The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire is encouraging literacy throughout November with a month of events, including a special exhibit in the museum’s art gallery 6.
“Step into a Story: Art by New England Illustrators” will be on display through January at Gallery 6. The studio, located in the walkways between the first and second floors of the museum, is decorated with paintings and illustrations from local picture book illustrators.
[The] illustrators all have a history with the museum,” said Neva Cole, the director of communications at the Children’s Museum. “They’re part of our community and we’re happy to have them participate in the exhibit.”
Cole said that the illustrators have their own unique styles and use different media in their artwork. One of the artists showed more than just art, but showed her entire illustrative process, Cole added. The artist, Vita Lane, included picture book drafts, mock-ups and final illustrations so visitors can see the work the artists put into making stories come to life.
While the museum is for children and caregivers, Cole said that people without children can come and see the artwork as well and that they wouldn’t need to pay for admission.
“It’s a good amount of space to put on a good show,” Cole said about Gallery 6. “You don’t need a child to see the art. Just walk up and down the ramp.”
In addition to the gallery and illustrator visits, kids and caregivers can sign up for some special events. Karel Hayes, one of the artists featured at the gallery, will do a book signing for some of the books that she’s illustrated on Saturday, Nov. 19. The storybook character Llama Llama will make a special appearance in his red pajamas on Saturday, Nov. 12. Families will receive a free picture book upon entry to the museum throughout the month, while supplies last, Cole said.
These events and the exhibit are all part of the theme for November, which is focusing on promoting early childhood literacy. Cole said that many aspects of the museum use storybook time with crafts as a way to do an education strategy called play-based learning.
Childhood literacy is important to the museum because of how much it impacts children’s learning patterns, said Cole.
“The more exposure, the better off kids are in the long run,” Cole said. “This will help with their confidence and ability to pick up new words, and so much more.”
The Children’s Museum isn’t just promoting literacy at its own location. It’s also helping communities across New Hampshire to promote early literacy. The museum received the Inspire grant through the Institute of Library Services to help promote literacy and play-based learning.
With the grant money, the museum is creating early education kits to send to libraries and day care centers across the Granite State. Cole said that they’ve received 83 applications for the kits.
“We’re thrilled to offer these to those child care centers,” said Cole. “Some are more isolated and maybe only serve five or six kids, but those families and kids deserve to learn and experience play-based learning. If we can help facilitate this beyond the museum’s walls, how incredible is that?”
“Step into a Story: Art by New England Illustrators” Where: Gallery 6, The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire, 6 Washington St., Dover. When: Through January Price: Access to the gallery is free. Visit: childrens-museum.org
The drinks of the ’90s served largely as fuel for dancing, and as conversation starters with the Hungarian hand models we were trying to dance with.
Like the clothes we wore, a lot of the music we listened to and (wow!) the way we wore our hair, for those who were young in the ’90s, the cocktails didn’t need to be great. When these cocktails were well-made, they could be excellent, but that was often beside the point.
Do any of us even really remember what a Woo-Woo tasted like? What would some of the drinks of the ’90s — suddenly The decade, nostalgia-wise — taste like today? Is there a way to improve them and make them more interesting? Do they even need that? Let’s see what we have to work with:
Mojito
A pair of mojitos (mojiti?). An authentic ’90s recipe is on the left; an updated, greener version is on the right.
The mojito might be the quintessential 1990s drink. Its combination of lime juice and mint could make you feel like you were sitting in a swanky club in Miami. Maybe you were sitting in a swanky club in Miami during the ’90s — I don’t know what you were doing 30 years ago or whether you were legal to drink. The taste of rum was usually an afterthought; the focus was on the greenery.
You looked sophisticated, drinking a mojito.
The original version uses surprisingly little mint.
’90s mojito
Ingredients
3 mint leaves
½ ounce simple syrup
2 ounces white rum — Because the rum is supposed to be a background flavor here, any mid-range, doesn’t-take-itself-too-seriously white or silver rum will work. Bacardi is a good choice.
¾ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice — from ordinary Persian limes, the kind you find at the grocery store, next to the lemons
3 to 4 ounces club soda
Muddle the mint leaves in the bottom of a Collins glass.
Add ice, and the rest of the ingredients, and stir to combine.
Garnish with a mint sprig, and possibly a lime wheel.
Sip, with your coolest, most inscrutable look on your face. If anyone asks how you are doing, tell them, “Livin’ la vida loca, my friend.”
Considering that this drink was considered one of the trendiest cocktails around at the time, it is surprisingly light and delicate. The mint and rum are very modest here. The main impressions you get as you drink it are of carbonation and lime juice. This is a drink for someone who wants to keep their wits about them.
