Local playwright and filmmaker Donald Tongue recently wrapped up filming his adaptation of Robert Frost’s poem “Home Burial” at Canterbury Shaker Village. Tongue discussed what drew him to Frost’s poetry and his approach to interpreting the poem on screen. Follow facebook.com/tonguemtproductions for updates on the film and how to view it.
What inspired you to adapt Robert Frost’s poem ‘Home Burial’ into a film?
A number of years ago, I wrote a play about Robert Frost titled My Neighbor, the Poet that was commissioned by Theater Kapow. I also staged ‘Home Burial’ a number of years ago at Southern New Hampshire University. … I did a lot of research and read a lot of his poetry and was very much taken with the sort of cinematic quality of his poetry; it has very clear actions that he’s describing … and he definitely seems to focus on characters. … Then, he has a lot of dialogue within his poetry between the characters, or, if there’s one character, there’s some sort of internal dialogue going on. I think, in many ways, he just kind of had this [ability to take] these scenes that he was living out himself and convey them through poetry.
You’ve written a number of pieces for the stage; had you ever written for film before this? How are the processes different for you?
I did a 13-part web series called Candid Candidate, which was sort of a mockumentary about two presidential primary candidates, so I had dabbled in [film] a little bit, but this is my first venture into a real full-length feature film. Film is definitely a totally different process. There are certainly things that are the same: You have to work out the acting, the character motivations, things like that, and we rehearse sort of similarly, [as far as] the line delivery and what’s behind it. But for stage, you’re creating something that is to be performed, and it’s going to be the same for each performance, [whereas] in film, you’ve got to think about the different camera angles and how you’re capturing the story through the lens. I had to do a lot of learning about the different types of shots that filmmakers use and what those convey.
How literal is your interpretation of the poem?
I’ve seen other [adaptations] that just use [the poem] as source material; my approach, though, was to use the poem verbatim. There is nothing in the film that’s not in the poem. In the moments where there’s dialogue [in the poem], there’s dialogue [in the film]. When [the poem has] description, [the film has] a voiceover, and the actors perform the descriptive verse [during] the voiceover. I feel that it works really well. … It’s just such a great, wonderfully written poem; I didn’t want to mess with it.
How did you interpret the poem’s more abstract themes and visuals on film?
A lot of the action is clear in the poem. It starts out, ‘He saw her from the bottom of the stairs.’ We had to find a staircase with a window at the top to be able to capture that visual from the poem. … The shot starts from the bottom of the staircase and moves up to her at the window. In some ways, it feels like you’re coming out of the grave, like you’re kind of unearthing this moment in time between these two characters; that was one vision I had as far as capturing the feel and emotion of the poem.
What was it like shooting at Canterbury Shaker Village, and why did you choose that location?
There was a schoolhouse building at Canterbury Shaker Village that had what we were looking for: the staircase in a rustic setting with a window at the top of the stairs. It worked well because, being a schoolhouse, the staircase is a little wider than [those in] some of the older-period farmhouses, where the staircases are kind of narrow. That certainly helped to both create the proper setting and accommodate the film crew in the space. … Canterbury Shaker Village was extremely accommodating for our film shoot; they gave us access to areas in the administrative building for our breaks, loaned us some set pieces and even moved the cows to another pasture and made sure the electric fence was turned off for our outdoor scenes.
The state’s Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) has a new director, Jeff Fleischer, who will start his job on Aug. 1. According to a press release, Fleischer has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work from Rutgers University and has decades of experience partnering with child welfare and juvenile justice departments across the nation. He has been the CEO of Youth Advocate Programs for 20 years, overseeing 150 program sites in 33 states and several countries, and has served as the chair of the National Human Service Assembly. Fleischer is also a nationally recognized leader in the field of youth advocacy and community-based alternatives to incarceration and out-of-home placements. He will lead a division of about 700 staff serving 15,000 children and their families annually and will be responsible for strategic leadership, programmatic oversight, management and operational direction for child protection and juvenile justice services.
New development
North Branch Construction has successfully completed the construction of Red Oak at 409 Elm St. in downtown Manchester. According to a press release, the mixed-use development, spanning 96,250 square feet across six stories, consists of 90 apartment homes, ranging from studios to two-bedroom units, and serves as the corporate headquarters for Red Oak Apartment Homes; Additionally, the ground floor provides co-working office suites, a conference room and a fully equipped business center. The building is furnished with energy efficiency, LED lighting, Energy Star appliances, rooftop solar panels and electric vehicle charging stations, as well as resident amenities like package lockers, a resident-only entrance and lobby, in-unit washers and dryers, central heating and air conditioning, video security, pet-friendly accommodations, bike and extra storage areas, pet and bike washing facilities and a fitness area with a yoga studio.
Local eats
The Merrimack County Conservation District (MCCD) has released a local food guide for 2023, highlighting dairy, produce and specialty food farms in the county. According to a press release, the guide aims to promote the availability and accessibility of local agricultural products and provides a town-by-town list of farms, farmers markets and programs supporting food production in New Hampshire, making it easy for readers to connect with their local agricultural community. The guide also includes informative articles about local farms, emphasizing the importance of understanding where food comes from and supporting the local economy. Digital copies of the guide can be downloaded from the MCCD website, and physical copies are available upon request.
Local power
The Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire (CPCNH), a nonprofit that empowers local communities to choose their electricity sources while working with local utilities on energy governance and infrastructure, announced in a press release its new base rate of 10.9 cents per kilowatt-hour, which will save $5.5 million for their 75,000 customers and generate $1.7 million for community reserves. CPCNH also plans to offer renewable power options at competitive rates. The Coalition has grown to 35 members and represents 24 percent of the state’s population, according to the release.
Executive order
Gov. Chris Sununu has signed an executive order that prohibits the State of New Hampshire from doing business with any company that supports boycotts of Israel. According to a press release, the order aims to strengthen the ties between New Hampshire and Israel and to oppose anti-semitism and discrimination. The order was signed in the presence of Israel’s Ambassador to the UN and Consul General to New England, who thanked the state for its support. The order was also praised by the IAC for Action, a pro-Israel advocacy group. New Hampshire is the 37th state to adopt such a measure against the BDS movement, which seeks to isolate Israel economically and politically.
The University of New Hampshire’s NH Agricultural Experiment Station and Granite State Dairy Promotion host “Meet Your Milk” on Saturday, July 22, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Fairchild Dairy Teaching and Research Center in Durham. According to a press release, the free event will educate people about the dairy industry and provide a firsthand experience of a working dairy farm. Visitors can tour the facility, interact with cows, enjoy free New Hampshire milk and take wagon rides. The Smokin’ Spank’s food truck will also be there, serving barbecue. Visit nhdairypromo.org to learn more.
The Working Dog Foundation/NH Police K-9 Academy has been selected as the beneficiary of Hannaford’s Community Bag Program for July, according to a press release. For every $2.50 Community Bag purchased at the Hannaford store in Raymond, $1 will be donated to the academy. The donation will support the care and training of municipal K-9 teams in New Hampshire and Maine.
The Upper Room Board congratulates the winner of its sixth annual Anna Willis Memorial Scholarship, Emerson Carrecedo of Windham High School. According to a press release, Carrecedo wants to pursue music and explore how musical performance can make a difference in the community. The scholarship honors the late Anna Willis, a founder of the Upper Room Board of Directors, who was dedicated to making the world a better place. The seventh annual Anna Willis Memorial Scholarship Award will be announced in early 2024 for eligible applicants.
For fans of original local music, the show always starts early at Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion, on the venue’s Hazy Little Stage. Situated just beyond the Gilford amphitheater’s entrance, the second stage hosts some of the region’s finest local talent, with each act chosen to complement the headlining performer.
Upcoming are the countrified Not Leaving Sober ahead of Sam Hunt on July 7, and blood harmony band Town Meeting prior to Counting Crows’ July 14 show. In August, singer-songwriter April Cushman precedes Jelly Roll, with jam band stalwarts Supernothing playing prior to a Slightly Stoopid and Sublime with Rome double bill.
In a perfect pairing, the concert season closes out on Sept. 30 with ’90s acolytes Donaher teeing off for the Goo Goo Dolls. The Hazy Little Stage’s full schedule can be found on the venue’s website.
Providing the prelude to Dave Matthews Band’s July 11 show is The Gravel Project, a Boston band offering a vintage rock and soul sound that pairs with the bill-toppers like a salted pretzel and a cold IPA. On guitar and vocals, Andrew Gravel leads a novel configuration of his brother Jordan on keys, drummer Dave Fox and Eguie Castrillo playing percussion.
Gravel has been the band’s one constant since it began in 2013, though for the past six years he, his brother and Fox have formed its nucleus.
