It’s been two years since post-hardcore alt metal band House Lights released their debut album, What It Means To Feel. The Manchester alt-metal band has a new EP, The Past is Ours to Leave, and will celebrate its release with a three-city tour that kicks off at Shaskeen Pub on May 9.
The new disc shows strong musical growth and offers the group’s first collaboration. Rapper Animatronic, The Abolisher contributed words and vocals to “Heavenfall,” a song with a strong Linkin Park feel. House Lights singer and lyricist Sam Beachard first gave the song to the band’s composer Matt Laramie, who thought the rapper could provide something extra.
“That was a really fun collab,” Beachard said in a recent phone interview. “It’s such a dynamic and unique track for us, where it’s something we haven’t really explored before, getting into more of the nu-metal and adding rap into the music style. What he did on it was really cool, and really special.”
At Laramie’s urging, Beachard sent the song’s chorus to Animatronic. “He wrote around it; his verses were a million times better than what I came up with; they fit the song perfectly. He understood the emotion, the feel of the song. He knocked it out of the park.” The rapper will join the band to perform the track at the Shaskeen show.
Along with Manchester, the mini-tour stops in Lowell and Worcester.
“We wanted to do a weekend tour … an experience none of us really have yet,” Beachard said. “We’ve got the EP release coming up, so what better reason to do it than for that? Make a whole weekend out of it … maximize the promotion and the scale of what we’re trying to do.”
The new EP has a unifying theme of an addictive relationship and its consequences. This is a band that dropped a cover of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Driver’s License” a while back, a punked-up rager that made a few wonder what might have been if she chose an edgier artistic path. So it’s not a stretch, really.
“Butterfly-inducing love has devolved into a harmful cycle of gaslighting and psychological abuse,” Beachard explained. “The victim is aware of every betrayal and malicious act, but has dealt with it for so long as a tradeoff for how the good times make them feel, that they can no longer extricate themselves from this negative environment.”
This mood is best represented on the driving “Forget You,” which traces a path from “seventeen, when everything was bare and bittersweet” to “walking hand in hand together with knives behind our backs.” The song is carried by a jagged rhythm of switching melodic vocals and growling metallic screaming, and it’s a gem.
It’s also not autobiographical, Beachard said. “A lot of the songs I write are about things within my own brain. Oftentimes you get into this mode where you live a version of yourself. Sometimes your mind can kind of wander on you and explore. You start to think about what the other versions would be like and how would my life be different.”
Beachard books most of his band’s gigs, but the Shaskeen show is under the auspices of Aaron Shelton’s Kinetic City Events. Outside of House Lights shows, he’s been working with the organization more. “Aaron’s got a lot of opportunities coming his way, a lot of people reaching out for him to help them get a solid program going; but he’s only one guy.”
He’s worked on similar efforts since House Lights formed.
“I want to be part of whoever and wherever people are helping other bands get opportunities in the scene,” he said. “There are a lot of incredible musicians right now, and all they need is opportunity, people to get eyes on them, and people that are looking out for them as well.”
House Lights Release Show w/ Sleepspirit, Moments Of and Empty Halls When: Friday, May 8, 8 p.m. Where: Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester Tickets: $15 at the door, 21+
A bartender explains how bitters & tinctures add flavor
When a bartender is developing a new cocktail, a constant challenge is being able to add subtle or sophisticated flavors to the drink in a way that doesn’t throw off the ratios of other ingredients. Maybe she’s spent a week calculating the exact balance of alcohol and mixers, for instance, and introducing a new element might throw that off or make the drink cloudy. Maybe the flavor of the new ingredient is inconsistent from week to week, and it’s hard to reliably get the right flavor in the finished product.
One of Marissa Chick’s favorite ways to address these issues is to use highly concentrated flavors in the form of bitters and tinctures in her cocktails.
Chick is the bar manager at The Birch on Elm in Manchester, and she uses commercial bitters but also makes a lot of her own.