But also, puzzlingly shy when it comes to the use of mint.
2022 me really doesn’t need to keep my wits about me. I know that I’m a lightweight at this point, at least so far as my cocktail consumption goes. The most exciting and dangerous thing I’m planning to do on a Friday night is emptying the dishwasher. If I’m going to drink a mojito, I’d like to forgo any subtlety and get slapped in the face with its mojito-ness. I am no longer bold, so I’d like my mojito to be bold for me.
Updated Mojito
Ingredients
5 grams of fresh mint — This doesn’t sound like much, but when I tried to weigh three mint leaves from the original recipe, they didn’t register on my scale, which means that I was using less than a tenth of a gram of them. Thus, this is at least 50 times mintier than the classic version. Think a small handful.
2 ounces white rum — I’m not really looking to make a boozier mojito, just a more flavorful one.
¾ ounce makrut lime juice — These little limes are surprisingly juicy. If you can’t find any, Key limes would work well, too.
1 ounce simple syrup — The smaller limes have a slightly bitter edge to them, which helps give them their sophisticated flavor, but a little extra sweetness helps balance it out.
3 to 4 ounces extra-bubbly club soda — I like Topo Chico Mineral Water.
As before, muddle the mint in the bottom of a Collins glass.
Add ice and the other ingredients, and stir gently.
Garnish with half a tiny lime. This might prompt somebody to ask, “What is that?” at which point you can just hand over your drink for them to take a sip, and watch as they are knocked backward by flavor and joy.
It’s surprising how much flavor the smaller limes pack. The extra mint is welcome, of course, but the flavor of the makrut is the star of the show. This version of the mojito is sweet, and acidic, and musky, and herbal, all at once.
I hate to make assumptions, but I suspect that once you have tried this, any time you see makrut limes at the supermarket, you’ll find yourself saying out loud, “Do you know what time it is? That’s right; it’s Mojito Time, Baby!” You might get some strange looks from your fellow shoppers, but that’s the price you pay for being authentically awesome.
Makrut limes. Photo by John Fladd.
Limes These are makrut limes. I stumbled over them in the produce section at Whole Foods. They have another, more common name, one with unfortunate racial overtones. They are more commonly called — and my apologies to anyone from southern Africa — kaffir limes. I had heard of using the leaves in Thai cooking, but this was the first time I had seen the actual fruit. Each of the limes is about the size of a golf ball, and covered with a thick, leathery rind. I asked the produce manager what they tasted like, and he pulled out a pocket knife and opened one for us to try. The flavor was very intense. “Are you getting … leather?” I asked. “A little bit, but mostly … um….” “What?” I asked. “Lemon Pledge?” he guessed. “That’s it! But in a good way!” He nodded and smiled. And it does. In 1958, the chemical engineers at Johnson & Johnson developed a scent for their furniture polish that smelled so good, so wholesome, that homemakers would feel guilty not spraying in on their woodwork. Smelling it today can instantly transport you to your childhood and soothe you like a lullaby. Makrut limes taste a lot like that. Only, naturally. One shelf over from the limes was a bin of yuzu. I had always heard of yuzu, and even seen small bottles of yuzu juice for sale at astronomical prices, but this was the first time I’d ever seen the fresh fruit. They are about the same size and shape as tangerines, but a deep green color that lightens to a buttery yellow as they ripen. My new friend cut open a yuzu for us, and we were initially underwhelmed. The juice tasted generically citrusy but was not very intense. The seeds were surprisingly large, but otherwise we both shrugged and started talking about rhubarb. I bought a couple of pounds of the yuzu anyway, and when I got home I decided to make them into a syrup, which turned out to be astoundingly, shockingly good — vibrant and acidic, and with a bitter finish. If you find any fresh yuzu, I would recommend making this, though decent lemons would work well, too.
Yuzu Syrup Zest all the yuzus you have, and set the zest aside. Squeeze the fruit through a fine-meshed strainer, into a small saucepan. Add an equal amount, by weight, of white sugar to the juice. Bring to a boil over medium heat, making sure that all the sugar has dissolved. Remove the pan from the heat, then stir in the zest. Cover with a plate, and let it sit for half an hour. Pour into a small jar or bottle, through a strainer and a funnel. Label and refrigerate.
Jasmine
A classic jasmine cocktail on the left, in the fancy glass, and a properly jasminey jasmine on the right. Photo by Adriana Chacon.
