Welcome to the new class of Oscar nominees! The nominations for the 94th annual Academy Awards were announced on Feb. 8 and this year there are 10 contenders for best picture (the Oscar winners will be announced on March 27). If you’re still looking to catch up on the films of 2021, the list of nominees is an excellent place to start. Here are the best picture nominees and where to find them:
• Belfast (PG-13) Kenneth Branagh wrote and directed this semi-autobiographical tale of a boyhood amid the unrest of Northern Ireland in the 1960s. It is available for rent at home and it is still in theaters, including Red River Theatres in Concord, where it returns starting Friday, Feb. 11. • CODA (PG-13) This excellent story about a teen who discovers her singing talent and her changing relationship with her parents might be my favorite of this group. It is available on Apple TV+. • Don’t Look Up (R) Adam McKay directed and wrote the screenplay for this satire, which you can find on Netflix, that stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. • Drive My Car (NR) This Japanese film also nabbed a Best International Film nomination as well as nominations in other categories and is the one movie of this group I haven’t seen yet. It is currently in theaters in the Boston area. • Dune (PG-13) Not surprisingly, this beautiful-to-look-at adaptation also nabbed several nominations for the look and sound of the film. It is currently available for rent or purchase and will return to HBO Max on March 10. • King Richard (PG-13) Will Smith also got a Best Actor in a Lead Role nod for this movie about Richard Williams, the father of Venus and Serena Williams. The movie is available for purchase. • Licorice Pizza (R) For me, the San Fernando Valley of the 1970s was this real star of this Paul Thomas Anderson story about a precocious 15-year-old and the twentysomething girl he falls for. The movie is currently in theaters. • Nightmare Alley (R) This movie from director Guillermo del Toro was another one that wowed me more for its aesthetics. It is currently playing in theaters in the Boston area and available via HBO Max. • The Power of the Dog (R) This Jane Campion-directed movie nabbed a slew of nominations, including nods in three acting categories and for Campion in the director category (making her the only woman nominated in that category this year). Find it on Netflix. • West Side Story (PG-13) Steven Spielberg’s very good adaptation of the musical got Ariana DeBose a much deserved nomination in the Best Actress in a Supporting Role category for Anita, among its many nominations. It is currently in theaters.
There’s a clear ’90s vibe to Donaher’s second long-player. The Manchester quartet signals its intentions with leadoff track “Fixer Upper” — with its angsty lyrics, floor-shaking guitar and a vocal that straddles the line between an angry growl and a heart-wrecked moan, it’s something Nirvana might have done had Kurt Cobain walked out of his Seattle garage.
That’s no accident.
“Kurt’s the reason why I picked up a guitar when I was 15 years old,” singer and main songwriter Nick Lavallee said recently. Though adulthood, sobriety and a bit of therapy have mellowed him, “I remind myself that I need to continuously do things that would make my 15-year-old-self smile.”
The mood of Gravity And The Stars Above veers from their sunny 2017 debut I Swear My Love Is True, though it shares its sheen — and then some. There’s “Lights Out,” a hook-tastic breakup song brimming with pain, and “Sleepless in New England,” with a protagonist who needs “to remind [his] lungs to keep on breathing.”
The latter track paraphrases a line from the movie Castaway — “tomorrow the sun will rise and who knows what the tide could bring?” — that Lavallee feels could reach the shipwrecked or the dumped.
“I think in many ways the character in that Tom Hanks movie was put on that island to almost slow down time… he had to learn how to be grateful for the things he had,” he said. “There’s some running themes like that on a couple of the songs.”
While there is more than a little romantic misery, a few moments of hope peek through.
“Worth The Wait” is a duet with Noelle Leblanc of the Boston band Damone that recalls both Iggy Pop’s “Candy” and the Foo Fighters’ wall of sound. Lavallee said he was reaching for layers of meaning in songs like Semisonic’s “Closing Time” when he wrote it.
“It sounds like a couple singing about each other, but it’s about [them] having a baby,” he said. “I was like, can I write a song that might be about one thing to me, and mean something totally different to the listener?”
Sweet and wholesome, “Circle Yes Or No” is another highlight, a grade-school romance laid atop a brisk power pop beat. “I basically envisioned, what if The Descendants covered The Lemonheads?” Lavallee said. “They actually backed up Evan Dando on a record once … that’s what I was going for.”
Another throwback move was how the new record dropped. One week prior to hitting streaming services, it came out as an oh-so-retro compact disc.
“I love vinyl, but we weren’t listening to records in the ’90s, we were listening to CDs and tapes,” Lavallee said. “I wanted the first image of this album to be a shrink-wrapped CD, and those feelings of ’90s nostalgia to hit hard.”
Donaher — Lavallee, lead guitarist Tristan Omand, bass player Adam Wood and drummer Nick Lee — will celebrate the new disc with three area shows. The first is Feb. 11 at Newmarket’s Stone Church, followed a week later at Shaskeen Pub, the band’s home court. Opening there is Colleen Green, a singer-songwriter signed to original Nirvana label Subpop’s affiliate Hardly Art. The final show happens Feb. 26 at Lowell’s Thirsty First Tavern.
