According to Jessica Martin, the executive director of Intown Concord, one of the most exciting parts of this weekend’s Concord NH Winter Fest will be the ice carving.
“They use two large locks of ice and they’re so beautiful,” she said. “They carve things like eagles and dragons and The Old Man of the Mountain on the Statehouse lawn. There will be a little preview Friday night if anybody wants to come down between 3 and 9 p.m. the evening before the event, if anybody wanted to come down and watch them.” On Friday night, Martin said, the ice carvers will recreate the logos of the Festival’s sponsors in ice, but the actual ice carving competition will take place on Saturday.
Saturday will also see food trucks on Main Street. “We have so many different food trucks that are attending this year,” Martin said. “We have Batulo’s Somalian food, we have Deadproof Pizza, we have Wicked Tasty and we have Bumblebee Dumpling and Bumblebee Tea.”
Winter Fest will include activities like curling, axe-throwing, s’mores-making, a morning matinee of the animated movie Balto with complementary hot chocolate at Red River Theatres, and an ice bar in Arts Alley.
Also on Concord’s weekend schedule are the Concord Garden Club’s 23rd Annual Art and Bloom exhibition at Kimball Jenkins (Thursday, Jan. 22 through Saturday, Jan. 24); the Winter Fest Hot Cocoa Tour at participating downtown restaurants (11 a.m.to 2 p.m.; register on Intown’s website); a family fun day at the New Hampshire Historical Society (30 Park St.) from 2 to 4 p.m., and the Black Ice Pond Hockey Championship (blackicepondhockey.com) Friday, Jan. 23, through Sunday, Jan. 25.
Concord NH Winter Fest Where: Downtown Concord, in front of the Statehouse, plus some off-site events When: Saturday, Jan. 24, from 11 a.m to 4 p.m. More: Visit intownconcord.org/events
The Grand Kyiv Ballet Company was forged through the crucible of two crises. In 2014, Russia occupied Eastern Ukraine, forcing dancer Oleksandr Stoianov and his ballerina wife Kareryna Kuhkar to move to Kyiv. Once there, Stoianov formed a ballet company consisting solely of his fellow countrymen and women.
“Before this we worked with the Russian companies, promoting the Moscow Ballet or the Russian Ballet,” Stoianov said in a recent phone interview. “Many people didn’t know that they were about 50 percent Ukrainian. It was my main idea to create the Grand Kyiv Ballet with a Ukrainian name, and with Ukrainian dancers.”
In 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine forced another turning point. When the war began, Stoianov and Kuhkar were performing across Europe. They quickly put together a solidarity tour in France and Scandinavian countries, along with working to get dancers and students to safe places.
Government officials, including Scandinavian royalty, attended performances. Ballet became a voice for grief, resistance and national identity.
“We did speeches from the stage about weeping for our country,” Stoianov recalled. “It was a most difficult and terrible time.”
Theaters in Ukraine were closed. Jobs disappeared overnight, and for dancers, life without rehearsal and performance is unimaginable. Many were young, only in their teens, and forced to start from zero in foreign countries. Others were caring for children or elderly parents. Homes were destroyed, and stability vanished.
Some paid a much higher price. Oleksandr Shapoval, who’d danced with Stoianov and Kuhkar, volunteered for service and died in September 2022. Artem Datsishin, another principal dancer from Ukraine’s National Opera, died from injuries sustained from Russian shelling.
In response, larger and more frequent tours were created to provide work, income and purpose for displaced performers. Its scale has grown steadily and adapted to shifting challenges. The company is now a global presence, appearing across Europe, Scandinavia, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and more recently China.
Each tour and performance reinforces the visibility of Ukrainian culture on the world stage.
Stoianov, Kuhkar and their two daughters now live in Seattle. Stoianov oversees Grand Kyiv Ballet’s many projects, like two upcoming New Hampshire stops. Giselle, with principal dancers Victor Tomashek and Ekaterina Malkovich, will be performed in Nashua on Jan. 22, and Swan Lake is at Portsmouth’s Music Hall Jan. 25.
These days, the two dance infrequently. An injury stopped Stoianov in 2024, but he hinted, “perhaps a grand return is still ahead” on the company’s website. In the interview, he shared that a world tour of the ballet Carmen will happen next year. “We’ll start class and rehearsals this summer, and then in 2027, we’ll say goodbye to everybody from the stage.”
