Plane go crash in Plane — a movie that will never be criticized for being too complex.
Right from the jump, this movie won me over by letting Gerard Butler, who plays Trailblazer Airline pilot Brodie Torrance (I mean, HA! with that name), just be Scottish and not try to hide his accent. That always weighs these goofy action movies of his down; Plane keeps the story relatively light so we can focus on what really matters — an airplane doing crashy things.
Brodie and co-pilot Dele (Yoson An) are flying from Singapore to wherever, I forget, not important, with a small flight crew and 14 passengers, including Gaspare (Mike Colter), who is being returned to the U.S. in handcuffs. He was wanted for a homicide — something that happened when he was in his teens — and was finally caught after a decade and a half in the French Foreign Legion. Also, some corporate jerk tells the pilots not to worry about the big storm in their path, they should just fly above it — not around it, though, because that would cost slightly more in fuel.
The storm will not let itself be flown over and even at 40,000 feet the airplane gets tossed about and eventually struck by lightning. The electrical stuff goes out, the plane has to make an emergency landing and the Captain-Sully-esque Brodie manages to sort of crash-land it (with lots of sheared off trees and bumps and skids) onto an unknown island. Though, as Dele explains, probably not an uninhabited island — he’s pretty sure they’ve crashed down on a lawless island run by let’s just say Bad Guys.
With no way to radio out, Brodie decides to go in search of someplace with a telephone — and he takes Gaspare with him as a way to keep an eye on him. Thus are the rest of the crew and the complainy passengers left with the titular Plane to be found by the Bad Guys, who know ransom potential when they see it.
Meanwhile, in New York City, a room full of corporate people who I don’t think get names take direction from Scarsdale (Tony Goldwyn), a guy whose whole deal is handling crises by talking tough and having mercenaries on speed dial.
I won’t say this movie has no unnecessary details. We learn that Brodie has a daughter, we learn some details from his past, it’s New Year’s Eve — none of this matters at all. The movie could slice these bits out and it would be fine and might improve some of the draggy moments when the plane isn’t crashing or Brodie and Gaspare aren’t fighting the Bad Guys. I did enjoy the moments when this movie called Plane is basically doing Plane — Brodie and Dele say words like “thrust” and “landing gear” and “radar” to each other and we see the plane take off or climb in altitude. These moments don’t really get us any closer to the fireworks factory of airplane-centric action or Gerard Butler-centric violence, but they do underline the theme of this movie, which is, to be clear, “plane” and nothing more.
This movie is so just “plane” that it almost defies ranking. You absolutely get “plane” and absolutely nothing else. Do I wish it were maybe a little more fun, a little more self-aware about how it is a Gerard Butler movie called just “Plane”? Sure, but nevertheless this nonstop service to “movie your eyes can watch while your brain takes a rest” gets you where you need to go. B-
Rated R for violence and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Jean-Francois Richet, Plane is an hour and 47 minutes long and distributed by Lionsgate in theaters.
A Man Called Otto (PG-13)
Tom Hanks plays the neighborhood grump in A Man Called Otto, a movie about a man lost in grief and depression.
But, like, whimsically!
After being forcibly retired from his decades-long job, Otto (Tom Hanks) now has more time to police neighborhood rules about parking and recycling and to grow increasingly despondent over the recent death of his wife, Sonya. (We see her in flashbacks as a young woman played by Rachel Keller; young Otto is played by Truman Hanks, son of Tom and Rita Wilson). He decides to “join you,” as he says, speaking to Sonya’s headstone, turning off the electricity and phone service to his tidy townhouse. But new neighbors, the very pregnant Marisol (Mariana Treviño) and her husband Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), distract Otto from his plans with their terrible attempts at parking a trailer. He fusses at them and then grumps that he’ll do it himself, getting in their car and parallel parking it — which is how he meets their young daughters, Luna (Christiana Montoya) and Abbie (Alessandra Perez), who are strapped in the back and instantly amused by grumpy Otto. Marisol also seems to find Otto and his prickliness kind of amusing and she barges past it to give him food by way of saying thank you and asking for more neighborly favors — an allen wrench, a ladder, a ride to the hospital when Tommy falls off the ladder. Against Otto’s will at first, Marisol and her family befriend Otto and, because Marisol is a naturally outgoing person, she pulls Otto back into the life of his neighborhood. She makes him part of a cat rescue, and thus does Otto end up with a cat. She seems to inspire his reaching out to Malcolm (Mack Bayda), a neighborhood teen who turns out to have been a student of Sonya’s. And even though Otto seems to continue seeking ways to “join Sonya” he also seems, little by little, more tethered to the wider world.
Whimsical suicidal ideation and performative grumpiness — sounds fun, right? There are moments when this movie feels right on the edge of “yikes, really?” and I think it’s only the American Treasure Tom Hanks-iness of Tom Hanks that keeps it from sliding over. Even so, there’s a lack of nuance and a flatness to the characters that really gets in the way of this movie reaching the emotional depths it’s shooting for. Hanks (actually, Hankses, because I’d include Truman’s portrayal) never really seems to calibrate Otto exactly right. There is often a collection of quirks and brow furrows standing in for a multi-dimensional person.
So, on the one hand, there’s a really too-sweet, too-greasy overall uneasy quality to this. But there are still some genuine moments and some nice scenes of relationships — Otto and Marisol, particularly the way he helps to build her up at the right moments but also Otto and Malcolm (those scenes do a better job filling in one of Otto’s big life disappointments than the eventual exposition about it do), Otto and the cat, and Otto and Reuben (Peter Lawson Jones) and Anita (Juanita Jennings), a neighborhood couple that had been longtime friends but from whom he had been estranged.