“They’re really fun to work with,” she said. “What I end up making at the Birch on Elm is more of like a tincture but essentially it’s a really concentrated burst of flavors. So you can have your simple cocktails — like for example a dirty martini — something that I like to add to that is a black pepper tincture that I make. It adds just a little bit of something and you usually only need a few drops, but it’ll just bring out a burst of flavor that you didn’t already have or you might have been missing.”
Chick uses alcohol to strip flavors from ingredients she wants to incorporate into a new drink recipe.
“The way that I make them, honestly, is usually with a super high-proof alcohol,” she explained. “I usually use Everclear [an extremely potent brand of grain alcohol that can run as high as 95% Alcohol By Volume, or 190 proof] and then I will just add my ingredients to it and let it sit in the dark for anywhere from five days to a few weeks, depending on how strong I want it to be.”
These tinctures often use fresh herbs or whole spices but can also use more unusual flavoring agents. Chick recently won a daiquiri-making competition that used a house-made bubblegum tincture. She said coming up with a recipe she was happy with involved a process of gradually increasing the amount of bubblegum she used.
“I grabbed Dubble Bubble, because that’s the one I like the best,” she said. “I tried a couple different ways, but I ended up needing way more bubble gum than I thought I would. In the end, it was practically an entire jar of bubble gum and just filled to the top with Everclear, but I ended up having to redo it a few times because it turns out that surprisingly it didn’t produce as strong a scent as I thought it would. You learn a lot through experimentation and trying again and having fun with it, which is exactly how that one came about. In the cocktail itself, I used a lot of ingredients that bubblegum is made with, like mint, pineapple, cranberry and cherry. Then I added that tincture to it to add a pure bubblegum flavor on it so that it tasted a lot like bubblegum, without making it too sweet.”
Chick said that as she was working up the bubblegum tincture, she decided not to cut the actual bubblegum into smaller pieces. “I just put them in whole,” she said, “and then I shook it up multiple times a day. I took a lot more care with it than other ones, I suppose.”
One of her favorite concentrates is one she makes from Fresno chilies. “It just tastes like the real pepper,” she said, “and you get such a good heat from it. It takes on the same orange-red color as the pepper. I’ve used other [chilies] like jalapeño, and it’s slightly green. Habañero is a brighter, almost neon-orange color. So that is a fun part of it too. Sometimes tinctures can add color sometimes as well instead of just flavor.”
And it doesn’t take much of a tincture to have an effect.
“It’s a lot of flavor,” Chick said. “Just a couple drops does a lot. If it’s something that you really want a lot of, you could use a whole pipette, but that’s the biggest measurement I would use for that.”
Krista Melina has a day job, but she spends a lot of her time thinking about marshmallows. Molina is the owner and head marshmallow-maker of Twisted Mallow, a Merrimack company that produces handcrafted marshmallows in small batches.
“Mallow is sort of a shortened version of marshmallow,” Melina said. “Back in high school, in ninth grade, I was starting at a new school, and my biology teacher was taking roll call. My maiden name is Malowin and he couldn’t pronounce it, so he said, you’re now Miss Malow. It kind of stuck, so I thought that was kind of a cute little link. And then Twisted — I was just trying to play with words a little bit and I thought, ‘Well, I have 30 flavors of marshmallows and I have potentially up to 50 more ideas for new ones.’ I just thought it’s sort of a twist on an old classic but using new flavors and making it different.”
Melina said creating a marshmallow company began as a joke.
“I was sitting with a friend and we were having martinis. I just sort of blurted out, ‘I think I’m going to start a food truck, and it’s going to sell s’mores.’ We were laughing, and she had a really funny comeback. She said, ‘Oh! You can park it in front of funeral homes and call it S’Morbid!” And it was just really hilarious but then on my way home I began wondering how hard it is to make a marshmallow. After a few days, I made one. I started to bring them into work. And then I started to play with the flavors and everyone was giving me really great feedback. I think it was my mom who said, ‘You should start at a farmers market.’ So that’s what I did. So that’s how it sort of launched. I mean, it literally was a joke. I’m a great believer that humor actually reflects our personality and our soul.”
The first batch of marshmallows was fairly traditional, Melina said.