Giselle is a tale of love, deception and betrayal. Malkovich said in a late December Instagram post that it’s among her favorites to perform.
“When the curtain falls, you leave the stage not tired, but drained,” she wrote. “It’s a ballet after which you don’t want to say anything because there’s nothing left to say.”
Stoianov agrees, adding that its themes resonate with audiences. “All people feel sometimes in their lives in a situation like Giselle, a young girl who was in love, was betrayed and became crazy,” he said. “I’ve seen this ballet a thousand times and my eyes still become wet — but they are happy tears.”
Grand Kyiv Ballet presents Giselle When: Thursday, Jan. 22, 7 p.m. Where: Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua Tickets: $46.75 and up at etix.com Sunday, Jan. 25, 4 p.m. Grand Kyiv Ballet presents Swan Lake at The Music Hall, Portsmouth, themusichall.org.
Featured photo: Giselle. performed by The Grand Kyiv Ballet. Courtesy photo.
As with most wonderful things that seem straightforward and simple at first glance, the subject of french fries gets surprisingly intricate and granular the deeper you look at them. And while you can look at them through any number of lenses — the best types to dip in milkshakes, or the best ones to fall in love over — today we’re going to look at six important factors: the variety of potato used, the shape they are cut into, how they are cooked, what type of oil they are fried in, how they are seasoned or topped, and what we dip them into.
Consideration No. 1: What kind of potato?
While there are thousands of varieties of potato, according to the website Potatoes USA (potatogoodness.com) “only” 200 or so are commercially available in the United States. Each variety has its own characteristics, some of which make them suitable for french fries, others not so much. Unfortunately, french fry experts can’t agree on which is which.
Matt Berry, the executive chef at Unwined Wine Bar and Bistro in Milford, has put a lot of thought into this.
Very thin shoestring potatoes from River Road Tavern. Photo by John Fladd.
“I joke around all the time about how we have very over-engineered french fries,” Berry said. “When we were going to put fries on the menu, I wanted to do something a step above just frying potatoes. I wanted, in essence, to make the perfect french fry. So I thought about what that meant — what criteria, if you will, make up the perfect french fry. And we wanted a really light, crispy exterior and a really light, fluffy, almost creamy interior.” To that end Unwined uses an Idaho Russet potato, which is often described as a “floury” potato. When it is cooked it has a fluffy texture. This is the type of potato often used in mashed potatoes.
Renee McMaster is the owner and operator of a food truck called HotMess Poutine. She also spends a lot of time thinking about french fries — or, as she puts it, Quebec-style fries. She too, uses Russet potatoes, but they are not her first choice.
“I just got back from Quebec,” she said. “In Quebec we use red potatoes and I think it makes the french fries even better. The reason why I don’t use the red potatoes here is that it’s very hard to find a big red potato here. The red ones are a lot more sweet. I think they make [fries] a lot better. I would use red potatoes with peanut oil if I had my choice. In Quebec we use potatoes like we match wine. So here we use russet potatoes but we keep the skin on the potatoes for more flavor.”
Red potatoes are what is frequently called a “waxy” potato. They keep a firm texture when they are cooked, which makes them excellent for roasting or to use in potato salad. For McMaster the flavor of the reds outweighs texture issues. Or it would, if she could find large ones.
Consideration No. 2: How do you cut the potatoes?
For many people, perhaps the most noticeable difference between types of french fry is the shape of the fry. The shape will affect the crispiness of finished fries and even their flavor. A waffle fry will present itself completely differently than shoestring fries, which in turn are a world away from steak fries.
The most common cut of fries in this part of the world is the straight-cut matchstick, an inch or two long. Most restaurants that advertise “hand-cut” fries are talking about this shape.
By “hand-cut” a restaurant almost certainly means using a lever-controlled french fry press that pushes raw potatoes through a metal grid to achieve that shape. Not even the most dedicated cook in a commercial kitchen is willing to cut hundreds of potatoes with a chef’s knife. John Ramsey, the owner of Stark House Tavern in Weare, said that would not be practical for his kitchen.
“We go through about 1,200 pounds of potatoes a week,” he said. “So it’s a substantial part of our business.”
