is putting the finishing touches on a space on Pembroke Village’s Main Street, originally an 1800s general store that most recently sold antiques. He’s been eyeing the spot for over a year.
Rob Azevedo at Pembroke City Limits. Photo by Michael Witthaus.
“It was either going to be this place or it wasn’t going to happen,” he said in late March. Granite State of Mind will broadcast live every Friday, and initially acoustic acts will provide the music.
“We have four residents upstairs and we want to see how the sound is going to work,” Azevedo said, adding that all the pieces are coming together. “Rough plumbing is done, that’s huge; fire and electrical are updated; the next thing is drywall, and then get the kitchen and bar together. We’re hoping to be open by mid-May.”
During a walk-through, Azevedo pointed out the charming space’s many features, like hardwood floors, exposed brick and lots of ambient light, while discussing what it will look like when finished. A stage and seating area will be on the right. A bar serving a selection of area craft beer and wine will sit to the left.
Rather than operate a kitchen, he asked Kelly Sue LeBlanc’s Sleazy Vegan for help.
“I don’t know anything about food or cooking, but I love food trucks,” he said, “so I found one of the best food trucks around.”
Also on the team are Paulie Stone, a musician who’ll assist with that side of things, and Azevedo’s business partner, Eric Klesper. The new proprietor has big dreams for his little village, hoping it mirrors the growth he saw in Newmarket when the mills there were renovated. He’s grateful for an understanding wife.
“She knows I lost my mind sometime in the early ’90s, but I don’t feel overwhelmed,” he said. “I’ve been ready for a number of years to do this … I feel no anxiety about it. I ask my wife, why am I not crapping my pants? She says, ‘Because you’re ready.’”
Pembroke City Limits 134 Main St., Pembroke, 264-1757 Must-try: Sleazy Vegan Grilled Sleaze Big fun: Americana Wednesdays
More Pubs
Here are a few more places where you feel like everybody knows your name. Know of a pub not mentioned here? Let us know at [email protected].
Flying Goose 40 Andover Road, New London 526-6899 Known for: Thursday night music series with best of New England’s folk scene Must-try: Space Pony IPA
Holy Grail 64 Main St., Epping , 679-9559 Known for: Repurposed church with a heavenly beer list Must-try: Bangers & Colcannon
Kathleen’s Irish Pub 91 Lake St., Bristol, 744-6336 Known for: It’s right there in the name — order a Jameson Must-try: All-Day Irish Breakfast with real black pudding
McGarvey’s 1097 Elm St., Manchester 627-2721 Known for: Being Elm Street’s longest running bar Must-try: Hot dog loaded with mac & cheese, bacon crumbles and pulled pork
Patrick’s 18 Weirs Road, Gilford, 293-0841 Known for: Wednesdays with singer-guitarist Don “Sev” Severance Must-try: Seafood chowder
Peddler’s Daughter 48 Main St., Nashua, 821-7535 Known for: Lots of local bands on the weekends Must-try: Cottage Pie is the real deal
Penuche’s Ale House 6 Pleasant St., Concord, 228-9833 Known for: The Concord music scene meets here most weekends Must-try: Any local craft beer
Penuche’s Ale House 4 Canal St., Nashua 595-9831 Known for: Rustic, friendly atmosphere Must-try: A cold beverage on their outside deck
The Pint Publik House 1111 Elm St., Manchester 206-5463 Known for: Serving Jamaican food with a friendly vibe Must-try: Jerk pork or chicken
Pipe Dream Brewing 40 Harvey Road, Londonderry, 404-0751 Known for: Monthly Flights and Flow yoga beer night Must-try: A beer flight of your favorite style, IPA, stout, take your pick
Press Room 77 Daniel St., Portsmouth, 431-5186 Known for: Buzzworthy live music Must-try: Maple-forward Damn You Robert Frost cocktail
Shaskeen Pub 909 Elm St., Manchester, 625-0246 Known for: Backroom offering music most nights, comedy on Wednesday Must-try: Proper Scotch Egg, made fresh once a week
Shopper’s Pub & Eatery 18 Lake Ave., Manchester, 232-5252 32-5252 Known for: Sports forward vibe, great game day stop Must-try: Beehive Burger
Stark Brewing Co. 500 Commercial St., Manchester, 625-4444 Known for: Craft brew veteran with a big space to unwind in Must-try: Drunken Tips, marinated in Tasha’s Red Ale
Stone Church 5 Granite St., Newmarket, 659-7700 Known for: Seacoast music hub with nonstop live entertainment Must-try: La Bamba Rice Bowl
Wally’s Pub 144 Ashworth Ave., Hampton, 926-6954 Known for: Beach bar with frequent big-name concerts Must-try: Famous Beach Pizza, a culinary choose your adventure
On Tuesday, April 9, at 6:35 p.m. the New Hampshire Fisher Cats will celebrate their 20th opening day in Manchester. Twenty years of baseball in the Queen City means 20 years of home runs, hot dogs and memories.
