Category: Featured Content

News & Notes 20/07/30

lyCovid-19 updateAs of July 20As of July 27
Total cases statewide6,2496,441
Total current infections statewide565407
Total deaths statewide398409
New cases190 (July 14 to July 20)211 (July 21 to July 27)
Current infections: Hillsborough County328201
Current infections: Merrimack County3128
Current infections: Rockingham County127103
Information from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services

Governor’s updates

On July 17, Gov. Chris Sununu issued Executive Order 2020-15, extending the state of emergency in New Hampshire due to the Covid-19 pandemic for another three weeks through at least Aug. 7. It’s the sixth extension he has issued since originally declaring a state of emergency on March 13.

On July 21, Sununu issued Emergency Order No. 59, an order that temporarily halts premium and signature requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries until 90 days after the termination of the public health emergency.

On July 22, Sununu released the Governor’s Covid-19 Equity Response Team’s report, offering immediate, short-term and long-term recommendations. The report includes recommendations to increase community testing, to assure testing sites have written protocols for community outreach and demographic identifier data, to assure healthy food access, to deploy Covid-19 response community health workers and to provide isolation and quarantine housing support.

During a July 23 press conference, Sununu announced the launch of the Empowering Youth Program as part of the Invest in the Future Fund, which allocates about $4.5 million of federal CARES act funding to ensure kids in New Hampshire have programs available to them that traditionally exist in the summer. About $2 million of that $4.5 million will be used for the Empowering Youth Program. “The goal … is just to provide funding for things like day camps, or recreational sports and other recreational programs, so we’re not just taking the summer in an isolated chunk,” Sununu said. “We want to create a continuum of opportunities for these kids that extend, as we finish out the summer and then move into the next year.” Now through Aug. 17, organization leaders can file an application by visiting goferr.nh.gov. To be eligible for funding, programs must serve youths, at least 75 percent of which are New Hampshire residents.

On July 27, Sununu issued Emergency Order No. 60, rescinding the state ban on reusable shopping bags in grocery stores, which had been in place since March 21. “We looked at the latest data, consulted with officials at public health and ask individuals to be courteous and respectful to retail/grocery workers by cleaning your reusable bags,” Sununu wrote in a tweet.

Details of all of Sununu’s Emergency and Executive Orders can be found at governor.nh.gov.

Laws and vetoes

Gov. Chris Sununu has signed into law and vetoed several House bills in the past week. Here are some of the highlights, according to press releases from the Office of the Governor.

HB 1135 was signed into law. Among other things, this law declares June 6 as D-Day Remembrance Day and Aug. 31 as Overdose Awareness Day, and it makes Holocaust education compulsory in New Hampshire schools and establishes a commission to study best teaching practices for the subject.

HB 731 was vetoed, relative to raising the minimum wage. In his veto statement, Sununu said that when minimum wages increase, employees often end up with fewer hours, or jobs are eliminated. “Now is exactly the wrong time to pursue policies that will reduce the chances of Granite Staters being able to get back to work and that will further hinder our employers who are already struggling in this global pandemic,” Sununu said in his statement. “This bill would have meant fewer jobs and fewer available hours for our workers who are unemployed or underemployed.”

HB 1454 was vetoed, relative to alternative education. In his veto statement, Sununu said the bill would have “effectively killed” the Learn Everywhere program, which “empowers parents to find the best educational paths for their children, and allows students to access a broader range of courses than their schools could provide on their own.” He said the bill would restrict parents’ ability to find alternatives to their children’s education.

SB 124 was vetoed, relative to the minimum electric renewable portfolio standards. In his veto statement, Sununu said the bill could potentially cost electric ratepayers $300 million in new subsidies each year, and the state would need to use 20 square miles of land to achieve the solar energy goal set forth in the bill.

All legislative staff and legislators entering the Statehouse in Concord are now required to wear a mask, after the New Hampshire Joint Committee on Legislative Facilities voted 11-0 last week in favor of the mandate, according to a press release. Masks will be required in all public areas.

