Sourcing from their farm and nearby at Eden’s Table Farm Store
Given how difficult it can be to find a spicy, flavorful chile in New Hampshire, is it possible to grow one here?
“We’ve had two hot peppers that I just love!” said Addie Leader-Zavos, co-owner of Eden’s Table Farm in Dunbarton. “I was shocked by how good a pepper year we had last year. We’re trialing a bunch of different paprika types this year.” The Czech Black, for instance.
Her husband, Michael Williams, agreed.
“These [the Czech Blacks] will fake you out,” he said. “They smell like mango fruit leather, but they are serious. These are a little milder than a serrano when they’re green, but then they blow way past it when they’re ripe. They go from 5,000 Scoville units [a system for rating the heat of chiles] when they’re green to 17 [thousand] to 30,000 when they’re ripe. They’re no joke.”
This is the first full season that Eden’s Table Farm has been in business. The wife-and-husband team have been building a new farm more or less from scratch.
“We are a diversified market farm,” Williams said. “We grow vegetables. We have 65 mature blueberry bushes that we inherited. We also have a rhubarb patch that we inherited from the previous owners. There are a lot of volunteer raspberry, black raspberry and blackberry bushes; we’re going to mark the ones that taste best and take cuttings and propagate for next year.”
And, of course, the chiles.
The Williamses grow many different fruits, vegetables and herbs that they sell through their farm store, but the peppers are a good illustration of the amount of thought that is put into growing them. Leader-Zavos spent months researching varieties of chiles that would do well in New Hampshire’s climate. Eventually she discovered multiple varieties from Eastern Europe, from countries with similar climates. After that, the new farmers selected the varieties with the shortest growing season to try on the Farm.
“It was really important to us to have the shortest days-to-maturity,” Leader-Zavos said. “We wanted to be able to grow varieties that will work for us when our growing season is so short.”
Growing seasons, soil acidity, and hours of sunlight are some of the factors that Williams and Leader-Zavos have been working hard to get a handle on. Since moving from Virginia, where Leader-Zavos worked as a pastry chef and Williams was a sommelier and wine marketer, the couple have tackled the steep learning curve of starting a farm and a business with enthusiasm. “Addie’s superpower is research,” Williams said. “She can find the answer to anything.”
Which is how the two ended up buying a farm in Dunbarton. They had decided to start a small farm together.
“We cast a pretty wide net when we were looking for farm properties,” Williams said, “and at one point the price on this property dropped and it showed up in our searches. [We asked ourselves] ‘Should we go to New Hampshire to look at this property?’” They visited the farm that November, and owned it by the end of January.
In addition to actually growing things, the couple’s main focus is on their farm store, which sells their own produce and baked goods, as well as other locally produced meats, dairy, wild foods and artisanal products.
“We are very locally focused in terms of sourcing,” Williams said. “Everything in here, with the exception of a very short list of items, is from New Hampshire, and the things that aren’t from New Hampshire are from Maine, and they’re all artisanal products.”
He pointed to several varieties of dried beans as an example. “These are Baer’s Best Beans,” he said. “One of the things I like to do with new suppliers is I will go to them to pick up my first order, because I want to see what they are doing and how they’re doing it. I walked in [to Baer’s] and somebody was hand-sorting beans. So I was very happy. I was like, ‘OK, these are my people.’ This is the level of detail and attention that I like.”
Not to mention that the beans will go really well with the chiles.
Eden’s Table Farm Store 240 Stark Highway N., Dunbarton Center, 774-1811 Open Thursdays and Fridays 3 to 7 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Broadway musical bonafides of New London Barn Playhouse are solid. Wicked creator Stephen Schwartz wrote his first big hit, Godspell, there. Past “Barnies” include The Book of Mormon director Casey Nicholaw, along with Tony-winning actors Taye Diggs and Judy Kuhn. Laura Linney and Sandy Dennis are also alums.
Upcoming in the current season, which runs through Labor Day weekend, are Jersey Boys (opening July 17) and Rent (opening Aug. 7). These follow successful June productions of Little Shop of Horrors and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Little Shop was something of a class reunion, according to New London Barn Executive Artistic Director Keith Coughlin.
“Of the 13 members in the cast, 10 are alumni who have returned to the Barn,” he said by phone recently. “Including some folks who were here not all that long ago and have then continued on and done some really great things in their career. The gentleman playing Seymour was just on Broadway.”
