Weddings are one of the most important and memorable events in a person’s life. From the vows to the first dance, every moment is a reflection of love, commitment, and joy. Capturing these moments is crucial, and the best way to do that is by hiring a professional wedding photographer. While smartphones and cameras are more advanced than ever, they can’t replace the expertise and experience of a skilled photographer.
A wedding day is often a blur of emotions, conversations, and moments that pass by quickly. As the day unfolds, couples can easily miss out on key moments, like the look of a groom’s face when he sees his bride for the first time or the laughter shared between family members. A wedding photographer’s job is to capture these fleeting moments, preserving them for you to relive for years to come. These photographs are not only keepsakes for the couple but also for future generations.
Wedding photographers bring a level of professionalism that ensures your photos will be high-quality. They are experienced in managing lighting, composition, and angles to create stunning, timeless images. Professionals know how to handle various lighting conditions, from bright outdoor settings to dimly lit reception halls, and use the best equipment to produce clear, sharp images that tell a story.
Choosing to hire a wedding photographer means you can focus on enjoying your day without worrying about capturing every moment. Photographers are experts at what they do, so you won’t have to ask friends or family members to take pictures, which could detract from their ability to participate in the celebration. You can rest assured that your photographer will have everything covered, so you can stay present and relaxed.
A wedding photographer’s portfolio is often a representation of their style, creativity, and technical skills. By hiring a professional, you gain access to a body of work that shows how they can capture moments in different settings, lighting conditions, and environments. You can assess whether their style aligns with your vision for your wedding album.
So maybe you realize that you need a wedding photographer but then how do you choose one?
Wedding photographers have distinct styles, from traditional and posed to candid and documentary. Before you start your search, it’s essential to define the style you want for your wedding photos. Whether you want a modern, artistic look or a more classic approach, knowing your preferences will help narrow down your options.
Start by researching local photographers and reading online reviews. Personal recommendations from friends and family who have had positive experiences can also be valuable. Look through their portfolios to assess the quality of their work and the variety of images they capture. Keep an eye out for consistency and whether their style aligns with your preferences.
Once you’ve narrowed down a list of potential photographers, meet them either in person or virtually to get a sense of their personality and approach. It’s crucial to feel comfortable with your photographer, as they will be a constant presence throughout your wedding day. Make sure they are friendly, approachable, and able to communicate clearly about your needs.
Wedding photography requires specific skills, so it’s important to choose someone who specializes in weddings rather than someone who primarily shoots portraits or events. Inquire about their experience, particularly with weddings of a similar size and style to yours. A photographer with ample experience will know how to handle unexpected situations and will be more adept at capturing all the details that make your day unique.
Wedding photography can be a significant investment, so it’s important to understand the pricing structure. Ensure that you are clear about what is included in the package, such as the number of hours, the number of photographers, and any post-production work like editing and album creation. Discuss the photographer’s policy for overtime or additional costs for travel, prints, or extra services.
Finally, trust your gut. Your wedding photographer will be with you on one of the most important days of your life, so it’s vital that you feel confident in your choice. If you feel at ease with the photographer and confident in their ability to deliver high-quality images, it’s a good sign that you’ve found the right fit.
This is your special day, make those memories and record them.
The art of ice sculpture PLUS a look at Concord’s winter fest
By Zachary Lewis
zlewis@hippopress.com
It is the time of year for ice sculpting and this is not a reference to clearing off the windshield in the morning. Ice sculpting is an art and the people involved in this pursuit are artists.
Jeff Day operates Ice Designs in Plymouth. This business handles all things ice. From sculpture to making the blocks themselves, to delivering ice bars across state lines, Day is in his element in the cold and is in the middle of an ice delivery.
“Right now we’re bringing ice to another set of carvers in Maine. We supply ice to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont to ice sculptors as well as ourselves. I guess I’d say we’re the busiest of the ice sculptors in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. We also supply. So if it’s not our ice we’re carving, someone else is carving our ice, which is cool,” Day said.
These cold waters run deep.
“I’ve been doing it since, I don’t know, I’m going to say like 1993, maybe. So quite a while ago. We’re located in Plymouth, New Hampshire. We got a warehouse and big freezers. Our busy season is basically December through March and then we have a lot of outside jobs,” Day said.
Ice sculpture from Eric Knoll. Courtesy photo.