“We hope that the 20th-anniversary season really shows how much we are committed to our fans and our community,” said Stephanie O’Quinn, Executive Director of Corporate Sponsorships and Ticket Sales. “We’ll continue to be that community gathering place … [to] provide family-friendly entertainment at an affordable price — that’s something that we take a lot of pride in as an organization and we will never let that go by the wayside.”
Andrew Marais, Senior Manager of Marketing and Promotion, agreed.
“The biggest thank-you we can give is to our community. That’s an honor to be here for 20 years. Blue Jays too,” Marais said. The Fisher Cats are the Double-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays.
Chris Jared, the Manager of Media Relations and Broadcasting and the new voice of the Fisher Cats, expanded on that theme.
“You want to dig into the bag of what you’ve done to the community and what’s worked in the past and then you also want to look at things like what can we do to keep this engaging and keep people on a fresh page,” Jared said.
Michael Neis, General Manager, said, “Every year we try to look for one of those unique ways that we can really give back to the fans … and know that when you come out to the ballpark, certainly you know you’re going to have a good time, but there’s also some new things that you can try and take in, in a little bit different way, so we’re excited about this.”
“We have new ownership this year,” Neis said. Diamond Baseball Holdings purchased the team in December 2023, according to a press release, which also stated that all staff will remain “in place under the existing leadership of CEO Rick Brenner, and General Manager Michael Neis.” Former owner Tom Silvia has stayed on in an advisory role.
“They [DBH] have been extremely supportive of our mission here in Manchester and New Hampshire as a whole,” Neis said.
Lights, Camera, Baseball!
So what are some of the new things around the ballpark that you will be able to try and take in?
“Two weeks ago we finished our brand new field lighting project, which is really exciting,” Neis said. “We can now do light shows, cue to music, have different colors on each pole. So there’s a lot that we can do, whether it’s pregame intros, home runs, when we win — because we’re going to win every game, right. We can do a lot of really fun things … to give it that big-league experience. That’s something that fans walking in immediately will have a chance to get to see.”
Changes implemented toward the end of last season include new areas to sit and watch the game above the bullpens. Some changes have been geared toward the players as well.
“In addition to everything that we do for the fans and the community, our job is also to provide that environment for these players too,” Neis said. Updates have included “completely renovating both the home and visiting clubhouse,” Neis said. “We did open up our brand new stand-alone batting tunnel and weight room area. Not only are we meeting MLB compliance in those areas; we have what we feel is a best-in-class facility that really rivals anything we can see at this level or above, quite frankly.”
The fan connection
When the Fisher Cats are on the road, or if you cannot make it to the ballpark, there will be a way to stay connected to the team.
“We’re not partnered with WGIR anymore. We now have an audio stream that we can set up from home and road games and then fans can still watch on the Bally Live App or on Milb.tv,” Jared said. Fans can also listen to the game live on nhfishercats.com under the ‘listen live’ tab.