I’ve never seen the Oscar-nominated 2012 Swedish original A Man Called Ove on which this movie is based so I can’t offer a comparison. I think this variation is probably fine, offering some emotionally satisfying moments even, if you don’t think too hard about what’s actually going on. B-
Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving suicide attempts, and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Marc Forester with a screenplay by David Magee (based on the screenplay of A Man Called Ove by Hannes Holmes, which was based on the book by Fredrik Backman), A Man Called Otto is two hours and six minutes long and distributed by Sony in theaters.
The Whale (R)
Brendan Fraser gives a legitimately very good performance — for which he has received awards nods including Golden Globe and SAG nominations — in the very frustrating The Whale, a Darren Aronofsky movie based on a play.
Charlie (Fraser) teaches English remotely to college students. Because his laptop camera is “broken” they hear his voice but don’t see him in his apartment, where he is nearly immobile on his couch, breaking out in sweats and suffering from wheezing and sudden pains in his chest. As Liz (Hong Chau), his friend and a nurse who regularly checks on him, explains, Charlie has dangerously high blood pressure and congestive heart failure and will likely not live beyond the week. He has gotten to this state from extreme weight gain, which we learn has happened since the death of Charlie’s longtime boyfriend. Realizing he’s at the end of his life, Charlie reaches out to Ellie (Sadie Sink), his teenage daughter whom he hasn’t really seen since the breakup of his marriage to her mom, Mary (Samantha Morton). He basically bribes Ellie, with money and the promise of doing her English homework, to hang out with him so he can get to know her.
As the days tick down, Thomas (Ty Simpkins), an eager little missionary with connections to a church Liz’s family belongs to, regularly stops by Charlie’s house, hoping to “save” him, even if Thomas doesn’t seem entirely sure what that would mean. Liz meanwhile seems to both hope she can convince Charlie to go to a hospital and be somewhat resigned to the fact that Charlie isn’t going to stop his rapid decline.
If you’ve heard about this movie at all, it’s probably because Fraser is sort of wrapped in prosthetics to make himself appear extremely obese and there has been, you know, discourse about that whole thing. This movie’s approach to Charlie and his weight does not, as Roxanne Gay in her New York Times article and others have pointed out, exactly radiate respect for Charlie as a fully worthy human. Fraser will have some moment of heartbreaking sweetness where Charlie talks about his love for his daughter, but then the movie lingers on Charlie in the shower in a way that made me want to tell the movie to knock it off.
And yet, this, the sort of body horror aspect infused into the story, is not the movie’s only, or even its biggest, problem. Fraser’s performance really does come through but it occasionally gets crowded out by the stageyness of the movie. There are times when you can all but hear someone reading a stage direction as a character unnaturally walks to a door or stares out a window. Samantha Morton’s lines are so play-ish, so not-how-people-talk that it frequently pulled me out of her scenes. Because Fraser and Chau (who also got a SAG nod) are pretty capable at sounding like humans, it is even more noticeable when Simpkins’ Thomas sounds like he’s doing a chunk of dialogue as part of an audition. The religion aspect of the story and the way he fits into it is just not smoothly integrated and sticks out as nuggets of “bigger meaning” — much in the way the news reports about the 2016 presidential primaries do (just no, movies, to using 2016 as thematic shorthand).
And then there’s Sink, making Ellie a teenager sort of vibrating with rage — at the father who left her, at the mother with whom she’s in constant struggle, at the school where she’s not thriving. It can be good and get to the part of Charlie’s choices that he hasn’t really dealt with. But it can also be “angry Rory Gilmore,” which just pulls the whole man’s-struggle-with-depression into a place of thin melodrama.
Fraser and Chau deserve their accolades from this movie. They did good work, but The Whale is exhausting. C+
Rated R for language, some drug use and sexual content, according to the MPA on filmratings.com.Directed by Darren Aronofsky with a screenplay by Samuel D. Hunter, The Whale is an hour and 57 minutes long and is distributed by A24 in theaters.
Fourth annual fundraiser to feature local samples, raffles
After a couple of years off, Bedford-area restaurateurs, bakers and caterers will once again gather inside the town high school’s cafeteria for Taste of Bedford, set to return on Tuesday, Jan. 24.
The tasting is the flagship fundraiser for Bedford High School’s Distributive Education Clubs of America. Attendees will have access to samples of a wide array of local food offerings.
“We try to promote it to families as a great alternative for a Tuesday night dinner,” said Betsy Doyle, DECA advisor and a science teacher at the high school.
Because Taste of Bedford has not taken place the last two years due to pandemic concerns, Doyle noted that there is a greater than normal number of new participants this year. It’s also going to be the largest lineup of restaurants to date in the event’s history. Among them are Rig A Tony’s Italian Takeout & Catering, which opened a new storefront in town back in June 2021; and Wicked Good Butchah, which relocated to a larger space inside the former Harvest Market in late February that same year. Simply Delicious Baking Co., known for its scratch-baked goods like scones and cookies; and The Inside Scoop, a Bedford ice cream shop, will also be there.
The most recent Taste of Bedford, in January 2020, was the first time it expanded to restaurants in some neighboring communities, and Doyle said that will continue. El Rincon Zacatecano Taqueria, a Mexican restaurant in downtown Manchester, is participating this year, as is Playa Bowls, a fast casual concept specializing in acai bowls, poke bowls, smoothies and other health-focused options; and Sweet Ginger, a Thai restaurant in Merrimack.
“We have a student leader who is different every year, usually a junior,” Doyle said. “They’ll visit as many local restaurants as possible and basically ask that they come and participate, [and] sample whatever part of their menu they would like the community to try. We try to do as much advertising as possible for these businesses.”
She added that a few additional businesses — Tucker’s, which opened its sixth location in Bedford in October 2021, and Great New Hampshire Restaurants, the parent company of T-Bones Great American Eatery and the Copper Door Restaurant — have donated gift cards.
“They weren’t able to donate food and time to personnel, so instead, they offered us gift cards to raffle off to our attendees in lieu of food,” she said.