“When I went home for that first time to make marshmallows, I found a really simple vanilla marshmallow online recipe. And that’s what I started with. But what I’ve done since is I will tweak it to add the flavors. And so with my strawberry chocolate, I make a strawberry puree out of fresh strawberries. And I had to fine tune that because if the temperatures aren’t right the gelatin won’t gel and it won’t firm up. And so it’s just interesting. It’s sort of been a science project for me.”
The Twisted Mallow flavors quickly spread beyond vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.
Photo courtesy of Twisted Mallow.
“I have some pretty classic ones,” Melina said, “but I do a dulce de leche, which is fun. I make the caramel and fold that in. I make a mango chili lime, which is probably one of my favorites. I make a lemon-lime, which is really popular. I’ve been working up a lavender [marshmallow]. What I do is I make a lemon marshmallow and then I fold in lavender buds.”
Melina’s rose and cardamom marshmallows were originally supposed to be in rotation for just a week or two. “It was a surprise for me,” she said. “That was only going to be a Valentine’s Day flavor. I was just using it because it’s special for that, but I’ve added it to my website because so many people were asking for it afterward. I use rose water in the formula and then I crush rose petals that are meant for tea and sprinkle that in. So it’s just, I don’t know, it’s fun being creative and coming up with these wacky kinds of twisted flavors.”
Twisted Mallow Twisted Mallow marshmallows are available online at twistedmallowcompany.com and at the Concord Farmers Market (Capitol Street, No. 65, Concord, concordfarmersmarket.com) on Saturday mornings.
Most art exhibitions focus on already completed works, but the City of Nashua is unique in hosting an event that’s about watching art come to life, from raw materials to finished pieces. The Nashua International Sculpture Symposium (NISS) happens for three weeks in May in and around a converted mill building.
Every spring, four sculptors from around the world are invited to participate. This year’s include Valerie Funk, who lives and works in Berlin, Germany, Danaë LeBlond-Joris from France, South Korean native Yunmi Lee, who’s exhibited in Italy as well as her home country, and U.S.-born Casey Schachner, who teaches art at Georgia Southern University.
Now in its 18th year, the event hews to a motto of “art as everyday living,” with a legacy of 52 different public art works in Nashua’s downtown, schools, parks, neighborhoods and walking trails. And it’s truly community-wide; the visiting artists are housed by area families and supported by local businesses and organizations.
NISS President Gail Moriarty is a metalsmith who first got involved by hosting the symposium in a building next to the Picker. In 2016 she and her partner purchased the Pine Street location and launched Picker Artists’ and Design Studio. Moving the symposium there made sense, both practically and aesthetically.
The location and layout of the studio lent it to showcasing the evolution of public art, Moriarty said by phone recently.
“It’s a busy street, and we have sculptors working. It’s a long mill building, so they work on the side of the building right next to the streets; everybody can see them,” she said, adding, “It’s a public, community-driven event.”
While there are only four host families, others get involved by hosting meals with the sculptors. People sign up for lunch or dinner, and bring enough for themselves and the artists. Their reward is a lot of one-on-one time to learn about the work and where the creators come from.
“You sit and enjoy your meal with them, which is private time that you get to spend with these international sculptors; it’s pretty popular,” Moriarty continued. “We love it because we show them the room, we set them up, we close the door, and they have that whole time with the sculptors. No one else is bugging them.”
While the people of Nashua love the event, Moriarty said it’s the sculptors themselves who are the biggest fans. “These are professionals, who travel the world doing sculpture symposiums,” who are more than happy to receive living expenses and a stipend at NISS. “I get requests all year long — when’s it happening, can I apply?”
Moriarty recalled going to breakfast with a sculptor after an installation. Upon learning what most at her level in the art world regularly earn for their work, she asked her why she wanted to come to NISS.
“‘Because of the people, because of your respect for us guys and the way everybody talks about you; all we hear is great things, how much fun it is and how the people are so cool … we just needed to be a part of it,’” Moriarty recalled being told. “They come from Israel and Ukraine and Iran, all these places, and then they go back home to what is going on in their country. But here they had three weeks of fun, and tons of food and lots of people and hugs.”