The jasmine made its debut in Las Vegas in the late ’90s. It was a riff on a riff on a variation of an already existent cocktail, so it doesn’t feel very transgressive to modify it.
I like to think of a beautiful bartender named Jasmine, with dark hair in a pixie cut, shockingly blue eyes, and a truly surprising number of tattoos (which, in the ’90s, were a cutting-edge trend). I imagine an admirer bringing her a bouquet of jasmine flowers. In this scenario, the admirer is also a woman named Jasmine, so Inky Jasmine makes her a jasmine cocktail.
Original Jasmine
Ingredients
1½ ounces very cold gin — Keeping a bottle of gin in the freezer is not the worst idea in the world. (I already keep a bottle of vodka there, for making pie crust, but that’s another story.)
¼ ounce Campari
¼ ounce orange liqueur — I used triple sec.
¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
Combine all ingredients, with ice, in a cocktail shaker.
Shake until very cold. You’ll know you’re getting there when you hear the ice cubes start to break up. I’m not positive, but I think this is one reason bartenders shake drinks next to their ears.
Strain into a martini glass. Remember to hold it by the stem, so it stays as cold as possible.
This is a very nice cocktail. It isn’t too sweet — the only sweetness comes from the tiny amount of triple sec — and the equally tiny amount of Campari gives it a gentle pink color and a very small amount of bitterness in the background. Considering its origins, it is a very adult drink.
My only real complaint with it is that it doesn’t have anything to do with actual jasmine.
So, let’s see what we can do about that:
Today’s Jasmine
Ingredients
1½ ounces very cold gin — I’ve been using Wiggly Bridge. It’s a dry gin that doesn’t impose any floral flavors of its own and fight with the jasmine (see below).
¼ Campari — I still like the color and bitterness it brings to this drink.
1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
½ ounce jasmine syrup (see below)
Combine all the ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker, and shake until extremely cold.
Strain into a martini glass.
Holding the glass by the stem, do the pretentious, wine-snobby, sniffing-the-drink-to-bring-the-scent-to-your-palate thing. Something like 75 percent of everything you think you taste actually comes from the smell of whatever you’re eating or drinking. In this case, you’ll want to take in the floral notes from the jasmine syrup.
Again, this is a very nice, adult-ish cocktail. It still has the pretty color and bitterness, but it’s a bit sweeter, to help bring the smell of jasmine to you. You may not have ever experienced fresh jasmine blossoms, but they are staggeringly good smelling. The jasmine syrup brings just a whisper of that to a weary world.
Jasmine Syrup
Ingredients
1 cup water — approximately 200 grams
1 cup white sugar — also, approximately 200 grams
½ cup dried jasmine blossoms — approximately 10 grams
The juice of ½ a lime — a regular, grocery-store Persian lime, not a fancy lime with delusions of grandeur.
Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
Boil for 10 to 15 seconds to make sure that the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat.
Stir the dried jasmine blossoms into the hot sugar syrup, cover, and leave to steep for 30 minutes.
Squeeze the lime juice into the mixture, and stir to combine. Strain into a bottle, then wait for the Call to Greatness.
Appletini
A classic appletini in the fancy glass on the left, an updated one on the right, looking slightly smug.
There isn’t a lot to say about the appletini, sometimes known as a sour apple martini. It was popular in the ’90s and was, I think, a plot point in an episode of Law and Order. Within a few years it became fashionable to sneer at, which must mean that there was something to it.
OG Appletini
Ingredients
1¾ ounces vodka
1 ounce sour apple schnapps — I used a tiny sample-sized bottle of 99 Apples, not wanting to commit to an entire full-sized one.
¼ ounce Rose’s Lime Juice
¼ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
¼ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker, and shake until very cold.
Strain into a cocktail glass, and drink while wondering what ever happened to wearing overalls with one strap hanging loose.
There are any number of recipes for appletinis, in varying degrees of sweetness and potency. This is one of the more restrained versions. It is not overly sweet and it does retain a lot of the sourness that you might hope for, if not a great deal of actual apple flavor.
This is, frankly, a cocktail with a lot of potential for progress.
Modified, More Apple-y Version of an Appletini
Ingredients
2½ ounces apple brandy — I like Laird’s Applejack.
2 ounces apple cider — This will do most of the heavy lifting, apple-wise.
½ ounce yuzu syrup — see Citrus Sidebar
Combine all ingredients with ice and shake in a cocktail shaker until very cold.
Strain into a cocktail glass, and sip pensively, still thinking about the whole overalls thing and wondering if Dexy’s Midnight Runners and the Georgia Satellites were secretly the same group and if that’s why nobody has ever heard of any of them again.
