It’s time for your encyclopedic knowledge of the movie Dirty Dancing to pay off at Dirty Dancing Trivia tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Chunky’s Cinema Pub (707 Huse Road, Manchester, 206-3888, chunkys.com). Tickets are $7 through the Chunky’s website.
Thursday, April 2
The new season of music at the Casino Ballroom on Hampton Beach kicks off tonight with Melissa Etheridge. Doors open at 7 p.m.; show starts at 8 p.m. See casinoballroom.com for tickets.
Friday, April 3
Jewel Music Venue (61 Canal St., Manchester, 819-9336, facebook.com/jewlnh) will host the Hachi presented Wizard’s Wasteland Tour featuring headliners Space Wizard along with Swamp Wizard, She-Wolf, Ainonow and Slang Dogs, according to Jewel’s Facebook page, where you can find a link to purchase tickets.
Friday, April 3
The BNH Stage (16 S. Main St., Concord, 225-1111, ccanh.com) will host Lisa Joins a Cult tonight at 7:30 p.m. foran immersive evening of exploring religious cults, why they happen and what keeps them going. Tickets are $27 through the Capitol Center website.
Saturday, April 4
There’s a Baa Baa Bash at Brookford Farm (250 West Road, Canterbury, 742-4084, brookfordfarm.com) from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday in April beginning today. Welcome spring with baby animals, muddy boots and maybe even a live animal birth. Buy feed bags and feed the animals. Admission is free. Visit brookfordfarm.com/events.
Saturday, April 4
The Exeter LitFest will run today from noon to 5 p.m. at Exeter Town Hall and feature authors including Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (whose works include the April 7 release The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie) and Catherine Newman (author of 2025’s Wreck) among other author conversations, according to exeterlitfest.com. The day will also feature children’s events at the Exeter Public Library starting at 10 a.m., the website said.
Saturday, April 4
Concord’s Giant Indoor Yard Sale takes place today from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Everett Arena (15 Loudon Road, Concord), according to the event’s Facebook page. Adult admission costs $5, the page said.
Sunday, April 5
Catch Cecil B. Demille’s first attempt at the Moses story when the 1923 silent film The Ten Commandments plays at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre on Main Street in Wilton, screened with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, today at 2 p.m.
Friday, April 3
The New Hampshire Fisher Cats open their 2026 season tonight at 6:03 p.m. at Delta Dental Stadium (1 Line Drive, Manchester, 641-2005, milb.com/new-hampshire). They will take on the Binghamton Rumble Ponies tonight and again tomorrow, Saturday, April 4, and Sunday, April 5, at 1:05 p.m. See milb.com/new-hampshire for tickets. The game will be preceded by a Hot Dog Happy Hour with food and live entertainment beginning 90 minutes before game time.
Save the Date! April 17, 2026 The three-time Grammy Award-winning Nitty Gritty Dirt Band will perform at the Nashua Center for the Arts (201 Main St., Nashua, 800-657-8774, nashuacenterforthearts.com) Friday, April 17, at 7:30 p.m. as part of their “Farewell Tour, All the Good Times: 60 Years of Dirt.” Tickets start at $66, with a limited number of VIP passes available through the Nashua Center’s website.
Featured photo: Retired Navy pilot Lynn “Skip” Carter. Courtesy photo.
The pair of peregrine falcons nesting at the Brady Sullivan Tower in Manchester welcomed an egg on March 25, according to the daily log for the Peregrine Cam, which you can access via nhaudubon.org/education/birds-and-birding/peregrine-cam. The cam offers livestreaming video of three angles on the nest via NH Audubon and the support of Peregrine Networks and Brady Sullivan Properties, according to the website. Last year the nest produced five eggs, of which three hatched.
Bird events
The NH Audubon’s Massabesic Center, 26 Audubon Way in Auburn, will celebrate the return of nesting birds with two programs on Saturday, April 11. “NestWatch Volunteer Training: Eastern Bluebird and Tree Swallow Monitoring” will run from 9 to 11:30 a.m. and “Build-A-Birdhouse” will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., according to the NH Audubon’s newsletter. Register for either at nhaudubon.org.