This year’s theme is “In The Making,” chosen for the unfolding nature of NISS.
“You never know what you’re going to get,” Moriarty said. “The sculptors … can do whatever they want, and it’s different every single day, different every single year. It’s very unique. To watch these people take these big pieces of stone and cull them into something that’s beautiful in just three weeks is just extraordinary.”
18th Annual Nashua International Sculpture Symposium When: May 8 through May 31 Where: The Picker Artists’ Studios, 3 Pine St., Nashua Opening ceremony May 8 at 5:30 p.m., closing ceremony May 31 at 1 p.m. (begins at Picker and moves around the city)
Featured photo: Clockwise from top left, sculptors Casey Schachner, Danaë LeBlond-Joris, Yunmi Lee and Valerie Funk (Courtesy photos).
For Susan Chung, owner of Sue’s Kimbap House, kimchi is as much a staple of everyday cooking as flour or butter.
“Kimchi is just a traditional Korean dish that was made with fermented vegetables,” said Chung, who is the Capitol Center for the Arts’ Culinary Artist in Residence and whose eatery is at Bank of NH Stage in Concord. “The most common type is made from napa cabbage. Another one is [made from] the Korean radish or daikon. Another one that probably isn’t as familiar is kimchi made with cucumbers. That’s one we’re planning to launch at our store coming up soon. But the main thing about kimchi is it’s so versatile that you can have it just as abanchan, or side dish, with just rice, a protein, or even just rice and egg. Traditionally, Korean people will eat kimchi sometimes three times a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I personally don’t, but it’s normal to do that, since even little kids start eating kimchi as early as 2 or 3 years old.”
Chung said she grew up in a non-Korean household and it was only after she married her husband that she began eating foods like kimchi on a regular basis.
“I wasn’t introduced to Korean food until I was in my 20s,” she said. “But the good thing is you can actually ease into kimchi. They have a non-spicy version, which is a watered-down one, which little kids will start off with. But also, if you’re new to the Korean palate, it’s something that you can do as well. Even if you were to try regular Korean kimchi, you can water it, rinse it with water, and then still eat it with a small amount of spice.”
Photo courtesy of Micro Mamas.
Because there are almost as many varieties of kimchi as there are Korean families, Chung said, finding a particular type that suits a particular eater is mostly a matter of shopping around and finding one that suits their palate. “There’s different levels [of intensity] to it,” she said. “If it’s fresh kimchi that’s made that day, it’s not as fermented as the ones you would keep in the refrigerator for up to a month or even longer. And then there are the ones you use once they get super fermented to add to stews and kimchi fried rice. And so when I say it comes to being very versatile, I think kimchi fried rice would be something that most people would be willing to try as well because everyone loves fried rice. But if you make it mixed with the kimchi and then with the fried egg on top, it’s something that a lot of our customers have been waiting for.”
One of the reasons for kimchi’s surge in popularity over the past few years is its reported health benefits. Gloria Najecki, the produce manager at the Concord Food Co-op, said, “It has become increasingly popular because people know that it’s good for their gut and it can be made from a lot of different things so it’s varied so it’s not just cabbage. I think fermented anything is big right now. People like fermented foods because they hear it’s good for their digestive microbiome, you know, their belly and all the good gut bacteria that live there. There’s a whole ecosystem in our bellies so you want to eat varied foods to help keep them all in balance.”
For Najecki, part of eating a balanced diet centers around eating a large variety of foods.
“I’m always saying, ‘Eat the rainbow’” she said. “Eat a lot of different colors. Eat a lot of different textures. You want to have sour things, bitter things. You want to mix it all up because all of that together helps that flora in your belly. And kimchi has healthy microorganisms in it, different yeasts and positive bacteria, that sort of thing.”
Luke Mahoney is the owner of Brookford Farm in Canterbury. He grows many of the key ingredients for kimchi on his farm, and his staff makes small batches of kimchi to sell at his farm store.