“The fact that we call it a project means we’ve got other people who come and play with us from time to time,” Gravel said by phone recently. “It kind of describes the whole nature of it.”
Playing without a bassist is uncommon but wasn’t always the case. The choice came out of necessity; a few years back, when their then-bass player didn’t make it to a couple of gigs, Jordan crafted a low end on his keyboards.
“We were like, ‘that was actually really good,’” Gravel recalled; they kept at it after that. “It was an organic direction for us at the time … then it brought a level of consistency to the lineup that we hadn’t felt prior.”
Live at Wellspring, released in February, is the first album to include a female voice in a prominent role. Having another vocalist “was something I always wanted to explore,” Gravel said. “A lot of these songs [are] meant for more than one singer.”
Though the vocalist who appeared on Wellspring is gone, with a rotating roster now accompanying the band (American Idol alum Erika Van Pelt joins them in Gilford), the added element on the live LP made Gravel realize that a woman on stage made a big difference. “It opened the band up for us, and there’s definitely a commitment to keep that role filled.”
The Gravel Project has played Meadowbrook’s side stage before; last year they opened for Tedeschi Trucks Band. Like DMB, that slot reflected Gravel’s influences as a performer “Nineties rock was the soundtrack to my childhood, but even before that, in the eighties, when I was younger, my parents were always just playing tons of Beatles in the house,” he said. “A lot of Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin … that stuff kind was from the very beginning real close to my heart.”
Early on, Gravel played a Fender Stratocaster. These days he toggles between two Gibson guitars — the iconic Les Paul, and a hollow body ES-335.
“That’s a big part of my sound, the vintage Gibson thing,” he said. “I’m also a sponsored artist by Two-Rock, which are these amazing amplifiers made out of California. They capture the spirit of the Sixties Blackface Fender sound [and] take it a little bit further.”
To extend the theme, Jordan plays both Hammond B3 and Fender Rhodes organs. “He loves, just like I do, the vintage gear,” Gravel said. “I mean, you just can’t beat it.”
Gravel is pleased to be opening DMB’s two-night stand. “It’s certainly an honor to be involved,” he said. “It’s such a loyal fan base that loves good music, and we’re excited to bring something that’s different [but] closely enough related. I think all his fans are certainly into great songs, and they’re also into extended jams and improvisation.”
The Gravel Project When: Tuesday, July 11, 5:30 p.m. Where: Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion, 72 Meadowbrook Lane, Gilford More: thegravelproject.com Ticket for Dave Matthews Band required – $74 and up at livenation.com
Featured photo: The Gravel Project. Courtesy photo.
Harrison Ford breaks out the hat and the whip to take another whirl as the titular archaeologist in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
It’s 1969 and Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones (Ford) is a full-blown “hey kids, turn that music down!” grump who is retiring from his job of teaching antiquities to bored young boomers at a New York City college. He lives in a city apartment alone — he and Marion have split up and the movie also sidelined their Shia LeBeouf son, basically undoing most of the 2008 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull stuff. On the day of his retirement, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) appears in his class. He doesn’t recognize her at first but she later reminds him that she is the daughter of his old friend Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) — and Indy’s long-estranged goddaughter.
In the movie’s opening scenes, we see Basil and Indy attempt to steal back some stolen antiquities from the Nazis in the waning days of World War II. Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) isn’t interested in the “lance that pierced Christ’s side,” the principal historical item the Nazis have been charged with finding. What he wants is Archimedes’ dial, an advanced mechanism designed by the Greek mathematician from the 200s BC. As we eventually learn, Voller and Shaw both theorize that the dial may have some time manipulation abilities.
Back in the present, Shaw the father has died and Helena is in search of the dial for the archaeology of it all, she tells Indy, but later we learn she’s actually a shady dealer in stolen antiquities.
Voller and a team that is a mix of his own goons and CIA agents are following Helena as he also looks for the dial. The U.S. government is essentially indulging Voller in this dial thing; he’s now a Wernher von Braun type for NASA ― help us get to the moon and we won’t be so picky about any activities during the war.
When Helena asks Indiana to help her with her desire to retrieve the dial, he turns her down, but a shootout and chase has him wanted for murder and worried about the trouble Helena has gotten herself into. As Helena begins her quest to sell the dial, Indiana follows her to Morocco, setting up some familiar chases through Middle Eastern streets, where Helena is being hunted both by a local mobster and by the Nazis. She gets help in her schemes from young teenager Teddy (Ethann Isidore), Helena’s, like, conman intern.
My vague memory is that I liked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull better than a lot of people did. It was the kind of “hey, childhood stuff, fun!” we were just starting to get served up and I think the novelty of it plus the “OK time at the movies for the whole family” quality won me over.
I think Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is probably a better movie but now, after so much everything-old-is-new-again IP, less exciting. And yet, if Crystal Skull was the Star Wars prequels, Dial of Destiny is The Force Awakens. It doesn’t give you a brand new thing in the familiar universe; it basically gives you the original thing again, all the stuff you like and expect, right down the middle, no deviations, but with enough real skill to pull it off. We get Indy, a lady and a kid; multiple chases through exotic locales; the Nazis — Dial of Destiny plays all the hits. We get some fun cameos, some nice callbacks and scenes of Indy and Helena walking into an ancient cave that have a vaguely amusement park ride entrance feel. It’s all perfectly fine, very “Indiana Jones movie.” It also reminded me of that odd spot these franchises — your Indiana Jones and Star Wars — are in in that they are basically adventure movies for all ages (or, you know, a lot of ages; there are Nazis and guns and skeletons), not quite kids’ movies but also not not kids movies. You get the sense that the movie worked to add just enough violence to make it to PG-13 so that grown-ups unaccompanied by kids would still buy tickets.
Harrison Ford is also fine — perhaps he, like the movie itself, is not crackling with energy the way the first set of movies did way back in the 1980s. (I mean, most of us who can remember the 1980s probably aren’t crackling with energy either.) But he gets the job done and reminds you of why you like the character.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny doesn’t dim the luster of the series and is fun enough, even if it is longer and at times adds some unnecessary “hat on a hat” elements to its action. B
Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, language and smoking, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by James Mangold and written by Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth and David Koepp and James Mangold, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is distributed in theaters by Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures and is two hours and 34 minutes long.
Featured photo: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
New Hampshire Brewers Association’s annual beer festival returns
Featuring one of the state’s largest collection of craft breweries at a single gathering, the Keep NH Brewing Festival is back — the event returns to Kiwanis Waterfront Park in Concord for an eighth year on Saturday, July 8, and will include more than 120 locally produced beers available for sampling, along with food trucks, local vendors, live music and more.
The signature fundraising event for the New Hampshire Brewers Association, the festival returned in person last year for the first time post-pandemic, according to executive director CJ Haines. Participating breweries encompass a variety of geographical locations across New Hampshire. Some even tend to bring certain beers that you may not be able to get outside of their onsite tasting rooms, or they may serve special collaborative options with other brewers.
The afternoon will begin with a special tasting hour available to VIP ticket holders from noon to 1 p.m., followed by the general admission portion from 1 to 4 p.m. All attendees receive free parking and a souvenir tasting glass upon entry through the gate.
Festival newcomers include Omnium Brewing Co., which opened its doors in Somersworth late last year, as well as Sole Track Brewing, hailing from Rumney. Several local food trucks and mobile food vendors will also be there, offering everything from pizzas, gyros and sandwiches to scratch-made vegan items and specialty desserts.
“We’ve expanded more kind of on the education aspect of brewing … because one of the things that we’re focused on is creating more occasions for people to drink beer, not just kind of circumstantial, ‘Hey, there’s a festival,’” Haines said. “We will … have two local hop farms there, and then there’s a local barley and malt vendor. … They’ll have some samples and stuff, so people can actually see the ingredients that go in behind the process.”
She added that attendees will also have access to plenty of drinkable alternatives to beer. Discoe Beverages of Lee, for instance, will be there to pour selections from Circle Back, its signature brand of ready-to-drink non-alcoholic cocktails.
“We want to make it so that people can be safe, and if a designated driver wants to come, there’s still plenty for them to participate in,” Haines said.
Other vendors expected to attend include DraughtPick, a locally created website and mobile app providing users with the most up-to-date details on craft breweries and beers; the Granite Outdoor Alliance, a membership-based advocacy nonprofit promoting the state’s outdoors industry; and the New Hampshire Music Collective, which is also partnering with the Brewers Association to present two live acts — Matty and the Penders, a 1990s alternative rock cover band, at 12:30 p.m.; and acoustic guitarist Mikey G at 2:30 p.m.
