Category: Featured Content

We are connected

I’ve been hearing and thinking about annual cycles lately including Black History Month, the Lunar New Year, Mardi Gras, and the last day we worked in person — or the day our lives changed dramatically — due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

At our house, this one-year mark coincides with my 89-year-old mother getting her second Covid vaccine and that’s a really big deal for us. For the last year, we have been working so hard to keep her safe in the midst of this pandemic. Her health has been our primary motivator to keep wearing masks and physically distance when our longing for social connection was pulling us to congregate with friends – she is the reason we’ve been so cautious. We’re really grateful that she was able to get the vaccine.

Many people who are vulnerable and at risk are waiting eagerly for their turn; others are more hesitant for a variety of reasons. We know that this virus has disproportionately affected some populations at higher rates because of the unique combination of factors that make certain groups more vulnerable — being older, having multiple chronic medical conditions, or being a member of certain racial/ethnic groups. These differences, known as health disparities, arise not because of any biological differences between groups as we are all part of the same human family. Rather, it is for reasons such as being more likely to be employed in essential work settings and thus at greater risk of being exposed to the virus, and more likely to be uninsured and have less access to health care with more chronic medical conditions. These factors are called the social determinants of health, where longstanding underlying inequities have been revealed by the pandemic. That is why some of us say that everything contributes to health, and health contributes to everything — because good health is requisite for our ability to be successful in school, to be productive workers, to enjoy time with our families, and to live long, fulfilling lives.

As a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel begins to shine with increasing numbers of people vaccinated, and hospitalizations and deaths finally beginning to decline, we can dare to look forward to resuming the in-person celebrations we had to cancel or put off. And I imagine that even the mundane activities of our daily lives will seem celebratory — going to work and chatting around the water-cooler, convening in person, exchanging handshakes and hugs.

The infectious nature of this pandemic has illuminated how we are all connected, that any one of us is only as healthy as others in our community, that we are all in this together — and that at heart, we all want the same thing.

Dr. Trinidad Tellez is a family physician and health equity strategist, community advocate, and consultant.

Write through it

Tyler Allgood shines on soul-baring Through The Empty

Surgery and its aftermath are often challenging; for a recovering addict, the experience can be harrowing. As Tyler Allgood faced a spine operation in early 2019, he worried about whether essential pain medication would lead to relapse. For six to eight months prior to entering the hospital, this fear had him “staring at the ceiling … going crazy wondering if my life was ever going to change,” Allgood said in a recent phone interview.

“Knowing I’d have to take drugs again to go through this,” he said, “I kind of had to revisit my past and revise it.”

The answer came through his music, on songs like “Downtime” and “Who Am I Now.” The latter is a dreamy meditation about being “always off, lost in the fixtures,” while keeping vigilant. Both appear on Allgood’s soon to be released album Through The Empty, a 13-track cycle that’s both starkly honest and expertly composed.

“The writing saved me,” Allgood said. “I had to keep writing; it’s really saving my life.”

Though this is his second LP, Allgood feels the new effort is a lot like a debut.

“It’s kind of a wrap-up of all those years,” he said, noting that 2019’s The Weight of Thunder “was whipped together kind of quickly [when] a friend of mine had had an opportunity and he was an engineer. It’s still very meaningful, but on [this] record I finally bring my composing all together … and really produce the sound that I’m going for.”

Allgood, who also deals with alcoholism, “depression, PTSD and plenty of other mental issues,” said his songwriting is “ninety percent personal experience and stories.” Some can be heartbreaking — “Love In Vermont” deals with a love affair that ends in suicide.

There’s also hope. One of the record’s highlights, “No Visions of Fear,” contains the memorable line, “I’m too miserable to die.” Allgood is quoting a friend who succumbed to breast cancer.

“I don’t think he knew how powerful it was coming from him as he was dying,” he said, adding the statement was a reflection of his friend’s giving nature. “He hadn’t done all of his work helping people … that was the reason he was miserable. That he would have to leave other people behind.”