This is a much better version of the appletini, partially due to the magical yuzu syrup and partially to the presence of actual apples. There is a citrusy sourness in the background, but a substantial apple flavor as well.
Espresso Martini
An espresso martini, standing proud and unchanged.
Of all these nostalgic ’90s cocktails, only one stands tall, self-confident, and without the need to be updated.
A lot of cocktails from this period are called “classics” in the sense that they have been around for quite a while and they have been popular for much of that time. An espresso martini is a true classic, in the same sense as a black tuxedo, or the tinkling of Audrey Hepburn’s laughter in Roman Holiday. It stands nearly perfect; it needs no tweaking.
The Espresso Martini
Ingredients
2 ounces coffee-infused vodka (see below)
½ ounce Kahlua
¼ ounce simple syrup
1 ounce cold brew concentrate — I like Trader Joe’s.
Gently pour all ingredients over ice in a mixing glass. Stir slowly, but thoroughly, until very cold.
Pour into a frosted martini glass.
Drink with your eyes closed, thinking of classy dames and piano jazz.
The great thing about a well-crafted espresso martini is that it combines the bracing aspects of a stiff drink, with the stare-you-in-the-eyes confidence of a really good cup of coffee. The caffeine is a plus, of course, but the real standout here is the richness of the coffee. It smiles at you and says, “You got this, Kid.”
Put another way: This is a very good cocktail. Keep in mind, though, that more than one of these babies might keep you up very late into the night watching old movies and possibly crying.
Coffee-Infused Vodka
Ingredients
10 grams French-roast coffee beans
6 ounces 80 proof vodka
Using a mortar and pestle, or the bottom of a heavy saucepan, gently crush the coffee beans. The idea here is to break them up into pieces, but not to grind them into powder.
Combine the coffee beans and vodka in a small, tightly sealed jar, and store in a cool, dark place for two days, shaking twice per day.
Strain through a fine-mesh strainer before using in a cocktail.
Lemon Drop
A classic lemon drop (left), and an updated, more lemony lemon drop (left).
I’ve got a friend who is a highly ranked competitive slam poet.
She and I have argued for years about the relative merits of poetry. Clearly, she is all for it. I, on the other hand, have reservations.
“There’s just so much bad poetry out there,” I have pointed out.
“No,” she has argued. “There’s no such thing as bad poetry!”
At this point, I have stared at her in stony silence, until the inaccuracy of this statement has collapsed on the floor with the sound of breaking glass.
“Okay, FINE!” she has responded. “Yes. There is a lot of bad poetry out there, but that doesn’t have any bearing on how good the good stuff is.”
I would like to argue that contention, if only out of obstinacy, but the fact that I’ve subscribed to a poem-of-the-day service for the past year would highlight my hypocrisy.
In that same spirit, someone could legitimately argue that a proliferation of bad lemon drop cocktails does not negate the excellence of a well-made one.
A Lemon Drop
Ingredients
2 ounces very cold vodka — I’ve been enjoying Ukrainian Heritage lately.
½ ounce triple sec
1 ounce fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 ounce simple syrup
Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker, and shake until very, very cold.
Strain into a chilled martini glass. Drink while still extremely cold.
The lemon juice carries most of the weight in a good lemon drop. It provides flavor, but even more importantly it adds acidity, which keeps the sweetness from becoming cloying. If you drink this while it is still extremely cold, it will sting your mouth a little, which suits its lemony-ness.
This is a delicious drink; it really is. I just think it might be better if it tasted more strongly of lemons. Let’s address that:
A Lemonier Drop
Ingredients
2 ounces very cold vodka
½ ounce limoncello
1 ounce homemade yuzu or lemon syrup
1½ ounces fresh squeezed lemon juice
Again, shake everything over ice, until extremely cold.
Strain into a martini glass.
This lemon drop is about as sweet as the original version — half an ounce of a sweet liqueur, and an ounce of syrup — and has the same amount of lemon juice, so the sweet/sour proportions are pretty much the same. The main difference here is the increase in citrus flavor.
Could you bump the lemon flavor even more by using a lemon vodka?
I’m not sure that’s legal in this state.
OK, You Knew This Would Be Showing Up Sooner or Later
The Cosmopolitan
A classic cosmopolitan in a fancy glass (left) and an updated, pomegranate version on the right, in an even fancier glass.
The Cosmopolitan actually got its start in the 1970s, but really came into its own in the ’90s striding across the landscape of American happy hours like a pink colossus. Yes, Sex in the City. Yes, South Park. Yes, it eventually became a bit of a cliché.