Day and his company have worked for corporations like Red Bull for snowboard competitions and exhibitions. “So for Red Bull, we’ve done ice jobs on top of ski mountains for their professional riders. It’s cool. We’ve been blessed. We’ve done a lot.”
In the beginning, the culinary world propelled Jeff into the ice sculpting world.
“I was a chef by trade and I moved right to San Diego. Every Sunday there was at least five sculptures at our brunch. I was like, I don’t know, 20 years old. We did carve one in school and once I became a little more proficient as a chef and started being the boss I started doing a little carving on the side. Finally a chef asked me if I could carve something. He asked me if I could carve an eagle. I said, ‘How many blocks do you have?’ He says three. So, if I have a third block of ice, I made something that I felt represented the eagle well enough. It wasn’t great, but like I always say, I made a lot of ugly ones for a while until I got it figured out.”
Like a chef using an assortment of cutlery and utensils to craft the perfect dish, an ice sculptor relies on different tools.
“A chainsaw is very much a go-to for us,” Day said. “We do chisels. I use chisels a lot. We do have power tools. Basically, they look like drill bits.They’re from the milling industry, metalworking. We modify stuff in order to get what we need … there’s a few things out there that are made specific for us, but most of it’s taken from other industries. We use grinders with sandpaper, aluminum oxide sandpaper. And then we have some power tools, some brass and things like that that we put in die grinders.”
A die grinder works at high speed. “Like a big Dremel,” Day said. “It looks like a drill, but it’s really not. It spins at like 25,000 RPMs, and we can plunge with it, and we can carve with it.”
Ice Designs does not need to wait for a polar vortex to get blocks of ice.
“We produce our own ice, so we have 16 block makers.The block makers, they’re called Clinebell block makers, and they make crystal clear ice. It takes us three days to make two blocks of ice. We have 16 machines that make 64 blocks a week. Each block is about 45 gallons of water and we freeze it from the bottom up.”
There is a method to this freezing madness, Day said. “As it freezes, we have a circulator pump, and that pump moves the water around and gets rid of any oxygen that’s in the water. And that’s what makes it clear and any impurities or anything go to the top of the water.”
The water sinks below and all the impurities rise to the top. “So when we cut the top of this off at the end of the three days, we end up with a rectangle, a big block of ice that weighs 300 pounds and is crystal clear.” The block is 40 inches tall, 20 inches wide, and 10 inches thick, he said.
Everything beautiful comes from the effervescent ice. “We can take those, like right now we have 70 blocks with us and we’re going up here and they’re going to build a big ice bar event, so we can stack these blocks and make a 10-foot-tall horse if we want,” Day said.
It is hard for Jeff to pick one favorite design over the years especially since Ice sculpture is such a passion for him. “We’ve done so many, it’s been such a good run. We’ve done some really cool dragons. I just did a competition last year, I did a dragon. I was pretty psyched about it. People ask if I have a favorite one. I don’t know. There’s been so many. I just really enjoy it,” Day said.
For an installation Day typically pre-makes the pieces to be assembled on site but the sculpture is carved in real time.
“I call it the big project,” he said. “And the next morning, the day of the event, I go and I get to carve that into … a horse or a dragon or an astronaut or whatever the case may be. That’s the best because it’s the last day, all the other stuff is done and I try to uncover this and make this thing look killer, which is fun. The last day is enjoyable.”
Day has the ability to carve and sculpt despite the season and has a few helpers to assemble the frozen magic.
“The weather is always a gamble, so we try to do as much ahead as possible,” he said. “I have a huge freezer, a 26-by-36 freezer I can drive a forklift in at my warehouse, and we have two other freezers. … I have a guy that helps me, Jamie, a high school friend for years, he’s a retired police officer. My girlfriend, Holly, she helps me a ton. I have another friend, Alex, that helps out a little, and between them, we can get this all done. We’re pretty darn efficient because we have to be.”
Those with a passion to sculpt ice into whatever their heart desires just need to ask around to find their path into this world. “Find someone like myself and work for them. I carved ice on the side, like my side hustle for a long time, and I was competing and doing well with that,” he said. “I went to Boston and got in with a guy named Steve Rose. Steve Rose and Bill Covitz. Those guys were absolute rock stars and they really humbled me. I worked with those guys a lot and that really was the next step to help me get better at my game. Unfortunately, most of us sculptors are, I would say, 40 and older.”