As in previous years, festival proceeds benefit the Brewers Association’s ongoing efforts to promote and advocate for the craft beer industry in the Granite State. Haines said the Association works on a number of legislative efforts at the state level each session.
“One of the things we’ve done … is we’ve worked with the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services to create the Sustainable Craft Beverage program, which highlights all of the breweries that are practicing sustainable initiatives,” Haines said. “It started last year, and so more and more breweries have started to sign up for it.”
8th annual Keep NH Brewing Festival When: Saturday, July 8, 1 to 4 p.m. (VIP admittance begins at noon) Where: Kiwanis Waterfront Park, 15 Loudon Road, Concord (behind the Douglas N. Everett Arena) Cost: General admission is $50 in advance and $55 on the day of the festival; VIP admission is $65; Designated driver admission is $20 Visit: nhbrewers.org Event is rain or shine. No children or pets are allowed. All attendees, including designated drivers, must be 21 years of age or older.
Making homemade ice cream isn’t all that difficult. It’s pretty much as complicated as baking — if you follow directions, you’ve got about a 92 percent chance (a statistic I just made up) of pulling off any recipe.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind, though:
1. Don’t believe anyone who tells you that making ice cream is cheaper than buying it. Even if you have any exotic ingredients already on hand, the cream alone will cost you as much as a pint of the high-end store stuff. Also, reconcile yourself to the fact that the ice cream you make might be as good as ice cream made by professionals, but it will probably not be better. The people who make ice cream for a living have it literally down to a science. They wouldn’t be able to stay in business otherwise.
The only good reason to make your own ice cream is to get something that you can’t find easily. Good luck finding a vegan rhubarb-ripple sorbet in the store, but it would not be too difficult to make yourself.
2. Almost all of us have been given the advice to never read the comments at the bottom of any article online. This is especially true of recipes posted there. Of course, I’m not terribly bright, and I tend to ignore that advice when I’m looking for a new recipe.
“I know people can be awful,” I’ll say to myself, “but who could be awful about banana bread?”
Dian from Tulsa apparently, who posts a response to the recipe that goes something like: I thought I would try this, but my husband doesn’t really like bananas, so I replaced them with ketchup, and we’re trying to cut back on the amount of sugar we eat, so I left that out. Also, I’m not really sure what gluten is, but I worry about it, so I replaced half of the flour with sand. Really, I’m disappointed with how this turned out. I won’t be making it again. One Star.
A lot of us are used to playing around with recipes, and making adjustments and substitutions as we go when we are cooking, but have learned the hard way not to mess too much with the ingredients when we bake. Eggs, flour, fat and baking powder perform specific jobs, chemistry-wise, and most of us eventually learn not to play around with a baking recipe until we know it well and understand what each ingredient does.
Ice cream is much the same. Sugar is not just there for sweetness; it plays a role in how hard the ice cream will freeze and at what temperature. The same goes for the dairy, or lack of it. If you decide on a whim to replace heavy cream with fat-free oat milk, the finished ice cream will be very different from what the writer had in mind when she developed the recipe. Until you have made a particular ice cream or sorbet a few times and are really comfortable with it, it’s best to follow the recipe. With that said, many of the recipes here are inspired by ones from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop (2007, Ten Speed Press). He is a genius, and his recipes are bulletproof.
So why are certain ingredients included in a recipe in particular ratios?
Let’s make some ice cream while we talk about that. Again, one of the best reasons for making your own ice cream is to get a finished product that you won’t be able to buy easily. I like this combination of brown sugar and sour cream.
Brown Sugar Sour Cream Ice Cream
Brown Sugar Sour Cream Ice Cream. Photo by John Fladd.
1 cup (250 ml) whole milk
1 cup (150 grams) brown sugar
1 teaspoon molasses (optional)
pinch of salt
5 egg yolks
scant 2 cups (480 grams) full-fat sour cream
1 chocolate chip Clif Bar
Step 1: Combine the milk, brown sugar, molasses and salt in a small saucepan.
The milk provides a base to suspend other ingredients in. A lot of flavors bond themselves well to fat or alcohol. In this recipe we don’t want to mess around with alcohol, because that will affect how the ice cream freezes, but the fat in the milk (about 4 percent) will not only grab hold of the flavor of the brown sugar at a molecular level; it will also help keep the ice crystals small when you freeze it, giving the finished product a creamier consistency. The molasses amplifies the flavor of the brown sugar.
Step 1.5: At this point you need to make a choice: What will you do with the egg yolks?
Egg yolks play a couple of roles here. One is to add fat and protein, which gives the finished ice cream a richer, creamier mouth-feel (an actual industry term). The other is to act as an emulsifier; it helps bond the fat in the recipe — and let’s face it, there’s a lot of it — to the other ingredients. You know the saying that oil and water don’t mix? That’s actually true, so in recipes where you need to use something fatty and something watery — salad dressing, for instance — an emulsifier is used to pull everything together. In the salad dressing, it might be mustard. Here it’s the egg yolks.
The problem with using egg yolks is that they need to be cooked but not too cooked. Nobody wants chunks of scrambled eggs in their ice cream.
There are two ways around this.
The traditional way is something called “tempering.” (If you already know about tempering, skip down to No. 2.) You might have seen this in other sorts of recipes. You heat up a liquid — the milk and sugar, in this case — to just below boiling, then spoon a tiny bit of the liquid into a small bowl with the egg yolks, stirring vigorously. You repeat this several times, simultaneously diluting the egg yolks and gradually bringing them up to temperature. After doing this four or five times, you stir the egg mixture into the milk mixture and whisk it enthusiastically. You keep stirring it until — and here’s the kicker — “the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.” It is an instruction that you get in almost any traditional custard recipe, but it can be tricky; I mess it up maybe 40 percent of the time.
The other option is to cheat. Whisk the egg yolks into the milk mixture while they are all still cold, then, whisking constantly, heat them over medium-low heat until they reach 175° F, monitoring the temperature with a probe thermometer or a whisk with an integrated thermometer. The yolks will do their job; if you stir conscientiously, there will be very little cooked egg. You will be covered from a food-safety point of view — the USDA recommends cooking raw egg yolks to 160° for at least 24 seconds, which you will definitely do.
Step 2: Remove the custard mixture — that’s what you’ve done; you’ve made a custard — from heat, and pour it through a fine-meshed strainer. With any luck you’ll only have a few little yellow globs left in the strainer and a little bit around the bottom edges of the pan. Don’t worry about them; the Ice Cream Police will not come after you for this.
Step 3: Let the mixture cool down, then whisk in the sour cream. Chill the mixture in your refrigerator — or an ice bath, if you’re in a hurry — for a few hours. The cooler the mixture is, the faster it will turn into ice cream in your machine.
Step 4: Once the mixture is cold, churn it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Here’s what the ice cream maker is doing:
If you’ve ever accidentally melted ice cream and then put it back in the freezer, you’ve learned that ice cream is not the same as frozen cream. Frozen cream is rock-hard and more or less inedible. An ice cream churn stirs the mixture as it freezes, keeping it from setting up with large, interlocked ice crystals. It also mixes air into the mixture. The industry term for this is “over-run.” The more air that is trapped in the frozen matrix, the fluffier and easier to scoop the final ice cream will be. Have you ever bought a large tub of ultra-discount ice cream from the supermarket and noticed how light and silky it is? That’s because it’s about 50 percent air by volume. The ultra-premium stuff that you buy by the pint has less over-run and is denser and creamier. When you make ice cream at home you are aiming for that denser consistency.
(You may have watched a cooking competition on television and seen a contestant use an industrial ice cream maker only to have a judge tell them that it is “over-churned,” that the cream has been beaten into butter. That’s a danger with an industrial machine; you don’t really need to worry about that with a home model.)
How long you churn your ice cream depends on a variety of factors that you don’t need to worry about. Just churn it until it is done. This could be anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. Often, when it’s finished, it will freeze up enough to jam up your ice cream maker, which will whine and complain loudly enough to get your attention and call you over to it. In any case, you are not trying to freeze the ice cream to a scoopable consistency. It should be the same texture as a stiff soft-serve from a roadside ice cream place.
Step 5: While the mixture is churning, chop the Clif Bar into small chunks.
Step 6: When the ice cream is done churning, use a large spoon to layer it with Clif Bar chunks into a container that you will put in the freezer. I like to use one-pint plastic takeout containers or paper ice cream cups that I’ve bought on the internet. A one-quart Tupperware container will work just as well.
Step 7: Label the container and leave it in your freezer for several hours to harden up.
Step 8: About 10 minutes before serving, remove it from the freezer to soften up a little on the kitchen counter.