Proceeds from Taste of Bedford help to reduce overall travel expenses for DECA students, who participate in business competitions in New Hampshire and across the country.
“The students themselves sell tickets to the event, and the money they collect … goes directly under their name for the purposes of travel through the club, so for competition fees, travel fees and things like that,” Doyle said.
Participating establishments • The Bagg Lunch (bagglunch.com) • Ben & Jerry’s (benjerry.com) • El Rincon Zacatecano Taqueria (elrinconnh.com) • Great New Hampshire Restaurants (greatnhrestaurants.com; gift card raffle only) • Hannaford Supermarkets (hannaford.com) • The Inside Scoop (theinsidescoopnh.com) • Playa Bowls (playabowls.com) • Rig A Tony’s Italian Takeout & Catering (rigatonysitalian.com) • Simply Delicious Baking Co. (simplydeliciousbakingco.com) • Sunshine Baking (sunshineshortbread.com) • Sweet Ginger Thai Cuisine (sweetgingerthai.com) • Taipei & Tokyo (taipeiandtokyo.com) • Taj India (tajindia.co) • The Thirsty Moose Taphouse (thirstymoosetaphouse.com) • Tucker’s (tuckersnh.com; gift card raffle only) • Wicked Good Butchah (wickedgoodbutchahnh.com) • Yianni’s Pizza (yiannispizzanh.com)
Taste of Bedford When: Tuesday, Jan. 24, 6 to 8 p.m. Where: Bedford High School, 47B Nashua Road, Bedford Cost: Online tickets are $10 per person, $30 per family of four or $40 per family of five (families must include at least one parent) Visit: tasteofbedford.org
Since November the Concord Makerspace has been looking for a new home. Now the organization’s president, Jared Reynolds, has announced that there is a new location at 197 N. Main St. in Boscawen.
“We found this building seemed like a great fit,” Reynolds said. “It’s quite a bit smaller but we think that it’ll be good to have more of a compact space. We’re pretty close to our old space, just a few minutes down the road in Boscawen.”
The group left its former space in Penacook due to a leaky roof and other problems, according to the Concord Monitor in a Dec. 5 story. Reynolds said there was another location in Concord that the group had planned to rent, a building with a whopping 60,000 square feet that had sat vacant for 15 years. But while he said that space was interesting, Reynolds added that a lot of work would have been needed to make the building fit for a makerspace.
“That space needed a lot invested in it and we didn’t own it,” Reynolds said. “It just drifted beyond our mission, to revitalize a 60k-foot building.”
The new location in Boscawen is a much more modest 5,000 square feet. There is still a lot to get done with the space before it opens for public use, Reynolds said.
Concord Makerspace is a place for anyone to learn more about working with their hands, said Reynolds. While the location is mainly known for the woodshop and woodworking, there are other tools available for people, including CNC machines, a form of 3D printer.
“Makerspaces are places that provide access to equipment that others might not have,” Reynolds said. “Woodshops in your basement are expensive and not feasible so it makes sense to have shared tools.”
Reynolds emphasized that the makerspace isn’t just for people who are entrepreneurs building their own things to sell, but that most people who come are hobbyists and artists working with wood and other material for fun.
While the makerspace doesn’t have an official day for opening to the public, there are many new things coming to the space. Reynolds hopes for more classes to be offered and to purchase some more high-quality equipment for people to work with.
Last year the makerspace got a state grant to hire its first employee. Reynolds said that having someone working, even if it is only a part-time employee, will allow for more classes at the volunteer-based organization.
“We’re now a more manageable space with a bigger impact,” Reynolds said.
Concord Makerspace New location is 197 N. Main St., Boscawen. While there is no official opening date, the group is aiming to have everything up and running by March 1. Call 565-5443 or visit concordmakerspace.org for info.
Featured photo: The new makerspace. Photo courtesy of Jared Reynolds.
New York style versus Montreal, everything versus asiago, and all the other variations that go into the perfect bagel
Remzi Kahya was only about 10 years old when, in 1996, his father, Ismail, opened Bagel Cafe on Hanover Street in Manchester.
Ismail had moved to the United States from Turkey several years earlier. Through a referral from a family friend, he got a job in New York making bagels. It was in Long Island, Kahya said, where his dad learned the ins and outs of the bagel business from a Jewish family who at the time had a small chain of shops in the New York area.
The knowledge and experience he gathered there would be passed down to his son — but, as Kahya recalls, not right away.
“I watched him. He didn’t let me make anything for a long time. I think it was probably like high school [when] I got to play around with the dough,” Kahya said. “I’ve been pretty much in that store ever since. … I went off to college, did other stuff, but I’ve been making bagels with dad pretty much since then.”
Throughout his college career, Kahya said, he never ruled out the possibility of continuing to work in the family business. In 2011 he opened a second Bagel Cafe on Second Street in the Queen City, eventually moving that to its current spot in Bedford in 2013. By September 2021 they had a third shop, this time in Nashua, called Simit Cafe (named for the Turkish word for a bagel-like bread). This all as the original Bagel Cafe continues its run of more than 25 years.
A bagel sandwich from What A Bagel in Nashua. Courtesy photo.
At around 3,000 square feet, Simit Cafe was the largest of the three storefronts, and this had originally inspired Kahya to introduce more of a full-service cafe concept with additional items. But because the bagels and bagel sandwiches have been far and away the most popular, he said the decision was recently made to rebrand the business as a third Bagel Cafe.
For many local bagel businesses like the Kahyas’, most roads lead back to New York or New Jersey. Take Bob Weygant of Rolleyholers in Exeter as another example — a home baker since his mother taught him at the age of 6, he would move to New Hampshire from New Jersey in the mid-2000s.