A self-described “obsessive creative” who’s also a lapsed standup comic and creator of the Wicked Joyful line of pop culture action figures, Lavallee said the presence of two other songwriters in the band, Wood and Omand, helped steady him.
“I’m challenged by them. They don’t let anything slip by,” he said. “I’m doing some stuff that’s very different compared to the first record lyrically, and that’s definitely Tristan pushing me to not just repeat myself.”
As with the first record and last summer’s Angus Soundtrack 2 EP, a favorite band from the decade still influences him.
“This album sounds like it could have been recorded between the Blue Album and Pinkerton,” he said, referring to a pair of Weezer CDs. “It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Rivers Cuomo and his songwriting, and people would expect our take on Pinkerton, but a little darker, a little louder, little messier. … I think some of those elements are definitely there.”
Donaher w/ The Graniteers
When: Friday, Feb. 11, 9 p.m. Where: Stone Church Music Club, 5 Granite St., Newmarket Tickets: $12 in advance, $15 day of show at stonechurchrocks.com Also Feb. 18 at 9 p.m. at Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester with Colleen Green & Monica Grasso ($10 at door)
Featured photo: Donaher. Photo courtesy of Jessica Arnold.
The moon is suddenly headed toward collision or something with Earth in Moonfall, a movie that is both even dumber than that sounds and yet somehow not nearly as dumb as it needs to be.
Lean in to your dumbness, you dumb dumb movie — was my feeling throughout.
Astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson) is kicked out of NASA after an incident in space results in the death of one of his crew members. His public downfall also leads to his getting divorced, being estranged from his kid, going broke and even cutting contact with his former close coworker Jocinda Fowl (Halle Berry), who was on the doomed mission but was knocked unconscious and can’t back up his story that the incident was caused not by human error but by a Space Thing.
What kind of Space Thing, you ask? Well, the thing that causes the destruction to Brian’s mission looks like a floaty cloud made of pencil lead bits and ball bearings. He last sees it in the vicinity of the moon and then — then nothing. He’s drummed out of NASA and labeled a nutcase and nobody ever mentions the Thing again for like a decade until the events of this movie start with NASA scientists figuring out that the moon’s orbit has changed. Jocinda is now number two at NASA and wants the team to figure out what’s up with the moon and why it seems to be suddenly getting closer to Earth, which will eventually cause chunks of the moon to ram into Earth. Also she’d like everybody to keep quiet about it for a bit.
What she doesn’t know is that at the same time, amateur astronomer/professional pastrami sandwich maker KC Houseman (John Bradley), long the holder of some really wild theories about the moon, has also figured out that it has changed its orbit and is heading toward Earth. He tweets it out and suddenly the world is in chaos at our impending destruction while NASA and the military work on competing ideas for preventing the disaster.
Naturally, KC, Brian and Jocinda eventually come together to tackle the moon crisis. All three have family situations that lead to harrowing near-misses in “meanwhile” scenes — or at least they would if we ever really got to know anybody’s kids and moms or if any of them behaved in recognizably human ways, which they don’t.
I have so many questions about the making of this movie. I want to know the total backstory, soup to nuttiness — starting with how did Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson and John Bradley end up in this movie together? My theory: somebody challenged Roland Emmerich (this movie’s director and co-writer) to make a movie starring whoever happened to be the guests on, say, Jimmy Fallon one night. Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson and guy from Game of Thrones feels like a solid late night show lineup; please don’t ever tell me if I’m wrong about this because I like this theory and anything else would just make me feel sad for these actors.
You know that expression “building the plane while we’re flying it”? This movie feels like it was thought up as it went along with holes for dialogue and plot to be filled in later — but “later” never came. Like, Emmerich was standing over one of his co-writers saying “come on, just print out the script for this scene” and the writer was saying, “But it’s not finished. The dialogue doesn’t sound like normal human speech and we don’t really understand what motivates anybody’s characters or what their relationships to each other are” and Emmerich says “So what? We’ll just make the moon bigger and say some nonsense about gravity, no one will notice” and that’s how every scene came to be. (Though I could also see some kind of Mad Libs situation being at play.)
I won’t spoil the exact nature of the moon as presented here, mostly because it’s stupid, but I will say that it wasn’t what I was sort of rooting for, which was giant space egg holding some kind of about-to-hatch space lizard. Or chicken, space chicken would also be fun. It is much more muddled than that, with some interesting ideas but nothing ever well-developed enough to be even as “just go with it” fun as, like, The Day After Tomorrow and its whole ice age thing or 2012 and its worldwide flood. Again, you suspect the writers were writing page three while they were printing page two and the cast was shooting page one — with no chance to go back and fill in details or massage story points to flow more smoothly.