Health care forum
The New Hampshire Insurance Department will hold the 2026 Commissioner’s Health Care Policy Forum on Wednesday, April 29, from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. “This first-of-its-kind event is designed to bring together policymakers, stakeholders, and interested members of the public for a proactive discussion on one of the most pressing issues facing New Hampshire residents and employers: the rising cost of health care among Granite Staters. The forum is the first event hosted by the Department specifically focused on examining ways to help bend the cost curve and promote greater transparency around the drivers of health care spending. The program will feature the rollout of New Hampshire’s Total Health Care Expenditure findings, including the New Hampshire Health Care Dollar, 2023 and 2024 total statewide health care spending, and insights from the NHID Health Care Data Chartbook,” according to a press release. The forum will take place at the New Hampshire Fire Academy Auditorium, 98 Smokey Bear Blvd. in Concord. Register at bit.ly/3NyeIzY.
Baby shower
The United Way of Greater Nashua is collecting items for its Community Baby Shower, which is slated for April 22, according to a press release. Donate to the registry or drop off baby items to 20 Broad St. in Nashua, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., through Sunday, April 12. Items include baby clothes, car seats, diapers, board books and more; see unitedwaynashua.org/event/community-baby-shower.
Manchester Artists
The Manchester Artists Association will hold its April meeting on Monday, April 6, at 7 p.m. in the Community Room at the Michael L. Briggs Public Safety Building, 405 Valley St. in Manchester, featuring speaker watercolor artist Leah Keuhne, according to a press release. See manchesterartists.com.
“Emergence,” a spring juried members exhibition, will open Thursday, April 2, and run through Saturday, June 27, at the Center for the Arts Members Gallery, 428 Main St. in New London, with an opening reception slated for Saturday, April 4, from 3 to 5 p.m. “‘Emergence’ highlights artwork inspired by themes of transformation, renewal, and the shifting energy that arrives as spring moves toward summer. The exhibition reflects both the natural transition from cold to warmth and the creative momentum that grows within a supportive arts community,” according to a press release. The gallery is open Thursday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. See cfanh.org.
Dave Anderson of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests wraps up the Cottrell-Baldwin Environmental Lecture Series with a talk called “New Hampshire Forests — Past, Present and Future: 125 Years Protecting NH Landscapes and Landmarks Mammal Tracking in New Hampshire” on Tuesday, April 7, from 7 to 8:30 a.m. at Fox Forest’s Henry I. Baldwin Environmental Center, 309 Center Road in Hillsborough. See forestsociety.org/events to RSVP.
Salem Animal Rescue League will hold a fundraising music bingo event on Friday, April 10, at 7 p.m., doors open at 6 p.m., at the Windham Country Club, 1 Country Club Road in Windham. Tickets cost $60 and include dinner; see sarlnh.org.
The Queen City will be featured in its own board game with Monopoly: Manchester Edition, slated for release in late November, according to a press release.
According to common wisdom, one way to deal with stage fright is to imagine the audience is naked. But what if they’re in the buff already? That’s what cellist Rebecca Roudman and her bandmates in Dirty Cello were thinking when they played at a nudist resort a few years back.
The Northern California quartet has toured the world with a revved-up brand of rock, blues and bluegrass that’s driven by Roudman’s cellist talents. Songs like “Dream On” by Aerosmith and AC/DC’s “Long Way to the Top” are transformed into grassified booty-shakers, and their originals are also stellar.
Luckily for the naked crowd that day, Roudman was the opposite of shy, as she worked her carbon fiber cello like Hendrix on a Strat. Nonetheless, guitarist Jason Eckl, who’s also Roudman’s husband, recalled in a recent Zoom interview with the couple that the gig was still a bit distracting.