Eric Knoll is on the younger side of ice sculptors in the world.
“Eric is the youngest guy and he’s got another job so he’s part-time as a side hustle and he’s doing a pretty good job,” Day said about Knoll.
Knoll was turned on to the art of ice sculpture at culinary school.
“I went to Johnson & Wales in Providence, Rhode Island, for culinary and started learning it in college, essentially. I’ve been doing it inside since I learned it. It’s been 15 years and I can’t stop doing it,” Knoll said.
“It actually is no longer taught in culinary school, but when I first learned it, it was for cruise ships and buffets and centerpieces, weddings and stuff like that,” he said.
Ice sculpture was where Knoll found another outlet, besides cooking, for his artistic gift. “I actually didn’t know what ice carving was. The first year I was at college they had a family event on the weekend and I walked by it and I was like, ‘What is this?’ Then I just tried to learn everything I could possibly learn about it. But before that, I mean, I can’t draw. I can’t paint. Am I creative? Absolutely.”
He recalls that one of his first competitions was in Keene, New Hampshire, “which they still have going and I still participate every year since and it’s just part of ice carving in the winter.”
Each competition inspires Knoll to make something different.
“I try to do new ones I haven’t done before at a competition because it’s a place to do it where you can kind of test the limits. You’re usually outside if things work out, the weather is cold enough. So you can do different things that you couldn’t do if the weather wasn’t cold.”
The ocean has been an inspiration. “The very first one I learned was a lighthouse, because obviously we’re in Rhode Island, so sticking with the theme,” he recalled. “But I’ve carved many different themes, different types of sculptures.”
These sculptures have led Eric around the globe. “I’ve gone to the World Championships up in Fairbanks, Alaska, for three years in a row, and that’s a whole different competition on its own. Usually like to stick with the nautical or sea creature theme, just a lot of detail you can do in those sculptures. One year I did a bunch of fish. I think the year before was a bunch of fish in a coral reef. I’ve done an eagle.”
Courtesy photo from Eric Knoll.
One sea creature is still on his list to sculpt. “There’s an octopus that I haven’t done yet. I actually tried to do it in Keene two years ago and the weather was too warm … and I was put right on Main Street with no sunshade, so it was just not feasible to pull that sculpture off. So one day, eventually, I will pull off an octopus. In Alaska I’ve done a full underwater scene. There was a shark. There were jellyfish in the sea, two or three other sea creatures on that one as well, but I’ve done a lot of other things. I carved a giant scorpion one year. I’ve done some realistic sculptures as well,” Knoll said.
At the Winter Festival in Concord he tied for first place in 2023 with Michael Legassey and he earned first place in 2019. Knoll is still deciding on what to sculpt for the Festival this year.
“I do not know yet. It really is weather-dependent. I usually wait until like the week before and look at the forecast of the weather to decide what type of design I can do and what type of sculpture. That’s usually how I prepare for a lot of the competitions. You do plan ahead, but you have a backup just in case the weather changes and you can’t actually carve what you’re trying to carve based on how warm or cold it is,” Knoll said.
Ice, unsurprisingly, is quite temperature-dependent. “There’s a lot of techniques involved, so you can actually fuse blocks of ice together or pieces together, but that can only really be achieved at 30 degrees or less or you’ve got to use dry ice and then it’s really messy and it’s not as easy to do as many of those fuses. Cold weather is what we look for in outside competitions.”
Knoll helps put on the Winter Festival with Intown Concord and The Hotel Concord and has been “part of it from the very beginning when it first started. I helped with a big part of planning it and growing it each year.”
Growth is important; the world of ice sculpting may be smaller than you think.
“Yeah, the community of ice carving is very small,” Knoll said. “That’s where I say, yeah, we compete against each other and obviously we’re competitive but we all are there to help each other and learn from each other. We’ll help stack each other’s blocks of ice…. It’s really a whole community and it’s a big team even though it’s a competition.
The New Hampshire Audubon’s annual Backyard Winter Bird Survey is slated for Saturday, Feb. 8, and Sunday, Feb. 9, and the Audubon will hold a webinar about how to participate in the survey on Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 6:30 p.m. Go to nhaudubon.org to sign up to learn how to observe birds and submit data, identify commonly confused bird species and more, according to the Audubon’s newsletter. Instructions for participating in the count are also available on the website, the newsletter said.