A pair of plays are also scheduled. Driving Miss Daisy opens July 10 for a five-day, seven-show run. The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama follows the relationship between a stubborn Atlanta widow and the chauffeur she’s forced to hire when she crashes her car. It spans from 1948 to 1973, beginning with prejudice and ending in friendship.
“Those that appreciate the movie will like this,” Coughlin said. “It is a wonderful telling of that same story of acceptance. One of the things that really sparked to me is how it shows humans connecting and growing. These characters grow over the decades, their relationships build, and their mindsets grow and change. I think that’s really powerful.”
Clue, running from Aug. 21 through Sept. 1, closes out the summer. Coughlin agreed that the adaptation of a movie based on a board game is a fun way to end the season.
“It’s murder and it’s farce,” he said. “In the recent past couple of years, they’ve actually done a new adaptation of this play that really strikes closer to the tone of the movie. I think it’ll be in the ride of the season, experiencing all of these different performances, with people laughing and just enjoying it, for sure.”
Jersey Boys continues a theme begun last year, shows based on the canon of pop music. It follows 2023’s production of Carole King: Beautiful. Along with the Barn debut of Rent, which Coughlin called “a cornerstone in the genre,” it’s the show he’s most looking forward to this year.
“After trying a number of seasons to get it in our lineup, I’m really excited to share that,” he said. “We have a wonderful director and choreographer who’s coming in to helm it that has been working on Broadway shows and productions in London. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun for our patrons. Tickets are already going quick.”
Finally, on July 22, the Barn’s first-ever concert happens, as Steven Leslie performs a tribute to James Taylor.
“I jokingly say that almost every night of the summer there’s some type of performance happening,” Coughlin said. “But there are a couple of nights that are not, [and] I thought that this might be an interesting idea to do something … different than sort of the normal theater productions that we do.”
It’s part of an expansion effort that includes operating as a year-round entity, he continued. “The Barn will always be celebrated by the work that we do inside the barn in the summer,” he said, “but we’re growing in impact to the community in a way that’s really exciting. That’s the next chapter… we have a dynamic education team that’s doing some really powerful things for our community all year long, not just within the summer.”
Driving Miss Daisy When: Wednesday, July 10, 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, July 11, and Friday, July 12, 2 & 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, July 13, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, July 14, 5 p.m. Where: New London Barn Playhouse, 84 Main St., New London Tickets: $34 to $59 at nlbarn.org
Where to spot treasures such as antiques, handcrafted creations, nerf guns, t-shirts, lime trees and a bear trap
By John Fladd jfladd@hippopress.com
Flea markets generally fall into three categories:
Antiques. This doesn’t necessarily mean snooty people arguing over the fine points of Chippendale armoires, although it can. It means that most items on offer are old: boxes of old books, turn-of-the-last-century bottles, antique car parts, used CDs, piles of vintage Barbie dolls, or a stuffed owl or two — cool old stuff waiting for someone with a particular enthusiasm.
Sweat socks. Not just sweat socks, of course, but inexpensive consumer goods like burner phones, cell phone covers, neon-colored tracksuits and lots of shampoo. If you are looking for a velour blanket with a picture of a matador or a howling wolf on it, this is the place to find it. Please don’t think that I am mocking this type of market. It whispers sweet nothings to my heart.
Overgrown garage sale. You’re never sure what you’ll find at this kind of flea market. Yes, there are a few professional dealers specializing in Pokémon cards, or military surplus, but just as many of the vendors are people who have found themselves with too much of something on their hands — some old, some new — that they want to get rid of. For many of them it’s the getting-rid-of that’s the important thing. A sports family might realize they have 20 years’ worth of hockey gear, skis, football helmets and lacrosse sticks, and decide to flea market it.
About three years ago I found my flea market: the late, lamented Hollis Flea Market. It was an antiques market, full of vintage — stuff. There were some stunning antique clocks for customers with much richer blood than mine, but also any number of commemorative plates, piles of old postcards and, once, a giant pile of 3,600 C-clamps.
Unfortunately, this winter, the owners of the Hollis Flea Market announced that they were closing. This has left me searching for a new flea market.