Live and Let Live Farm in Chichester, the Animal Rescue League of New Hampshire in Bedford and the Friends of Manchester Animal Shelter will benefit from the New Hampshire Liquor Commission’s “Allies for Animals” raffle, which features “some of the world’s most sought-after whiskies, bourbons, scotches and cordials,” according to a press release from the Commission. Raffle tickets are $100 and are available through Sept. 15 at liquorandwineoutlets.com/allies.

Help “Stuff the Bus” for students in the greater Nashua area on Saturday, Aug. 1, when United Way will be accepting donations of school supplies from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Staples in Nashua, Staples in Amherst, Big Lots in Nashua, and Sam’s Club in Hudson, according to a press release. Donations will also be accepted that day through Aug. 8, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, at Target in the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua. The supplies support back-to-school programs at the Nashua Soup Kitchen and Shelter, Nashua Goes Back to School, Milford SHARE Outreach and school districts in the region.

A compromising compromise

Most New Hampshire public school districts are expected to go to a hybrid school model in the fall. This will mean kids go to school for a few days a week in smaller groups. When not in school, those kids will be remote learning.

It’s a compromise intended to reduce potential transmission of Covid-19 by reducing the contact kids have with each other and staff while acknowledging that remote learning has its limitations. In most districts, class sizes will be limited so kids can sit six feet apart.

Though I’m sure it’s well-intentioned, I wonder if this hybrid plan is actually counterproductive.

The challenge here more than anything else is the logistics of caring for kids and reducing potential transmission.

First there is the issue of getting these kids to school. How many kids will be allowed on buses? How do we make sure the kids wear masks? Do we have the buses and drivers to do that in a way that won’t completely undo the measure being taken to reduce class size?

Once at school, can we reasonably expect kids to socially distance themselves? It sounds as if recess and other activities like that could be eliminated or curtailed. What impact will that have on learning?

After all that, kids will still be expected to be remote learning for two to three days a week. Who is going to be at home with them to keep them on task and to watch over the younger ones? As more parents go back to work, will caregivers be friends, grandparents, day cares or a patchwork of those? Will these kids be exposed to even more people thereby increasing their exposure to Covid? If parents have to stay home, who is going to pay them?

On top of all that, women, in many cases, will end up being the primary caregivers for kids’ remote learning. What is the impact to them? Are we furthering the longtime earnings gap between men and women?

These are all issues greater than our public school districts, but federal and state governments have essentially laid all of these problems and concerns at their feet without giving those districts the resources to adequately deal with them.

As tough as it is, state and federal governments need to take an active role in helping districts make in-school learning as safe as possible for kids and staff. If this means extending the day, then do it. If this means putting more buses on the road, then do it. If this means bringing in more teachers, paying teachers for extended days or offering hazard pay, then do it. If this means bringing in portable classrooms then do it.

There are no easy solutions — no silver bullet. But with more assistance and coordination from state and federal governments schools (or other buildings turned into schools) could be made more safe. But we can’t expect public schools to solve this on their own.

Saturday in the park

Concord concert series spotlights local music

With big-name shows canceled throughout the state, local music is enjoying a welcome moment in the spotlight. In Concord, Capitol Center for the Arts and its smaller sister venue Bank of NH Stage are dark until close to Labor Day, but they’re keeping on by helping out with a series of concerts highlighting regional music, in nearby Fletcher-Murphy Park.

Upcoming are JamAntics cofounder Lucas Gallo (Aug. 1), modern country artist April Cushman (Aug. 8), percussive guitarist Senie Hunt (Aug. 15) and fiddle wizard Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki with Matt Jensen (Aug. 22). Music in the Park is a collaborative effort between Capitol Center for the Arts, Concord Community Music School and the Concord Parks & Recreation Department, with sponsorship by Concord Pediatric Dentistry.