“All the ingredients are grown on the farm except ginger,” he said. “The base is napa cabbage and we use leeks and carrots and daikon radish. We grow a Korean pepper, which is specifically for kimchi, and we use garlic and ginger. Daikon [radishes] grow awesome here in New England, but specifically on our farm.”
Stephanie Zydenbos, founder of Micro Mamas, Courtesy photo.
A member of Mahoney’s staff is a fermentation expert named Irina. “She moved here from Russia to be with her family about 10 years ago,” Mahoney said. “She’s been experimenting with different types of conserves and fermentations. She had a job in science in [Russia], but then when she moved here, she no longer worked in science. She didn’t have the language, so we offered her a position as our fermenter. It was kind of a dream we had, but it was still undeveloped. She dove in and got inspired and used her life experience and recipes and also whatever ingredients we had on the farm at the time. She created a wide variety of beautiful artisanal craft ferments. And the kimchi is her pride and joy.”
Stephanie Zydenbos is obsessed with fermentation, too. She is the founder of and facilitator for Micro Mamas in Henniker, a company that makes kimchi and other fermented vegetables.
“We were the very first commercial fermenters in the state,” Zydenbos said. “We learned a lot and continue to be marveled by the art of fermentation — because it is an art.”
Zydenbos said her fascination with fermentation grew from chronic health challenges.
“From adolescence through my early adulthood I had lots of different sinus problems and digestive problems,” she said. “I wasn’t an unhealthy child, but I think that the best way to say it is that I just had a less than optimal digestive system. I took a workshop on kimchi and sauerkraut and how to make our own probiotic foods. I wanted to treat my digestive symptoms naturally and I had been taking some pretty high-dollar high-quality probiotics — which I don’t recommend; anybody, stop doing that! — and I made my first batch of kimchi around the time I had my first child, because I wanted to get my children off to a good start with their digestive health. Around 2011 or 2012 I woke up in the middle of the night and I’m like, ‘Why am I not doing this for a living?’”
Zydenbos said the healthy microorganisms in fermented foods like kimchi start in the soil where the vegetables are grown.
“The microbiology of the soils are how vegetables and isolates of lactic acid bacteria are in the vegetables themselves,” she said. “We get those vegetables in their raw form right from the field.” As vegetables ferment, she explained, “the starches and the sugars break down from the vegetables. They are basically pre-digesting the starches and the sugars and [producing] lactic acid bacteria in addition to accelerating the vitamin and nutrient content of raw vegetables” As the fermentation grows more acidic, she said, it kills off most of any competing bacteria and microorganisms. “The pH becomes so low that the good microbes thrive and none of the harmful bacteria that might exist.”
Zydenbos likes to take a simple approach to eating kimchi.
“The No. 1 thing I like to do,” she said, “is to open some sour cream or hummus and throw 100 grams or so of kimchi in there. That’s it. Bam. Done. It takes chips and dip and brings it to an entirely different level.”
Because the flavor of kimchi covers a spectrum from “zesty” to “pungent” it has been welcomed by fine-dining chefs in recent years to add background flavor, texture, or even a “funky” quality to sauces and dishes. Nick Provencher is the executive chef at The Birch on Elm in Manchester. He said kimchi has found a place in his roster of ingredients.
“We have [a kimchi dish] on the menu currently,” he said, “and we always use a variety of different ferments, whether it be kimchi or to preserve seasonal vegetables, especially in the summer when there’s something like ramps we’ll ferment. We always have different kinds. Right now we have [kimchi] in a kind of a Korean-style barbecue sauce as a base that we cook down with onions, garlic, aromatics and ginger.”
“I think for the most part kimchi adds a lot of depth because it has a variety of different flavor profiles to it,” Provencher said. “It’s got a kind of bold, vinegary quality. It’s like, it’s kind of like blue cheese — it’s stinky but it’s like a good stink, you know? You have spice there, too, which can round a dish out. I think it really makes some dishes shine because of the depth [and pungency] it adds to the sauce. It’s nice too, because there’s also the level of acidity that comes from it, which cuts the fat of a pork belly, which is something we serve with it.”