“When I moved up here, I missed bagels desperately,” Weygant said. “We used to go back and forth to New Jersey, bring up bagels … and freeze them. … And I got to the point when I said, ‘You know what, I’m going to learn how to make bagels. I know it’s a tremendous process, but hey, let’s go for it.’”
Weygant started selling his own home-baked bagels as a hobby in 2016 before making the transition to a commercial kitchen a few years later. By late December 2020 he would quit his day job with the goal of opening his own brick-and-mortar spot in the new year. Rolleyholers indeed arrived the following June.
Sheryl Tedford of Northfield — who grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey, just outside of New York City — also recalls frequently traveling south for bagels. “We’d go down to New York and New Jersey, come back with like three dozen bagels and put them in the freezer,” said Tedford, who started Bagels From NH as a “pandemic business” in 2020 following her retirement. “We didn’t like any of the bagels you could buy in bags because they just weren’t what we were used to.”
On a whim, Tedford decided to try her hand at making her own and was pleased at how well they came out. She started selling them, eventually becoming a staple at local summer farmers markets in communities like Canterbury and Franklin. Next, she’ll be in Danbury on Feb. 4.
Styles and preferences
Brett Fleckner recalls a proposal made by his stepfather, Robert Frank, who had an established background in the restaurant business.
“He thought we should do either pasta or bagels, and I just went along for the ride,” said Fleckner, whose family has owned and operated Bagel Alley in Nashua since 1989. “He felt that those were two things that would always continue. And, I mean, he was right. Bagels worked.”
More than three decades later, Bagel Alley has become something of an institution in the Gate City, known for its enormous bagels, thicker than your fist and made fresh every morning.
“I get up at 3:30 [a.m.] every day and I come in by 4:30, and if it’s not me it’s my nephew Zachary, and then my sister is here six, seven days a week,” Fleckner said. “That’s what it takes. There’s no shortcuts.”
Bagel Alley has several wholesale accounts in southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts. Less than a mile away is What A Bagel, another shop known for making its own bagels fresh every morning, in addition to made-to-order bagel sandwiches.
“Almost all of my bagels are what you would call New York-style,” said owner Chris Weier, a Marine Corps veteran and Nashua native who took over the shop in 2019. “They are all hand-rolled, boiled bagels. … A traditional New York-style bagel is going to be very dense and very chewy.”
At Bagel Cafe, Kahya said, his are more of a take on the traditional New York style.
“We like to steam our bagels,” he said. “We do a lot of sandwiches and I just think, personally, [steaming] the bagel makes it better for making a sandwich. You still have the crust that you want, but it’s not too hard. … I think it’s better than a New York bagel.”
At Rolleyholers, Weygant said he considers his bagels to be akin to New York or New Jersey styles.
“From my definition, a New York style is slightly larger. They have a tougher crust on the outside. … The New Jersey style is going to be a little softer on the outside … and they are slightly smaller at about four and a half ounces,” Weygant said. “But I mean, it really kind of comes down to your recipe and methods. … We’re kettle boiling and using a specific set of ingredients … [and] the amount of time that the bagel is spent in the kettle, the amount of time that they spend in the oven, the temperature at which they’re baking — all of that is going to play a part in what the real result is.”
What A Bagel also offers a few flavors of what Weier referred to as Montreal-style bagels. “Those bagels involve eggs,” he said. “So once you bring eggs into any baking process, you end up with a much softer, fluffier product. Easy to chew, if you think of, say, a brioche bread.”
Kahya said Montreal-style bagels are also traditionally known for being baked with honey-sweetened water in a wood-fired oven.
“I’ve eaten them in Montreal, but I like the New York style and the ones we do better,” he said, adding that the terms can be subjective.
Rolling in the dough
Bagels start with a flour- and water-based dough mixture that must be proofed, or left to rest, over a period of time, just like any yeasted bread.
“One of the significant factors of what makes a bagel a bagel is the hydration of the dough,” Weier said. “The amount of water that’s in the dough is lower than any other bread product that exists.”
Doughs for Weier’s bagels are hand-rolled anywhere from a day or two to a week ahead of time, depending on the batch, before they’re allowed to proof in the cooler.
“When you see those little air pockets inside the bread, that’s what the yeast is doing, is it will rise,” he said. “The longer you can get away with proofing it, the better. We try to stretch it out as many days as possible, because the longer it proofs, the more flavor comes out in the bagel.”
After the dough has finished proofing is where you’ll see bagels either boiled or steamed, depending on where you go. Sometimes they’re formed into their ring shape by hand from a long, thin piece of the dough, or other times a bagel machine will perform that function.
Bagel sandwiches from Bagel Cafe, which has locations in Manchester, Bedford and Nashua (formerly known as Simit Cafe). Courtesy photo.
“At all three of our locations, we have a bagel machine, a mixer and bakers there, so we’re making them at all three,” Kahya said. “We usually do [them] in 50 pound and 100 pound flour batches. The machine has … a former and a divider. So the divider takes slabs of dough and cuts them into perfect amounts, and then it goes through a former and it comes out like a perfect circle.”
Kahya noted that, when it comes to flavors, all of the seeded options can be created starting with a plain bagel dough. The more intricate bagel flavors — think jalapeno cheddar, spinach or French toast — have additional ingredients in the dough and thus must be done in separate batches.
Some bagels at Rolleyholers start with a dough that’s formed by hand, while others use the bagel machine, which Weygant affectionately refers to as “Steve.”
“He’s got to have a name, because he’s our No. 1 employee of the month every year,” Weygant joked. “We did 84,000 bagels last year, all because of him.”
Through extensive practice and trial-and-error, Weygant said he eventually found a “sweet spot” in the water temperature when it comes to kettle-boiling his bagels.
“What you put in that kettle and the temperature of the water … is everything to the final product. If it’s too high or you put it in for too long, you’re going to get garbage,” he said. “We also differentiate ourselves by seeding them on both sides afterward.”