And yet, none of this would have necessarily mattered if the movie had really leaned into how dumb it is and let the characters be as ridiculous as the situation. Remember the various people who died in ridiculous ways in Independence Day? Or Woody Harrelson as the wild-eyed volcano guy in 2012? This movie needs some of that energy. Of the core group, only Bradley really seems to understand the exact speed to be at. Berry (who was great in John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum and knows how to be awesome in nonsense) and Wilson feel as though they’re in different movies — different from the movie they’re in and possibly different from each other. Everybody in this movie needs to be thinking “what would Geostorm-era Gerard Butler do” and then do that, but bigger and louder.
I fully expected and wanted Moonfall to be really dumb. I’m completely uninterested in gritty, realistic apocalypse movies right now. I want space chickens to hatch from the moon or whatever and I want the saving of all of humanity to come down to three randos in some patched together old space shuttle. So crank the volume on that silliness all the way up, movie. At the current muted and muddled level, Moonfall is just the kind of dumb you wonder why you even bothered to watch, not the kind of dumb you want to watch again and again. C-
Rated PG-13 for violence, disaster, strong language and some drug use, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Roland Emmerich with a screenplay by Roland Emmerich, Harald Kloser and Spencer Cohen, Moonfall is two hours and 10 minutes long and distributed by Lionsgate in theaters.
If you think you make the best bowl of soup, chili or chowder around, you’ll have a chance to prove it at Epsom Central School’s annual cook-off. Now through Feb. 14, entrants are welcome to participate in the friendly competition, which is due to return for its ninth year on Monday, March 7, from 5 to 7 p.m. inside the school’s gymnasium.
“It’s been a huge event for us, and it’s a great community builder,” school business secretary and cook-off coordinator Stephanie Colvin said. “We try to get different people in from all over.”
Originally conceived as a much smaller fundraiser mostly among the school’s teachers and staff, the cook-off has grown over the years to now feature dozens of entrants across three judging categories: soups, chilis and chowders. After a brief hiatus in 2021, the event is returning with a few tweaks, Colvin said, such as additional seating in the cafeteria to allow for distancing.
There is no fee to register as an entrant — soup and chili makers can access the entry form through the event’s Facebook page. Each participant also receives three free sampling tickets.
For tasters, tickets will be sold at the door and will include access to up to 10 four-ounce sampling cups per attendee for adults and five sampling cups for kids ages 10 and under, along with sides of corn bread. Part of the fun is that you never know which different flavors of soups, chilis and chowder you may encounter at the cook-off in any given year.
“You have your typical seafood chowders or your tomato soups,” Colvin said. “We’ve had a Tuscan soup and a chicken bacon wild rice soup. One year we had a dill pickle soup, and then somebody also did a chocolate raspberry delight soup … I feel like the stranger or the more curious it is, the more people are going to go over to try it.”
Chilis, meanwhile, also usually include an eclectic mix of options, from chicken or turkey to a venison chili. Entrants like to give their soups, chilis and chowders all kinds of unique names.
A panel of nine judges — three for each category — gives entrants a score on a 10-point scaling system and adds them all up at the end of the night. Winners from each of the three categories receive a “Souper Bowl” trophy, and the top vote getter also wins a $50 Visa gift card. Two People’s Choice recipients from each category are awarded ribbons.
Proceeds from the cook-off help fund various student activities at Epsom Central School, from field trips to clothing needs.
9th annual Epsom Central School soup/chili/chowder cook-off When: Monday, March 7, 5 to 7 p.m. (registrations are due by Monday, Feb. 14) Where: Epsom Central School, 282 Black Hall Road, Epsom Cost: $8 for adults and $6 for kids ages 10 and under (includes access to up to 10 four-ounce samples for adults and up to five samples for kids, plus cornbread). Tickets are sold at the door while supplies last. Registration as a soup, chili or chowder entrant is free. More info: See “9th Annual ECS Soup/Chili/Chowder Cook-off” on Facebook, or email cook-off coordinator Stephanie Colvin at [email protected]. Entrants must provide at least one gallon or more of their soup, chili or chowder, along with a slow cooker, a large serving spoon or ladle, and a displayed list of its ingredients. Each entrant will also receive three free sampling tickets.
Featured photo: Three-time trophy winner Heather Brown will return to Epsom Central School’s ninth annual soup/chili/chowder cook-off on March 7. Courtesy photo.
Experts explain how to wow with cookies, candy and cupcakes for your Valentine — or yourself
Make your Valentine’s Day a little sweeter with homemade goodies as local bakers share their secrets for jazzing up sugar cookies, getting creative with cupcakes and going fancy with chocolates.
From chocolate-dipped strawberries to homemade truffles and breakable chocolate hearts, here are some sweet ideas for chocolate-y treats you can try out at home this Valentine’s Day.