Keith Sarasin is a chef, an author, and owner of The Farmer’s Dinner, a pop-up restaurant devoted to local, seasonal and sustainable dishes. He is a big fan of kimchi.
“I feel like kimchi is one of those unsung heroes that has existed in either progressive or fine dining scenes for a while,” Sarasin said. “The first thing that makes kimchi great is it’s very universal in what you can put in it. So, obviously cabbage, chilies and things of that nature. But since what we do at The Farmer’s Dinner is so rooted in farms, we’ll add a lot of different backbones to kimchi. Let’s say we have a bunch of arugula — we will gladly add some arugula into [a batch of kimchi]. Whenever we used to forage a lot back in the day, we would add dandelion greens and burdock root and all of these fun things, which give a different layer and complexity to kimchi, starting out with that bitterness. It’s a lot of fun and it reminds me a lot of balancing everything else that you have.”
Because Sarasin works so much with small, local farms, he has seen non-traditional foods like kimchi (non-traditional in New England, anyway) having an impact on what crops those farms grow.
“I feel like diversity has definitely been something that we’ve seen,” he said, “especially in the last five to 10 years. You can always find savoy cabbages and napa and all of these cabbages, but I think you’re seeing more daikons. You’re also seeing a lot more varieties of peppers that are being grown, which is really exciting for me because I love peppers. Part of the backbone of [kimchi] is you definitely need chili powder. It’s one of the really quintessential things. There’s the standard, traditional kimchi, which is out of this world, but then there’s a lot of ways to bring in food waste that typically would go in the bin, you can repurpose to really bring into a beautiful kimchi.”
“Kimchi’s not only about sustainability for us,” Sarasin said. “A lot of what we do is technique-driven, and we’ve used a lot of different techniques when it comes to utilizing kimchi. One of my favorite things to do with kimchi is instead of just serving it we do a lot of dehydration. So we dehydrate kimchi, either the whole kimchi or the brine, and spread it thin on a Silpat [a silicone baking mat] and then we let that dehydrate and grind it into a powder. We’ve used that to dust over dishes like a Wagyu tartare, a creamy soup, or even a savory custard because you get that salt, acidity and umami in one sprinkle. Kimchi lends itself to seafood unbelievably well, and we live in such a beautiful place for seafood. We’ve done kimchi sauces but we built them up with the intensity of aged kimchi. We love to ferment daikon and things of that nature and smear it over pork belly and foie gras.”
Chef Sarasin’s Kimchi Butter Sauce
Yields ~1 cup
Pairs well with seared scallops, roasted cauliflower, halibut, grilled chicken thigh, even a wild mushroom toast.
½ cup (188 g) aged kimchi, finely chopped
2 Tablespoons kimchi brine
¼ cup (55 g) white wine or dry vermouth
1 Tablespoon rice vinegar or white wine vinegar
1 small shallot, finely minced
1 teaspoon sugar (optional, balances acidity)
½ cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cubed
salt to taste
optional: a splash of cream if you want a silkier mouthfeel
1. Start the reduction
In a small saucepan, add the shallots, kimchi, brine, wine and vinegar. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat and reduce until almost dry; basically you want 2-3 tablespoons of liquid left. You want the acidity concentrated but not overpowering.
2. Strain (optional)
If you want a smoother sauce, strain out the solids. But I like leaving the finely chopped kimchi in there for texture and visual.
3. Mount with butter
Lower the heat to low. Whisk in the cold butter cubes one at a time, making sure each one emulsifies before adding the next. Don’t let it boil or it’ll break. If it’s too punchy, add a tiny splash of cream at the end.
4. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Depending on your kimchi, you might not need salt. Serve immediately.
Kimchi Fried Rice
Kimchi Fried Rice. Photo by John Fladd.