But what we tend to lose sight of is that, in spite of all that, a cosmo can be a very good cocktail:
Carrie’s (or is it Samantha’s?) Cosmo
Ingredients
1 ounce vodka
1 ounce triple sec
1½ ounces cranberry juice cocktail
½ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
2 dashes orange bitters
Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker, and shake until very cold.
Strain into a cocktail glass.
Drink while plotting world domination with a special friend.
Admittedly, a classic cosmo can be a bit on the sweet side — cranberry juice cocktail and a large slug of triple sec form a fairly sweet base — but lime juice and especially the bitters help balance things out. It has a tartness that makes your mouth water, which in turn gives it a very juicy mouth-feel. It tastes good, and drinking one can easily lead to drinking two, and the next thing you know, you are telling very personal secrets to your new friend, Julio, the Uber driver.
Can it be improved on? Maybe.
John’s Cosmo
Ingredients
2 ounces vodka — Let’s start by doubling the amount of vodka. The fruitiness of the final drink benefits from an authoritative booziness.
1 ounce yuzu syrup — It’s OK to keep things sweet; that’s part of a cosmo’s appeal. But triple sec tends to hide in the background; that’s what it’s good at. Let’s replace it with something that brings flavor to the party. If you haven’t been able to find any fresh yuzu, a fresh citrus syrup made from limes, lemons or even grapefruit will work well. The point here is that we want an assertive citrus flavor.
1½ ounces unsweetened pomegranate juice — Trust me on this. Your finished drink will still be pink. It will still be fruity — we just added yuzu, after all — but the pomegranate juice adds a bracing, no-nonsense spine to hang the other flavors from.
½ ounce makrut lime juice — We’ve just introduced three strong flavors. Our lime juice should be equally assertive. The leathery, acidic, slightly bitter, yes, Lemon Pledge-iness of the makrut juice is what you want here. If you haven’t been able to find any makruts, you might want to go with Key limes. The point is, send in a heavy hitter.
There is nothing complicated here — throw the Frenetic Four into a cocktail shaker full of ice, and let them fight it out. Shake until very cold. Because all the flavors are so powerful to start with, you might want to set the shaker aside for a few minutes, then reshake everything to dilute it slightly.
Strain into a cocktail glass.
You: “This is purple. You promised me it would be pink.”
Cosmopolitan: “Oh, I’m pink.”
You, taking a sip: “Wow! That’s, um, okay. But you’re still purple.”
The Capital Region Food Program announces the launch of its 2022 Holiday Voucher Pilot, a new food support program to reduce hunger for individuals, families and local agencies in the greater Concord area. According to a press release, the program was created as a more flexible, customizable and sustainable alternative to the nonprofit’s Holiday Food Basket Project, which has provided holiday meal boxes in Concord and its surrounding communities since 1974. The vouchers, which will be distributed on Dec. 10 and redeemable through Jan. 31, will allow recipients to shop for their own food and household necessities at local Market Basket stores. “Participating families will now be able to customize their food selections to not only accommodate various dietary restrictions but also to accommodate their cultures and holiday traditions that are important this time of year,” Karen Emis-Williams, director of human services for the City of Concord, said in the release. “The voucher program helps ensure clients receive the right food they need.” Voucher applications are being accepted through 33 partner agencies throughout the state until Nov. 30. Visit capitalregionfoodprogram.org/holiday-project-2022.
Paxlovid access
New Hampshire residents who don’t have access to a primary care provider are now able to get a prescription for the Covid therapeutic treatment Paxlovid through a free telehealth appointment with On-Site Medical Services, according to a press release from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. The antiviral, which can significantly reduce the severity of Covid symptoms, may be prescribed to certain patients who are at risk of developing serious complications from the illness. It is most effective when administered within 72 hours from the onset of symptoms. The telehealth appointments, which may be conducted over video or telephone, are available to qualifying residents age 12 and older who have received a positive Covid antigen or PCR test. If Paxlovid is prescribed, the medication will be sent to the patient’s preferred pharmacy for pickup or shipped to their residence via overnight mail. Visit on-sitemedservices.com/telemedicine or call 800-816-5803.
New housing
Gov. Chris Sununu and the Executive Council approved $50 million to support 30 projects under the Governor’s InvestNH Housing Fund that are held to affordability restrictions and construction completion within 18 months. “New Hampshire is moving fast to address our housing challenges,” Sununu said in a press release. “This initial $50 million investment will create 1,500 new rental units across the state, helping increase supply, drive down costs, and ensure New Hampshire is the best state to live, work, and raise a family.”