Gallo, a tireless booster of the Concord scene for years as a musician and promoter, fits in perfectly with the series’ spirit. His show will celebrate the release of a new album, From the Attic. The all-acoustic CD was largely completed during the pandemic lockdown; many performers used the period of no gigs to focus on original projects.

Gallo was spurred to pull out material he’d kept in storage for years and “open it up,” as he sings in the title song.

“This album is all about taking those songs that have been kicking around for a while down from the attic,” he said in a recent phone interview. “Clear the dust, rejuvenate this older material in order to keep moving forward.”

The oldest song, “Drown,” dates back 18 years —‌ almost half a lifetime for Gallo, 37. The instrumental “Glude” and “It’s You,” a romantic shuffle with echoes of Jack Johnson written for Gallo’s wife, are the most recent tracks.

“They’re maybe a year old,” he said. “The others range over the last 10 years; some are songs that I played live a bunch but don’t have on record.”

Darlingside singer and guitarist Don Mitchell served as engineer, mixing and mastering the new record.

“I have a pretty long history with Darlingside here in Concord,” Gallo said. “It was super cool to have him be in that position on the album.”

Along with working on his own stuff, Gallo used the quarantine to check out friends in the music community, what he called a “silver lining” of lockdown for the father of three.

“We don’t get out all that often at nighttime, being parents,” he said. “So it was really cool to all of a sudden see everybody doing livestreams. … Nobody really took a break; they just found a different way to do it.”

Gallo also recognizes that Covid-19 offered an opportunity to performers like him.

“It’s a little bit ironic that it’s a big win for the local musicians when all these huge shows can’t happen,” he said. “All the local shows happen in smaller venues or bars, and it’s just really cool that local music is the one that’s able to keep it going.”

Music in the Park will happen rain or shine; if there’s inclement weather the show will be moved into Bank of NH Stage.

“There’s only 50 tickets being sold,” Gallo said, “so there will be plenty of room to social distance within the venue.”

All tickets include a copy of the new disc, a fact that may be most exciting to Gallo.

“I wanted an incentive to come,” he said. “To me it’s just like holding a book —‌ I want to hold a CD in my hand.”

Gallo offered high praise for the Capitol Center team that spearheaded the show.

“They’re smart people who are always looking for ways to pull in local music,” Gallo said. “It’s funny — I found out about Music in the Park because I’d emailed [marketing manager Sheree Owens] thinking that it would be so cool if they could do something out front, or close down part of Pleasant Street. Then she mentioned that they had this idea.”

Lucas Gallo
When: Saturday, Aug. 1, 6 p.m.
Where: Fletcher-Murphy Park, 28 Fayette St., Concord
Tickets: $10 at banknhstage.com

First Cow (PG-13)

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

An enterprising duo finds money in baked goods in First Cow.

Otis Figowitz (John Magaro) is, as his nickname “Cookie” suggests, the cook for a hunting expedition in the Pacific Northwest in the 1800s (Wikipedia says 1820). While searching for mushrooms and other edible fare to add to the provisions for the hangry trappers, he meets King-Lu (Orion Lee), originally from China. When they first meet, King-Lu is naked and hiding from a party of Russian trappers. Cookie gives King-Lu some food and takes care of him for a day or so while he recuperates from days on the run.

Later, after Cookie has been paid for the hunting expedition, he meets King-Lu in the small town (a bar, some houses, a thoroughfare where people sell all manner of things). King-Lu takes Cookie to the small shack where he’s set up a home. They hang out for a while, talking about future plans (maybe a farm for King-Lu, maybe a hotel and bakery for Cookie) and eventually about food. A cow has recently been brought to the area by the local rich guy, Chief Factor (Toby Jones), and Cookie has seen it hanging out in the meadow. What’s the harm in borrowing a little milk late at night?