Fried Rice
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 cup (188 g) chopped kimchi
3 cups (445 g) steamed rice
¼ cup (55 g) kimchi juice
¼ cup (55 g) water
2-3 Tablespoons gochujang (Korean chili paste)
1 teaspoon fish sauce or Maggi Seasoning
3 teaspoons (1 Tablespoon) toasted sesame oil
Garnish
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
1 mini cucumber or ⅓ normal cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into slivers
3 scallions, chopped
¼ cup (57 g) prepared seaweed salad – you can find this at the sushi counter at many supermarkets
Heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat, then add the chopped kimchi, and fry for about a minute.
Add rice, kimchi juice, water, gochujang and fish sauce. Stir all the ingredients together for seven or eight minutes with a wooden spoon.
According to master chef Roy Choi, the best part of any fried rice is the carmelized, crispy bits from the bottom of the pan. In a Facebook video he advises turning the heat all the way up and letting the rice cook for another minute or two to crisp up the rice. “The thing about this rice, as you see, is we take it to the edge. You feel like you’re going to fall off. You feel like this thing’s going to burn. You take it so far that you think that you can’t take it any farther, that you’re almost scared that it’s going to collapse and be ruined.” Be fearless, in other words.
After a minute or so of cooking at high heat, stir the rice to see if you’ve achieved any crusty bits. If your courage holds out, you might want to blast the rice for another minute or so to recrisp the stirred rice.
Plate the rocket-hot rice in a serving bowl, then drizzle it with sesame oil, and garnish it with the sesame seeds, cucumber slivers, scallions, and seaweed salad.
Kimchi Tacos (plant-based)
Chelsea Mackler is the cheese manager at Whole Foods Supermarket in Bedford. She is not vegan herself, but her wife is. She said that a year or two ago, when her wife was having a rough week, she made kimchi tacos for her, which were extremely well-received. This is a riff on those tacos:
½ cup (114 g) vegan sour cream – I like one from Forager Project; it has a really good flavor
¼ cup (64 g) tahini (sesame paste)
1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil
4 to 6 ounces (100 to 175 g) shiitake mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup (164 g) canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained
¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper
¼ cup (55 g) water
4 six-inch flour tortillas
1 cup (164 g) kimchi
Kimchi Tacos. Photo by John Fladd.
In a smallish bowl, combine the vegan sour cream and tahini. Set aside.
In a large skillet, heat the sesame oil over medium heat, then fry the chickpeas until lightly browned, seven minutes or so. Add the mushrooms and water, then cook, covered, until the shiitakes soften and take on a little color, maybe five minutes more. Season with salt and pepper, then transfer the mixture to a bowl and set aside.
Toast the tortillas in any sesame oil remaining in the pan, about a minute on each side. Keep an eye on them; you’re not looking to make them crispy, just to give them a little color and to cook off their floury taste.
Assemble the tacos. Put 1 to 1½ tablespoons of kimchi at the bottom of each taco, topped with ¼ of the shiitake/chickpea mixture. Top with a tablespoon or so of the tahini sauce.
These are extraordinarily good tacos — not just vegan tacos, but excellent tacos, period. The chickpeas give a little extra savoriness and texture to the mushrooms. The kimchi gives spiciness and flavor but also some essential crunch. Sesame and kimchi pair really well together, so the creamy tahini sauce is just about perfect.
This will make four tacos, which sounds like enough for two people, but the slower eater might end up having to fight to defend their second taco. Plan on four of these guys as a single serving, and adjust the recipe accordingly.
Korean Dirty Martini
Dry vermouth
2 ounces botanical gin – I used Malfi Rosa, a grapefruit-forward gin, and I was very pleased with it
½ ounce of kimchi juice – the flavor and assertiveness of this will depend on the kimchi you have on hand, so be prepared to embrace your first martini of the batch, then adjust how much takes you to where you want to be; half an ounce is a good starting point
Hardware:
A mixing glass – NOT a cocktail shaker. When making a for-real, actual martini, please stir it rather than shake it. It really does make a difference.
A long-handled spoon for stirring – not surprisingly, a bar spoon is perfect for this.
Ice
A stemmed martini glass – martinis are at their best skull-shrinkingly cold, and holding the glass by the stem keeps the heat of your hands from warming yours up.