When bagels are ready to be baked, Kahya said this step only takes around 15 minutes, though it may depend on the amount they’re baking at one time.
Weygant pointed out that bagels do not have a long lifespan, which is why they’re baked fresh daily, and multiple times a day at that.
“Bagels begin to degrade the moment they leave the oven, but they do freeze well,” he said. “That said, the only freezer a bagel should ever live in is your own. We never freeze bagels. … So, instead of kettling and baking all of our bagels all at once first thing in the morning, we do it throughout the day so that you get maximum flavor. You get the best possible product, because all of these bagels are only minutes old rather than hours old.”
“Everything” you want
Plain used to be far and away the most popular flavor at Bagel Alley, Fleckner said — that is, until around 10 years ago, when the everything bagel took over.
“Eighty percent of the people that come in here, if they get a bunch of them, everything [bagels are] in that mix,” he said. “It’s amazing how many pans of everything [bagels] we go through compared to everything else.”
The exact ingredients of what you’ll find on an everything bagel may vary slightly.
Everything bagels from Bagel Alley in Nashua. Courtesy photo.
“If you go to the supermarket, there’s probably going to be two or three types in the seasoning aisle that call it an everything topping,” Weier said, “but generally speaking, you’re going to have garlic, onion, poppy, sometimes oat, sometimes sea salt. Generally it’s all the seeds that you would see on the various other bagels, just all combined onto one.”
What A Bagel, he said, will churn out anywhere from 18 different flavors of bagels to as many as 22 flavors on the weekend, from plain and everything to jalapeno cheddar, Asiago, cinnamon sugar, chocolate chip, maple cinnamon French toast and even a rainbow-colored bagel. Fleckner, meanwhile, said Bagel Alley will offer pumpkin-flavored bagels in the fall and green bagels for St. Patrick’s Day in addition to their regular lineup of around 16 flavors.
Asked about the different bagel flavors he can produce, Weygant said the total number is “immeasurable,” with endless possible combinations.
“There’s the ‘Big Seven,’ which is going to be plain, everything, sesame, poppy, onion, garlic and salt. Those are the core flavors that every bagel shop should have,” he said. “[But] I can do bespoke custom bagels for everybody that have more or less anything in them.”
Recently, for example, Weygant made a small, limited batch of Almond Joy bagels.
“It’s a traditional bagel dough, but what I did was I rolled ingredients into the dough by hand,” he said. “Basically it creates sort of like a tube on the inside of the dough, and it was filled with chocolate chips, sugar, coconut and pralined almonds.”
Schmears, eggs and lox
To many of us, a nice toasted bagel just isn’t in the cards without a spread of some cream cheese — or, if you prefer, a schmear.
Bagel with lox from Bagel Cafe (formerly known as Simit Cafe) in Nashua. Courtesy photo.
“When you get a bagel in Jersey or New York, it is loaded with cream cheese. I mean, it’s really front and center,” Bob Weygant of Rolleyholers in Exeter said. “Not everybody wants that much, and so we’ll size people up and give them the option on how much they want.”
Weygant said his shop will typically carry about seven or eight types of cream cheese at any given time, from plain, chive and veggie to other options like maple nut. He’ll make blueberry or strawberry cream cheese when those fruits are in season, and he’ll roast his own garlic for a fresh garlic and herb-flavored spread. He’s even done a sun-dried tomato and pesto cream cheese.
“Right now, I’m actually trying to figure out what the January, February, sort of late winter or mid-winter flavors are going to be,” he said. “I’m leaning toward things like banana, pineapple, vanilla [or] coconut. Just lighter flavors to play with.”
At What A Bagel in Nashua, owner Chris Weier said about eight variations of cream cheese are typically in stock at any given time, from plain and strawberry to cinnamon raisin walnut, bacon and scallion, chive and jalapeno. Bagel sandwiches are also a big deal at his shop — there’s a good selection of variations on the egg sandwich for breakfast, all of which are made to order.
Another traditional add-on to a bagel is known as lox — derived from the Yiddish word “laks,” according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary — or filleted pieces of brined, sometimes smoked, salmon. Weygant said you’ll most commonly also see lox accompanied by cream cheese, capers, red onions and thinly sliced tomatoes in a bagel sandwich.
“In my mind, the best bagel for lox is either a pumpernickel or rye, or a marble. That’s a traditional Jewish meal right there,” he said. “But as long as it’s savory, it will work well. I wouldn’t put it together with a sweet bagel of any kind.”
Bialys
Similar in size and shape to a bagel, a bialy is a traditional delicacy with Polish Jewish roots. But unlike bagels, bialys are simply baked, never boiled. An impression is made in the center of the dough, and will most often contain an onion and poppy seed mixture inside.
Bialys from The Bread Peddler, based in Sanbornton. Courtesy photo.
“It’s kind of like a cross between an English muffin and a bagel,” said Sheryl Tedford of Bagels From NH, a Northfield-based homestead business that also offers bialys. “You toast it like a bagel and eat it like a bagel, [with] cream cheese or butter or whatever you want to put on it.”
Bialys, she said, get their name from the Polish city of Bialystok, where they were first made.
“When you toast it, it’s actually a little crunchier, more like an English muffin. It’s crispier,” she said. “I do an overnight rise on that one, so it rises for 12 to 15 hours at a time, and it’s a much, much wetter dough, so it’s really sticky … and it’s baked quickly at a higher temperature.”
Bob Chertoff of The Bread Peddler, based in Sanbornton, grew up in a Jewish household outside of New York City, where bialys were commonplace. Today they’re a part of his regular lineup of products, which also includes various types of Eastern European breads. You can find him at Seacoast Eat Local’s winter farmers markets on Saturdays in Stratham and Rollinsford. During the spring and summer, he also participates in the Concord Farmers Market on Capitol Street.