Chocolate-dipped strawberries
One of the most common treats associated with Valentine’s Day, the chocolate-dipped strawberry is easy to create at home — the key is which type of chocolate to use, said Emilee Viaud, pastry chef and owner of Sweet Treats by Emilee, a home baker based in Milford.
“Baker’s chocolate is what you want to use. You can find it in the baking aisle at the grocery store,” Viaud said. “The top two brands are Baker’s and Ghirardelli, and those can come in a bag or as a bar. … There are options, [like] unsweetened, semi-sweet and bittersweet, and they are based off of the amount of cacao that’s in them. I recommend using semi-sweet for the strawberries, because it kind of gives it a little bit of sweetness and it’s not super bitter.”
Viaud recommends about five ounces of chocolate per pound of strawberries. The fruit itself should be bought fresh, washed, dried and kept at room temperature, never frozen.
“Dryness is super important, because water and chocolate do not mix,” she said.
Inserting a toothpick into the top of the fruit can make it a useful tool for dipping, or you can twist the leaves a bit to turn them into a sturdy handle and prevent them from breaking.
To melt the baker’s chocolate, the easiest way is to just pop it into the microwave. Viaud recommends starting with the smallest size possible, cutting it up or breaking it with your fingers, placing it in a bowl and heating for 30-second increments, stirring after each.
After it’s melted, dipping the strawberries into the chocolate works best when you use the smallest bowl you can, so that you have a deeper level to work with.
“You don’t want a big wide bowl. You want to be able to have at least two to three inches of chocolate so that you can dip the strawberry in,” Viaud said. “You can choose to dip them halfway or all the way up to the leaves, and then you basically just shake the strawberry five or six times to let off all that excess chocolate. … Then you want to place it on parchment paper on a plate or something. Tin foil will not work because it will stick.”
Placing the fruit into the refrigerator for 15 to 20 minutes after it’s dipped will cause the chocolate to harden. For extra flavor, you can roll them in anything from peanuts or hazelnuts to toasted coconut pieces, chocolate sprinkles or a white chocolate drizzle.
Ashley Reisdorf of Ashley’s Eats & Sweets, based in Raymond, said she has worked with alcohol-infused chocolate-dipped strawberries — a batch she made a few years ago, for instance, featured strawberries infused with Grey Goose vodka using pipettes.
“You poke a hole in the top of the strawberries by the stems with a toothpick, and then stick a pipette of the alcohol in the hole and squeeze it in right before you eat it,” she said.
Homemade truffles
Truffles are also very easy to make because they only require two ingredients — chocolate and heavy cream. Butter is also an optional ingredient to give them an added creaminess, or you can incorporate an extract like vanilla, raspberry, orange, peppermint or coconut for more flavor.
Like with the strawberries, Viaud said she recommends using baker’s chocolate for truffles. About eight ounces of chocolate and two-thirds of a cup of heavy cream would yield 20 tablespoon-sized truffle balls. If you’re using butter and extract, she said, one tablespoon of butter at room temperature and half a teaspoon of extract would be enough for that same amount.
Truffles require creating a ganache, achieved by heating the heavy cream in a pot on the stove until it simmers, or just until you see bubbles. The chocolate should be finely chopped.
“You don’t want to boil it. You just want to make it simmer,” Viaud said. “You’re going to have that chopped chocolate in a heat-proof bowl. You want to add the butter to that bowl of chocolate and then, once the heavy cream comes to a simmer, you’re going to pour that hot cream over the chocolate. … Then, the most important thing is to let it sit and not touch it.”
Allowing the pot to sit for about five minutes will allow the heavy cream to incorporate and melt the chocolate. If you’re using an extract, this is when you’ll add that in next, Viaud said.
“You can mix it in using a whisk, which will help incorporate the liquid into the melted chocolate,” she said. “Then it will come together and basically look like a chocolate hot sauce.”
Once you have your chocolate hot sauce, placing it in the refrigerator for one to two hours will cause it to harden. Viaud recommends covering it with plastic wrap, pushing the plastic wrap down so that it touches the top of the chocolate in the bowl and prevents moisture.
After that time in the refrigerator has passed, the chocolate should become moldable, allowing you to scoop it out and roll into balls using your hands. If the ganache is too sticky, you can use gloves or lightly coat your hands in cocoa powder to help produce smooth truffle balls.
If your truffles have other ingredients like coconut pieces, peanuts or hazelnuts, they should be rolled a second time at room temperature to help them stick. Placing them back into the refrigerator afterward for an additional 30 minutes will then allow them to be fully incorporated.
Cocoa bombs and breakable chocolate hearts
While a bit more involved than truffles or chocolate-dipped strawberries, cocoa bombs are great to enjoy on a cold winter night. Pouring hot milk or water over these hollow balls of chocolate, which are usually filled with flavored cocoa mixes, miniature marshmallows or any other ingredient you want to put in them, causes them to “explode” with flavor inside your mug.
Breakable chocolate hearts. Photo courtesy of Emilee Viaud.