A cocktail strainer.
Chill your martini glass by either filling it with crushed ice or putting it in your freezer for 10 minutes or so.
Korean Dirty Martini. Photo by John Fladd.
Fill your mixing glass half full with ice and pour an ounce or so of vermouth over it. Stir to coat the ice cubes with the vermouth, then strain away any excess. This is what is called a “dry martini”; it retains just enough vermouth to subtly flavor the drink. There is a version called a “perfect” martini, which uses equal amounts of vermouth and gin. Because the kimchi element will probably be a new experience for you, start with a dry martini and adjust from there.
Pour the gin and kimchi juice into the mixing glass and stir gently but thoroughly, then strain the orange liquor into your chilled martini glass.
If you are a dirty martini enthusiast, this will be right up your alley. It is spicy and sour, with a stiff alcoholic backbone that lets you know you are drinking a grownup cocktail. If you haven’t been a fan of dirty martinis up till now, this might convert you.
The South Manchester Rail Trail has been selected as an American Public Works Associations 2025 Public Works Historical Restoration/Preservation Project of the Year, according to the city’s Department of Public Works. The project finished in May 2024 and extended the city’s rail trail network and repurposed the historic wooden railroad trestle over Cohas Brook into a pedestrian bridge, the press release said.
Forever chemicals
Mariah Blake, author of They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals, will take part in a community conversations about her book on Thursday, May 8, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. online and in person at the Merrimack Historical Society (10 Depot St. in Merrimack), according to a press release. The event is sponsored by New Hampshire Network for Environment, Energy and Climate along with the CItizens for Clean Water, League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club New Hampshire Chapter. See mobilize.us/lcvnh/event/781201 to RSVP.
Miss NH
A new Miss New Hampshire and Miss New Hampshire’s Teen were crowded last weekend and both will go on to compete in the national competitions, Miss America and Miss America’s Teen, according to a press release. Xanthi Russell, who is slated to graduate from NHTI in Concord this month with an associate degree in Paralegal Studies, was named Miss New Hampshire and Megan Plaza, a sophomore at Londonderry High, was crowned Miss New Hampshire’s Teen, the release said. Both won scholarships and will begin a year of service, the release said.
Egg update
Two of the five eggs have hatched in the peregrine falcon nest at Brady Sullivan Tower in downtown Manchester, according to the daily log available in the comments of one of the three livestreaming feeds. The two eyasses — unfledged falcon chicks — are Una, short for Sunapee, hatched on May 2, and Alpy, short for Walpole, hatched on May 6, the log said. The names of five New Hampshire towns were picked by two fifth-grade classes in Hooksett to serve as names for this year’s hatchlings, the log said. The eggs were laid between March 22 and April 7. Find the links to the three live views of the nest via nhaudubon.org/education/birds-and-birding/peregrine-cam, where the New Hampshire Audubon offers the nest cams with support of Peregrine Networks and Brady Sullivan Properties, the website said. The log also has a link to a document with basic information about the nest, the falcons and previous seasons of peregrine falcons that have occupied it and the chicks that hatched there.
Henniker Handmade & Homegrown, a festival of music, arts and food trucks, will run Saturday, May 10, and Sunday, May 11, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the community center and park at 57 Main St. in Henniker, according to a press release. The event will feature nearly 90 local artists, crafters, farmers and food makers, the release said.
Red Arrow Diners in Concord, Londonderry, Manchester and Nashua will offer teachers and nurses 50 percent off their individual meal, including cocktails and desserts, through Sunday, May 11, according to a press release. See redarrowdiner.com/appreciation.
The Great Bay Food Truck Festival will run Saturday, May 10, from noon to 4 p.m. at Stratham Hill Park in Stratham. General admission tickets cost $10 in advance, $15 on the day. See greatbayfoodtruckfestival.com.
The Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass will perform, with special guests the Pinkerton Academy Jazz Ensemble, at the Stockbridge Theatre (44 N. Main St. in Derry; stockbridgetheatre.showare.com) on Tuesday, May 14, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $30.