“We’re playing our groovy music and people are dancing, which is funny,” he said. “Then all of a sudden without thinking about it I call out a very fast bluegrass song, and the dancing just kicks into high gear. The hula hoops are coming out, and Rebecca’s giggling through the whole thing.”
The gig was one of the few available during the social distancing days of the pandemic, but it put Dirty Cello on a special speed-dial list.
“We keep getting hired to go play at naked people places,” Eckl said. “But we always like to say we keep our clothes on.”
Roudman had a lifetime playing classical music in symphony orchestras when she decided to push the cello’s boundaries.
“I wanted to let my hair down, do something else,” she said. “I’d started performing with a blues band, and one day they asked me to solo and improvise on the blues. I didn’t know how, and I realized this is a skill that I wanted to learn.”
While her cello-playing stays front and center, Roudman has a powerful voice, one reason why Dirty Cello convincingly rocks songs like Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog.” But she never planned on being a singer, and deflected a compliment that compared her vocal style to Heart’s Ann Wilson.
“I always consider myself just a cellist but thank you very much,” she said, explaining that the band hired a singer or two, but none of them could keep up. “Jason encouraged me. He said, ‘Look, you can sing, you should sing with the band.’ I was very stubborn, but after a while I was like, ‘OK, well I guess I’ve got to do it.’ … Now I’m very comfortable.”
Beginning with the 2018 release By Request, Dirty Cello has made five albums; the latest, By the Seat of Our Pants, came out in late February. Cello-fied covers include a version of “Sympathy for the Devil” with a female Lucifer, Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine,” and “Run Through the Jungle,” a Creedence Clearwater Revival deep cut.
They balance the record out nicely with solid songs of their own. Despite its title, “Go Slow” moves along at a heady clip, while “Feelin’ Frisky in Frisco” is a nod to the band’s home base. “Further Down the Road” closes out the album. A blues rocker that also ends many of their shows, it’s a barn-burner.
Though cellists like Rushan Eggleston and Ben Sollee have redefined the instrument in the recent past, Roudman didn’t look to them for cues when pivoting from classical to more raucous, rousing music. “I wanted to be completely different,” she said.
With Dirty Cello, Roudman decided to “focus more on rock and blues, and maybe throw in some bluegrass and Americana … be the Swiss Army knife of cello-playing. So when people come to our shows, they’re going to hear a whole bunch of stuff reimagined on the cello. We wanted to stand out and be unique, and it’s been working for us.”
Dirty Cello When: Sunday, March 29, at 3 p.m. Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord Tickets: $34 at ccanh.com
Brittani and Jake Randall own the Sunflower Bakery and Cafe in Nashua. They bake every day, but the bakery itself is only open on weekends. The couple are very deliberately building their business, one small step at a time. “We’ve had people try to bully us into opening during the week,” Brittani said, “but our attitude is ‘We’ll get there when we get there.’ Would we like to be open on Fridays? Sure, but we sell out of everything on Saturdays and Sundays already. We push ourselves as hard as we can all week to get ready just for the weekend, and then we are wiped out of everything. We probably work 17-hour days on Saturdays and Sundays, and that’s just restocking for the next day. So we’re working on [extending our opening hours],” but we don’t want to do it until we’re ready — until we can make sure that we’re putting out the same products, and people are happy. We’re being consistent.”
“So we’re going slow,” Jake said, “but I think we sell out a lot But you know, I would rather sell out and have the quality be as top tier as possible than try to just be open more days, to get more product out, to try to get as much money as possible. The whole reason we wanted to do this was to try to provide quality food out in the community.”
“I think our biggest strength,” Jake continued, “our No. 1 item, is actually our range. A lot of people ask us, ‘What’s your signature product?’ And I will say, there’s some stuff we do that nobody around here does, that have gotten really popular, I think, for that reason. Like we do kouign-amann, which is essentially like a butter croissant but the last two layers are folded inward with a thin layer of sugar so it caramelizes a little bit.”