Viaud, who began making her own cocoa bombs in late 2020, now offers all kinds of flavors from traditional milk, dark or white to peanut butter, salted caramel and more.
The traditional round appearance of cocoa bombs is achieved using half sphere-shaped silicone molds, which are available in most big box or craft stores in all shapes and sizes. Unlike for the strawberries or truffles, Viaud recommends using coating chocolate.
“You can really use any type you want, but for cocoa bombs, because you’re molding them and keeping a sphere shape, you really want to use a chocolate that is durable,” she said. “[Coating chocolate] is made with ingredients that help keep it stable and give it that nice shine. … Ghrirardelli has coating chocolate at the grocery store, or melting wafers, is what they call it.”
Melting the chocolate can similarly be done by placing it in the microwave and stirring at 30-second increments. Viaud recommends pouring just about a teaspoon into each individual mold and using a spoon to coat its entire inside. Placing it in the refrigerator for about five minutes and repeating that process a second time will cause your molds to harden well.
“I think that’s the step that a lot of people don’t do, and then their chocolate breaks,” Viaud said. “So it’s important that you repeat that process to get a really thick shell.”
Once it’s completely hardened, you can remove the shells from the mold — the best way to do that is to gently push them out from the bottom with your finger or thumb, as the edges would break most easily, Viaud said. Two half sphere molds equal one cocoa bomb, and heating a saute pan over the stove on low heat will ensure smoother spheres. This is also when any flavorings such as cocoa mixes or marshmallows get added into your bombs.
“You take the edges and quickly put them on the hot pan to melt the chocolate and make it smooth, so that they come together easily,” she said. “You have to have the right pressure, because if you push down too hard, you’ve melted half of it. … So it’s really about having the right touch to know exactly how much of that sphere to melt.”
The chocolate then eventually cools at room temperature, the half sphere molds “glued” together.
If you have heart-shaped molds, you can make breakable chocolate hearts, a process very similar to the cocoa bombs. The difference, Viaud said, is you can fill them with any small candy you want, from M&Ms or Hershey’s kisses to jelly beans or conversation hearts.
“You can use the back of a spoon to kind of crack it open,” she said.
If you’d rather let the experts handle everything this Valentine’s Day, check out this list of local candy and chocolate shops, home bakers and other businesses offering special chocolate treats.
• Candy Kingdom (235 Harvard St., Manchester, 641-8470, candykingdom.shop) takes special orders for chocolate-dipped strawberries, and also offers treats like chocolate red-foiled hearts and assorted heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. • Dancing Lion Chocolate (917 Elm St., Manchester, 625-4043, dancinglion.us) has various bars, boxes, drinking chocolate sets and other items that can make great Valentine’s Day gifts. • Granite State Candy Shoppe (13 Warren St., Concord, 225-2591; 832 Elm St., Manchester, 218-3885; granitestatecandyshoppe.com) is offering a variety of specialty chocolates and candies for Valentine’s Day, like milk, white or dark chocolate heart boxes, Valentine malt balls, chocolate-dipped strawberries and more. • Loon Chocolate (252 Willow St., Manchester, loonchocolate.com) just opened a new retail shop inside The Factory on Willow on Feb. 5, in partnership with 603 Charcuterie. The purveyor of small batch chocolates features 12 flavored bars in addition to a product line that includes cacao nibs, dark chocolate cocoa bombs and a do-it-yourself chocolate elixir kit. • Nelson’s Candy & Music (65 Main St., Wilton, 654-5030, nelsonscandymusic.com) is offering a variety of specialty sweets and treats for Valentine’s Day, from traditional assorted heart-shaped boxes of chocolate to solid chocolate dinosaurs holding tiny hearts. • Pearls Candy & Nuts (356 S. Broadway, Salem, 893-9100, pearlscandynh.com) has assorted milk chocolate heart lollipops, gold foil solid milk chocolate hearts and more. • Sweet Treats by Emilee (Milford, [email protected], find her on Facebook) offers milk chocolate-dipped Twinkies, breakable chocolate hearts filled with assorted candies, and cocoa bombs in several flavors, from milk, white or dark chocolate to salted caramel, peanut butter and cookies and cream. Find her products at the Manchester Craft Market (inside the Mall of New Hampshire, 1500 S. Willow St., Manchester), Locally Handmade (at the Merrimack Premium Outlets, 80 Premium Outlets Blvd., Merrimack), and Junction 71 (71 Route 101A, Amherst). You can also find them at the Milford Farmers Market on Saturday, Feb. 12, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., inside the Milford Town Hall Auditorium (1 Union Square, Milford). • Van Otis Chocolates (341 Elm St., Manchester, 627-1611, vanotis.com) has assorted chocolate gift boxes, custom chocolate-dipped Champagne bottles and milk chocolate foiled hearts. They’re also taking special orders for chocolate-dipped strawberries.
Elevate a standard sugar cookie to a bake-shop-worthy treat by stepping up your baking game, whipping up a perfect royal icing and decorating with finesse.