The Massabesic Center in Auburn will also offer a Backyard Winter Bird Survey Practice Walk on Monday, Jan. 27, at 9 a.m. The event is free but RSVP online.
In the newsletter the NH Audubon also introduced its newest animal ambassadors: Northern Leopard Frog tadpoles. The frogs will have green and spotted skin and be on display at the Audubon’s centers, the newsletter said.
Volunteers & games
The Aviation Museum of New Hampshire (27 Navigator Road, Londonderry, 669-4877, aviationmuseumofnh.org) will hold a volunteer open house on Wednesday, Feb. 5, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. for those interested in volunteering at the museum and its programs, according to a press release. Those interested in attending can call and leave a message or e-mail cbates@nhahs.org.
Or just visit the museum to check out the exhibit of vintage aviation-themed board games, on display for a final weekend, along with the “Holiday Festival of Toy Planes and Model Aircraft,” through Sunday, Jan. 26. The museum is open Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m., the release said.
Class of 2026
Leadership New Hampshire, a program that seeks to help participants “explore critical issues facing the Granite State, gain a deeper understanding of its regions and communities, and create high-level, statewide connections,” is accepting applications for its class of 2026 through March 15. Those selected will participate in a 10-month program, according to a press release.
“Applications are open to anyone who has lived or worked in New Hampshire for at least one year,” the release said. See leadershipnh.org to apply or contact Leadership New Hampshire Associate Director Mandy Sliver at mandy@leadershiph.org for more information.
RIP David Lynch
Celebrate director David Lynch, who died last week, with a screening of his 2001 film Mulholland Drive (which is rated R) on Thursday, Jan. 30, at 6:30 p.m. at Red River Theatres, 11 S. Main St. in Concord. Lynch received a Best Directing nomination for the film, which he wrote and directed and which star Naomi Watts. See redrivertheatres.org.
Reed’s North in Warner will host a seaglass tree workshop on Sunday, Jan. 26, at 4 p.m. Register to learn to make this craft for $65 per person via Reed’s North’s Facebook page.
Bella Vita Dance Company will hold a 603 Salsa & Bachata Social at 859 Hanover St. in Manchester on Friday, Feb. 14, starting at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $20 solo admission, $35 for a couple ($5 more at the door). Lessons will run until 9 p.m., when the social dance will start. See bellavitadance.com.
Live Free Animal Rescue (livefreerescue.com) will hold its Great Gatsby Furball on Saturday, Feb. 8, from 5 to 10 p.m. at Zorvino Vineyards in Sandown. Tickets cost $125 and include a cocktail, dinner and dessert, according to the website, where you can find a link to purchase.
LaBelle Winery in Derry will host a Yellowstone-inspired dinner party on Friday, Jan. 31, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. featuring a three-course meal inspired by the TV show as well as games like cornhole and a mechanical bull, according to labellewinery.com, where you can purchase tickets ($85 per person).
Tickets are on sale now for the Granite Game Summit, a celebration of board games that will be held at the Doubletree by Hilton in Nashua with events Thursday, March 6, through Sunday, March 9. Tickets cost $80 and allow admission for all days ($35 for kids 13 and under). See granitegamesummit.com.
The idea for Clearly Country, the new EP from Modern Fools, came from a sign spotted by songwriter Josh Blair at a yard sale in Peterborough. He couldn’t shake it from his mind, so he returned to make an offer. “I didn’t know why I bought it,” he said by phone recently. “Then it just kind of dawned on me that it was going to be the cover of a honky-tonk album.”
The result is a gem, born as much from Blair’s love of purists like Hank Williams and Buck Owens as from his affinity for cosmic cowboys such as Gram Parsons and the Byrds album on which he served as a guiding light, Sweetheart of the Radio, an effort many point to as key in launching country rock as a genre.
Standout tracks on Clearly Country include “Ballroom Bender Blues,” a song about a guy whose drunkenness doubles for dancing; it rollicks like The Band with a pickup pedal steel player. “On My Mind” has guest vocals from Rachel Sumner and could be a cut from John Prine’s In Spite of Ourselves, while the high lonesome ballad “Eastern Standard” evokes the Everly Brothers, another big influence. Its supple harmonies are complemented by Braught’s spare, elegant soloing.