This is definitely not a flavor that you’re going to find at the supermarket. The sour cream makes this very creamy but adds a background sourness that makes it mouth-watering. The brown sugar and molasses are comforting. That would be satisfying on its own, but the addition of chewy chunks of Clif Bar gives it a contrast in texture that makes you pay attention to what you’re eating and actually think about the flavor and texture of the Clif Bar.
Could you use crumbled-up oatmeal cookies instead of the Clif Bar? Yes, but they would get soggy — which is great if you like that. The Clif Bar is high enough in fat and sugar that it won’t freeze completely solid, doesn’t dissolve into the ice cream, and stays chewy, with little crisp bits that you don’t normally notice.
What’s With the Metric Measurements? Measuring ingredients by weight instead of by volume is a good habit to get into when you are baking or doing some other food preparation that requires precision. Flour, for instance, can vary in weight a great deal depending on whether you use a measuring cup to scoop it out of the bag, or sift it and spoon it carefully into a recipe. When you’re making ice cream and you need to keep track of the ratios of your ingredients, measuring remains important. How finely you chop an ingredient will affect its volume, for instance. If you decide to weigh your ingredients, metric measurements make a lot of sense. Because grams are much smaller units than ounces or pounds, it is easier to get a precise measurement of how much milk or mango puree or Tabasco you are adding to a recipe. Most kitchen scales toggle easily between metric and imperial measurements. Note: For home cooks, milliliters and grams are more or less the same for liquids. If you were a pharmacist, the difference in weight might be significant; the rest of us can use them interchangeably. King Arthur Flour’s website has an excellent conversion chart that is useful for these sorts of measurements at kingarthurbaking.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart.
How to Make Ice Cream Without a Machine
“This is all great,” I hear you say, “but what if I don’t have an ice cream machine? Am I supposed to buy one and try it out, just to find out if I even like making ice cream?”
Actually no. There is a work-around.
For any recipe for ice cream or sorbet, make the mixture, pretending that you have a machine to put it into. Act innocent. Maybe look at the ceiling and whistle a little. This is to fool the ice cream mixture into a false sense of security.
At the last minute, pull a large plastic freezer bag out from behind your back, and pour the mixture into it. “Sorry, pal,” you might say to the ice cream base, “but we’ve had to make some cutbacks.”
Before it has a chance to complain, seal the plastic bag, squeezing as much air out of it as possible, and put it in your freezer to freeze solid. If you aren’t entirely confident about the seal, you might want to put the bag in a cake pan or something, to make sure it doesn’t leak all over your broccoli.
“Hey, wait a second!” I hear you saying, “I thought we weren’t supposed to freeze it solid. I believe the term you used was ‘rock-hard and more or less inedible.’”
Thank you for paying attention. That would be true if you were planning on gnawing on frozen chunks of cream, but that’s not what you’re going to do.
After a couple of hours, remove the rock-hard frozen slab of cream and peel it out of its bag. Put it on a large cutting board and, using a large knife or a cleaver, cut it into medium-sized chunks, about the size of a hamster or a deck of cards.
Blend the frozen ice cream chunks in your blender, starting on its lowest speed, eventually moving it up to medium speed. If you have a high-end, ultra-powerful blender — the kind that they grind up hockey pucks with on the internet — this will go very smoothly. Your blender will feel totally validated and chuckle smugly. Even if you have a cheap, iffy blender that you picked up at a yard sale, it will take a deep breath, and say, “I got this, Boss.”
After a minute or so the frozen ice cream base will take on a stiff soft-serve consistency, at which point you treat it just as if you’d used a machine.
Here are two batches of Brown Sugar Sour Cream ice cream, one made in a blender and the other using a traditional ice cream maker. They taste identical. There is a small difference in texture: The batch on the left, the one made in the blender, is a little creamier, presumably because the blender beat slightly more over-run (air) into the mixture. It is a subtle difference, though, and if you didn’t taste them side by side you probably wouldn’t notice it. As you can tell, they both scoop well.
The Difference Between Ice Cream and Sorbet Ice cream enthusiasts tend to get hung up on the technical differences between different types of frozen desserts. There are times when the differences are important, but for most of us, most of the time, it is just a matter of word choice. Most of the differences in terms come from the type and amount of dairy that is used. Ice Cream – Almost all the liquid in the recipe is high-fat dairy: whole milk, half & half, or heavy cream. Gelato – This still uses dairy, but mostly whole milk, and no cream. This leads to a denser, more intense ice cream experience. Sherbet – Most of the liquid is water or fruit-juice based, with just a little dairy to make it creamy. Sorbet – There is no dairy at all. It might be zesty and fruity, a lot like a popsicle who knows someone, or it might use coconut milk or a dairy substitute to replace the cream and milkfat. It might be almost indistinguishable from a traditional ice cream.
Passion Fruit Sorbet
Passion Fruit Sorbet. Photo by John Fladd.
1-quart carton Goya Passionfruit Cocktail – look in the bottled juice aisle at your supermarket
1/3 cup (66 grams) sugar
zest and juice of two limes
Step 1: Shake the carton of passion fruit cocktail thoroughly, then add all three ingredients to a blender. Blend for 30 seconds or so.
Step 2: Chill for several hours.
Step 3: Blend again, then churn according to your ice cream maker’s manufacturer’s instructions.
Step 4: Transfer to one or more freezing containers, label, and harden in your freezer.
This is a full-blown sorbet, without a hint of dairy. It’s not creamy, but it is scoopable and looks beautiful when you serve it.
Warning: This particular sorbet lends itself to ice cream headaches. I’m not sure why, but self-restraint is your friend here. You might want to pace yourself.
Passion fruit is one of those flavors that you don’t think you’ve ever tasted before, but when you finally do taste it, it will seem really familiar. Actual passion fruits are pretty expensive in the supermarket — about $5 each in our area — but the juice is used in a lot of “tropical” juice mixes, the same as guavas. It is sour and perfumy, utterly delicious. Again, the sourness gives it a mouth-watering quality. It goes very well with lime. This is refreshing. Children tend to really like it.
Could you use the blender method to make this, then add eight ounces of dark rum to the mixture and call it a day and drink it?
Yes. Yes, you absolutely could.
But you would probably lose that day. Again, self-restraint is your friend.
Chocolate-Mango Swirl, a Secret Sorbet
Chocolate-Mango Swirl. Photo by John Fladd.
So, you know how you’ll be watching a cooking show, or even a cooking segment on a morning news show, and someone will make a big point of cooking “healthy” and after making some yes-I-suppose-I-could-eat-it-if-I-was-forced-to, non-fat, cholesterol-free, Very Sad dish, they will take a bite of it, force a smile and tell you that it is “just as satisfying as the real thing”?
You know — and they know, and they know that you know that they know — that whatever they just made is probably fine for what it is, but it is in no way as satisfying as what you actually want.
This isn’t that.
David Lebovitz’s chocolate sorbet is richer and more chocolatey than any actual ice cream could ever be. In fact, because just about its only ingredients are different forms of dark chocolate, dairy could only bring it down. It might be the most pure, intensely decadent form of chocolate you might ever have.
And yet—
Contrast can help bring even the best flavors into focus. Fruit might help here. Orange and raspberry are classic fruits to pair with chocolate, but what about something a little unexpected?
The Chocolate Half of the Sorbet
1½ cups (375 ml) water
1 cup (200 grams) white sugar
¾ cup (75 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder – Dutch process, if you have it (see below)
pinch of salt
6 ounces (170 grams) semisweet chocolate chips (For a completely vegan recipe, read the ingredients on the back of the package carefully. Many semisweet chocolates have trace amounts of milk in them. It is totally OK to substitute dark chocolate.)
¾ cup (180 ml) water
1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Step 1: Combine 1½ cups of water, the sugar, and the cocoa powder in a small saucepan. Ordinary, plain, run-of-the-mill cocoa powder — which is not the same as hot chocolate mix — is a little acidic. It doesn’t feel completely silky in your mouth. It might even irritate the roof of your mouth a little — something I call the Captain Crunch Effect. In baking recipes, that acidity is balanced by other ingredients, such as baking soda, or egg whites, which are slightly alkaline, but here, you might want to use Dutch Process cocoa, which has already been adjusted to have a neutral pH.
In either case, dry cocoa is what chefs like to call hydrophobic, which under other circumstances can refer to rabies, but in cooking means that it doesn’t like to mix with water; it will float stubbornly on the top of the pot, unless you force it into solution by whisking it vigorously.
Do that.
Step 2: Cook the mixture over medium heat, whisking fairly often – once a minute or so – until it comes to a boil. Whisk it energetically for a minute or so, then remove it from heat. This short boiling will allow the starch in the cocoa powder to form a matrix that will thicken the mixture.