Home heating help
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance program (LIHEAP) has been approved to receive $33.9 million in federal funding, the New Hampshire Congressional delegation announced in a press release. LIHEAP funds New Hampshire’s Fuel Assistance Program and helps low-income households pay their home heating and energy bills to prevent energy shutoffs, restore service following energy shutoffs, make minor energy-related home repairs and weatherize their homes to make them more energy-efficient. “Especially as the winter months approach, ensuring Granite Staters are housed and in residences with adequate heating is crucial, so I’m relieved to see these additional federal resources allocated to New Hampshire,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that funds LIHEAP, said in the release. “I urge the State to move quickly and get these funds out the door to applicants.” New Hampshire households that are struggling to pay their energy bills can apply for assistance through their local Community Action Partnership online at capnh.org/home.
Future forensic psychiatric hospital
The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Administrative Services and New Hampshire Hospital officials will hold a public information session on a proposed forensic psychiatric hospital on Monday, Nov. 14, at 6 p.m. According to a press release from DHHS, the 24-bed secure facility will be built adjacent to New Hampshire Hospital, a psychiatric hospital located on Clinton Street in Concord, and will provide safe, skilled and therapeutic psychiatric treatment for forensic patients. The information session, which will specifically cover design updates for the new facility, will be held virtually over Zoom, accessible at nh-dhhs.zoom.us.
No mail Friday
U.S. Postal Service offices in New Hampshire will be closed on Friday, Nov. 11, in recognition of Veterans Day. According to a press release, all retail operations and street delivery except for guaranteed overnight parcels will be suspended for the day and will resume on Saturday, Nov. 12.
Concord reached a record high temperature on Saturday, Nov. 6, of 78 degrees, breaking the previous record of 75 set for the same day in 1994, the Union Leader reported, citing data from the National Weather Service. The record also marks the second highest temperature recorded during the month of November in Concord, tying with a 75-degree November day recorded in 1948. The average high temperature this time of year for Concord is 53 degrees, the article said.
Hateful and racist messages and symbols were found spray-painted in blue graffiti on pavement, mailboxes and street signs on Penacook Road in Hopkinton last weekend. The Concord Monitor reported that town officials and community members came together to clean the graffiti, and that the Hopkinton Police are investigating the case and have designated extra patrols to watch for graffiti vandalism.
Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains will host an informational session, “Launch into Girl Scouts,” on Monday, Nov. 14, from 6 to 7 p.m. at 1 Commerce Drive in Bedford. Caregivers can learn about Girl Scouts and troop openings while their girls participate in fun space-themed activities, according to a press release. Walk-ins are welcome. Sign-ups for Girl Scouts are available year-round at girlscoutsgwm.org.
The hallmark of a good jam band is how well it plays with others, and Zero is a standout example. In fact, it may hold the record in the number of guests brought to the stage over many years and over 1,300 shows. A friend of the band once did a family tree that included hundreds of musicians who’d joined them at one time or another.
Zero was formed in the early 1980s by guitarist Steve Kimock and drummer Greg Anton, after the two played in Keith and Donna Godchaux’s Heart of Gold Band; guitarist John Cipollina was a member until his death in 1989. In a recent phone interview, Anton described the band’s music as created with collaboration in mind.
“We have a lot of dynamics and wide-open space when we play,” he said. “What happens often is … somebody will come and sit in, and they’ll go, ‘Wow, it’s a good thing I showed up tonight or these guys would have big holes in their music — it’s a good thing I showed up to fill them in.’ It’s actually intentional, but some guys just figure it out and just fit right in.”
Zero just released a double album, Naught Again, that was recorded in 1992 during a three-night run at Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. It features many great guests, including late piano legend Nicky Hopkins, Vince Welnick from the Tubes and Grateful Dead, and longtime Jerry Garcia mate John Kahn.
Songs from the shows were on 1994’s Chance In A Million. A few months before the pandemic, recording engineer Brian Reasoner suggested to Anton that they remaster that disc using newer technology. He also asked him to find a bonus track or two for the project.
“I went back and listened to the outtakes, and Naught Again is a whole other record; none of that stuff has been previously released,” Anton said. “I was pleasantly surprised that I went back to look for one song and found a double record of songs that I thought were really up to snuff to put out.”
The group was all instrumental until Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter chatted up Anton at a Bay Area party. “He said, ‘You know, that band Zero is really good, but most of your audience is made up of other musicians — if you want to spread out a little bit, you might want to think about getting some songs,’” Anton recalled him saying. “I said, ‘You got any?’ and he said, ‘Yeah. You got any?’ So, I gave him some of our instrumental stuff, and he put words to it.”