“So we do those,” Brittani said, “and we do bialys, which are like Polish bagels. They’re fermented and then boiled. They have caramelized onion in the middle, but they don’t have holes like a traditional bagel. We started making them because we had a person say, ‘Hey, I see you have bagels. Do you do bialys?’ And I was like, ‘I can look into it’. And then after that, people were obsessed with them. So I was like, ‘All right, I guess we’ll just keep doing them.’“
Like many bakeries, the Sunflower serves breakfast sandwiches, but only until they sell out, and not the same types of sandwiches that customers would be used to seeing.
“We change those every weekend,” Brittani said. “We do bring back a pulled pork one pretty often. We actually ran it during the Super Bowl, and people really liked it. So I brought it back, and it keeps selling out, which is great. So far, all the specials have been really well received, even when we get creative. I was surprised that one went because, you know, brie isn’t everyone’s favorite, and blueberry/red onion jam is like kind of out there. I didn’t think anyone was really going to be into it. But we sold out. I was like, ‘OK….’”
The Randalls said they spend the week leading up to Saturday and Sunday baking for a few wholesale accounts but mostly stocking up on baked goods for their weekend customers.
“We make pies,” Brittani said. “A lot of pies. We do fresh doughnuts; we have glazed and we do different filled ones. Sometimes we do a specialty one depending on how crazy the week is. We do a variety of different glazes and then we do yeasted filled doughnuts. We always do Boston cream and then our lemon curd lemon doughnut is super popular. Everything’s completely from scratch, including lemon curd. People often tell us it’s the best doughnut they’ve ever had.”
“I feel like the longer we’ve been here, the more our customers are willing to try stuff that they normally wouldn’t,” Jake said. “If you get here at the beginning of the day, you can have free rein of anything. But if you get here later and things are sold out, if you take a chance on something random, it’s still going to be really good.”
Sunflower Bakery and Cafe Where: 50 Broad St., Nashua, 505-0794, thesunflowerbakerycafe.com When: open Saturdays and Sundays, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
In 2015, Manchester social services organization Waypoint, then known as Child & Family Services, organized the first SleepOut event. On a snowy, subfreezing night, nearly 50 community members slept in Stanton Park to raise money and awareness of unhoused youth in the city. The effort netted over $132,000 in donations and became an annual tradition.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended the camper gathering with its 2024 Grants Pass vs. Johnson ruling that allowed municipalities to criminalize sleeping in public. As critics noted, though, homelessness can’t be arrested away, so the problem continues, as does SleepOut. Participants now sleep outside on private lawns, porches and cars.
SleepOut 2026 begins Friday, March 27, with a sale of youth artwork made during a program hosted by Positive Street Art.
“All year long, they learn about art, they create it and teach other people,” Mandy Lancaster, Waypoint’s Homeless Youth Program director, said recently. “One hundred percent of the proceeds go directly to the young people.”
Lancaster believes the art installation is a healing force for its participants.
“It also allows them access to community and a sense of belonging,” she said. This is “probably more important than [what’s] written on the goal plan. Change doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it happens through connection and safe relationships, and this is part of that.
The works, she added, are impressive.
“I’m not an artist, but I’m continuously blown away by what these young people are producing. They have worked with a bunch of different mediums, like photography, mixed media, painting on canvas and illustration. It’s really incredible.”
Lancaster said the weekly program goes beyond an arts and crafts class; critical thinking is a key component.
“What is art and how do people perceive it, just these big, wonderful, bold questions that they’re asking themselves and grappling with. They’ve taken field trips to museums. They’re so contemplative and introspective. It’s really special.”
The gallery viewing will be followed by a solidarity gathering in Bronstein Park, across from the Waypoint Youth Drop-in Center. There will be speakers talking about both being unhoused and overcoming it. “Staff might share stories on their behalf,” Megan Sampson of Waypoint wrote in an email. “It can be a difficult thing for youth [to discuss].”