What Ramsey does make, in addition to traditional straight-cut fries, are house-made tater tots. “We got the idea from traveling to Indiana for football games a couple of times a year,” he said. “At one stop, we were in Cleveland at a brew pub. We ordered tots and they made them to order. They were essentially deep-fried mashed potatoes, very pillowy. That was our inspiration.”
Tater tots are also part of the fried-potato repertoire at 603 Brewery in Londonderry.
“All of our fries are hand cut here,” said 603 Brewery sous chef Charley Moore. “Our regular fries are punched every morning, and then for our waffle fries we use a special tool called a mandoline. That lets us get it to the shape that we want and the size that we like.” During happy hour, 603 offers all three types of fries — traditional straight-cut, waffle fries, and tater tots — as part of a french fry flight with four types of dipping sauce.
When Josh Buxton, the owner of Buxton’s Restaurant in Derry, was developing his french fry recipe, he decided to use a more substantial cut of potato.
“I said, ‘You know what? Let’s give people a french fry, but let’s do it differently.’ I wouldn’t call them a wedge, but they’re one and a half to two inches long, and they’re in a wedge style,” Buxton said. He uses small waxy yellow potatoes for a firmer texture; they are par-cooked, then sectioned off.
The River Road Tavern in Bedford has gone in the opposite direction. According to kitchen manager Joe Carey, it was important to find the narrowest cut of shoestring potatoes available. Super-skinny cuts of potato have more surface area to crisp up in the fryer, he said.
“Ours are three-sixteenths of an inch thick, so they get nice and golden and crispy. They don’t get as soggy as some of the thicker fries. We don’t hand-cut them. We actually buy them, but we get them special ordered, so they are always consistent. We’re the only ones around that serves them this thin.”
Crinkle-cut fries Crinkle-cut french fries sound like a really good idea. Cutting the potatoes in a zig-zag pattern gives them a much larger surface area-to-volume ratio than regular straight-cut fries, and should be extra golden-brown and crispy. Unfortunately, when ordered at most restaurants, they usually come to the table, undercooked, pale and soggy.
Joe Carey from the River Road Tavern said it’s a bit of a mystery. “I don’t know what’s going on with them,” he said. “I don’t know if they just aren’t being cooked long enough. I’ll be honest, they’re my least favorite cut. I like crispy fries; if you don’t like crispy fries, then maybe the crinkle-cuts are for you, but I just, I think they’re bland, even when they’re seasoned.”
Charley Moore from the 603 Brewery agreed. “[Crinkle-cuts] seem to steam and hold in the moisture a little more,” he said. “With any kind of potato, you want to pull out as much moisture as possible. That’s what gives you your crispiness. They [crinkle-cut fies] seem to hold in more water. Once you bite them, even when you fry them up, they seem to soften faster.”
Consideration No. 3: How are the french fries cooked?
Every style of fry is different to some degree, but many of the best fries have a few steps in common.
After cutting the potatoes, most ambitious french fry makers soak them in cold water.
“We put them in cold water overnight in the refrigerator,” John Ramsey said, “to leach the starch out. If you don’t do that they’ll burn without being crispy. They’ll turn brown but be sloppy, limp fries; no one likes that.”
“We usually soak them for three to four hours to pull off some of the starch,” Charley Moore from 603 Brewery said, “then we rinse them off again so they’re not foamy.
Matt Berry from Unwined is even more exact. “We give them a quick overnight ferment,” he said, “in a one and a half percent salinity bath.”
Another common french fry technique is frying the potatoes twice — once at a low temperature to cook the interior of the fry, and a second time at a higher temperature to crisp up the outside. The first, low-temperature fry is referred to as “oil blanching.”
“We blanch them and then we cool them down,” John Ramsey said, “and then we cook them to order with a high temperature.” Although he doesn’t blanch the potatoes in oil, Josh Buxton said it is extremely important to precook potatoes before frying them to serve to customers.
“We just boil them in salted water,” Ramsey said. “They’re cooked whole and that also helps season them. We don’t want them to be too soft. When we drop them in the fryer we’re just looking to crisp them up.”
Consideration No. 4: What kind of oil are they fried in?
There are two schools of thought when it comes to french fry oil. One is to use a mild, neutral-tasting oil that won’t distract from the flavor of the potato.