Ultimately, the two wrote 25 songs together. Hunter, who died in 2019, introduces the band on Naught Again with a trippy spoken-word bit and closes out the set with another space age rap. The music is sublime, as is the newfound clarity of the show, recorded by Grateful Dead sound man Dan Healy.
It also includes some of Hopkins’ best piano work.
“I’ve never heard him stretch out like that. His playing is just kind of superhuman,” Anton said of Hopkins, who recorded and toured with the Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane and was a member of Quicksilver Messenger Service. “He invented that style of rock ’n’ roll piano-playing; I mean, there was a lot of history before him, but he took it to another level.”
To celebrate the new collection, Zero is out on a short jaunt stopping at Plymouth’s Flying Monkey on Nov. 5. Along with two founders, it now includes Pete Sears on bass, trumpet player Haidi Al-Saadoon and Spencer Burrows on keyboards.
They kicked off the current tour with a vinyl release show for Naught Again at the Fillmore in San Francisco. “We had a great time; it’s special music, I think,” Anton said. Their upcoming Granite State show will feature covers included on the new record, done with a unique twist, such as The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” without Moog synthesizer, and David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” a song suggested by Welnick.
As always, an improvisational mood will prevail for a band that plays when time and mood allow.
“Every Zero show is different, I don’t think anybody’s going to say, ‘Oh, that band’s just like Zero,’” he said. “It’s rock and jazz, we have horns, keyboards, and the world’s greatest guitar player. We have a lot of stuff going for us, and we’re looking forward to being able to do it.”
Zero When: Saturday, Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m. Where: The Flying Monkey, 39 S. Main St., Plymouth More: $39 and up at flyingmonkeynh.com
Mamie Till-Mobley, mother of the murdered child Emmett Till, is the focus of Till, a close-up portrait of a woman’s rage and grief.
Mamie Bradley (Danielle Deadwyler), as Till-Mobley (who died in 2003) is known for most of the movie, is worried from the moment she sends her only child, Emmett Till (Jalyn Hall), on a train to visit cousins in 1955 Mississippi. He has grown up in Chicago and even though the city is hardly free of racism, he doesn’t have experience with the dystopian apartheid of the South and the deadly consequences of running afoul of its hellish social conventions.
A sunny, friendly, baby-faced 14-year-old, Emmett seems to be generally enjoying himself with his cousins, even when he’s helping them pick cotton. While at a store buying sweets, he tells the clerk, who we later learn is Carolyn Bryant (Haley Bennett), that she looks like a movie star and later whistles at her. He thinks he’s being charming, we see a sweetly goofy kid, she goes for her gun. A few days go by and he and his cousins think the incident will come to nothing and don’t even tell their parents, Mamie’s uncle (John Douglas Thompson) and aunt (Keisha Tillis). But then men, including Carolyn’s husband, show up at the house and kidnap Emmett while holding his cousins at gunpoint.
When Mamie finds out Emmett is missing, she wants to hurry to Mississippi to find him, but family help her connect with the local chapter of the NAACP and Rayfield Mooty (Kevin Carroll), who tries to get political officials and the media involved in Emmett’s disappearance. When Emmett’s body is found, Mamie, nearly shattered already, insists on having him returned to Chicago and on seeing him. Emmett’s face and head are horribly disfigured and he is bloated from being in a river. Mamie decides that Emmett’s funeral will be open casket and she brings newspaper and magazine photographers in to take pictures of Emmett’s body to show the world what happened to him.
An extended trailer for this movie mentions the fact that we don’t actually see Emmett being murdered — an effective and possibly more emotionally devastating choice. While the movie shows us Emmett’s body and what seeing him does to Mamie, other family members and the larger public, it keeps the focus on Mamie, her heartbreak and her relationship with Emmett. The movie never lets us forget that he is a child and he is her child and it doesn’t waste a minute with sensationalizing his lynching or trying to get us to understand his murderers or the society that protects them. That sounds like kind of an obvious thing — that the murdered child and the effect of his murder on his mother would be the center of this story — but it feels so Hollywood-standard for a Civil Rights era movie to filter Black stories through some kind of white character that this “a movie about Mamie that puts Mamie at the center” approach makes Till feel innovative.