Along with strong songwriting, what distinguishes the new album most is its music: densely layered guitars, delicate keyboards, deft time changes and Allgood’s haunting vocals. He played and sang nearly every note.

Through The Empty was recorded at Loud Sun Studios with producer Ben Rogers, who also plays drums on the record. Dan Labrie, from Allgood’s old group BandBand, played slide guitar on a couple of tracks, and Eliot Pelletier contributed guitar as well.

Allgood got into music as a teenager.

“A friend of mine, Kyle Weber, was this really talented guitar player right from the get-go,” he said. “He played the talent show at our middle school, and that was where I realized that I really wanted to do that as well.”

He agrees that most listeners will detect a clear influence running through the new album.

“Jerry Garcia was hugely important finding my way through whatever it is I’m doing with music,” Allgood said. “The Grateful Dead, George Harrison’s solo stuff, all helped open my eyes to what was possible on my own, to create, to not have limits.”

When a release event happens — never a certainty these pandemic-limited times — Allgood plans to assemble a band to back him. For now, though, he plays solo and eschews looping sounds.

“I might incorporate that soon, but I tend to keep it as original as I can, I suppose,” he said.

His shows also include judiciously chosen covers of artists like The Beatles and Johnny Cash.

“I try to cater to everything, and then also mix in my original work,” he said.

Allgood expects to release the album in early March — “It’s coming as soon as possible,” he said.

He’ll play a lot of it during a livestream show hosted by Nova Arts on March 19 (novaarts.org).

Tyler Allgood
When: Thursday, Feb 25, 6 p.m.
Where: Village Trestle, 25 Main St., Goffstown
More: instagram.com/tgood_extrabetty
Allgood also appears Saturday, March 6, 6 p.m. at Village Trestle in Goffstown

Graig Murphy, Francis Birch & Mike Smith
When: Saturday, Feb. 13, 8 p.m.
Where: Strikers East, 4 Essex Dr., Raymond
Tickets: $20 at laughriotproductions.com or call 895-9501

Featured photo: Tyler Allgood. Courtesy photo.

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (PG-13) | Judas and the Black Messiah (R)

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (PG-13)

Everybody is wonderfully game in the delightfully silly Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, a movie co-written by Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, the writers of Bridesmaids.

Comparatively, Bridesmaids played it straight. Barb and Star goes all in on its weirdness.

Barb (Mumolo) and Star (Wiig) are poofy-haired besties whose favorite flavor is “plain,” whose wardrobe is built on culottes and who work together at a Jennifer Convertibles in Nebraska. When their store is closed and they are kicked out of Talking Club (run with an iron passive-aggressive fist by a woman played by Vanessa Bayer, so well used here as so many of the movie’s supporting roles and cameos are), Barb and Star decide to throw caution to the wind and go on an exotic vacation — to the middle-aged-vacationer-friendly Vista Del Mar, Florida. They end up at a hotel with a real “cruise ship but on land” vibe and, during their first night, end up at the bar sharing a giant hallucinogenics-containing scorpion bowl with Edgar (Jamie Dornan). Edgar is drowning his sorrows over his would-be girlfriend, Sharon Gordon Fisherman (also Wiig, looking very “Dr. Evil meets 2013’s Snowpiercer” but chic). Sharon won’t become an “official couple” with him until after he helps her release a swarm of genetically modified mosquitoes meant to kill the residents of Vista Del Mar because they were mean to Sharon when she was a kid.

Other things that happen in this movie: A character has a conversation with a crab. Andy Garcia shows up in a cameo, still in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again! mode. A human cannon serves as a significant plot point. Dornan shows an almost superhuman lack of vanity (there’s a power ballad! on a beach! I have never liked him more than I do here).

I did wonder, occasionally, if this movie was being cruel to Barb and Star, if it was punching down at these ladies with their haircuts and their general middle-ness. But I don’t think it is, ultimately. Through all the silliness, Wiig and Mumolo, who seem to be having such a sunny great time here, give these characters a core that includes general decency and their deep love and friendship for each other.

Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar is great goofy fun and I highly recommend it. B+

Rated PG-13 for crude sexual content, drug use and some strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Josh Greenbaum with a screenplay by Annie Mumulo & Kristen Wiig, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is an hour and 47 minutes long and is distributed by Lionsgate. It is available to rent.

Judas and the Black Messiah (R)

Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield do standout work in Judas and the Black Messiah, a movie about the real-life activism and death of Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party.

In the late 1960s, Bill O’Neal (Stanfield) is arrested after a rather inventive car theft and given a choice by FBI agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons): prison time or becoming an informant for the FBI. Bill picks not-prison and is sent to join the Black Panther Party in Illinois, where Fred Hampton (Kaluuya) is the Illinois party chairman. As Bill finds his way into the party and Fred’s inner circle, he sees Hampton attempt to unite different social-political factions in Chicago to work for similar goals, largely related to poverty and police brutality.

We also see the charismatic Hampton begin a relationship with Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback), now known as Akua Njeri. They try to build a life of activism together while the FBI relentlessly pursues Hampton and the Panthers however they can.

Judas and the Black Messiah shares some of the same historical space as fellow award-season hopeful The Trial of the Chicago 7. But where that movie was filled with big Aaron Sorkin speeches and cutesy Aaron Sorkin character notes, this movie feels like it is about real people with real motivations and personalities. There are little moments, particularly with Kaluuya and Fishback as Fred and Deborah, where you feel like you’re watching a fully-formed person wrestle with not just Big Political Ideas but with what those ideas mean to them and the course of their life. Stanfield makes you feel O’Neal’s uncertainty about what he’s asked to do by the FBI and his growing difficulty of balancing what seems like a genuine respect for Hampton and the aims of the Black Panthers with his willingness to help Mitchell (and his desire to stay out of jail).

This is a well-told story filled with strong performances about a slice of history the movie makes feel fresh and relevant. A

Rated R for violence and pervasive language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Shaka King with a screenplay by William Berson and Shaka King, Judas and the Black Messiah is two hours and five minutes long and distributed by Warner Bros. It is in local theaters and on HBO Max until mid-March.

Featured photo: Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

Honolulu Cooler

Early on in the Covid lockdown, I decided to take ice cream to the workers at my dump. I wanted to do something for someone in essential services and I have a lot of respect for people who do hard, thankless work.

Every week during hot weather I would swing by the general store in our town on the way to the dump and grab them some ice cream bars or cold sodas. A small gesture of thanks.0

So I was at the dump transfer station, dropping off our trash and talking with one of the guys there, telling him some sort of stupid joke, something like:

Q: Why did the dolphin flunk out of ballet school?
A: Poor poise.

My friend laughed loudly enough to get the attention of one of the other guys working behind a giant stack of cardboard.

“IS THAT THE JOKE GUY?”

“YEAH!”

“DID HE BRING ICE CREAM?”

I’d kind of like that on my grave: THE JOKE GUY. HE BROUGHT ICE CREAM.

Anyway, one of my friends at the transfer station gave me a gift one week, a 1963 copy of The Barmen’s Bible — a well-worn cocktail manual from the time when bartenders could reasonably be expected to wear bowties.

This week, I was looking through The Barmen’s Bible and ran across a drink recipe that stopped me cold. Under a section devoted to “coolers” was something called a Honolulu Cooler — a solid name. A promising name. Until you get to the Southern Comfort.

Crushed ice — check

Lime juice — check

Pineapple juice — check

Southern Comfort … ?

Really, Oscar Haimo, President of the International Bar Managers Association, circa 1963? Southern Comfort?

As my wife pointed out, though, this drink is obviously called Honolulu because of the pineapple juice. It doesn’t necessarily have anything more to do with Hawaii than that. It could have been invented in an Elks Club in Akron.