“It’s a much more intimate environment in minor-league baseball,” O’Quinn remarked. “I think that’s a very key element in the experience that we get to provide.”
“We hear all the time about kids who came to their first Fisher Cats game at 6 years old and now they’re die-hard Toronto Blue Jays fans … never stepped a foot out of New Hampshire but they live, eat, sleep, breathe the Toronto Blue Jays because one player decided to sign an autograph on the ball and now they’re a fan for life and not only a fan of the Blue Jays but a fan of baseball for life,” O’Quinn said.
“From a fan engagement perspective our team last year was phenomenal with meeting people,” Marais said. “Staying after the game to sign autographs or before the game … the team that is coming in I am confident will bring that same energy.”
Cesar Martin, who is returning as the team’s manager for the fourth straight season, said “the support that we get from the fans, I think that’s something that makes myself really happy and feels like I’m home…” The players feel the same way. “They’re excited, we’re excited…” Martin said.
“Whether you’re a bigger kid or the littlest of tykes, there’s something for you,” Marais said. “For example, when kids read five books they get two tickets to a Fisher Cats game, courtesy of our sponsors. [There is the] Oral Health Challenge with Delta Dental, when you brush and floss for seven days a week, you get two tickets courtesy of Delta Dental.”
Fireworks, giveaways and promotions will be back with exciting new additions too. General Manager Neis also revealed that “the New England Honda Dealers Bat Dog … Casey will be joining us for the first time this year. We’re really excited about her. Just really another very cool addition to the experience.”
Description: According to the Mascot Hall of Fame, Fungo was born in the woodlands of New Hampshire but spent much of his youth attending Phish concerts. As the founder of the Fisher Cats’ Kids Club he hopes to promote wildlife education, sportsmanship, good manners and the card game Go Fish.
Enthusiasms: Fishing on Lake Winnipesaukee, Swedish Fish, the movies The Fisher King and A Fish Called Wanda.
Slider
Backup Mascot
Description: Originally from Dunedin, Florida, according to the Mascot Hall of Fame, Slider is Fungo’s favorite cousin. He is young, athletic and frantically enthusiastic about the Fisher Cats. His goal is to add excitement and energy to each Fisher Cats home game.
Enthusiasms: His trademark moves are flexing his muscles, giving high-fives and showing off his athleticism.
Rowdy Red and Bubba Blue
Sumo Guys
Professional History: They come from nowhere between innings, fight furiously on the infield, then vanish as mysteriously as they appeared.
Enthusiasms: Waving to fans, inflicting carnage on each other.
Casey
New England Honda Dealers Bat Dog
Professional History: When Benny, the Fisher Cats’ previous bat dog, retired to work as a therapy dog for veterans and first responders, Casey completed her training in New Jersey, then moved up to the minors. This is her first full season with the Fisher Cats.
Enthusiasms: Meeting small fans, bats, balls and belly rubs.
On the field
Jared expressed his thanks to the crew that sets up the game for the fans and the players.
“There have been game-day workers that have worked with us … I’ve talked to guys that have been here 15, 17 [years], some that have been here for as long as the Fisher Cats have…. Those people make things entirely possible from a game-day perspective of what to expect.”
More than 150 Fisher Cats have gone into the major league, according to the December press release.
“We always welcome the new crop of players,” Neis said. We need to work really well with them, [so] that when players come to New Hampshire they have everything they need. … There’s nothing more exciting than an eventual superstar that you got to see here in New Hampshire, and we’ve certainly had more than our fair share over the years.”
Where do these players come from? From all over, but the Toronto Blue Jays have their high-A team, the Vancouver Canadians, in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the triple-A team with the Bisons in Buffalo, New York. Their single-A team is the Dunedin Blue Jays and they are in Florida. Last year the Vancouver Canadians bested the Everett, Washington, AquaSoxs, a Seattle Mariners affiliate, to win their league championship.