“We use a canola oil for our fryers,” Joe Carey from the River Road Tavern said. “We’ve used peanut oil in the past, but with all the allergies we’ve moved away from that.”
“Our trick is we use canola oil,” Renee McMaster from HotMess Poutine said. “Olive oil is really good for potatoes, and peanut oil as well … if I use a red potato I will use peanut oil.”
Some olive oils are excellent for frying — the ones with what is called a high smoke point, meaning that they won’t burn at frying temperatures. Virgin and extra-virgin olive oils usually have a low smoke point and will fill your kitchen with caustic smoke. A good rule for cooking with olive oil is that the pricier it is, the worse it is for frying.
The other approach to french fry oil is to use an extremely flavorful oil (with a high smoke point) to add savory notes to the finished fries.
“We only use beef tallow,” said John Ramsey from the Stark House Tavern. “There’s no vegetable oil in the whole building, and no seed oil. It’s all tallow and olive oil.” (If you’ve ever heard an older relative rhapsodize about how good McDonald’s french fries used to be, this is what they are talking about. Until the 1980s, McDonald’s fried everything in beef tallow, which was affordable for them and delicious for their customers. But, as Robert Frost wrote, ‘Nothing gold can stay.”)
French Fry Flight from 603 Brewery. Photo by John Fladd.
Harpoon Brewery in Manchester also leans into savory fry oil — customers can ask to have their french fries finished in duck fat.
“It just honestly produces a better product,” said Harpoon’s Steve Shoemaker. “The denser fat and flavor of the duck goes somewhat deep into the french fries. It just produces a much better fry. I’ve tried beef tallow. I tried various iterations of canola, corn, peanut oil, all of those things. This seems to work ultimately the best.” Because duck fat is denser than vegetable oils, he explained, it takes longer for the water vapor to be forced out of the potatoes, giving the whole enterprise a comparatively golden-brown and savory finish. The kitchen at Harpoon has multiple fryers working at any given time, he said. “If somebody is a vegetarian, we can cook [the fries] in a combination of canola and sunflower oil. That way they have options.”
Consideration No. 5: Toppings and seasonings
While there is a beauty to the simplicity of hot, crispy french fries served with a sprinkle of salt, a well-made batch of fries can serve as a canvas for more ambitious presentations.
Peter Macone is the co-owner of the Republic Brewing Co. in Manchester. He said Republic’s fries are outstanding on their own but what really sets them apart is how they are finished.
“They’re cooked to order,” he said, “then tossed with Aleppo pepper, fine herbs — which is just an assortment of, you know, French herbs chopped — and salt and pepper. But one thing that is always a little bit of a surprise for people is the fried capers. We crisp capers with our fries. You can walk by tables often and hear customers sort of debating what it is that’s in their fries that’s so good. People often refer to our fries as, they’ll say ‘truffle fries,’ and in your head, you’re thinking, ‘It’s nothing like a truffle flavor,’ but they just know that the flavors stand out.”
“We toss them in chives,” Josh Buxton said, “and salt and Parmesan cheese, and then we just toss in a very little drizzle of oil so that the cheese and the chives can stick to them.”
John Ramsey from the Stark House Tavern said french fries are infinitely adaptable — “we’ll use truffle oil with Parmesan,” he said, or “we’ll make a short rib poutine with cheese curds.”
But it is tater tots that really shine with extra toppings.
“We have several different ways we serve them. On the menu with barbecue brisket, or we’ll toss it in Buffalo sauce with blue cheese crumbles, or ranch dressing, and we have a sweet chili sauce we make with some sesame oil, like a sesame vinaigrette, a little Asian taste to it,” Ramsey said.
Fries and wine We asked Emma Round, owner of Unwined Wine Bar and Bistro in Milford, “What wine would you suggest to go with french fries?” “The best Champagne you can get, always. And I highly recommend devouring both in a bubble bath or hot tub!!”
Consideration No. 6: Dipping sauces
Purists may prefer ketchup or a splash of malt vinegar with their french fries, but something about dipping sauces brings out an extra level of creativity in some cooks.