Step 3: Stir in the chocolate chips until they have melted completely, then whisk in the water.
Step 4: Add the vanilla, then whisk the mixture one more time, this time for about a minute. You are whipping in some extra air (over-run). The cocoa-thickened liquid will hold the air in suspension pretty well.
Step 5: The reason many recipes ask you to add vanilla last is that many of the flavor-carrying chemicals in vanilla are volatile and evaporate easily. You want to bring the temperature down — the water did this for you, in this case — before you add the vanilla to keep as much of its flavor intact as possible.
Step 6: Chill the mixture for several hours or overnight before churning it.
The Mango Half of the Sorbet
12.5 ounces (350 grams) frozen chopped mango. This is available with other frozen fruit in your supermarket and is cheaper and easier than using fresh mangoes for this recipe. Because you will be pureeing it, preserving the texture of fresh mango isn’t an issue here.
¾ cup (155 grams) canned coconut cream. This is not the pre-sweetened stuff with the parrot on the label that you used in your youth for dorm-room piña coladas; it is coconut milk with a higher than usual fat content (at least 20 percent), about the same as light cream.
¾ cup (150 grams) vegan half & half. This is usually made from a combination of coconut and almond milks, with a slightly lower fat content.
¾ cup (150 grams) white sugar
pinch of salt
Step 1: Combine all ingredients in a blender. Make sure you shake or stir the coconut cream before measuring it.
Step 2: Blend until thoroughly combined. Toward the end, turn up the speed on your blender to add air to the mixture.
Step 3: Chill, as above.
Combining the Two Sorbets
If your ice cream machine has two canisters, start freezing the chocolate sorbet first; with my machine, I start churning it half an hour before starting the mango.
If your machine only has one canister, or if you are using the “Freeze, Chop, Blend” method, make each of these sorbets separately.
When it’s time to mix them, alternate scoops or large spoonfuls of each in your freezing container. If you are scooping finished sorbets, make sure to mash them together. You aren’t trying to blend them with each other, but to bond the two types of sorbet, so you will get multi-colored scoops when you serve the finished product.
Freeze for a couple of hours before serving.
This is a real show-stopper. The decadence of the chocolate is perfectly set off by the perfumy fruitiness of the mango. It is easy to imagine a scenario where a vengeful monster is about to destroy a city — it looms overhead, crackly with eldritch power, cackling in triumph — when a small child totters forth and offers it a bowl of this sorbet. The creature tastes it, and its evil heart melts, or grows three sizes or something. It kisses the child on the head and heads back to sea, or wherever it came from.
It’s that good.
Even More Decadent – Fooling Around with Alcohol
Alcohol is a tricky addition to ice cream.
Because ice cream is so cold, it turns down the flavor of whatever base you use to make it. Your taste buds are numbed, and the volatile flavor compounds we talked about earlier are less enthusiastic about floating around your palate. If you want a particular flavor to shine through in the finished ice cream, you have to add a fairly aggressive amount of it to the recipe.
This presents a bit of a problem when it comes to alcohol. Because it freezes (or melts in this case) at a very low temperature — about 150 degrees below zero — adding too much of it to a recipe will keep an ice cream from freezing properly. If you don’t add enough of it, you won’t be able to taste it in the finished ice cream.
So what we’re looking for is an alcohol with a strong, boozy flavor, but as low a proof (percentage of alcohol) as possible. Bourbon is a good choice for this. There aren’t many low-proof bourbons out there — they bottom out at about 80 proof (40 percent alcohol), but bourbon carries such a distinctive flavor that a little can go a long way. Because it has its own sweetness, and the barrel-aging process gives it some vanilla and caramel notes, bourbon matches well with sweet flavors, notably milk chocolate.
Bourbon-Milk Chocolate Ice Cream
Bourbon-Milk Chocolate Ice Cream. Photo by John Fladd.
8 ounces (230 grams) good milk chocolate – I like Cadbury Dairy Milk for this.
3 cups (750 ml) half & half
¾ cup (150 grams) white sugar
pinch of salt
4 egg yolks
3 Tablespoons (1½ ounces) 80-proof bourbon — Jack Daniel’s works well for this.
Step 1: Combine all the ingredients except the bourbon in a small saucepan. Whisk continually until the mixture reaches 175° F, or temper the egg yolks traditionally (see Brown Sugar Sour Cream Ice Cream, above), then remove from heat.
Step 2: Let the mixture cool thoroughly, then stir in the bourbon.
Step 3: Chill the mixture as much as you can, probably overnight in the coldest part of your refrigerator, then churn according to your machine’s manufacturer’s instructions.
This recipe pushes the alcohol content to its absolute limit. It will not want to freeze; you will have to force the issue. Let it churn for as long as your machine will put up with it (a full hour in my case), then very quickly transfer it to your freezing container and get it into the freezer immediately. Leave it for several hours, perhaps even 24.
What you will end up with is a very rich, milk-chocolatey ice cream with a boozy backbone. It’s very, very good, but it’s very soft. Even at its coldest it will have a pudding consistency, and it will dissolve into a puddle if you look at it too intensely. It is to be served and eaten immediately. Serve all the other ice creams to your dinner party guests before you break this one out. Do not wait until someone has blown out the candles.
Eat it immediately.
Or, hypothetically, you could serve the dish in an ice bath.
A Grownup Ice Cream – Fresh Mint
We all know what to expect from something mint-flavored. It will probably be a lovely green color. It might be shockingly minty, like a peppermint patty, or sweet and a little spicy, like a candy cane.
What we don’t usually expect is for it to taste herbal, which is odd when you think about it, because that’s what mint is — an herb.
This is a mint ice cream for a grownup, for someone who has just made two pool runs and gone to soccer practice and done a load of laundry and gotten eye-rolled for their trouble. This is a find-a-spot-in-the-shade-and-take-five-minutes-to-yourself-while-listening-to-Air-Supply adult ice cream with no M&Ms or cookie dough. It is. Mint. Ice. Cream.
Fresh Mint Ice Cream
On the left is the plain Fresh Mint; the one on the right has chocolate wafers. Photo by John Fladd.
¾ cup (150 grams) sugar
3 cups (750 ml) half & half
pinch of salt
A large bunch of fresh mint – a double handful. At least 100 grams. Perhaps two packed cups. It doesn’t need to be picked or chopped. The stems and leaves are both fine for this, but you probably want to rinse it off. More is better.
Step 1: Heat the cream, sugar and salt in a medium saucepan until just before it boils, 175° to 190° F, stirring occasionally.
Step 2: Remove from heat.
Step 3: Add the mint to the hot cream mixture. Squash it down into the cream with a wooden spoon, until it wilts a little and is almost completely submerged. Cover the pot with a lid or a plate and let the mint steep for one hour, squashing it with your wooden spoon from time to time.
Step 4: Strain through a fine-meshed strainer, chill, and churn, either in your machine or using the “Freeze, Chop, Blend” method, and transfer to a freezing container.
Depending on how much mint you use, this will probably not be an intense Altoid-y ice cream. It will be an ice cream that tastes like actual mint. It has a slightly icy texture, which in this case is an asset; it adds to the refreshment.
Could you smooth it out to make it creamier? Yes, by replacing half of the cream with heavy cream, but try it this way your first time.
Could you add in something to make it a little more family-friendly? You know the plain chocolate wafers your mother used to make icebox cake? You could crumble some of those in layers when you move the ice cream to a container. It will taste like a more sophisticated Girl Scout cookie.
But, you know, ice cream.
Impressing People at a Dinner Party – Lemon Ricotta, Blueberry Swirl Ice Cream
Chocolate has better PR, but if pressed, a surprising number of people will tell you that lemon is their favorite sweet flavor; it’s tangy and floral and its slight sourness has a mouth-watering quality that is a little bit sparkly and magical.
But lemon ice cream has a problem. Lemon sherbet? Totally doable. Lemon sorbet? Piece of cake. But ice cream?
The problem is chemical. Lemon juice is very acidic. On a pH scale of 0 to 7, it has a score of 2. When the proteins in dairy are exposed to acid, you get something delightful, but not necessarily what we’re looking for here — cheese. Getting a finished product that is both lemony and creamy runs the risk of cheesiness. We can lower the cheese factor by not heating this ice cream base, starting with cold ingredients, and by churning it immediately, without leaving it to chill in the refrigerator, but we will still end up with a slightly chewy texture, which leaves us with a couple of options:
We could turn this into a sorbet, by replacing the dairy with coconut cream and almond milk, which would change the flavor slightly.
Or we could really lean into the cheesiness. Lemon has a well-known affinity for ricotta, the cheese you use in lasagna. (Ricotta with a little lemon syrup makes for a really good breakfast, by the way.) Why not go in that direction?