“Traditional flavoring for a bialy is caramelized sweet onions mixed with poppy seeds,” Chertoff said. “[It’s] also made at times with garlic or other spices, but I only make the traditional.”
Where to get New Hampshire-made bagels
Here’s a list of local shops, restaurants and homestead businesses that make their own bagels from scratch. Did we miss any that aren’t on this list? Let us know at food@hippopress.com.
Agora Bagels 633-0286, Find them on Facebook @aggiesbagels Paying homage to the traditional New York-style bagel, Agora Bagels is the project of Vassilios Palaskas of Milford, offering a variety of flavors of handcrafted artisan bagels, from plain, everything or cinnamon to French toast and Fruity Pebbles. Call or send a message through Facebook to place bagel orders for pickup on Friday, Jan. 27, at Murphy’s Diner (516 Elm St., Manchester). The cost is $13 per half-dozen and $25 per dozen. The diner will also be officially selling the bagels thereafter as a staple, Palaskas said.
Assorted bagels and cream cheese from Almolu’s in Northwood. Courtesy photo.
Almolu’s 2 Cooper Hill Road, Northwood, 608-1072, find them on Facebook @almolusbakery Almolu’s opened in Northwood in May 2021, getting its name by combining the first names of owner Nat Ewing’s three daughters, Alice, Molly and Lucy. The shop is known for its hand-rolled bagels, of which Ewing said there are around 15 regular flavors in addition to some seasonal specials. Almolu’s also blends more than a half-dozen flavors of its own cream cheese.
Bagel Alley 1 Eldridge St., Nashua, 882-9343, find them on Facebook A stone’s throw from Main Street in downtown Nashua, Bagel Alley has been owned and operated by the same family for more than three decades. Robert Frank and his stepson, Brett Fleckner of Westford, Mass., purchased the shop back in 1989. Bagel Alley makes all of its own bagels from scratch every day, featuring a lineup of about 16 flavors in addition to several kinds of cream cheese and a wide variety of bagel breakfast and lunch sandwiches. The shop also has several wholesale accounts across southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts.
Bagel Cafe 373 Hanover St., Manchester, 647-2233; 19 S. River Road, Bedford, 644-5555; 262 Amherst St., Suite A, Nashua (formerly Simit Cafe), 204-5141; bagelcafenh.com In 1996 Ismail Kahya opened the first Bagel Cafe on Hanover Street in Manchester, which he continues to operate today. A second Bagel Cafe opened on Second Street in the Queen City in 2011 before moving to its current spot in Bedford two years later. In September 2021, Kahya’s son Remzi opened Simit Cafe on Amherst Street in Nashua (now also known as Bagel Cafe following a recent rebranding). All three locations are open seven days a week and produce their own hand-crafted bagels every day. Depending on which shop you visit, there’s usually 10 to 12 different flavors alongside a full menu of bagel breakfast sandwiches and several types of cream cheese.
The Bagel Mill Cafe & Bakery 145 Grove St. Ext., Peterborough, 924-0887, bagelmillnh.com Since 1996 this Monadnock shop has been baking bagels and pastries fresh every morning. More than two dozen flavors are available, and with several toppings and spreads to choose from, the combinations are endless.
Bialys from Bagels from NH, based in Northfield. Photo courtesy of owner Sheryl Tedford.
Bagels From NH bagelsfromnh.com, find them on Facebook @bagelsfromnh Sheryl Tedford of Northfield started Bagels From NH, what she called a “pandemic business,” in 2020 after retiring from her regular full-time job. She makes her own New York-style bagels in a variety of flavors, from everything and sesame to raisin and Asiago cheese, in addition to bialys, which she described as a cross between a bagel and an English muffin. Find her next at the Danbury Winter Market on Saturday, Feb. 4, from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Grange Hall (15 North Road, Danbury). During the summer months Tedford has participated in farmers markets in Canterbury, Gilmanton, Franklin and Wilmot.
Bagels Plus 2988 White Mountain Hwy., North Conway, 356-7400, bagels.plus Located just a few minutes’ drive from the center of North Conway, this shop makes its own bagels fresh daily, featuring a lineup of nearly two dozen flavors in addition to various cream cheese and bagel sandwiches.
The Bakeshop on Kelley Street 171 Kelley St., Manchester, 624-3500, thebakeshoponkelleystreet.com This West Side shop makes its own bagels in several flavors, from traditional options like plain and everything to Asiago, garlic onion and jalapeno cheddar. Bagels can also be ordered as breakfast and lunch sandwiches.
Big Dave’s Bagels & Deli 1130 Eastman Road, North Conway, 356-3283, bigdavesbagels.com Before opening his shop in New Hampshire’s Mount Washington Valley in 2010, Dave Hausman learned how to make bagels in New York while working under Arthur Goldberg, whose sons have continued his legacy in several shops across the city’s metro area. In 1989 Hausman opened Monroe Bagels & Deli in Monroe, New York, which he operated for nearly two decades. Bagels at his North Conway shop are scratch-made with a variety of flavors to choose from.
Blue Loon Bakery 12 Lovering Lane, New London, 526-2892, blueloonbakery.com This New London bakeshop opened in June 2018 in the site of a 19th-century barn and farmhouse. Bagels are hand-rolled from scratch and include flavors like plain, everything, sesame, Asiago and cinnamon raisin, and the option to add butter, cream cheese or peanut butter, as well as on several breakfast and lunch sandwiches.
Brown’s Bagel Shop 80 Main St., Newmarket, 292-5988, brownsbagelshop.com Family-owned and -operated, Brown’s makes its own bagels from scratch daily, featuring a variety of flavors like plain, everything, pumpernickel, spinach, French toast and jalapeno cheddar, alongside several types of cream cheese and egg and bagel sandwiches.