Not counting yard sales and antiques shows, there are four major flea markets in the area:
Londonderry Flea Market
295 Nashua Road, Londonderry londonderryfleamarket.com Open Saturdays and Sundays 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. April through October Admission $1.50 per person; 60+ and kids under 12 get in free. The basics: The Londonderry Flea Market is an outdoor market on 30 acres, with up to 300 vendors on a given day. Many vendors do not accept credit cards; it’s a good idea to bring cash. There is an ATM on site. According to the Market’s website, there is a “huge assortment of items to find & buy for home, garden, work, pleasure, personal wants & needs. Make a list of things you’d like to buy before you visit the market. Bring the list with you to shop as the sellers here just may have what you’re looking for! f you don’t see it, ask them as it may just be out of sight.” Food: There is a concession tent in the center of the market selling burgers, hot dogs, snacks and drinks.
Londonderry Flea Market. Photo by John Fladd.
The Londonderry Flea Market is very, very large. There are two halves, one on each side of a fire pond. Many of the vendors work under cover, but at the very back of the flea market there are a number of people selling things from tables. I asked one man in the back who was selling old vinyl records and a seriously intriguing pile of 78s how business was. He said he hadn’t made any sales yet, “but it’s about to rain, and I’m located back here in Siberia.”
One of his neighbors in the back section of the flea market was Stephanie St. Pierre, an enthusiastic world traveler and a maker. She was selling a number of trinkets and antiques from Thailand and Myanmar, but her most fascinating items were four handmade cigar-box banjos. They are a reminder of a brief but intense enthusiasm from a few years ago. Some of the banjos have three strings; some have one.
“I like it,” St. Pierre said. “It’s just fun to play with one string. A diddly-bow, I guess is what they call the ones with one string.” At one point, she made electric cigar-box banjos. “The better ones had pick-ups,” she said. “You could plug them into an amp. I’m not musical, but I had fun going to the flea markets to find all the hardware.”
A 3-foot-tall Barbie doll in a crocheted sweater and miniskirt, concrete garden ornaments — I was distracted from these things by a table full of beads. I was struck by a 2-inch bead — a white porcelain cube with a hole through the center, and what appeared to be blue Chinese characters on the sides.
“What’s the story with this?” I asked the lady selling the beads. She examined it closely for several seconds. “I have no idea what that is,” she confessed. I bought it for a dollar, reasoning that I could tie it to my sword scabbard like a samurai, if I ever got really good at using a sword. It pays to be prepared.
Vincent is the Vinnie of Vinnie’s Uniques and Antiques. Unlike most of the vendors’ stalls, his has a sign. He is a regular; he sells at Londonderry every weekend.
“I look for stuff that nobody else has,” he said. “I want something that they [customers] cannot find anywhere else. If it’s something they’re going to have a hard time finding, I want to have that.” On this particular day, his favorite item was a model ship. “I’m going to tell you, I love this boat. This is a beautiful, beautiful boat,” he said. He pulled aside a tarp to reveal a glass case with a model of a four-masted ship inside. “This guy told me that this ship here burned down and they rebuilt it, but it was never the same ship. There isn’t a kit for this ship, so this ship was made by somebody [who knew it well]. I love my ship.”
Coolest item at the flea market that day: It’s a toss-up between a concrete garden statue of a sad dog and a gold-plated reproduction of a crocodile skull.
What I actually bought: The big Chinese bead and a $5 hockey goalie mask to use in my sword class.
Salem Flea Market (Outside)
20 Hampshire Road, Salem salemfleamarket.com Open Saturdays and Sundays 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Year-round Admission $1; a ticket will allow customers to return during the day The basics: The number of vendors at the outside market can vary on any given day, depending on the weather, but there are usually 50 to 60. Public restrooms are located inside the building. Almost none of the vendors accept credit cards. An ATM is located on the premises. According to the Salem Flea Market website, “The Salem Flea Market has been open for business for more than 40 years. We have new and used items, including antiques arriving every week.” Food: There are two or three concession stands at the entrance to the Indoors Market, as well as vendors selling fresh fruit in the Market itself. One review on the Market’s Facebook page reads, “Corn dogs. Corn dogs. Corn dogs. Corn dogs. Corn dogs.”
There are two parts to the Salem Flea Market: an outdoor market and an indoor one. It might be tempting to consider them as a single unit, but they are so vastly different that it makes sense to consider each on its own merits.