And add blueberries. Blueberries get along really well with lemon and ricotta. Think blueberry cheesecake.
Lemon Ricotta, Blueberry Ripple Ice Cream
Lemon Ricotta, Blueberry Swirl Ice Cream. Photo by John Fladd.
zest of 3 lemons
½ cup (100 grams) white sugar
½ cup (125 ml) fresh squeezed lemon juice, chilled
1 cup (250 ml) half & half, chilled
1 cup (250 grams) full-fat ricotta, chilled
pinch of salt
A jar of blueberry preserves — store-bought is perfectly fine. The sugar and pectin will keep the preserves from freezing solid.
Step 1: Combine everything but the blueberry preserves in a blender, and blend thoroughly.
Step 2: Churn immediately. If you are using the “Freeze, Chop, Blend” method, freeze the mixture quickly as possible, in the coldest part of your freezer. If you have a stand-alone or chest freezer, this is the moment it has been waiting for its whole life.
Step 3: When you transfer the frozen lemon ice cream to its freezing container, layer it with large spoonfuls of blueberry preserves.
This is a delicious — dare I say it? — fancy ice cream. It will have a dense, slightly chewy consistency, but also an unusually pronounced dairy flavor. Often the dairy in ice cream is used largely as a flavor delivery device; in this case it is the flavor. I won’t say that it is an adult ice cream — children like it very much, thank you — but it is a sophisticated one.
Finally, a Cautionary Tale About Making Promises, and Involving Ice Cream Cake
But first, a short story:
Susan knew she was in trouble.
She had promised her daughter Lulu that she would be back from her business trip in time for Lulu’s Orange Belt Test in Taekwondo. She would be gone all week, but she would for certain be back by 6 p.m. on Friday.
Lulu had given her a hard look, then thrust her little finger out at Susan.
“Pinky-swear!” she demanded.
In spite of a slight fluttering in her stomach, Susan pinky-swore. She knew she would make it home in time; her last meeting was supposed to wrap up at 10:30 on Friday. She would have her carry-on bag with her at the meeting and she’d go directly to the airport. What could possibly keep her in Toledo?
A baggage-handlers’ strike, as it turned out, combined with high winds and hail. It was 2 a.m. on Saturday before she staggered through the door at home. She knew she’d be exhausted when Lulu woke her up at 6.
As it turned out, that wasn’t a problem. When she finally got up around 11 and went into the kitchen for some coffee, Lulu got up and walked away into the living room.
As often as she wished for a little peace and quiet, Susan quickly learned that the hostile silence of a 6-year-old grew increasingly soul-crushing as the day went on. She didn’t get any sympathy from her wife, either.
“Hey, you promised me, too. This is a You Problem.”
After a few hours, though, even Carmen started to feel a chill in the air and she took Lulu to spend the afternoon at her mother’s house, giving Susan a few hours to come up with a plan to salvage the tattered remains of her family’s love.
Which, somehow, is how she ended up at the dollar store. Not that she had any actual hope of finding a miracle there, but the dollar store is where Susan went when she needed to be inspired, creatively.
She found her answer in a display by the door, even before she went inside. Ten dollars and five minutes later, she had what she needed.
Susan wasn’t much of a baker, but she did have a strawberry cake mix in the cupboard at home, and half a gallon of strawberry ice cream in the freezer, so it seemed like a no-brainer to use a sandcastle mold from the dollar store to make a Pink Princess Ice Cream Cake.
It turned out to be a little harder than she anticipated.
It can’t be denied that this was a disappointing setback, but Susan’s father had always said that God hates a coward, so she refused to give up.
She still had a couple of hours to work with, so, stopping only to give the Gloppy Castle Cake to the heavy metal band who practiced in the garage next door — who subsequently declared her to be the Awesomest Chick Ever and asked her if she wanted to join the band (an idea she decided to put a pin in until she saw how the rest of the afternoon panned out) — Susan made another run to the dollar store and the supermarket, and tried again.
This time she used a more traditional sand bucket with sloped sides, which worked pretty well. By the time she added pink balloons, pink ribbons, a pink tablecloth and pink utensils, she had a credible Pink Bribe to offer Lulu when she got home, who decided to forgive her, even though she had decided that she didn’t like pink anymore and really wanted zebra stripes.
Carmen agreed that Susan had more or less redeemed herself, but wondered why she had used a children’s sand bucket as an ice cream mold, instead of a spring-form pan.
“A what, now?” Susan asked.
“A spring-form pan. You know, the pan with the ski-boot buckle on the side that I use for making cheesecake?’
“That’s just for cheesecake, though, isn’t it?”
…
“I’m not really very bright, am I?”
“That seems to be the theme of the weekend. Let’s make some strawberry margaritas.”
Triple Strawberry Ice Cream Cake
Triple Strawberry Ice Cream Cake. Photo by John Fladd.
1 half-gallon carton of strawberry ice cream
1 box of strawberry cake mix, and the ingredients to make it
1 large jar of strawberry preserves
Step 1: Line the bottom of a large spring-form pan with parchment paper, then bake a strawberry cake in it, according to the directions on the box. Allow it to cool.
Step 2: Remove the cake from the pan, and chill the pan in your freezer. Meanwhile, use a bread knife to slice the cake in half across the middle, so you have two thinner cakes, not two semi-circular ones.
Step 3: Remove the strawberry ice cream from the freezer to soften slightly.
Step 4: Reline the bottom of your spring-form pan with more parchment paper.
Step 5: Scoop half the ice cream into the bottom of your pan, and smash it down with a spoon to completely fill the bottom section.
Step 6: Add a layer of cake. Because you baked it in this pan, it should fit perfectly. If you didn’t think things through, and used a child’s sand bucket, you will have to do some measuring.
Step 7: Use a large spoon to spread strawberry preserves across the cake. How much you use is up to you.
Step 8: Spread more preserves on the other half-cake.
Step 9: By this time the rest of your ice cream should have softened enough to add it to the cake in the pan without having to squash it too much. Do that, then flip the remaining half-cake, jam-side down into the pan, on top of the ice cream.
Step 10: Cover the final cake layer with plastic wrap, then put everything in the freezer to firm up.
Strawberry Margarita 2 to 3 frozen strawberries – approx. 50 gram, or 2 ounces 1½ teaspoons white sugar 2 ounces blanco tequila – I like Hornito’s for margaritas 1 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
Step 1: Thoroughly muddle the strawberries and sugar in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. I use a large pestle from a mortar and pestle; the handle of a hammer would work well for this. Step 2: Add the tequila, then dry-shake the mixture. This means without ice. The tequila will do a good job of bonding with the fruity compounds in the strawberries. Step 3: Add lime juice and ice, then shake again, until very cold. Step 4: Strain into a cocktail glass, and drink while it is still blisteringly cold. Unlike traditional Mexican Restaurant Strawberry Margaritas, this tastes strongly of actual strawberries and lime. It is best very cold, but not frozen. Haven’t you had enough frozen treats, already?
Tech Professional of the Year winner talks about inclusion in the industry
Flo Nicolas was named Tech Professional of the Year at the recent TechWomen Connect and Awards event hosted by the NH Tech Alliance.
What is your background in tech?
My background is actually legal. I’m a licensed attorney. I spent a couple of years practicing, and then I ended up working for a big telecommunications company. I spent over seven and a half years in the corporate technology operations department. … When I entered the corporate world, I was a bit naive; I thought, you work hard, you get promoted, easy peasy. Then I started seeing women in the corporate world just weren’t getting promoted. … I ended up … working for another smaller startup company … as their chief growth and community officer, focused on legal technology. I started growing my name in the legal tech sector. … I started doing this show where I was teaching other lawyers how to leverage technology.
What are you doing now?
I wanted to continue my passion for tech education, which I did by creating my show, Get Tech Smart, which is focused on … educating people in a simplistic way on the emerging technologies that are being created right here in our state. I’m also a co-founder and chief operating officer for a tech company … [focused on] Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, but not just in a simple way of consultation and being like, ‘Hey, you should be diverse’; we actually have a platform that helps organizations successfully implement and launch their DEI strategic plan by utilizing data analytics. … That way, they can see clearly what’s working, and what’s not, celebrate their successes, but also see what areas need improvement, and then take action. … I also started doing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion networking events. I’ve done two events so far … [which were] so successful. … We managed to raise over $40,000 in professional development scholarships … which is very needed.
What are some of the biggest challenges women face in the tech industry?