Flight Coffee Co. 209 Route 101 West, Bedford, 836-6228, flightcoffeeco.com Flight Coffee Co., which opened in its current space in June 2021, is known for making all its baked items from scratch daily, including its bagels, with flavors like plain, everything, Asiago and rosemary sea salt.
Loxsmith Bagel Co. 1B Wall St., Windham, 507-6105; 11 Main St., Dover, 507-6100; loxsmithbagelco.com With two locations in New Hampshire and a third in Saco, Maine, Loxsmith Bagel Co. is known for making its own bagels fresh every day, featuring a variety of flavors in addition to specialty and build-your-own bagel options.
Rolleyholers 92 Portsmouth Ave., Suite 2, Exeter, 580-4460, rolleyholers.com Rolleyholers, which opened in June 2021, is known for churning out hundreds of bagels a day, and you never know what flavor of dough or cream cheese spread owner Bob Weygant may think of next. There are classics like sesame, cinnamon raisin and everything, but also Asiago, blueberry and jalapeno cheddar. As for the spreads, Rolleyholers has dabbled in everything from plain, chive and veggie to pizza, sun-dried tomato and basil, and even a Dutch apple pie cream cheese.
What A Bagel 24 E. Hollis St., Nashua, 809-4466, what-a-bagel.com Lifelong Nashua native and Marine Corps veteran Chris Weier took over this East Hollis Street shop in 2019. What A Bagel makes its own hand-rolled bagels from scratch daily, producing around 18 flavors during the week and upwards of about 22 flavors on the weekends. Nearly all of them, Weier said, are akin to a traditional New York-style, while a couple of flavors closely resemble Montreal-style bagels, which he said traditionally contain egg. What A Bagel is also known for its breakfast and lunch bagel sandwiches, which are always made to order.
Wicked Sweet Cakes and Treats 2370 Route 114, Bradford, 938-2663, wickedsweetcakesandtreats.com Homemade bagels are baked fresh every Saturday morning at this Bradford shop, according to its website, and are available to order as is or on an egg sandwich.
Winnipesaukee Bay Gulls 118 Whittier Hwy., Moultonborough, 253-3177; 18 Weirs Road, Gilford, 527-8051; winnipesaukeebaygulls.com Bagels here are baked continuously throughout the day. Flavors include everything from the classics — plain, poppy, sesame and everything — to others like cinnamon sugar, Parmesan and cracked wheat.
The Works Cafe 42 N. Main St., Concord, 226-1827, workscafe.com Downtown Concord is just one of several Works Cafe locations you’ll find across New Hampshire (Keene, Durham and Portsmouth), Massachusetts (Amherst), Vermont (Brattleboro and Manchester), Maine (Portland) and New York state (Latham). Traditional New York-style bagels are boiled and baked in small batches daily and are available with a variety of flavored spreads or egg sandwiches to choose from.
Featured photo: A bagel sandwich from What A Bagel in Nashua. Courtesy photo.
The Currier Museum of Art in Manchester welcomes a new chief curator and curator of contemporary art, Lorenzo Fusi. According to a press release, Fusi has curated more than 100 exhibitions and commissioned nearly 200 works all over the world, including the Yerevan Biennial in Armenia, the Liverpool Biennial and Open Eye Gallery in the U.K., the Fondation Prince Pierre in Monaco, Griffin Art Projects and the Illingworth Kerr Gallery in Canada and the Palazzo delle Papesse Contemporary Art Centre in Italy. “I am honored to join the Currier Museum of Art,” Fusi said in the release. “The museum has strong artist and community programs and I hope that my enduring interest in art in the public sphere will deepen and expand these initiatives.” Fusi’s position will entail leading contemporary commissions and the museum’s residency program; promoting collaboration and innovation in the museum’s presentation and interpretation of art; and developing local and international partnerships.
Help for seniors
United Way of Greater Nashua is collecting donations for its Shoebox Project for Seniors now through the end of the month. According to a press release, the nonprofit plans to assemble 500 kits to distribute to low-income homebound seniors who are served by Gateways Community Services, Meals on Wheels and The Caregivers. Accepted items include exercise bands, puzzle books, healthy recipes books, note and greeting cards, stamps, magnifying
glasses, pocket calendars, small stuffed animals, colored pencils, adult coloring books, combs and brushes, dental floss, facial tissue; hot chocolate, tea and coffee bags; and travel size shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap and hand cream. Donations can be dropped off at United Way (20 Broad St., Nashua) on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., no later than Feb. 1. Visit unitedwaynashua.org.
Drug warning
Gov. Chris Sununu, with New Hampshire State Police Colonel Nathan Noyes and stakeholders, announced a new public awareness campaign, “No Safe Experience,” at a press conference on Jan. 12. According to a press release, the campaign, which is being overseen by the New Hampshire Department of Safety, was created to inform people that consuming drugs that have not been prescribed to them by a medical provider is not safe under any circumstance. “There is no safe experience with substances, unless they are prescribed by a provider, and taken only as directed by the person they are prescribed to,” Sununu said in the release. “Our campaign will be laser focused on this critical message to help save lives.” The campaign will launch within the next couple of months and run through the fall. It will include video and public service announcements, an active media campaign with personal stories and data, social media campaigns, an informational website, billboards and highly visible signage and posters and materials that will be distributed across the state and made available to schools.
Help in winter
Granite United Way, in collaboration with other nonprofits and community partners, has launched the Manchester Winter Relief Fund, an effort to provide services and shelter to unhoused individuals in Manchester during the winter months. “Given that shelter beds across the state are near or at capacity, we are tremendously grateful for the collaboration between the City, our nonprofit and faith-based partners, as well as the community, to implement additional emergency shelters in Manchester this winter,” Mayor Joyce Craig said in a press release. “This fund will directly support ongoing short- and long-term efforts to meet critical needs in our community.” To donate to the fund, visit graniteuw.org or text WINTERMHT to 41444.