Cookie makes a kind of fried biscuit with the first batch of stolen-milk-enhanced batter. King-Lu sees opportunity in these non-hardtack foodstuffs. Cookie makes a sweeter batch of what he calls oily cakes, which have kind of a doughnut-y appearance, and quickly sells out of them in the town’s thoroughfare, with King-Lu even helping along a bidding war for the last cake. They sneak in for another nighttime milking of the cow and the next day produce even more oily cakes (cooked on the spot), leading to a line of eager customers and cake-embellishments like a shaving of cinnamon.

The cakes are, I guess, the talk of the town and Chief Factor shows up to try one, leading Cookie to worry that he will eventually guess at the ingredients. Factor asks for Cookie to make an even more elaborate dessert for an upcoming tea party and King-Lu and Cookie find themselves trying to judge exactly how far they can take their criminal baking endeavor: they want to sock away enough money to chase their dreams but get out before they are caught.

There is a watchfulness about this movie — watching Cookie look for mushrooms or fry up oily cakes, watching other people in the town sell their goods, watching people go about their day. The movie takes the time to look around at the world this story is set in and what it maybe loses in momentum it gains in texture. There isn’t a lot to this movie in terms of events but there is a lot of richness, a lot of giving us the feeling of what a thing is like — a dirty bar, a spot in the woods or even the friendship between these two men, which is a truly lovely element of this story. This movie is the ultimate show-not-tell and it is able to immerse you in its world and in its characters without romanticizing the harsh realities of its time. A

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Kelly Reichardt with a screenplay by Jon Raymond and Kelly Reichardt (based on the novel The Half-Life by Jon Raymond), First Cow is two hours and two minutes long and distributed by A24. The movie is available for rent or purchase.

Sour power

Summer is the perfect time to explore sours

I often talk about sour beer as if it’s simply its own category of beers, just like IPAs or stouts or Pilsners. But that’s not really accurate. The category, if we can even call it that, is much, much broader.

Sour beers run across styles. They vary greatly in both flavor and color. Some are so bright and tart that you have to pucker up. Others are much, much more mellow, featuring more earthy tones and layers upon layers of complexity — and everything in between.

Lambics, Gose, Berliner weisse and wild ales are all styles that can qualify as sours.

Regardless of the style, sours are unified, in my mind, by an extremely vague standard that I will describe as: they taste funky. See, not a whole lot of science behind that analysis.

Bacteria creates the tart acidity most have become accustomed to with sours, and wild yeast adds the earthiness; admittedly, this is a pretty dramatic oversimplification, but that’s what we’re going with.

On a hot day, a tart, crisp, salty Gose is perfect and a Berliner weisse, which is a variant of a wheat beer, is a perfect summer brew, thanks in part to its super-low alcohol level. A lambic can be heavier and and downright syrupy and wild ales can sprint across the spectrum.

In the summer I want brews that are crisp, refreshing and on the lighter side but still have plenty of flavor. What I’ve really started to enjoy about lighter sours, particularly Goses and Berliner weisses, are the unique combinations of flavors sours can bring together.

The SeaQuench Ale by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, for example, is “a session sour mash-up of a crisp Kölsch, a salty Gose and a tart Berliner weiss brewed in sequence with black limes, sour lime juice and sea salt.” I don’t know what black limes are and I’m scared to ask, but the resulting brew is super light and refreshing, extremely tart and crisp, but still overflowing with big flavor.

Ballast Point Brewing Co. features a Citrus Cove Gose that boasts a similar salty-lime profile.

Both of these brews are approachable and eminently drinkable but the tart acidity coupled with fruity flavors adds a new dimension to the drinking experience.

Here in New Hampshire, breweries are not ceasing to experiment. Throwback Brewery in North Hampton currently features a Plum Luck Sour, a Gose brewed with salt and plums. Stoneface Brewing Co. in Newington offers All the Raspberries & Blackberries, a Berliner weisse brewed with “copious” amounts of blackberries and raspberries and which “strikes the perfect balance of sweet and tart,” says the brewery.