The Keene/Peterborough band — Blair, drummer Justin Gregory, Jon Braught on guitar, keyboard player Nick Hayes and Ian Galipeau on bass — will celebrate the seven-song collection at a release show in Concord on Jan. 18. The BNH Stage date includes support from indie rockers Slim Volume and singer/songwriter Rachel Berlin.
The group began over a decade ago with a different lineup and sound.
“We played a lot of local shows and kind of fizzled out around 2016,” Blair said. During the pandemic he and Gregory began working on ideas, later recruiting Braught, and Galipeau a while after that. The band released the introspective LP Seer in 2020 and Strange Offering in 2023.
Neither of those efforts bears much resemblance to Clearly Country.
“It’s a bit of a tangent … a departure from our normal sound,” Blair said of the new EP. “This is a concept album of sorts.” He’d kicked around ideas for a twang-forward effort soon after releasing their last album, including teaming with their friend Sumner.
“I wanted that old country duet sort of thing, like Johnny Cash and June Carter sort of thing; we all unanimously thought about Rachel,” Blair said. “She really liked the song and absolutely delivered … she sent us a quick demo back, and she just nailed it.”
Blair has significant roots in the Concord music scene dating back to playing psychedelic blues at Penuche’s with Ghost Dinner Band, and later in the supergroup Band Band. He immediately thought of the BNH Stage for the concert, reaching out to John McArthur at New Hampshire Music Collective, which books a lot of original bands there.
With NHMC on board, they began looking for bands to share the stage.
“Slim Volume was the first pick for everybody in the band; we just love their sound, it’s very complementary,” Blair said. “Then we thought of Rachel Berlin, she’s from the Concord area and just a great singer/songwriter with a great voice. It’s a really solid lineup and a really solid venue.”
The show is a solid reflection of the Capitol City’s continuous support for local artists. Even though Blair isn’t a resident, he feels an affinity from his years playing in the city, with so many different musical projects.
“Concord always felt like home in the music scene,” he said, “and it’s always kind of felt like a home away from home for me.”
Modern Fools with Slim Volume and Rachel Berlin When: Friday, Jan. 17, 8 p.m. Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord Tickets: $18.75 at ccanh.com
An exotic dancer gets caught up in the rich-kid-nonsense of the son of a wealthy Russian family in Anora.
Ani (Mikey Madison), the titular Anora, dances at a strip club where one of her special talents is a working knowledge of Russian, even if her accent isn’t the best. When young Russian goofus Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) comes in, she is sent out to dance for him. He gives her his cell number and she agrees to some hang-out time outside the club. Eventually their arrangement stretches into a week-long girlfriend experience, with Ani traveling to Las Vegas with Vanya and his entourage. Vanya doesn’t want to return to Russia, where it sounds like he will have to work and won’t be able to just get high and play video games all day. He suggests that he marry Ani and thus become a U.S. citizen and thus not return. Despite seeming like she’s worldly enough to see the pitfalls in this, Ani says yes and they head to a Vegas wedding chapel.
Vanya is 21 and Ani is 23. You act 25, Vanya tells her. Really, she acts like a 23-year-old who sees a ray of economic light and he acts like a 14-year-old for whom there have never been any consequences for his careless actions. Madison does a good job of giving us this very young woman who’s in way over her head and struggling to do the best she can with what she, at least for a little while, believes could be a real marriage and a real chance at a better future for herself. In its second half, the movie does feature segments that read more as kind of a comedy of errors with Vanya’s father’s American-based henchmen trying to find and hold onto Vanya while they “fix” what they see as yet another mess he has made. This part of the movie has its charms, with Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian and Vache Tovmasyan playing workers in this family operation who have to deal with the increasingly enraged Ani and the increasingly petulant man-child Vanya. But I don’t know that this “Chris and Paulie in the Pine Barrens” comedy entirely fits with what otherwise feels like a portrait of Ani. I will also say that, for me, this movie had expectations working against it — it has been nominated for, like, every movie award this season. I enjoyed it fine, it is worth a watch, but there are visible seams and rough patches (Vanya’s parents, when they show up, feel very underbaked) I didn’t expect based on all the accolades. B+, I guess, but credit the + mostly to Madison.Available for rent or purchase.