So, this is what I figured. I’d make this clearly awful drink, figure out what was wrong with it (the Southern Comfort), then reformulate it to taste better.

As it turns out, there was a flaw in that plan.

The Honolulu Cooler is a solid, tasty drink. It’s shockingly good. You would think that Southern Comfort and pineapple juice would be cough-syrupy sweet, but the fresh lime juice keeps them on a leash. “Shhhh, boys,” it says, “these are our friends; be nice.”

It is refreshing and delicious. You could easily drink an injudicious number of these.

Honolulu Cooler

Juice of half a lime, about 1 oz.

1 jigger (1½ oz.) Southern comfort

Approximately 5 oz. pineapple juice

Fill a tall glass with cracked ice.

Add lime juice and Southern Comfort

Fill to the top with pineapple juice

Stir with a bar spoon.

A little research on this drink hints that it was actually invented and served in a large hotel in Honolulu. The more I thought about it, the more this made sense. It would be incredibly fast and easy to make for wide-eyed tourists and the use of a name-brand alcohol would allow the hotel bar to bump the price by a good 30 percent.

Of course, the fact that this is a perfectly good drink already did not stop me from reconfiguring it anyway.

My version uses lime syrup instead of lime juice, which would make the drink too sweet, but I countered that with the bitterness from Campari and a bracing note from gin.

Existential Luau

1 oz. lime syrup (see below)

1 oz. Campari

2 oz. gin (I like Death’s Door)

4 oz. pineapple juice

cracked ice or tiny ice cubes

Fill a tall glass – a pint glass or a Collins glass – with ice.

Add lime syrup, Campari, and gin.

Top off with pineapple juice.

Stir with a bar spoon.

This drink is pink, but not bubble-gum pink. It’s the color of a sunset. An apricot that someone has whispered a dirty suggestion to. The color of contentment at the end of a hot, trying day. The ingredients have a tendency to separate very slightly, so the Luau starts out a little bitter-sweet, then becomes more limey as you drink it.

As do your thoughts.

Lime Syrup

Juice of 3-4 limes

An equal amount (by weight) of white sugar

Zest of 2 limes.

In a small saucepan, bring the lime juice and sugar to a boil. Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved, about 10-15 seconds, once it’s boiling.

Remove from heat and add lime zest. Let it steep for 30 minutes.

Strain the zest from the syrup, so it doesn’t get bitter.

Label your jar so you won’t have an awkward moment a week from now, when your wife wants to know what’s in that jar in the door of the fridge. Or maybe that’s just me.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Wines for meatless meals

Veggies and seafood pair well with white wines

Grilled steak or spaghetti and meatballs call for a robust wine such as a cabernet sauvignon or a Chianti. Easy enough. But when the dishes are lighter fare, such as a baked or broiled fish or seafood, a salad, a cheese plate, the selection of the wine becomes a bit more complicated and can result in either a perfect pairing of flavors and richness or sheer disaster.

Often wines for these dishes tend to be white wines, although a bright, light red pinot noir or Beaujolais can be paired with some seafood, such as grilled salmon, grilled scallops and tuna, or a mushroom risotto. White wines can be light and crisp or fuller in body with some creaminess to the mouth. They span the spectrum from the dry citric notes of sauvignon blanc of Bordeaux to the less acidic notes of whites from the Venezia district of Italy, to Alsatian whites with their minerality, to California chardonnays, with their full mouth feel along with the possibility of oak.

The first wine is Bertani’s 2018 Velante Pinot Grigio (originally $14.99, reduced to $7.99, at New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets). As the name suggests, this may be considered the “Italian white wine” as pinot grigio is the most imported variety of wine in America. The grape variety is indigenous to Burgundy but is now grown throughout northern Italy and has migrated to the rest of the world. In Italy it is found in Veneto, Trentino, Friuli, and south to Umbria and Emilia-Romagna. This wine is mildly acidic, with a low alcohol content of 12.5 percent. The grapes come from the Venezia Giulia region, grown vertically trellised, harvested, and fermented in steel containers for three months, followed by another three months in bottle maturation.