“The talent jump from the single-A level to come to double-A is the largest jump. Triple A is essentially an extension of the major-league team,” Jared said. When players do move up from single-A, or high-A, they tend not to move alone. “Statistically they’ll keep coaches sometimes with guys. It is great to see when you have a team that, they’re in the lower ranks than you and they win a championship, sometimes those guys move in bunches and the chemistry is already there for them when they slide right in here in New Hampshire, they’re on the same page with each other.”
On the current roster, Manager Cesar Martin said that “a couple of new pitchers are coming from Vancouver.” The entire field will be well staffed too. “The most exciting part is we are going to have a really good defensive team and we have a lot of players that can put the ball in play…”
Fisher Cats fans will also have opportunities to catch major leaguers on the field.
“Last year we had the Blue Jays’ No. 1 prospect in Ricky Tiedemann … [major-leaguers sometimes on] the visiting teams that come in, like the New York Yankees having Spencer Jones,” Marais said. “The product on the field is very good baseball and very competitive, to the point where a player could be playing here tomorrow and [then] be playing in Toronto, or Fenway.”
Tuesday, April 9, is only a line drive away and the Fisher Cats hope all the hard work pays off.
“It is really exciting and rewarding for us as a staff and organization,” O’Quinn said. “We just want to be able to share that with our fans and our community and hope that they perceive it the way we present it.”
Players to watch
layer, they do all they can to get them on the team. Here are a few of the Fisher Cats to keep an eye on this season.
Josh Kasevich: The Blue Jays selected shortstop Josh Kasevich, a native of Palo Alto, California, out of Oregon with the 60th overall pick in the 2022 MLB draft. He spent 2023 in high-A Vancouver, where he helped the Canadiens win the Northwest League title and finished with the third-best batting average on the team at .284, according to the Fisher Cats. MLB.com lists Kasevich as Tornto’s 11th-best prospect for 2024. Kasevich worked on improving his bat speed and path in the off-season, along with getting stronger and faster, and hopes to continue his sharp eye of the zone, according to the Fisher Cats.
Adam Macko: Originally from Slovakia, with a brief stint in Ireland before moving to Alberta, Canada, this southpaw (left-handed pitcher) ranks 16th amongst fellow Toronto prospects according to Baseball America, while MLB.com slots Macko ninth, according to the Fisher Cats.
Alan Roden: Toronto called the outfielder’s name as the 98th overall pick in the 2022 MLB draft from Creighton University, according to the Fisher Cats. Originally from Middleton, Wisconsin, Roden spent his off-season in Florida to focus on improving his swing by building strength and increasing explosiveness, according to the Fisher Cats. After spending the first three and a half months of last season with high-A Vancouver, Roden received his double-A promotion to the Fisher Cats in Manchester and reached base safely in his first nine games, According to the Fisher Cats. Baseball America ranks Roden as Toronto’s ninth-most-promising prospect and MLB.com slots him in spot No. 7.
Phil Clarke: A catcher from Franklin, Tennessee, Clarke received his draft selection in the ninth round of the 2019 MLB draft out of Vanderbilt after his sophomore year concluded with a national championship in Omaha, according to the Fisher Cats. Clarke spent two seasons with the Fisher Cats and his third is set for 2024, and he received honors from MiLB.com at the conclusion of last season, making the site’s Organizational All-Star list, according to the Fisher Cats, and was also named best defensive catcher amongst Toronto prospects by Baseball America, who cited his fundamentals and natural skill as the reasoning behind the decision.
Save the date
Here are some of the special events planned at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium.
• Waggin’ Wednesdays: On Wednesdays when the Fisher Cats are not playing a home game, four-legged fans are invited (on-leash) to Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in downtown Manchester. A waiver must be filled out prior to bringing your dog into the ballpark.
• Foodie Fridays: Experience specialty food items at the ballpark every Friday. The first Foodie Friday, on April 12, will celebrate all things chili, with chili dogs, chili burgers and chili fries.