603 Brewery produces its own take on a refreshing lime-flavored sour with its Margarita Gose, pairing the flavors of lime, salt and bit of orange. Henniker Brewing Co.’s Sour Flour is an exciting dry-hopped brew boasting bright, tropical fruit flavors with the flavor of tart lemon.

Poppy’s Moonship, a brew by Schilling Beer Co., is another interesting Gose featuring a “gentle salinity” and which is brewed with Schilling’s own house culture.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is if a brewery wants to toss a bunch of fruit, some salt and some crazy bacteria and yeast into a brew, don’t sprint in the opposite direction. Dive in face first.

What’s in My Fridge
Evil 3 Triple IPA by Heretic Brewing Co. (Fairfield, Calif.) Full disclosure: This beer was just too much for me. I’m not ashamed to admit it. This ultra-aggressive triple IPA comes in at 11.5 percent ABV — full stop. I woke up the next morning after having a single beer wondering what exactly happened the previous evening. I think others will probably disagree but I just felt like the alcohol made it hard for me to fully appreciate the other characteristics of this beer. But I could also be a big baby. I do look forward to trying this again to see if I feel any different about it. Cheers!

Featured photo: Light-bodied sours are perfect for summer. Courtesy photo.

In the kitchen with Michael Simmons

Michael Simmons of Manchester is the head chef of Angela’s Pasta & Cheese Shop (815 Chestnut St., Manchester, 625-9544, angelaspastaandcheese.com), overseeing all kitchen operations and developing his own menus every week for lunch and dinner specials. Angela’s has been in business for four decades, offering all types of specialty food items, like cheeses, wines, pastas and heat-and-serve meals, as well as a selection of products from a variety of local businesses and catering menus around the holidays. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the shop has pivoted to offering curbside pickup and local deliveries for its products. Prior to joining the kitchen staff at Angela’s four years ago, Simmons worked in several seafood restaurants on the South Shore of Massachusetts, where he grew up. He also served as the executive chef at the Wildcat Inn and Tavern in Jackson for four years.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

A pair of tongs. It’s like an extension of your hand. Nothing beats a good solid knife either.

What would you have for your last meal?

I would do a Dijon-crusted rack of lamb and a big glass of merlot. I’m really passionate about good food and wine together.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

My favorite restaurant hands down, I would say, is the [Hanover Street] Chophouse [in Manchester]. I really enjoy a nice rib-eye with a glass of wine there. It’s a phenomenal place. The Crown [Tavern] is great too. In fact, they buy our sausages from us for their pizzas.

What celebrity would you have liked to see trying something that you’ve made?

I would have taken Jerry Garcia [of the Grateful Dead] in a New York minute. I just think his influence and his outlook on life were very unique.

What is your personal favorite thing to cook at the shop?

The passion is there for everything I do, but any time I get to venture off into something that I haven’t [done before], I get into it incredibly. A few weeks back I did a braised duck arancini, which had a raspberry compote sauce and crumbled goat cheese on it. It was awesome.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

Farm to table and locally sourced produce are huge. A lot of grain salads and heart-healthy things like quinoa and avocado are too.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I like to seek out the freshest swordfish I can find and grill it with some rice and a vegetable. That would be my go-to. I’m a big seafood lover.

Fried crab cakes
From the kitchen of Michael Simmons of Angela’s Pasta & Cheese Shop in Manchester (makes roughly 8 three-ounce crab cakes)

½ cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 whole eggs
1 teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon white pepper
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
½ cup breadcrumbs or ground cracker meal
1 pound jumbo lump crab meat

In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, eggs, black pepper, white pepper, cayenne pepper and Old Bay seasoning with a whisk. Use the mixture to form little patties with the crabmeat and breadcrumbs. Drop the patties into 350-degree frying oil until crispy. Remove and drizzle with fresh lemon juice (optional).

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