Outstanding women
Nominations are open now for New Hampshire Business Review’s Outstanding Women in Business Awards. According to a press release, nominees should be women from New Hampshire’s business community in any profession who have a strong sense of self and success-driven work ethic and accomplishments to show for it. Visit nhbr.com/events-awards/outstanding-women-in-business to nominate a colleague, family member, client or friend and share how they are a leader in their field through their commitment, vision and talents. Nominations close on Feb 3.
The Concord School Board has voted unanimously to raise the graduation credit requirement for Concord High School students, the Concord Monitor reported. The new requirement will be implemented over the next two school years, raised from the current state minimum of 20 credits to 22.5 credits for the class of 2027 and to 24 credits starting with the class of 2028. Only about 5 percent of Concord High School students graduate with the minimum of 20 credits; the majority of students graduate with between 24 and 27 credits, according to the article.
The Children’s Scholarship Fund New Hampshire branch will host a school fair at The DoubleTree by Hilton Manchester Downtown (700 Elm St., Manchester) on Saturday, Jan. 21, from 11 a.m to 2 p.m., as part of National School Choice Week. According to a press release, more than 50 K-12 public and private schools and home-school and online school representatives will be there to talk with families about New Hampshire schooling options and scholarship opportunities. Visit scholarshipfund.org or call 289-4999 for more information.
The Addition Recovery Coalition of New Hampshire in Milford (180 Elm St.) will host a human trafficking info session on Friday, Jan. 27, at 6 p.m. According to a press release, presenter Jasmine Grace Marino, a survivor of human trafficking and author of The Diary of Jasmine Grace. Trafficked. Recovered. Redeemed, will share her story and discuss how to best support someone who may be affected by human trafficking. Visit arcnh.org or call 554-8142.
Winning the Rising Star New Hampshire plaque at this year’s New England Music Awards was quite gratifying for rapper Fee The Evolutionist, but also bemusing. “I was laughing about that,” he said by phone recently. “I’m a rising star — it only took me 20 years.”
It’s actually a bit longer than that.
Bill Fee was dropping rhymes in the mid-1990s, with DJ Lyrical in the group X-Caliber. The period birthed an incredible story, when they impressed producer Ski Beatz during his visit to the radio station at UMass-Lowell. This led to an invite to Ski’s New York City studio, but their opportunity got bumped so another rapper could finish his first album — Jay-Z.
The rest is hip-hop history.
“Looking back, you know, it was probably the right decision,” Fee said with just a little irony. “We weren’t ready.” Ski Beatz stayed a mentor and produced X-Cal’s “Back in the Dayz” last year. The old-school track recounts that heady time and includes Fee’s life partner Ruby Shabazz on vocals.
Fee’s solo career is a newer development.
“I’ve always been in bands,” he said. “Playing drums, percussion, songwriting, rapping, singing … last November was my first solo release.” That would be the blistering “Go,” a two-minute sprint that evokes punk and metal with the same fervor as hip-hop.
Such cross-pollination is typical for Fee, and it’s one reason he and Shabazz have been called “King and Queen of New Hampshire Hip-Hop” more than a few times. Another is the couple’s consistent civic engagement. “We love it,” he said. “We embrace the community, and the community embraces us.”
The latest example of his genre-hopping ways will be on display Sunday, Jan. 15, in his home town of Nashua, when Fee performs with guitarist Adam Payne at Millyard Brewery. The centerpiece of the show, which will also include brief sets from Shabazz and fellow Nashua rapper Cody Pope, is an acoustic set featuring Fee rhyming and Payne’s looped playing.
It’s hip-hop, time-traveling to a ’60s jazz club. “A folk vibe,” Fee said. “I’m gonna bring my cajon and bongos, and some percussion … it’s going to be a lot of improv. Set songs, some familiar covers, but we’re also going to flip stuff, make it fresh.”
This is Fee’s first gig with Payne, who he initially saw perform at a festival in downtown Nashua a few months back. “I loved it, and I said, ‘Hey, I’ve gotta link up.’ This was the opportunity,” he said. Millyard’s a logical venue choice, he added. “I just feel like a brewery is a good place to have guitar and percussion, and kind of introduce what we do.”
The microbrewery has been a big supporter of the local arts scene, offering regular weekend events. In a Jan. 4 email, Millyard’s Dean Baxter called 2022 “a storming year,” saying “we are fast becoming a leading live music venue [and] continue to support some of the best-known musicians in New England. Fee is one of those.”
Fee adopted his Evolutionist moniker to underscore his solo career as a step away from band days, along with the way he draws from many eras as an artist. “I’ve seen the evolution of hip-hop; I’m taking you through that,” he said. “I have soul samples from the ’70s, a little R&B, and I’ll get a little bit more aggressive … that’s one aspect; the other is the evolution of myself, and my growth as a person. I’m always evolving, and trying to learn new stuff.”
He views his NEMA win as validation for the genre in the region. “It’s flourishing; we’re in a renaissance period for hip-hop up here,” he said, pointing to the success of Pope and DJ Myth, who he also collaborates with, and other local artists, along with the excitement that surrounded the recent Hellhound for the Holidays showcase at Nashua Garden as examples.
His own brand of hip-hop is distinct from many others, Fee continued. “I consider it more of the jazz style; it’s organic,” he said, noting it attracts an eclectic group of musicians eager to work with him. “You’d be surprised how many people are open to that … they’re like, ‘Oh, I have never done this before.’ It’s new; we’re kind of making our own genre right now.”
Fee The Evolutionist w/ Adam Payne When: Sunday, Jan. 15, 5 p.m. Where: Millyard Brewery, 25 E. Otterson St., Nashua More: feetheevolutionist.com
Featured photo: Fee The Evolutionist. Courtesy photo.