A Different Man (R)
Sebastian Stan plays an actor with facial differences in the at-times comic, at-times sad A Different Man.
Edward (Stan) gets a role in what appears to be a human resources video about working with employees who have differences in facial structure or appearance. It’s only about a minute of screentime, but it’s an acting credit at least for struggling actor Edward, who has facial tumors. When he meets his new neighbor, a playwright named Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), her initial reaction is a gasp, though she later becomes friendly with him. Meanwhile, he agrees to take part in a new clinical trial, taking a drug that causes extreme pain. His skin begins to slough off his face and after a particularly dramatic skin peeling he discovers that his face is now, well, Sebastian Stan’s differences-free “normal” face. Basically disowning his old self, Edward becomes Guy, a Stan-ily handsome successful real estate salesman who tells Ingrid and others that Edward is dead.
Years later, he sees a notice for an audition specifically looking for an actor with facial differences for a play called Edward, written by Ingrid. He auditions and gets the part, which he plans to play while wearing a mask that looks like his old face. But then Oswald (Adam Pearson) shows up. Oswald has facial differences similar to Edward’s but he also has the confidence, positivity and personability — and charming English accent — that Edward never did. “Guy,” the real Edward, watches as Oswald eventually plays Edward better than Edward does and then becomes the life of the afterparty as well.
Is there anything more irritating than someone who can take your particular set of lemons and make wildly popular lemonade out of them? Stan is excellent as someone who realizes the limitations of “normality” and is torn between clearly admiring Oswald and kind of hating him for how much better he is at living their life. It’s a quiet, confused rage and Stan wears it very well, simmering and boiling over in a way that makes no sense to the other characters. Adam Pearson, who does have neurofibromatosis and facial differences in real life, does a good job of differentiating Oswald from Edward. Oswald seems to move through the world matter-of-factly, presenting himself openly and then pushing people to see him fully. The movie doesn’t show us the work this takes from Oswald but that kind of fits with our point of view, which is Edward’s point of view, which is of this guy who lights up a room and gets the girl, something that even “Guy” can’t quite pull off. B+ Available for rent or purchase and streaming on Max staring Jan. 17
Flow (PG)
A cat keeps on keeping on through floods, storms and hostile lemurs in Flow, a beautiful, watercolor-esque, dialogue-free animated story.
Wikipedia says the animation was done with computer graphics, which you can see, particularly in the way water is rendered, with a look that is sometimes almost photorealistic. But the animals themselves often have a picture book watercolor-painted look — vibrant in their color and well defined but with a softness. We follow the adventures of a black cat, who at the beginning of the movie spends its nights sleeping in a bed in a house surrounded by outdoor cat statues. We never see the artist who left one statue half-finished on their workbench, nor any other people in this world full of human structures and human items, like bottles or a mirror, but that otherwise gives the sense of humans being long absent.
The cat is chased by a pack of dogs for a while, before a sudden rush of water floods the forest where the cat is living. The cat eventually hops on a boat that floats by and finds a capybara also living there. They continue to float, meet other animals along the way and run into the dogs from the beginning of the movie a few times — with one dog seeming to be particularly attached to the cat and the group as a whole.
The movie is ultimately more meditative than plot driven, with the soft music and lovely visuals taking you more to a place of float-along wonder. I don’t know that it is action-packed enough to hold a young audience but it held me through all of its beautiful scenes of watery paradises and big eyed animals. A Available for rent or purchase.
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (PG)
The cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his much smarter dog Gromit face off against the super criminal penguin Feathers McGraw in Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.
Since Wallace and Gromit helped put away Feathers for stealing the blue diamond, the wordless, devious penguin has been locked in “prison” (a penguin exhibit at the zoo). Meanwhile, Wallace (voice of Ben Whitehead) has continued to invent — mostly semi-terrible gadgets like the automatic jam-on-toast applier and robotic dog-patter. But then, to “help” Gromit, he invents Norbot (voice of Reece Shearsmith), a garden gnome robot who is extremely overzealous about tidying up — he mows down Gromit’s newly planted tree and flowers and trims the hedges into squares. Gromit is annoyed but the neighbors are delighted and ask Wallace to hire Norbot out, which he does. The local news team shows up to do a story on this invention, which Feathers happens to see on TV. Feathers hacks in to Norbot’s operating system, turning his core setting from “good” to “evil.” Norbot then creates his own army of gnome robots to enact Feathers’ dastardly plan.