“[Fries] come with a special fry sauce of ours,” Joe Carey from the River Road Tavern said. “It used to be part of a recipe for a spicy tuna roll; then someone dipped a fry in it one day and we decided that it went from a sushi sauce to a fry sauce for potatoes, and now we sell it by the pint. It comes with every order of fries or every sandwich that comes with fries. It has a sesame base, so it tastes almost like a peanut sauce, but there’s no peanuts in it whatsoever. I can’t share the rest of the ingredients, but it’s creamy and really savory.”
603 Brewery’s French Fry Flight comes with four different sauces.
“Obviously, we have our classic ketchup,” Charley Moore said. “And then we have our pub mustard, which is a blend of different mustards and our Winni Ale. Our beer cheese, which is made with our 603 IPA. And then there is our secret sauce, which is a blend of sauces we create in house.”
Herbed potato wedges from Buxton’s Restaurant. Courtesy photo.
Matt Berry at Unwined is extremely proud of their fry sauce.
“The sauce we have with our fries right now is kind of infamous,” he said. “It’s a cherry pepper ranch-style sauce. It’s a buttermilk ranch, and it starts its life as an aioli. Then we add just-pickled cherry peppers that we rinse the seeds out of and puree roughly in the food processor. That’s folded in with confit garlic and chives and herbs. But the real secret that to me makes ranch ranch is tarragon. We use a lot of fresh tarragon in it.”
Josh Buxton refers to his french fry sauce as a “labor of love.”
“We make a great little potato,” Buxton said, “but I think the aioli that we make is what ties it all together. We make a Calabrian chili honey and we mix it with confit garlic. We make our own mayo and then we blend in some chili crunch. The honey takes at least three or four days to really combine the flavor. Confit garlic takes a few hours. You know, we make our own chili crunch. I think there’s more labor of love into the sauce than the actual potato.”
Fry Panel
French Fry Flight — 603 Brewery (42 Main St., Londonderry, 404-6123, 603brewery.com) is open Tuesday through Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Herbed potato wedges — Buxton’s Restaurant (Metro Market, 158 Rockingham Road, Derry, 818-4105, buxtonspizza.com) is open Wednesday through Saturday from 4 to 9 p.m.
Duck fat fries — Harpoon Brewery Manchester (Queen City Center, 215 Canal St., Manchester, 945-3797, harpoonbrewery.com/manchester-brewery) is open Wednesday and Thursday from noon to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 10 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m.
Poutine and french fries — HotMess Poutine (973-7001, facebook.com/goeycheese) serves southern New Hampshire throughout food truck season.
Shoestring fries — River Road Tavern (193 S. River Road, Bedford, 206-5837, riverroadtavernbedford.com) is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
French fries and tater tots fried in beef tallow — Stark House Tavern (487 S. Stark Highway, Weare, 487-6002, starkhousetavern.com) is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 8 p.m.
Fries with capers — Republic Brewing Co. (72 Old Granite St., Manchester, 836-3188, republicbrewingcompany.com)
Tarragon fries — Unwined Wine Bar and Bistro (1 Nashua St., Milford, 213-6703, unwinednh.com) is open Wednesday and Thursday from 5 to 10 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 4 to 10 p.m.
“Art and Bloom,” a show in collaboration with the Women’s Caucus for Art, New Hampshire Chapter, and Kimball Jenkins Estate, 266 N. Main St. in Concord, will open to the public today from 2 to 4 p.m. with an opening reception scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. The show will feature floral arrangements interpreting the works of Kimball Jenkins’ winter show “Apricity: The Warmth of Winter Sun.” The show will also be open Friday, Jan. 23, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 24, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (during the Concord NH Winter Festival; see page 15). See kimballjenkins.com.
Thursday, Jan. 22
The Manchester Community Music School (2291 Elm St., Manchester, 644-4548, mcmusicschool.org) presents Stick Figures, a percussion-focused concert featuring faculty member Adam Cahalane tonight at 7 p.m. This concert is free and open to the public.
Thursday, Jan. 22
Dynamic drum troupe and visual spectacle Drum Tao will perform at the Chubb Theatre (Chubb Theatre at CCA, 44 S. Main St., Concord, 225-1111, ccanh.com) tonight beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets start at $44.25.