To the nose it has an aroma of green or golden tart apples along with the subtle sweetness of pear and peach. It remains light and crisp to the tongue and to my palate is a bit like an unoaked chardonnay. This wine is perfect with light plates like a salad with greens, oranges and nuts, or broiled fish, pasta dishes and risottos. It is a pleasure to be enjoyed when cooled to 45 to 50 degrees.

Our second wine is Substance 2019 Washington State Chardonnay (originally $18.99, reduced to $14.99 at state stores). Charles Smith, winemaker and former rock concert tour manager, respects hard work and puts that hard work into his wine. This is a chardonnay that is aromatic with some citric, apples and flowers to your nose. The mouth is rich and creamy, with oak and vanilla and a bit of yeast that you would find in a Champagne. At 14 percent it is higher in alcohol than the pinot grigio, nudging the alcoholic content of rich cabernet sauvignons.

The wine is sourced from several vineyards in the Columbia Valley, all at elevations from 1,350 to 1,650 feet above sea level. Interestingly, the high elevations allow the vineyards an extended growing season as early late-summer harvest frosts can settle into the valleys before reaching the hillsides. This results in a higher sugar content in the grape and a full, rich flavor that excels beyond the citric notes a less mature chardonnay would have. This is an excellent wine to pair with lobster or salmon, but it can also hold up to a Caesar or vegetarian Cobb salad, and perhaps a simple green salad of lettuces and herbs, with a creamy and not too acidic dressing.

Jason Duffy

Jason Duffy is the executive chef of Bistro 603 (345 Amherst St., Nashua, 722-6362, bistro603nashua.com), which opened last August. Born in Brighton, Mass., and raised on Cape Cod, Duffy got his start in the industry at the age of 14 as a dishwasher at the Chart Room restaurant before moving up the ranks there over the course of a decade. He and owner Jeff Abellard are also part of a close-knit restaurant team that has run Bistro 781 on Moody Street in downtown Waltham, Mass., since 2015. Like its predecessor, Bistro 603 features an eclectic menu of items out of a scratch kitchen, ranging from small shareable plates to larger meals with optional wine pairings.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

Tongs, a side towel and a knife. You can get most things done as long as you have that stuff on hand. … The tongs are like extensions of my hand. I do a million things with them.

What would you have for your last meal?

Probably a big crab boil, with corn on the cob and whatever shellfish I can get.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

In N Out Burritos [in Nashua] has great aguachile. It’s basically heavily marinated citrus-spiced shrimp. We also recently went out to Michael Timothy’s [Local Kitchen & Wine Bar] for my birthday, which is a really cool place.

What celebrity would you like to see eating at your restaurant?

I am a book nerd at heart. I would love to have Stephen King in here.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

Our braised short ribs. It has tender fall-apart beef, our house made gnocchi, truffled mushroom cream sauce and roasted Brussels sprouts. It’s one of our biggest sellers. Every part of it just always comes out great and consistent.

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

Scratch-made comfort food with a twist. … We can spend all day coming up with all sorts of intricate stuff, [but] I try not to use all sorts of terms on the menu that people wouldn’t recognize. We’ve noticed that the recognizable stuff sells tremendously at the outset, but as you build a client base and people know who you are then they start to trust you more.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I love all kinds of soups. I’ll spend a couple of days making a really nice chicken stock.

Smoked tomato chimichurri
From the kitchen of Chef Jason Duffy of Bistro 603 in Nashua

1 cup smoked tomatoes (halved and smoked at 200 degrees for two hours)
1 tablespoon raw garlic
1 tablespoon raw shallot
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
½ tablespoon dry oregano
½ tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 cup vegetable oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine everything but the oil in a blender and puree. While running the blender, trickle in the oil to emulsify it all together. According to Duffy, the chimichurri is great as a sauce or a marinade for meats.

Featured photo: Jason Duffy

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