During the SleepOut program in the park, there will be some soup and bread, and the artist gallery will stay open until 8 p.m. “Following that, participants will return to sleep out at their homes or other gatherings,” Sampson said. Sleepers are spread across the state, so the speaking portion of the event will also be livestreamed for those who can’t attend. Lancaster urged the community at large to attend SleepOut 2026.
“I want to fill the park,” she said. “At the end of the day it is a fundraiser, but not everyone has the financial means to do that. You can sponsor a sleeper or sign up and be a sleeper. You can bear witness to what is shared there, speak to young people, buy their art — there are many different ways to [show] support.”
These are challenging times for Waypoint and other social services organizations. “Unprecedented decisions have been made that have directly threatened funding streams and/or the ability to provide supportive services to young people experiencing homelessness,” she said. “It’s like swimming upstream with a fast-moving current.”
However, small victories buoy her spirits. “Twenty years ago when I was getting into homeless services, I really wanted to change the world; my perception has just changed so much,” she said. “I really want to co-create meaningful relationships one person at a time. That’s allowed me to stay in the work … micro joy, micro moments, just connecting.”
SleepOut 2026 Youth Art Gallery When: Friday, March 27, at 5 p.m. Where: Waypoint Youth Drop-in Center, 298 Hanover St., Manchester More: Full SleepOut program begins at 6 p.m. in Bronstein Park (across the street)
Now is the long, damp, Mud Season of our hearts. The weather see-saws madly from promisingly sunny to bitingly cold, seemingly on a whim. We’ve been inside with the same faces for just a bit too long. The comments that seem so funny before you actually say them fall to the floor with a thud and win you hard looks from your loved ones.
At times like this, when your patience is short, and your hopes have been knocked around, while you wait for the first robins and tulips of spring, is there anything that can keep you marching resolutely forward?
Comfort food.
We all have a food that bypasses the thinking part of our brain and stimulates our lizard brain, whispering of love and safety, and yes, comfort. It might be something your grandmother made for you when you were little. It might be something your roommate in college brought you when your heart was broken and you wouldn’t leave your bed for three days. It might be Champagne and smoked oysters to remind you that you deserve a little luxury in your life.
It might be toast and cold cereal.
What is your comfort food?
Macaroni and Cheese
“My personal go-to comfort food is served at my restaurant, mac and cheese. Mac and cheese. I love the way it feels in my stomach. I like the way it tastes. I like the fact that when I’m having a bad day it doesn’t involve a lot of thought, a lot of really anything — just delicious and warm and cheesy. I always put several cheeses in it when I make it. I like to do a little pepper jack in mine. I believe that that little bite is nice. I always put a little bit of Gouda. Sometimes I do some fontina. I kind of play with the cheese. It depends on what looks interesting.”
—MaryBeth Carcellino, co-owner, CodeX B.A.R., 29 Main St., Nashua
“I would have to say [my go-to comfort food is] mac and cheese, for sure. The best macaroni and cheese uses lots of different cheese combinations. And you have to put bacon in there, because bacon makes everything so good.”
—Krista Mellina, owner, The Twisted Mallow Marshmallow Co., 533-8455, twistedmallowcompany.com
Mac & Cheese
There are several approaches to homemade macaroni and cheese. Some of us are loyal to the boxed mac and cheese we had as children and swear by a stovetop version. For others only a baked, crusty-on-top version will do. This recipe takes inspiration from both schools, with a nod to southern-style mac and cheese, with a creamy, gooey interior but with a buttery, crumb topping.
10 ounces (285 grams) elbow macaroni – Yes, you can mix it up and go with a different shape of pasta (you could do a lot worse than radiator-shaped radiatori, in my opinion). But classics are classics for a reason, and you know that regular, bog-standard elbows will work perfectly. Now is not the time to play around experimenting with new pasta shapes.
4 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons flour
2 Tablespoons dry mustard
Half a small onion – white or yellow, pureed. If you have a mini-blender for making smoothies, it is perfect for this job.
3 cups (24 fluid ounces) whole milk – Some purists will tell you to heat the milk up before adding it to the recipe, which is definitely a nice touch, but I have never done this, and the Pasta Police have never issued me a citation.