Jessica Radloff from Granite State Cakes in Wilton teaches classes and posts tutorials on her Facebook page to help novice bakers make sugar cookies that look professionally decorated. And the best part is, you can focus on the icing instead of the dough.
“While you can make your own cookie dough, there’s absolutely no rule that says you can’t use ready-made dough from the refrigerated section of your local supermarket,” Radloff said.
Here are her tips for making ordinary sugar cookies extraordinary.
Roll and bake
Regardless of whether you make or buy your dough, Radloff advises that you roll your cookie dough out between two layers of parchment paper and place it in the freezer for about 5 minutes to help retain the shapes you cut out and make it easier to transfer to your baking sheet. Once it’s chilled, you can use cookie cutters or get creative; Radloff said you can print a template on a piece of paper and cut cookies with a sharp knife. Then it’s time to bake.
“I’ll preach parchment until the end of my days,” Radloff said. “Line your baking sheet with it. If you have a silicone mat feel free to use it instead. Give your cookies about 2 inches of space in case they spread a little.”
Bake ¼-inch-thick cookies at 350 degrees for 7 to 8 minutes, then let them cool completely before you start icing.
Nice icing
“Royal icing can seem intimidating but it is all about the consistency — too thin and it will never stay where you want it and it will take an eternity to dry. Too thick and it will be impossible to get [a] smooth, satisfying finish,” Radloff said.
Valentine’s Day cookies. Photo by Jessica Radloff.
Once your icing base is made [see recipe in box], add your desired amount of royal icing base to a mixing bowl and add food color until you get the shade you want. Radloff said that color continues to develop over time so mix them in a couple days ahead of time for darker colors. In a pinch, you can microwave your royal icing on the 50-percent power setting for 15 seconds at a time (no more than twice) to help speed up the process.
There are two popular methods of icing cookies, Radloff said. The first is using two different consistencies of icing — one that’s thicker to create a sturdy border and one that’s looser to fill in the spaces you’ve outlined. The second is using one medium-consistency icing that can hold its shape enough to outline but also be smoothed out nicely to fill in the outlines. “I personally prefer the second option — I would prefer not to have to mix double the icing for my cookies when it’s not absolutely necessary,” Radloff said. “[But] some designs and details require different consistencies to achieve different looks.”
When thinning your icing, add water by the drop; consistency can change greatly with even a teaspoon. Medium consistency royal icing looks a bit like ranch dressing, Radloff said. You can test your icing by drawing a line through your icing with a knife and then counting the number of seconds it takes for the line to disappear into the rest of the icing. Medium icing will smooth out within about 15 seconds.
“The best advice I can give a new cookie decorator is to count your icing and then test it out on a piece of parchment paper to make sure it’s where you want it before piping it onto a cookie,” Radloff said. “If it’s too thick and doesn’t smooth out properly, add another mist of water and try again. … If it is too thin you can add half a teaspoon of confectioner’s sugar at a time to thicken it and then test again.”
Decoration perfection
“I would suggest using tipless icing bags so you do not have to go through the hassle of finding, buying and cleaning a ton of piping tips,” Radloff said. “Start small when you first cut your piping bags — you can always cut off more but you cannot add it back.”
Once you outline your cookies, let them set for a few minutes.
“Trust me, it’s worth the few minutes to preserve your mental health,” Radloff said. “The last thing you want after going through all the work to get to this point is for your icing to start dripping off of your cookies because you were too impatient to wait for your outline to set a bit.”
Once your outline has set — it will look a little less glossy and more matte — you can start to fill them in. Start from just inside your outline and work toward the center of each space you are “filling in.”
“You can choose solid-colored cookies for your first time decorating, or you can let your imagination run wild and add polka dots or stripes, choose a different outline and food color — the possibilities are endless,” Radloff said.
Once decorated, cookies should dry for 12 to 24 hours before packaging to prevent moisture in the cookie from seeping out and causing the colors to run or the ice cracking due to not being allowed to fully harden.
Royal icing Jessica Radloff shares her recipe, minus a couple of “secret” ingredients that are key to her icing’s flavor but don’t affect consistency.
6 tablespoons meringue powder (You can use 9 tablespoons of egg whites but make sure they are pasteurized for food safety.) 10 Tablespoons water 2 pounds confectioner’s sugar 1 Tablespoon corn syrup (This is optional but it gives your fully dried icing a softer bite as opposed to the crunchy texture you sometimes find with decorated cookies.) 1 teaspoon almond extract (I use imitation to ensure I don’t have any issues with allergies.)
Add all of your ingredients to your mixing bowl, making sure to sift your dry ingredients to remove all lumps. Mix with a stand mixer or beater for a couple minutes or until the royal icing looks a bit like plaster — it will be thick. Store your finished royal icing in an airtight container with a piece of parchment or plastic wrap laid directly on the surface of your royal icing to prevent crusting on the surface of your icing.