Friday, Jan. 23
The Majestic Academy of Dramatic Arts will present Seussical the Musical, Jr. at the Derry Opera House (29 W. Broadway, Derry, 404-2928, derryoperahouse.org) tonight at 7 p.m.; Saturday, Jan. 24, at 2 and 7 p.m., and Sunday, Jan. 25, at 2 p.m. This production stars children and teens of The Majestic Academy. General admission tickets are $17. Visit majestictheatre.net.
Friday, Jan. 23
Laugh Attic at Strange Brew Tavern (88 Market St., Manchester, 666-4292, strangebrewtavern.net) presents The Interview tonight from 8 to 10 p.m. This is a comedy showcase where Human Resources asks the comics things you’ve always wanted to know. Tickets are $20 through eventbrite.com.
Saturday, Jan. 24
One of the premier Beatles tribute acts, Beatlejuice, will perform at the Tupelo Music Hall (10 A St., Derry, 437-5100, tupelomusichall.com) tonight at 8 p.m. Tickets are $40 through the Tupelo’s website.
Saturday, Jan. 24
There is a Winter Wonderland Masquerade Party at the Jewel Music Venue (61 Canal St. Manchester, 819-9336, jewelmusicvenue.com) tonight from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. with special performances by Wettybop, The Artist Graves, Sokomodo, SPVNYVN, and Jephirsun Danger. There will be a masquerade costume contest with a $100 cash prize. Find the event on Jewel’s Facebook page for the QR code to scan top purchase tickets.
Sunday, Jan. 25
Granite State Generosity (gsgnh.org) welcomes the start of ski and snowboard season today with the Ninth Annual Bob Gilman Fun Run Ski and Snowboard Race at McIntyre Ski Area. Visit mcintyreskiarea.com/acitivities/bobgilman to register.
Save the Date! Thursday, Jan. 29
Dancing with the Stars will burn up the dance floor at SNHU Arena (555 Elm St., Manchester, 644-5000, snhuarena.com) on Thursday, Jan. 29, with special guest Danielle Fishel. Tickets start at $76 through gotickets.com. A VIP package is available.
Featured photo: Horton, Clover, the Grinch and the Whos!
The McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord will hold “Reach for the Stars: Celebrating Christa McAuliffe” Saturday, Jan. 24, through Sunday, Feb. 1, according to the Center’s website, starhop.com. “Join us as we honor the legacy of Christa McAuliffe and the STS-51L Challenger crew. Together, we remember their lives, their courage, and their enduring impact on education and space exploration,” the website said. Concord school teacher McAuliffe and the crew of the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger died on Jan. 28, 1986, shortly after the shuttle’s launch. The NHPBS documentary Christa will be shown throughout the week in the Planetarium, the website said.
On Wednesday, Jan. 28, the center will hold a program called “Reach for the Stars: Then, Now, & Forever” from 5 to 7:30 p.m. that will include “Christa’s Lost Lessons with NASA Astronaut, Ricky Arnold,” the unveiling of a new Christa McAuliffe exhibit and a panel discussion, the website said. Deadproof Pizza Co. will be on site for patrons to purchase dinner starting at 4 p.m., the website said.
On Saturday, Jan. 31, the center will host “Challenger: Soaring with Christa McAuliffe,” described on the website: “Journey through Christa’s life in this multi-media immersive living history performance, suitable for all ages.” Doors open at 5 p.m.
Go online to purchase tickets to either event or to purchase admission tickets for the week-long programming and reserve planetarium tickets.
Wash your hands
The Manchester Health Department reported that respiratory viruses including influenza, RSV and Covid-19, and norovirus (known for its stomach-related symptoms) are “actively circulating, statewide,” according to a Jan. 13 press release “Area hospitals are experiencing much higher than expected admissions and emergency department visits related to respiratory illnesses,” the release said. In the statement, Anna Thomas, MPH, Manchester’s Public Health Director said “We have officially entered the beginning peak of cold and flu season. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) anticipates that this will last for a period of up to three months.” Recommendations for preventing the spread of respiratory illnesses include getting a flu shot, washing hands often for at least 20 seconds and using alcohol-based hand sanitizers, covering your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze and throwing tissues in the trash after using them, disinfecting high-traffic surfaces and staying home from school or work until “your fever has been gone for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medicines” if you get sick, the release said.
New Hampshire author Mary Anne Totten will hold a reading of her book Silos, Secrets, and Silence at Bookery in Manchester on Saturday, Jan. 24, from 1 to 3 p.m. See bookerymht.com for more on the event and matottenwrites.com for more on the author.