• Copa de la Diversión: For the games on Thursday, April 25, and Thursday, June 20, the team will rebrand as Gatos Feroces de New Hampshire, with specialty uniforms (get a peek at all the specialty jerseys at milb.com/new-hampshire/tickets/specialty-jerseys). Gatos Feroces merch is available for purchase on the team’s website.
• Princesses at the Park: The first of four specialty brunches at the park will be on Sunday, April 28, with a Princess Brunch to be held before the 1:35 p.m. game. Tickets to the brunch cost $30.85 and include a ticket to the game.
• Manchester Chicken Tenders: On Saturday, May 11, the Fisher Cats will celebrate one of the defining moments in American history: the 1974 invention of the chicken tender at Manchester’s Puritan Restaurant. The team will temporarily rebrand as the Manchester Chicken Tenders. Chicken Tenders merch is available for purchase on the team’s website.
• Cats-Con: On Saturday, May 25, The Fisher Cats’ annual Cats-Con game will celebrate their favorite movies, comic books, heroes, villains, and much more, featuring characters from Double Midnight Comics.
• Blue Heeler Appreciation Brunch: The second specialty brunch of the season will take place on Sunday, May 26, before the 1:35 p.m. game. Tickets to the brunch cost $30.85 and include a ticket to the game.
• Father’s Day Celebration: To honor Fisher Cats dad fans, the first 1,000 fans through the gates will receive a limited-edition Fisher Cats bucket hat on June 16.
• Super Bros. Brunch: The third specialty brunch of the season will take place on Sunday, June 23, before the 1:35 p.m. game. Tickets to the brunch cost $30.85 and include a ticket to the game.
• Game Show Night: On Friday, July 11, the whole game will be dedicated to famous game shows.
• Star Wars Night with Atlas Fireworks: Star Wars Night strikes back on Saturday, July 12. By popular demand, the iconic theme night will return with Star Wars characters, music, specialty on-field jerseys and more.
• A Pure Night of Imagination: The Fisher Cats promise a scrumdiddlyumptious night dedicated to everybody’s favorite fictional candy maker on Friday, July 26.
• Sitcom Night: On Thursday, Aug. 8, the Fisher Cats will dedicate their game to classic sitcoms.
• ’90s Night with Atlas Fireworks: Put your hair in a scrunchie and practice your macarena. On Saturday, August 10, the Fisher Cats will celebrate all things ’90s. The first 1,000 fans through the gates will receive a clear fanny pack. Beanie Babies get in free.
• Hockey Night in New Hampshire with Atlas Fireworks: The Fisher Cats will celebrate New Hampshire hockey on Saturday, Aug. 24, with new jerseys, new hats, a new giveaway and a celebrity appearance from Max the Monarch. The first 1,000 fans through the gates will receive a Monarchs-vs.-Fisher Cats bobblehead.
• Piggy Tea Party: The final specialty brunch of the season will be held at the park on Sunday, Aug. 25, with a Piggy Tea Party Brunch to be held before the 1:35 p.m. game. Tickets to the brunch cost $30.85 and include a ticket to the game.
Nashua Silver Knights
Want more baseball? Nashua is home to the Silver Knights, a summer collegiate team of New England players at Division I, II and III levels, who split their time between Holman Stadium in Nashua (67 Amherst St. in Nashua) and Centennial Field in Burlington, Vermont. They play in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League.
General Manager Cam Cook says most of his players are working their way up the baseball ladder.
“A lot of people have heard of the Cape Cod League,” Cook said. “A lot of our guys are freshmen and sophomores who play with us for a year or two, then go to the Cape Cod League.”
Cook says that this is shaping up into a good season.
“It’s looking good,” he says. “We’re as busy as we’ve ever been. We’ve got great sponsors, and we’re planning some great theme nights.” Some of these theme nights include a Princess in the Park night, when fans, especially young ones, are encouraged to dress as their favorite princesses; a celebration of National Hot Dog Day; a visit from the Boogie Bros traveling mascot show, and a baseball card give-away.