2 bay leaves – If you don’t remember when you bought the bay leaves in your cupboard, throw them out and go buy some fresher ones.
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 large egg
8 ounces (225 g) shredded cheddar cheese
8 ounces (225 g) shredded Velveeta cheese – Yes, I know. This seems tacky, but it is the key to southern-style macaroni and cheese. If you were to say anything snarky about Velveeta at any church dinner in the South, you’d be chased out of town by a mob of angry women in large hats.
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Topping
3 Tablespoons melted butter
1 cup cracker crumbs – I like to use Cheez-Its
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Boil the pasta in a large pot of salted water. On the box there will be a recommended cooking time. Boil the macaroni for the minimum suggested time — for instance, if it says, “eight to 10 minutes,” take it off the heat after eight. It will cook more in the oven, so you want it a bit al dente at this stage. Drain it and set it aside. Its time will come.
To make the cheesy part of this mac and cheese, you’re going to make what is called a béchamel sauce, a classic white cream sauce, then cheese it up. Start by melting the butter, then stirring it briskly with the flour and mustard powder until it darkens slightly. This is what fancy cooks call a roux. It will thicken the sauce.
Gradually stir in the pureed onion and the milk, then add the bay leaves and cook the mixture for 10 minutes or so, until the sauce thickens, then fish out the bay leaves and thank them for their service.
Beat the egg, then temper it into the sauce — this means to stir a spoonful of the hot béchamel at a time into the egg, slowly diluting it and bringing it up to temperature, without scrambling it. After a few spoonfuls of tempering, stir the eggy mixture into the sauce, and whisk it briskly, to make sure that it is distributed evenly throughout the sauce.
Stir in two thirds of each cheese, until it is combined and melted. Stir in the pasta.
Transfer the mixture to a large casserole dish, and top it with the remaining cheese.
Crush the crackers, then cook them in the melted butter until they start to smell nutty, then top the macaroni and cheese with them.
Bake the macaroni and cheese for 30 minutes, then remove it from the oven and let it cool for five to 10 minutes before serving.
A Smash-Burger
“My go-to comfort food would have to be a really good smash burger. … Basically, it would be just a perfect burger, really seasoned well … with various spices in it. I like to just throw in a kitchen sink of ingredients and some spices and see what sticks, then really smash it down, get a little crisp on it. There has to be caramelized onions as well. I sear it and watch it get juicy, then I put some nice cheese on it, some fresh cheese, a little bit of sliced Swiss cheese on it, but then also followed up with a blend of shredded cheeses, like pizza shredded mix, and get a nice little melt on that, and finish it with a little tangy barbecue sauce.
“I like mild-flavored cheeses [on my burger], because I like the texture of the cheese but I don’t want it to distract me from the flavor of the meat. I still want to get that good flavor of the meat itself with the spices that I mixed in, something like a Cajun spice mix. It’s about letting just really the spice and the meat take over, but have that sort of a nice complement. It’s usually on the weekend that I need a burger fix, usually when I’m watching sports — March Madness is coming up.
“One detail that some people overlook is the bun. It should be toasted, inside and outside. I do a little bit of butter and some garlic on it.”
—Eric Lesniak, Manchester Economic Development Office
Dim Sum (A variety of Chinese dumplings)
“My personal go-to comfort food would have to be dim sum. I grew up in New York City and every Sunday we would take the train down to Canal Street and we would do our shopping and we would go and have dim sum. So I have a very strong childhood association with it.”
—Caroline Arend, owner/chef, Caroline’s Fine Food and The Pot Pie Bar, 649 Mast Road, Manchester, 432-1927, thepotpiebar.com
Pizza
“For me, the best comfort food is probably pizza. I prefer a thin crust. I like mushrooms on mine, so that’s what I’ll usually get, but sometimes sausages or pepperoni. My pizza story goes back a ways. When I went to law school in New York City, there was Ray’s Pizza, which claimed to be the original New York pizza. (I think it’s been copied, and now there’s a battle over who’s the original Ray’s or whatever.) But nearby, there was Ray’s, and you could get an everything piece of pizza. And at the time, it cost quite a bit. I don’t know what that was, but it would be a meal to get one piece of Ray’s everything. That has stuck with me.