Thursday, Jan. 22, is Oscar nominations morning; see oscars.org at 8:30 a.m. for the announcements by Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman. Then settle in for some movie talk with the Derry Public Library at their “2025: The Year in Film” Zoom presentation on Monday, Jan. 26, at 6:30 p.m. Register at derrypl.org.
The Live Free or Die Farm, 11 Cricket Hill Drive in Amherst, will hold its annual Christmas Tree Burn and Bonfire Party on Saturday, Jan. 24, from 5 to 9 p.m., according to the listing on eventbrite.com, where you can find details about food and reserve a spot.
NH Pipes and Drums and Scottish Arts will hold a Burns Night celebration on Saturday, Jan. 24, starting at 5 p.m. at Castleton in Windham. The night will feature haggis, Highland dancers, whisky, Ceilidh dancing, live music, Burns poetry and more, according to nhssa.org, where you can purchase tickets.
On an upcoming evening at Shaskeen Pub in Manchester, The Wrong Hill To Die On will feature a group of local comedians engaging in a kind of extreme debate, as they defend ridiculous premises, such as “traffic lights are a form of communist mind control.”
The event is hosted by self-described “open mic level comics” Nick Sands and Alex LaChance, with a panel of contestants that includes comics Matt Barry, Mona Forgione, Zach Remi and Tristen Hoffler. Derek Zeiba will open the show with a set, and comedian Ken Murphy will serve as a guest host.
Sands and LaChance are both fans of Story Warz, a weekly game show-themed event in New York City hosted by Luis J. Gomez and Big Jay Oakerson. They wanted to do something similar, but different from that show’s “guess who’s telling this tale” format.
“If you go back to the ’80s, when I was growing up, there were a hundred game shows on TV and half of them were rip-offs of other game shows,” LaChance said by phone recently. “So Wrong Hill To Die On is a kind of homage to that era, but also influenced by current comedy.”
Though LaChance and Sands are relatively new to standup, they’re both comfortable in front of audiences. Sands has a background in theater, LaChance spent two decades fronting rock bands, a few of which appeared at the Shaskeen, and both host podcasts. It’s new territory, but the two believe they have the tools to make it work.
Choosing topics, though, was a tricky proposition.“We didn’t want to put any comic in a position where they were defending something truly reprehensible, especially where we’re going to record it and put it out as a podcast, [so] what topics can we approach?” LaChance said.
In his final podcast of 2025, Nick Sands offered one position, that a McDonald’s burger tops anything on a holiday table. LaChance suggested another two: the casino age should be lowered to 10, and ducks should be allowed to go to school. “They range from silly to sexual in nature,” LaChance said. “I just don’t want to give them away.”
None of those will be used in the game, which will start with solo rants from each of the four competing comics, Barry, Forgione, Remi and Hoffler, with the panel — LaChance, Sands and Murphy — arguing back after each. Audience cheers decide who did the best job of defending the indefensible, and one comic will be eliminated at the end.
Round 2 is Audience Firestorm, where audience submissions are pulled at random; each comic has 30 to 45 seconds to defend them, culminating with another comic eliminated by applause. Finally, in Round 3, the remaining two comics are paired with two crowd members for tag team arguing, punctuated by occasional panelist interruptions.
A Lightning Inferno final round happens after the top comic is crowned. The winner will receive five to six “hot takes” to defend for 20 to 30 seconds each. The night ends with the winner receiving what’s promised as “a super-secret but very enticing prize.”
LaChance and Sands hope for continued success with the format; that’s one of the reasons they chose Shaskeen Pub as a venue, even though they make the rounds at several area comedy spots. In fact, LaChance announced a few days ago that he’s launching a Tuesday night open mic at The Moka Pot Café in Manchester, beginning Feb. 3.
“Nick was just at my house, and we were talking about it, and he said, ‘Do we want to keep doing it every year?’ and ‘I’m like, ‘If it works, I say we keep doing it,’” LaChance said. “I think being able to just have the same environment, just keep dialing it in, is going to make it better and better.”
The Wrong Hill to Die On When: Tuesday, Jan. 20, at 8 p.m. Where: Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester Tickets: $7.18 at eventbrite.com