And Deadwyler’s performance absolutely holds us in her experience throughout the movie. She puts us in Mamie’s emotions, from the worry and dread that come with sending Emmett to Mississippi through the ocean of grief after his death and the anger that I think would completely consume most people. It’s not always easy (I think especially if you have kids and can call up worry about them with zero effort) to be with her in that headspace, but it is so well done, her feelings are so well examined and shown (not told), that when characters praise her out loud it almost feels unnecessary. Just making it through the day as a woman who has lost so much seems like an exceptional feat — and this movie makes us feel the effort this requires of her. When we see her doing so while being able to serve as an advocate for justice, Mamie displays an almost superhuman strength. A
Rated PG-13 for thematic content involving racism, strong disturbing images and racial slurs, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Chinonye Chukwu and written by Michael Reilly & Keith Beauchamp and Chinonye Chukwu, Till is two hours and 10 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures.
Featured photo: Danielle Deadwylerand Jalyn Hall in Till.
Oktoberfest, ski and snowboard sale return to Pats Peak
Just ahead of its season kickoff, Pats Peak Ski Area in Henniker is inviting you to the slopes for two concurrent annual events to celebrate — a ski and snowboard sale inside its main lodge, and an outdoor German food festival and beer garden, complete with live music, a magic show, a stein holding contest, keg bowling, demonstrations and more. It’s all happening on Sunday, Nov. 6, at 11 a.m. and is free to attend, regardless of whether or not you’re a Pats Peak passholder.
“There’s a lot going on, and you can come and shop at the sale and stay for the Oktoberfest, see all your friends and get ready for winter,” said Lori Rowell, Pats Peak’s director of marketing and sales. “The food and the band are all outside underneath a big tent in front of the main lodge, [and] the Oktoberfest goes from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., while the sale goes from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.”
According to Rowell, Pats Peak’s in-house kitchen team — led by longtime head chef Guy Pelletier — prepares all of the dishes featured at the German food festival. Options will include knockwurst or bratwurst, steamed in beer and served on 6-inch sub rolls with sauerkraut and grilled onions. You’ll also be able to order a plate of pork schnitzel with mushroom gravy and sides like hot German potato salad, braised red cabbage with baked apple, and a warm soft jumbo pretzel. Kids’ hot dogs and chicken fingers will be available as well.
For those with a sweet tooth there will be apple crisp with your choice of ice cream or whipped cream (or both) and, of course, Pats Peak’s famous home-baked giant M&M cookies.
“The cookies started back in the early ’60s, [when] the owners’ wives used to be the cooks in the kitchen,” Rowell said. “They made chocolate chip cookies at first, and then someone said, ‘Oh, let’s put M&Ms in them.’ So then they would just make them bigger and bigger, and now they’re so big, they’re like the size of your face. … We can only fit six of them on one big sheet pan. I think the chef said we sell something like 20,000 of them a season.”
The beer tent, meanwhile, is sponsored by Harpoon Brewery and will include many of its seasonal selections, from its Oktoberfest to its Flannel Friday and Rec. League brews.
The Massachusetts-based Bavarian Brothers band is scheduled to perform traditional Oktoberfest party music for the duration of the festival. Rowell added that, between the band’s breaks, there will be a series of three magic shows with Marko the Master Magician and Hypnotist.
A beer stein holding contest is also planned, with signups available on the day of the event. An Oktoberfest tradition that’s also now a competitive sport, the contest challenges you to hold a beer-filled stein out in front of your body with one hand for as long as possible.
“There’s also going to be bounce houses for the kids, a woodsman show … and an ax throwing trailer,” Rowell said. “This year we also have a new event called McDonny’s Traveling Farm. It’s a petting farm with chickens, ducks, bunnies and goats.”
As for the ski and snowboard sale, Rowell said that’s put on by the Pats Peak Ski Team, a nonprofit alpine race program that gives kids the opportunity to participate in race training exercises and competitions throughout New England, mostly in New Hampshire and Vermont.
While it does largely depend on the weather, Pats Peak’s projected season runs from the first Saturday of December through the last Sunday of March. Rowell said that Jan. 5 will mark the 60th anniversary of skiing at the slopes.
“Our plan is to start making snow in the middle of November, and if we have favorable snowmaking and enough snow, we’ll open,” she said.
Oktoberfest/ski and snowboard sale When: Sunday, Nov. 6 (Oktoberfest is from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; ski and snowboard sale is from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) Where: Pats Peak Ski Area, 686 Flanders Road, Henniker Cost: Free admission; food and beers are priced per item Visit: patspeak.com Oktoberfest is rain or shine. Anyone who wishes to sell their own skiing or snowboarding equipment must drop it off between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5, and fill out a consignor form online at patspeakracing.org.
Featured photo: Photos courtesy of Pats Peak Ski Area in Henniker.