When it comes to Valentine’s Day treats, cupcakes are quintessential.
“They’re made with love, pretty to look at, and, let’s face it, they just make people happy,” said Tara Collins, baker and owner of Collins Cupcakes in Derry. “They’re everything we think about on Valentine’s Day.”
Courtesy of Collins Cupcakes.
Cupcakes have a short, simple set of steps and ingredients that “most people have right in their cabinets and pantries,” Collins said, making them a great dessert option for beginner bakers.
“The great thing about baking cupcakes is that even if they don’t look perfect the first time, they will still taste great,” she said.
The versatility of cupcakes gives bakers plenty of room for creativity and experimentation.
“The customization options are endless,” Collins said, “and the fun thing is, cupcakes are individual [desserts], so each cupcake can be different … and customized to each person’s liking, and, more importantly, you don’t have to share.”
Consider filling your cupcakes with a fruit filling, like strawberries, blueberries, raspberries or apples; or with pudding or sprinkles.
“Filling is a super easy way to elevate your cupcakes to a whole new flavor dimension,” said Brianna Lucciano, manager at Cake Fairy Bakery in Hooksett.
Play around with frostings by mixing extracts, liqueurs or candy or cookie pieces into a buttercream frosting base. Then, add a topping, like a single piece of candy — a heart-shaped candy is the perfect accent for a Valentine’s Day cupcake, Lucciano said — or sprinkles, fruit, edible glitter, or chocolate or caramel drizzle.
Courtesy of Cake Fairy Bakery.
“If it sounds good to you, try it,” Lucciano said. “Do you think anyone thought a maple bacon cupcake would be good at first? Definitely not, but someone tried it, and look how beloved that flavor is now.”
One of the easiest ways to jazz up your cupcakes, Collins said, is with food coloring. For Valentine’s cupcakes, place streaks of pink food coloring inside the piping bag, fill it with white buttercream and swirl it on top of the cupcake once it’s cooled.
“Each one will look slightly different than the others, while at the same time complementing one another,” she said.
You can have fun with cupcakes this Valentine’s Day even if you aren’t up for baking them yourself.
“You can literally just go to your local box store and grab some unfrosted cupcakes,” Lucciano said, “and, if you can’t frost very well, grab an ice cream scoop and do a scoop of frosting on top of the cupcake, add some sprinkles or a chocolate drizzle, and you now have a gorgeous dessert that looks professionally crafted.”
Finally, Lucciano said, have fun and don’t take yourself too seriously; even if your cupcakes are a flop, “the thought is truly what counts.”
“So, they came out disastrous? It’s a fabulous story to tell your family and friends about how you tried and completely failed,” she said. “Laughter is the best medicine.”
Valentine’s Day buttercream frosting Courtesy of Tara Collins, baker and owner of Collins Cupcakes in Derry
Ingredients: 1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter ¾ cup strawberry jam 3 cups powdered sugar
Using a stand or hand mixer, whip butter until smooth. Add strawberry jam, then slowly add in powdered sugar. Mix until all sugar is well-incorporated and buttercream is smooth and creamy. Frost onto cooled chocolate cupcakes and top with fresh sliced strawberries.
Featured photo: Valentine cocoa bombs. Courtesy of Emilee Viaud.
Information from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services.
Covid-19 news
On Jan. 31, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration fully approved the Moderna vaccine against Covid-19 for people ages 18 and older, according to a press release. It becomes the second Covid vaccine to receive full authorization in the U.S. following the approval of the Pfizer vaccine back on Aug. 23 — both had previously only been approved under emergency authorization status. “While hundreds of millions of doses have been administered … we understand that for some individuals, FDA approval of this vaccine may instill additional confidence in making the decision to get vaccinated,” acting FDA commissioner Janet Woodcock said in a statement. The following day, Feb. 1, the FDA announced that a virtual advisory committee meeting will take place to discuss the possibility of emergency use authorization approval of the Pfizer vaccine for use in children ages 6 months to 4 years old. The meeting is scheduled for Feb. 15.
An initial round of 500,000 Covid test kits became available across all 67 New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlet stores as of Feb. 4, according to a press release from Gov. Chris Sununu’s office. Kits are sold for $11.29 apiece while supplies last. According to the release, there is no age requirement to purchase a test kit, and anyone can buy as many as they would like. As the state purchases and acquires more test kits, the NHLC plans to restock shelves at each store.
State health officials announced 779 new positive Covid test results on Feb. 7. The state averaged 804 new cases per day over the most recent seven-day period, a 40-percent decrease compared to the previous seven-day average. As of Feb. 7 there were 6,277 active cases, down from more than 10,000 on Jan. 31, and 206 active hospitalizations.