The animation here is fun, the usual Aardman look of clay creations in a world full of tactile items like a book with paper pages — such as Gromit’s copy of A Room Of One’s Own by Virgina Woof. Authority figures — Wallace, police chief Mackintosh (voice of Peter Kay) — are pleasantly clueless while brainier figures like Gromit and the young police officer P.C. Mukherjee (voice of Lauren Patel) know there’s trouble afoot. In Aardman style, there are “wrong’uns” and meanness without cruelty, making it very friendly for a wide range of ages, including older kids who can enjoy the overall goofiness. AStreaming on Netflix.
Next week’s Winter Wine Spectacular is one of four major fundraising events for the New Hampshire Food Bank. Three of the four events — the Distiller’s Showcase in November, the Wine Spectacular in January, and the Steel Chef competition in March — are food- or drink-related. Together with a September golf tournament, these events allow the Food Bank to feed more people.
Nancy Mellitt is New Hampshire Food Bank’s Director of Development. She is one of the principal organizers of these fundraising events.
“The funds that we see from the Wine Spectacular,” she said, “will help us to … purchase food — we’re purchasing about 30 percent more food this year over last year — for distribution. About one in 10 individuals in New Hampshire — one in seven children 18 and under — are food-insecure. Those [numbers come] from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap, and those numbers are from 2022. We all know that grocery prices are very high, fuel is high, rents are high; so it’s just difficult for people to make ends meet. And sometimes they have to make a choice between shelter and food.”
According to statistics on New Hampshire Food Bank’s website, in 2023 the organization distributed 16.3 million pounds of food and, working with more than 400 partner agencies, served 13.6 million meals across New Hampshire.
Mellitt said that events like the Winter Wine Spectacular, which is put on by the New Hampshire Liquor Commission, are an important part of meeting that mission.
“We have a very great partnership with the Liquor Commission,” she said, adding that it was the Commission that suggested this partnership. “The Liquor Commission asked the Food Bank if we would consider taking this event on. We recruit restaurants for individuals to have tastings, both in the expo and in the VIP room. We’re trying to help to solicit some auction items available for folks to bid on. And we help to recruit volunteers so that everything’s running smoothly and the guests have a fabulous experience.”
The Liquor Commission, for its part, donates 100 percent of the event’s proceeds to the Food Bank.
“The main driver of this program is that it’s a huge benefit,” said Mark Roy, Director of Marketing for the Liquor Commission. “Our beneficiary is our partner, the New Hampshire Food Bank. [The Distillers’ Showcase and the Wine Spectacular] are not only about educating our consumers about our products and our outlets and our business but it’s partnering with crucial people like the New Hampshire Food Bank. It’s a 360-degree encompassing feel-good event. You can come and have a good time and know that it’s going toward a good cause and something that New Hampshire and the Liquor Commission really supports.”
The next event on Nancy Mellitt’s radar is the Steel Chef competition in March (nhfoodbank.org/steelchef), where 680 attendees will watch a live, timed cooking competition featuring prominent New Hampshire chefs. As the chefs compete against each other to prepare their best dishes featuring a mystery ingredient, guests will eat a special dinner curated by Celebrity Chef Marcus Samuelsson. Mellitt is a big fan.
“He was fabulous last year,” she said. “Of all of the chefs that we’ve had to date, he’s been the best. The first year a chef [hosts] this event is tough for them because they’ve never done it before; they still don’t really know what to anticipate. But Chef Sameulsson just blended in. It was amazing. It was really great to meet him and work with him and we’re looking forward to it again.”
Mellitt said tickets for Steel Chef will sell out early: “I would say they will sell out probably sometime in January.”
Food Bank events 19th Annual New England Winter Wine Spectacular When: Friday, Jan. 23, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Where: Doubletree Expo Center, 700 Elm St., Manchester Tickets: available through eventbrite.com.
9th Annual Steel Chef event When: Monday, March 17 Tickets: available at nhfoodbank.org/steelchef
To learn more about food insecurity in New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Food Bank’s role in alleviating it, visit nhfoodbank.org/hunger-in-nh.