“Beyond that, my daughter likes pepperoni, so that’s what I end up getting a lot of the time.”
—Jim Donchess, Mayor of Nashua
American Chop Suey
“I love the American Chop Suey from the Red Arrow Diner [112 Loudon Road, Concord, 415-0444; 137 Rockingham Road, Londonderry, 552-3091; 61 Lowell St., Manchester, 626-1118; 149 DW Highway, Nashua, 204-5088, redarrowdiner.com]. It has your tomato sauce, and macaroni, and beef — cooked, ground beef. When I am stressed out and super busy and super hungry, It just is a bowl of warmth and sustenance. It fills me up. I don’t regret any bite that I take. And of course, there they serve it with garlic bread. And it’s just, oh, it makes me think of my grandmother.
“My grandmother was not a very elaborate cook, but she had these basics that she relied on. And one of them was macaroni and whatever. And so I remember her making something along those lines. She would make macaroni and cheese, but she would put tomato sauce in it and she called it ‘Blush and Bunny.’ And so the American chop suey makes me think of Blush and Bunny.”
My chocolate cinnamon cake is absolutely one of the best things that makes me feel happy at all times. It’s just absolutely delicious. It’s actual, rich chocolate, it’s got cinnamon in it, so it has a little bit of different flavor to it, and then a really creamy, fudgy cinnamon chocolate cream. It’s not cream cheese, but frosting for the top. It’s delicious. I’ll have it for breakfast sometimes, if the day seems like it’s going to be long, to get me through the day.
—Denise Nickerson, owner, The Bakeshop on Kelley Street, 171 Kelley St., Manchester, 624-3500, thebakeshoponkelleystreet.com
Shepherd’s Pie
“What is my go-to comfort food? Definitely shepherd’s pie. My mom used to make it when I was a kid, and I’ve always really loved it. I love the combination of meat, vegetables and potatoes. You know, I also like mashed potatoes. So shepherd’s pie just appeals to me because it’s kind of an efficiency meal. Everything is all right there in one place on the plate, rather than spread around. So when you eat it you kind of eat it all together. It always makes me think of a cold winter day back when I was a kid and my mom would put it on the table, and it would be hot and steamy while it was cold outside. To me, it’s perfect.”
—Byron Champlin, Mayor of Concord
Shepherd’s Pie
Shepherd’s pie is infinitely adaptable. You can put as much effort into making it as you want, but it also lends itself to shortcuts, one of which is used in this recipe.
1 Tablespoon butter
1 pound ground beef, ground lamb, or plant-based “burger meat”
Half a cup (a large handful) of chopped onion
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Tablespoon dried herb mixture (optional)
Another Tablespoon butter
1 16-ounce package of frozen corn
More salt and pepper to taste
1 24-ounce container of frozen mashed potatoes – Ideally you’ll have saved some homemade mashed potatoes, or you could make some from scratch now, but for this dish you will be just as well served by the pre-packaged prepared stuff from the supermarket.
Three more Tablespoons butter
Paprika – I like the smoked, Spanish stuff
Shepherd’s Pie. Photo by John Fladd.
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Melt a tablespoon of butter in a skillet, and cook the beef (or lamb, or Impossible Burger) and onion, stirring occasionally, until it looks like taco meat. Season it to taste. Transfer it to a casserole dish.
Melt another tablespoon of butter in the skillet, and cook the corn in it, until it has browned slightly and smells corny. Season it with salt and pepper, then transfer it to the same casserole dish, on top of the meat, building a second layer.
Prepare the mashed potatoes according to the instructions on the package, then transfer that to the same casserole dish, spreading it in an even layer over the corn. Top it with chunks of the rest of your butter, then sprinkle the top of the potatoes with paprika.