One of the things I noticed when I started doing my show … was the lack of representation of women in the tech industry. … There’s a struggle to be seen, heard and paid our worth. … The weight of the invisible glass ceiling is evident, with women earning only 80 cents for every dollar men make, and the disparity is even more significant for women of color. … Many women experience demoralization and imposter syndrome when they are undervalued and underpaid. …This leads to difficulties in advocating for ourselves, negotiating better salaries and seeking promotions.
What are some steps tech companies can take to be more inclusive?
Companies can address the issue of gender pay disparity by conducting self-audits to ensure equal pay. They should use data to identify and rectify any discrepancies in pay between equally qualified men and women. … Companies should also engage in surveys to gather qualitative data on employee sentiment and assess their sense of belonging. Analyzing hiring and retention trends can provide insights into diversity gaps within the workforce. … Companies need to be intentional in their hiring practices and establish community alliances to tap into diverse talent pools. It’s important to note that diversity encompasses more than just gender and race … [and] companies should consider other dimensions such as veterans, neurodivergent individuals and people with disabilities.
What would you say to young women interested in going into the tech industry?
The tech industry is a fantastic industry to get into. … I would tell them — especially girls that are in elementary school or high school — to not feed into the myth that math is for boys … or that people who want to get into the tech industry need to learn how to code and need to know how to do math. That’s not true. I’m terrible at math. I don’t even code. There’s more to technology than just coding and doing math. … I would tell them to not be afraid to explore the tech world. … I would also tell them that it’s challenging to break into the tech world, so you should start getting that exposure early on and start networking … with other women in the industry. Don’t wait until you graduate college. Go to STEM camps. … Do STEM programs. There are all kinds of opportunities out there.
The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services has announced the approval of multiple contracts totaling $15.5 million to strengthen the state’s child care system. According to a press release, the funding is part of a larger allocation of $20.6 million from the American Rescue Plan Act Discretionary funds, intended to address critical needs in the child care sector. The contracts aim to enhance workforce capacity and improve access to quality and affordable child care in New Hampshire. The funding will support various initiatives, including the Child Care Workforce Recruiting and Retention Plan, which aims to attract and retain professionals in the child care field. The Child Care Business Improvement Project will focus on improving the financial health of child care facilities, while the Family Child Care Project aims to increase the availability of family child care across the state. Additionally, there will be investments in out-of-school time technical assistance to enhance the quality and accessibility of out-of-school care statewide. Since March 2020 the DHHS has invested over $113 million in federal relief funds into the child care system, with the majority directly benefiting New Hampshire child care providers. The remaining ARPA-D funds will be utilized to address ongoing and emerging needs, such as capacity building, child care business and employer partnerships, data and information systems and administrative costs.
Social media woes
Attorney General John Formella is asking individuals who have witnessed or experienced negative impacts on young people’s mental health due to social media use to share their experiences with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. “We want to hear from people who have loved ones, particularly young people, who have been negatively affected by social media,” Attorney General Formella said in a press release. “Extensive social media use has been tied to profound risks of harm in youth. Indeed, there has been an increased focus on the correlation between the development of serious mental health disorders by minors and time spent on social media.” According to the release, the Attorney General’s Office has been collaborating with educators, health care experts, municipalities and other Attorneys General across the U.S. for the past two years to investigate social media platforms’ business practices to better understand the harmful effects of social media and hold social media platforms accountable for their actions. The investigation is part of a broader effort by the state to respond to the impacts of social media on youth; as part of this effort, Gov. Chris Sununu recently signed an Executive Order mandating the creation of guidelines for a curriculum on the dangers of social media, which will be included in all K-12 health education courses in New Hampshire. Those who have observed or personally encountered any detrimental effects of social media use on the mental well-being of a young individual who want to contribute their input should send an email with their name, contact details, age of the affected person and a brief overview of their observations and the social media platforms involved to smpimpact@doj.nh.gov.
Cannabis access
Visitors from other states and Canada who are certified to receive therapeutic cannabis in their respective regions are now able to access New Hampshire’s Alternative Treatment Centers (ATCs) to obtain therapeutic cannabis. According to a press release from New Hampshire’s Division of Public Health Services, this change in state law allows visiting patients to avoid the legal risks associated with transporting cannabis across state lines, which is prohibited by federal law. Under the new law, visiting patients can purchase therapeutic cannabis from New Hampshire ATCs up to three times a year using a valid therapeutic cannabis identification issued by another state or Canada. If the out-of-state patient’s medical condition matches the list of approved conditions in New Hampshire, they may purchase cannabis at the same frequency as qualifying patients from New Hampshire. Visiting patients are required to present their out-of-state cannabis ID card along with a matching photo identification. There is a possession limit of 2 ounces per patient, and all patients are restricted to purchasing 2 ounces of cannabis within a 10-day period. New Hampshire currently has seven ATC therapeutic cannabis dispensary locations, in Chichester, Conway, Dover, Keene, Lebanon, Merrimack and Plymouth.
Aid to survivors
New Hampshire Mutual Bancorp (NHMB) has donated digital equipment, estimated to be worth $3,200, to the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence (NHCADSV), including four HP Laserjet Pro m404dn printers and 16 iPhone 8’s as part of NHMB’s replacement plan for electronic tools. According to a press release, the printers will support the advocacy work of NHCADSV for survivors, while the cell phones will be given to individuals who have experienced domestic violence and sexual assault to assist them in their crisis and empower them as they seek safety and healing. The NHCADSV is an umbrella organization for 12 community-based crisis centers in New Hampshire, and the equipment will be distributed to many of these centers.
Imagine Casino/Concord Casino has received final planning board approval to The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire in Dover is hosting a Family Fun $1 Day on Saturday, July 22. In celebration of the museum’s opening in 1983, admission for this day only is just $1 per person, including adults, children over the age of 1, and seniors. Children under the age of 1 can enter for free. Online reservations are required, and it operates on a first come, first served basis. For more information and to reserve your spot, visit childrens-museum.org or call 603-742-2002.
Due to weather, the city of Manchester rescheduled its Independence Day Celebration to Thursday, July 6, in Arms Park. The fireworks display will begin at dusk, approximately 9:30 p.m. Admission is free. Attendees are welcome to bring their own chairs and picnic dinners for their families. Alcoholic beverages and glass bottles are not allowed, and pets are prohibited. Portable toilets will be available. The Arms Park parking lot will be closed to vehicles beginning at 4 p.m., reserved for viewing only. Commercial Street will be restricted to pedestrians only starting at 8 p.m.
The New Boston Historical Society will host a talk, “The History of Agriculture as Told by Barns,” on Thursday, July 13, at 7 p.m. at the New Boston Community Church. John Porter, local agriculture expert and author specializing in old barns, will explore the evolution of barn architecture in New Hampshire and show photo illustrations of barns from various time periods, reflecting the changes in agriculture over the centuries. The event, funded by a grant from NH Humanities, is free and open to the public. Visit newbostonhistoricalsociety.com.
If having headliner acts checking out their sets is a harbinger of greater things, Feverslip is a band on the rise. At last year’s Great American Ribfest, Great White’s then-lead singer Andrew Freeman not only watched them perform; he also hopped on stage and helped them finish a song.
A few months later, ex-Saving Abel front man Scotty Austin was so impressed seeing them open for him at Wally’s Pub in Hampton Beach that he connected them with his producer, Malcolm Springer. Soon after that night, Feverslip was in Nashville, working with Springer.
The first fruits of the project arrived in April, when they released the rollicking single “Aces.” Another track from the album in progress will drop in early July. The new song is representative of the band’s no-nonsense rock ’n’ roll, which evokes Aerosmith, AC/DC and classic acts like the Yardbirds and Rolling Stones.
It’s music that’s punchy, powerful, and especially good when played live.
They went to Music City looking to translate that energy to the studio. “Where we’re most at home is just playing on stage, and that’s something that was cool about the recording process,” lead singer Sam Vlasich said in a recent phone interview. “I really hope that people can take away that vibe from the new material.”
Feverslip is a regional supergroup that includes Maine guitarists Liv Lorusso and Jordon Brilliant, who met at a Portland open mic and have performed for several years as a duo, Liv ‘n Brilliant. The two found Vlasich after his band Red Sky Mary split. Vlasich knew drummer Harrison Foti and bass player Brad Hartwick from sharing the bill with their previous band Victim of Circumstance.
The quintet began the new project with heavy preparation, a novel move for them.
“We did three weeks or so of the pre-recording process,” Vlasich said. “It was cool because I’ve never really had an experience where we got to just focus on writing songs and getting them tight, so when we go into the studio we can make them sound good with some live takes.”
Working with Springer was “just amazing,” Vlasich continued. “He totally got what the band was about, and what we want to do. He allowed us to dig our feet in and say, ‘OK, we’re just going to do it; we wanna be a badass rock band.’”