The biggest game of the season will be the Knights’ July 25 exhibition game against the War Dogs, a team made up of active-duty and reserve military players.
“From a pure baseball point of view, it’s really interesting to see a freshman pitcher from Vanderbilt go up against an active-duty Marine,” Cook said. “It’s like an AI simulation, and we get to see it in real time.” The Knights have invited local veterans’ groups and VFWs to the game, to pump up interest in the game.
“We’ve already sold out our suites,” Cook said. It will be an unusual home game, he thinks, because most of the fans will be rooting for the visitors. “I’ve already started preparing the team,” he says, “warning them, ‘You’re probably going to get booed.”
This yearly exhibition game always honors the military in general, but this year it will have a special focus on the Air Force. “We’re trying to arrange a military fly-over, and a helicopter to deliver the First Pitch Ball,” Cook said. He noted that a point of particular interest is Silver Knight Player No. 7, pitcher Frankie Melendez, who is an ROTC cadet at Stonehill College. “He’ll be playing against soldiers he might run into in the service in a few years.”
The Nashua Silver Knights’ season begins on May 24 with a home game against the Vermont Lake Monsters. For more information, tickets and the team’s season schedule, visit their website at nashuasilverknights.com. —John Fladd
Fan food
An essential part of attending a baseball game is the food. It’s even in the song: “Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack….” Stephanuie Vangjel is the Operations Manager for Professional Sports Catering, the company that provides snacks to Fisher Cats fans. It’s her job to make sure everyone in the stadium has access to baseball food during home games. That includes classics like hot dogs, fried dough and chicken fingers for the audience in the bleachers, but also lobster rolls and steak tips for the fans in the luxury suites.
“I’m making myself hungry,” Vangjel says, describing the food.
Feeding Delta Dental Stadium means more than handing out hot dogs. Vangjel’s staff is in charge of running concessions during home games but also providing service to the suites and running the Brewhouse Restaurant — the Fisher Cats’ onsite restaurant — as well as handling outside catering jobs.
Vangjel says her team is especially proud of their promotional food specials.
“We put together special packages like our Ballpark Buffet, a barbecue package, and a comfort food package [which includes burgers, chicken sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, and baked beans]. We set up nacho bars and fajita bars. On Video Game Night, we’re planning an ‘Italian Plumbers’-themed menu.” “Italian Plumbers,” she explains, to avoid any trademark infringement with Nintendo.
The enthusiasm for this season’s ballpark food extends to the Fisher Cats’ front office.
“A highlight this year is we are introducing what we call ‘Foodie Fridays,’” says General Manager Michael Neiss. “That’s really taking that day of the week, taking that game, whether there’s a theme or not, and providing unique food [and] beverage options that you wouldn’t be able to get on a normal night.” Foodie Fridays will kick off the season on April 5 with an all-chili theme — chili dogs, chili burgers and chili fries — according to Stephanie Vangjel.
Andrew Marais, Senior Manager of Marketing and Promotions for the Fisher Cats, says management is excited about the Manchester Chicken Tenders returning to the field, referring to a Fisher Cats tribute to Manchester’s iconic food, when the team will dress in specially themed uniforms.
“The first [Chicken Tenders] game will be on May 11 — that will be your original Chicken Tender on-field uniform jersey — and then on July 27 we turn up the heat with Buffalo Tenders. So, brand new Buffalo Tender jerseys, very very cool. I believe they’re on our website too and you can purchase them in the team store.”
Hungry fans will also be able to eat brunch at the ballpark. The Fisher Cats will host four themed brunches this season, to correspond with special theme days. There will be a “Princess” brunch on April 28, a “Blue Heeler Appreciation” brunch in May, a “Super Bros” brunch in June and a “Piggy Tea Party” brunch in August. Each brunch ticket includes admission to the brunch and a ticket to the game following it. Brunch tickets are available through the Fisher Cats’ website (milb.com/new-hampshire). —John Fladd