The Outside Market butts right up against the parking lot, and there is a lot going on. It is constantly in motion. It comes closest to being another garage sale-type market, but here the focus is on utility. Some of the vendors sell new items, most sell old ones, but virtually everything is practical. If you are looking for a hand-operated winch with 20 feet of chain, or a used large-screen television, this is the place for you.
Salem Flea Market (outside). Photos by John Fladd.
Lucas sells kitchen appliances. His tables are covered with blenders, food processors, microwave ovens and smaller kitchen tools. He has a small generator on hand, if any customers want to test out one of the appliances. Lucas doesn’t mind telling where he gets his merchandise. He buys the items from thrift stores, most of which he has a relationship with and will sell them to him by the pound. He cleans them up, if necessary, and resells them. I asked him how much he paid for a random blender. It was clean, new-looking, and looked like it would work well in most kitchens.
“I paid maybe 10 dollars,” he said with a shrug. “I can probably sell it here for 20.” What really jumped out at me was a variable-speed, hand-held immersion blender. I asked Lucas how much he wanted for it, and he said he was willing to let it go for $10.
On any given day, the outside market has anywhere up to a dozen cargo trucks. Most are from clean-out businesses or junk removal companies.
On this day, one vendor’s stock was mostly old, hard-worked lawn mowers and piles of air conditioners. His neighbor had three or four tables of used shoes. Another specialized in bicycles and stereo speakers. Because almost everything at the Outside Market is practical, and given the time of the year, several vendors at the front end of the market were selling garden plants. The people who sell at both Salem markets are from all over the world, so many of the vegetable plants for sale weren’t ones you might find at a local garden center — bitter melons, makrut lime trees and some with labels written in Asian characters.
A vendor named Melissa was beginning to think she might have come to the wrong flea market. She was located at the very back of the lot.
“I’ve got some bathrobes, some nightgowns, some [porcelain] figurines, some luggage,” she said, “a little bit of everything. It’s actually all mine. I’ve been a shopper my whole life and collecting things over the years. I usually sell on Facebook Marketplace, but that’s exhausting!” I asked what she thought her hidden gem was. She said that for the right person, the bisque porcelain figurines would be a satisfying find. “What is it they say? ‘One man’s junk is another man’s treasure?’”
Coolest item at the flea market that day: Two KitchenAid stand mixers. The vendor was looking for $80 for the small one, and even missing its bowl he was confident he could get $140 for the six-quart model.
What I actually bought: Plants — two brightly colored lilies and a large pot of Thai chile pepper plants for a total of $12.
Salem Flea Market (Inside)
20 Hampshire Road, Salem salemfleamarket.com Open Saturdays and Sundays 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. year-round Admission: The same $1 ticket. The basics: Public restrooms are located inside the building. Almost none of the vendors accepts credit cards. An ATM is located on the premises. Food: There is a small snack bar inside.
The Inside Market in Salem definitely falls into the sweat socks category. As soon as you walk through the door you’re greeted by enthusiastic salsa and mariachi music. Neon-colored T-shirts compete for space with affordably-priced perfumes and colognes. One vendor sells apparently new-looking mattresses still in their plastic.
One stall was filled to the brim with brightly colored Catholic statuary — figures of saints and religious figures of all sizes, religious paintings, and ceramic bowls and flower pots.
Salem Flea Market (inside). Photo by John Fladd.
The Inside Market has several twisting aisles that branch off unexpectedly. Just when you think you’ve seen most of it, you turn a corner and find a completely new group of stalls. Like almost all the shops, my vote for the coolest one doesn’t have a name above the door. It is about twice the size of other shops, and there are dozens — probably hundreds — of used bicycles hanging from the ceiling. It would be a mistake to think of it as a bike shop, however. The main focus of the business seems to be knives of all kinds and replica swords. Tucked away in a corner are two reproduction helmets, one Spartan and one medieval. Plus the truly impressive number of ceiling bikes.
The chain-link wall of a nearby stall is covered with hundreds of wrestling action figures. A man named Tony runs it with his wife. “I mostly sell Pokémon, wrestling, and action figure toys,” he told me. “That’s all I sell. Well, that and some baseball cards. And football cards — things that people collect.”