Songwriting is a collaborative process involving all band members.
“We’ll try everything, no matter where it takes us,” Vlasich said. “The best songs always seem to come about when somebody has some sort of riff, whether it’s Jordan or Liv or Brad, some sort of lick idea. Then we just kind of go, ‘OK, that sounds good.’ … Once we have a verse and chorus down, then I’m kind of able to scream on top of it until I find a melody that suits it.”
As a vocalist, Vlasich is inspired by Bon Scott, Brian Johnson and Robert Plant. “That’s just the stuff I was raised on,” he said. “As a kid singing in my hairbrush, peeking out the window making sure nobody rolled up to catch me making noise upstairs in my room alone, that’s kind of the stuff I was singing.”
The rest of the group has similar roots, he said.
“Liv loves Aerosmith and Jordan is Guns N’ Roses, and Brad loves The Who and Iron Maiden. Who I also love — the older ’80s metal stuff is great. We share similar influences but in different regards; they mesh well together.”
A June 30 appearance at Shaskeen Pub will be Feverslip’s third at the Manchester venue, though Vlasich noted that he did a lot of shows with his former band there. They have several bookings in the area over the summer months, including a return to Ribfest on July 23, and Manchester’s Strange Brew Tavern on July 28. They’ll play Portsmouth’s Press Room in early August.
Vlasich has his sights on wider horizons.
“I would love to get on the road [and] hit a lot more places than Red Sky Mary, playing these songs. Because I think they’re just good rock songs, and they need an audience to sing along to the choruses. And if AC/DC or Aerosmith needs an opening band, that would also make my life…. Getting to watch your favorite band play every night after opening up for them, that’s the dream right there.”
Feverslip When: Friday, June 30, 9 p.m. Where: Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester More: feverslip.com
Wes Anderson puts a diorama in a music box, festoons it with vintage curios and surrounds it with a model train set in Asteroid City, maybe the most “Wes Anderson movie about Wes Anderson vibes” ever? But I feel like I think that at every Wes Anderson movie lately so who knows.
A 1950s black and white television narrator (Bryan Cranston) introduces us to the stage play and its playwright (Edward Norton) that are the origins of the teleplay that becomes the full Santa Fe sunset color palette of a live-action, er, situation we’re watching in this movie, which is written and directed by Anderson (who has a screenplay credit and shares the “story by” credit with Roman Coppola). Sometimes we’re watching the playwright, sometimes we’re with the actors performing the play but mostly we’re in Asteroid City, the name of the play and the name of its setting. Asteroid City is a small clump of buildings in the southwestern desert. A diner, a bus stop, a gas station and motor inn make up the bulk of the town — as well as a complex astronomical government facility built near the site of an ancient crater caused by an asteroid (which is also still there and available for close-up viewing during the posted hours).
In the 1950s, Auggie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzmann), his teenage son Woodrow (Jake Ryan) and his three young daughters — Andromeda (Ella Faris), Pandora (Gracie Faris) and Cassiopeia (Willan Faris) — have come to Asteroid City for Woodrow to accept an award for his science project. But their car has a rather spectacular breakdown causing the family to be stuck there, which leads Auggie to call his father-in-law, Stanley (Tom Hanks), to come and get the girls. Stanley agrees to do so if Auggie will finally, three weeks after the fact, explain to the children that their mother, Stanley’s daughter, has died.
Also arriving for the young scientist event are movie star Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) and her teen daughter Dinah (Grace Edwards) as well as other teen inventors, a bus full of school children and their teacher and a group of singing cowboys who miss their connecting bus. Wes Anderson regulars Tilda Swinton as a scientist and Jeffery Wright as a military general are also in Asteroid City as well as the likes of Hope Davis, Liev Schreiber, Maya Hawke, Steve Park, Matt Dillion, Steve Carell and Seu Jorge. Most of the assembled show up for the science awards ceremony as well as the nighttime viewing of an astronomical event but then find themselves quarantined by the government when an alien shows up to borrow the city’s asteroid. (The alien is, uhm, quite the thing — from the actor, who I won’t spoil, who plays the alien to its odd The Fantastic Mr. Fox appearance. I’m not sure how I feel about it or a very puppety roadrunner who occasionally wanders through Asteroid City but these are capital C Choices and, I guess, if you’re already doing all of this odd business, might as well really go for it with the alien.)
But maybe more than any of this, the movie is about the vibe — the particular rosey gold of the desert sun, the arts-and-craft-y quality of the distant mushroom cloud from regularly detonated atom bomb tests, the bright pastels of the landscape, the sign on the diner advertising 50-cent ham plates. The dollhouse-like motor inn cabins, the symmetrical quality to even asymmetrically arranged shots, the scenes of Scarlett Johansson as a 1950s actress that almost look like movie stills. There’s grief and optimism and sadness and shy bits of romance packed around the rotary phones and film cameras and Pontiacs. It’s all just sort of lovely to be in even if I also felt like I wasn’t watching a story so much as being told about a story. Like a particularly lovely macaron, it’s surprising at times that all this prettiness is a very fragile confection made of quite a bit of air. B
Rated PG-13 on appeal for brief graphic nudity, smoking and some suggestive material, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Wes Anderson with a screenplay by Wes Anderson, Asteroid City is an hour and 45 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Focus Features.
No Hard Feelings (R)
You ask “what would it look like if a 1980s sex comedy was also really bleak” and I answer No Hard Feelings, an alleged comedy starring Jennifer Lawrence.
Maddie Barker (Lawrence) is just barely getting by in Montauk, one of those fancy Long Island places where the real estate market is set by the millionaires and billionaires who summer there while the principal employment for the actual locals is tourism-based. Maddie is behind in paying the taxes on the house her mother left her and doesn’t know how she’ll catch up once her car — which she uses for her second job as an Uber driver — is repo-ed. Tips from her bartending job aren’t enough to pay all the bills, so Maddie desperately scans the used car listings for anything that will keep her earning. What she finds is an odd listing for a Buick. The “price” of the car is to date Percy Becker (Andrew Barth Feldman), a Princeton-bound 19-year-old. Percy’s extremely wealthy parents, Allison (Laura Benanti) and Laird (Matthew Broderick), are worried that their sheltered, quiet, loner son will sink in school if he doesn’t arrive with some life experience. They tell Maddie they will give her the Buick if she befriends and “dates” (in all aspects of the word) Percy to help get him out of his shell.
Maddie dives into the assignment, showing up at Percy’s volunteer job at the local animal shelter to try to sexy-talk him into going back to her house. He mistakes it for a stranger-danger kidnapping and maces her. She manages to get him to ask her on a date where he, unlike her usual hookups, is more interested in getting to know her than rushing into bed. Despite their age difference — Maddie is 32 to Percy’s 19 — Percy warms to the idea of a real relationship with Maddie. And though she hates the rich Montauk crowd and finds Percy’s helplessness aggravating, Maddie starts to feel some kind of genuine friendship for him as well.
No Hard Feelings feels like it could have been a spiritual descendant to your Can’t Buy Me Love-type 1980s capitalism-based rom-com. And for a while I thought maybe I could just go with it sort of like I would with an Overboard, where an on-the-page icky premise can lean into zaniness or a fairy tale-like quality. But this movie is oddly jarring, frequently juxtaposing the “wacky antics” of this kind of comedy with the actual grim reality of a kid whose parents feel they need to/have the right to buy him a girlfriend or of a woman who feels she has to hang on to the family house at all costs. Jennifer Lawrence doing some fairly solid physical comedy melts into a scene where an emotionally traumatized Percy (his high school years were rough, we’re told) seems clinically depressed. “Ha ha yikes” is the frequent mood of this movie.
The movie also gives us quite a bit of the real hopelessness of Montauk economics, not just Maddie’s struggles to stay solvent in a town being taken over by the ultra-rich but her pregnant friend Sara (Natalie Morales) and Sara’s husband Jim (Scott MacArthur) trying to figure out how to get by once their baby comes. She’s a teacher who waitresses in the summer, he owns a business involving some kind of boating-related tourism, and yet they can’t afford to move out of his parents’ house. Their scenes with Maddie provide lightness — and often then go grim.
If this movie has a bright spot — not something I’d go so far as to call a saving grace but a bright spot — it’s that it serves as a reminder that Lawrence is good at broad comedy. This is not a movie I’d put on her highlights reel but maybe this forgettable misfire will get her a stronger comedy that can take advantage of her skills. C-
Rated R for sexual content, language, some graphic nudity and brief drug use, according to filmratings.com. Directed by Gene Stupnitsky with a screenplay by Gene Stupnitsky & John Phillips, No Hard Feelings is an hour and 43 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Columbia Pictures.