Bake until the potatoes have started to brown slightly, about 30 minutes, then remove it from the oven and let it cool for five to 10 minutes before serving on separate plates, or just eat it yourself with a fork, if it’s been that kind of day.
Ice Cream Sundae
“I think when I’m really sad, what I like to do is I go get ice cream, and the more sad I am the more elaborate the sundae. Like, you know, if I’m just a little bit sad, maybe I’ll just get like a little bit of hot fudge on there, and then maybe if I’m like in crisis I’m doing whipped cream, hot fudge and sprinkles, the whole thing, you know what I mean?”
—Nick Sands, comedian and host of the Nick Sands Presents podcast, youtube.com/@nicksandspresents
Chardonnay
“I’m firmly of the opinion that you can’t go wrong with a taco, any type, any time, anywhere, but instead of comfort food, I think more of comfort wine. An oaky chardonnay is my go-to. If I need comfort, if I’ve had my heart broken, I’m thinking less of ‘What am I going to eat?’ and more of going straight to my wine fridge. That’s where my emotional attachment is.”
—Emma Stetson, owner, Wine on Main, 9 N. Main St., Concord, 897-5828, wineonmainnh.com
Popcorn
“Popcorn. It’s all about popcorn for me. About 20 years ago my best friend passed away. She was my roommate as well, and she was killed in a car accident. A bunch of us all used to spend time together just watching movies and eating popcorn. And so now eating popcorn brings up important memories for me. I’ve learned how to make it at home really well. And there’s just nothing that compares to it. I use coconut oil and pink sea salt. I like butter and nutritional yeast, but I couldn’t care less if it’s on my popcorn. I do have a weird habit, though — I like throwing some unsalted peanuts in there, and just kind of like ruffle it around. For some reason I don’t like a lot of salt when it’s just going to sting my tongue and my mouth and stuff, so that’s also why I go with the unsalted peanuts, and the pink salt’s already on the popcorn, so [the combination] is all good.”
“My go-to comfort food would be a Thanksgiving sandwich with turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce — the whole-berry kind — on a nice, thick, white bread. It’s not tied to any particular memories; it’s just very yummy. “
—Kristi St. Laurent, President, Andres Institute of Art, 106 Route 13, Brookline, 673-7441, andresinstitute.org
Welsh Rarebit
“I’ve always told people that my favorite comfort food is a grilled cheese sandwich, because of my warm memories of my mother making it for me with tomato soup when I was a child. But strangely, I just got off the phone with my mother back in the U.K., and she told me that she never made me a grilled cheese sandwich. She said that she made me Welsh rarebit, which makes a little more sense, because she’s Welsh.”
—Emma Round, owner, Unwined Bistro and Wine Bar, 1 Nashua St., Milford, 213-6703, unwinednh.com
Welsh rarebit is one of those dishes that, if you already know about it, you feel like everyone in the world knows about it, and then discover that it is new and exotic to the people you tell about it. It is a Welsh/sometimes British take on cheese fondue, served over the best toast you can make.
Welsh Rarebit
4 Tablespoons (half a stick) butter
8 ounces (225 grams) grated cheddar cheese – I like a smoked cheddar, like Old Croc.
2 ounces (57 grams) grated Swiss cheese
Half a teaspoon Dijon or whole-grain mustard
¼ cup (2 ounces) very dark beer – porter is good for this.
Toast
Welsh Rarebit. Photo by John Fladd.
Five to six slices of Very Good Bread – sourdough, for instance, liberally buttered.
In a double boiler, melt half a stick of butter, then stir in the cheese, until it is thoroughly melted. Whisk in the mustard and beer, and stir until it has made a silky cheese sauce.
In a skillet, fry the bread, as if you were making a grilled cheese sandwich — one side only. In the U.K., people inexplicably only toast bread on one side.
Serve the toast, covered by a generous amount of cheese sauce. Be reminded that life is generally better than you give it credit for.