High-speed internet
Residents who can’t afford high-speed internet services may be eligible for discounts through the federal Affordable Connectivity Program, created to help ensure that people who struggle financially can stay connected to family members, friends, health care providers and work. According to a press release, applications are now being acceptedfor the program, and eligible recipients could get a discount of up to $30 per month for high-speed internet services, as well as a one-time discount of up to $100 for a laptop, desktop computer or tablet purchased through a participating provider. “The pandemic has shown us that access to high-speed internet is not a luxury; it is a necessity,” Todd Fahey, State Director of AARP NH, said in the release. New Hampshire residents who have a household income of less than $25,760 for a single-family household or $43,540 for a couple, or who qualify for the Lifeline program or Medicaid or receive SNAP or WIC benefits, Federal Public Housing Assistance or Veterans and Survivors Pension Benefits may be eligible. This program modifies and extends the temporary Emergency Broadband Benefit program in effect last year as part of Covid-19 relief, the release said.
Housing Commission
Manchester’s Housing Commission nominees have been approved by Mayor Joyce Craig. According to a press release, the creation of a Housing Commission follows recommendations made by the Mayor’s Affordable Housing Task Force last year. “We’ve already begun to make significant progress on the Affordable Housing Taskforce recommendations, moving forward with changes to zoning ordinances, developments on City-owned land, adding additional resources to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and more,” Craig said in the release. “The inaugural members of Manchester’s Housing Commission are uniquely qualified to continue this work. They bring a range of perspectives and backgrounds from housing advocacy, to development, to housing and homelessness service providers.” The commission will be responsible for following up on the task force’s recommendations, the release said. Founding members of the commission are Jean Noel Mugabo, Zachery Palmer, Peter Capano, Jessica Margeson and Chris Wellington, along with alternate members Joseph Wichert and Kate Marquis.
Community grants
Manchester’s Planning and Community Development Department has launched a new Community Event and Activation Grant program, part of the American Rescue Plan Act recommendations approved by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen in 2021. According to a press release, the grant program provides up to $10,000 to support and increase the number of community-based projects and events to help the Queen City recover from the negative effects of the pandemic. Examples of eligible projects include public art installations, outdoor seating or bike racks and events such as concerts in the park, neighborhood block parties or sporting events, the release said, and applicants can apply for up to $10,000 per grant but are required to provide a 25 percent match for each request. The first round application is due March 31.
Police cameras
Grant funds are now available to local and county law enforcement agencies to purchase body-worn and dashboard cameras. According to a press release, the fund is a key recommendation of the Governor’s Commission on Law Enforcement Accountability, Community and Transparency that encouraged all law enforcement agencies to acquire and use these cameras. Agencies can be reimbursed up to $50,000 for the purchase of body-worn or dashboard cameras, software maintenance for the cameras and maintenance and storage of data related to the cameras, the release said. “The safety of all law enforcement officers across the state is imperative,” New Hampshire Department of Safety Commissioner Robert Quinn said in the release. “These grant funds will help departments put important equipment in place to protect officers who put their lives at risk every day and enhance trust with the public they serve.”
Housing a priority
Stay Work Play’s biggest legislative focus area for the 2022 legislative session is housing affordability. According to a press release, half of the 18 bills that the organization — a nonpartisan advocacy program focused on public policy issues that affect whether young people will choose to live in the Granite State — have taken a position on this year are aimed at making the Granite State a more affordable place to live. Other focus areas include child care, outdoor recreation, and diversity, equity and inclusion. “Given the effect of public policy on the attraction and retention of young Granite Staters, having Stay Work Play’s voice in Concord is important,” Rep. Joe Alexander of Goffstown said in the release. Stay Work Play Executive Director Will Stewart will be involved in direct lobbying at the Statehouse, and the Stay Work Play Advocacy Network, with nearly 70 young people from across the state, will reach out to the legislators who represent them to speak on behalf of Stay Work Play’s policy positions, the release said.
The annual New England Pond Hockey Classic on Lake Winnipesaukee in Meredith was canceled last weekend due to a storm and unsafe ice conditions, according to the event website. More than 500 games were set to be played by more than 275 teams across 26 rinks Feb. 4 through Feb. 6, the website said.
Skaters in kilts took to the ice at White Park in Concord on Feb. 6 as New Hampshire Scot hosted the Great Kilt Skate, according to a report from WMUR. “It looks like there are probably 30 people here skating in tartans right now, and more keep coming through, so we’re happy with that, we’re excited,” NH Scot Executive Director Terry Wiltse told WMUR, noting that it was only one of two Great Kilt Skates in the U.S. this year — the other being in New York City.
On Feb. 4, students from Bow High School met virtually with students from Pedro Gomes High School in Cabo Verde. According to a press release, the meeting was hosted by members of the United States Embassy staff, as well as Gov. Chris Sununu and soldiers from New Hampshire’s National Guard, who traveled to the Republic of Cabo Verde for a signing ceremony to officially establish a State Partnership under the National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program. Pedro Gomes High School has agreed to partner with Bow High School as part of the effort to forge a connection between citizens while strengthening military partnerships, the release said.