Another stall is about half the size of Tony’s and looks for all the world like a storage closet. It is packed full of packages of disposable cups and takeout containers. The owner had stepped out when I visited, so I made small talk with a lady who had come in looking for cups. “This is for a church event tonight,” she told me. “I always come here, and I’ve been coming here since before Covid. I always find what I’m looking for.”
A hand-written sign at another stall nearby read, “Good Quality According to the Price You Pay.”
Coolest item at the flea market that day: A trademark-skirting box of brightly colored toy ponies called Horse Lovely. “THAT BEAUTIFUL HORSE SPREAD YOUR WINGS AND FLY,” the box announced cheerfully.
What I actually bought: Three small resin figurines of babies doing kung fu, for $2 each.
Davisville Flea Market
805 Route 103, Warner davisvillefleamarket.com Open Sundays 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. (The website advises visiting between 6 and 11 a.m.) Open May 5 until the last Sunday in October rain or shine. Admission and parking are free. The basics: An outdoor market with anywhere from 50 to 150+ vendors. Live music, outdoor toilets. Food: There is a concession stand that sells cold drinks, coffee, foods and snacks. Frequently there will be food trucks or vendors selling food.
The Davisville Flea Market is an antiques-centered one. A few artists and craftspeople sell their work, but the majority of the vendors sell old items. There are vintage tools, piles of old photographs, and beer steins on offer.
Aiden and Myles are 9 years old. I met them as they stood, spellbound, in front of the Holy Grail for 9-year-old boys: a giant pile of dozens of Nerf guns. Aiden was willing to give me some flea market advice, though he was incredibly distracted. His friend Myles stood next to him, his mouth agape. Aiden picked up a bright orange Nerf machine gun and examined it as he said, “I’m looking for one that has an attachment that can hold a lot of bullets.”
Aiden said that he likes the look of the guns. “If they made these look like camo [camouflage pattern] that would be good, if you’re into that,” he said, “but I like the bright colors. I think they make them this bright, so you buy them more.”
Davisville Flea Market. Photo by John Fladd.
As I walked around to different tables, I was reminded of some lessons about flea market etiquette I’ve learned the hard way. I approached a table under the shade of some trees that was covered with antique tools. The vendor was having a conversation with another man, but in a slow, laconic way, with many pauses. When I was new to flea marketing, I would have used a lull in the conversation as an opportunity to ask a question, but that has rarely worked out well for me. The polite thing to do is wait until the conversation is completely done.
In this case, I waited four or five minutes for the two men to finish their conversation before talking with the vendor.
“How ya doin’ this morning?” he asked. This is a time-tested traditional greeting that indicated that he was willing to talk. I made a friendly but non-committal answer, because being too enthusiastic about anything sets the wrong tone in negotiations like this. I asked him about a hatchet on his ax table. “What’s the story with this?” I asked. (I could have asked him how much he wanted for it, but that could be interpreted as enthusiasm.)
Clearly this was the right thing to ask. He gleefully told me the brand name of the hatchet. Apparently, at least according to him, it was generally used for splitting shakes. At this point a couple of other customers had wandered over, but I was pleased to find that he had made me one half of the old-guy conversation, so he could make the other people wait.
He tried to sell me a bear trap.
I made my way to a tent run by artists Courtney Norton and Matt West. Their business, 7 Glass Studio, specializes in glass work and pyrography — using heat to burn designs into wood or leather. Matt works in low-heat, non-blown glass. Today he was selling extremely life-like glass caterpillars. “The black, yellow and white ones are your traditional monarch colors,” he explained. “The other ones are just fantasy. People like to stick them in their potted plants.”
John Zapollo sells a lot of different things. Today it was mostly books. He was questioning the wisdom of bringing them to the market. “Books have gone way down,” he said with a rueful shake of his head. “Books here at the flea market don’t seem to sell. It seems like more people are looking for tools and stuff to take care of their houses. The antique stuff that I sell doesn’t seem to get a lot of traction.”
The coolest item at the flea market that day: The bear trap.
What I actually bought: Three antique cookbooks from John. The most interesting one was published by the Heinz Corporation in 1939. I paid $1 apiece.
According to a press release, Gov. Chris Sununu signed SB 352 into law at the Manchester Central Fire Station establishing an early detection cancer screening pilot program for active and retired firefighters.
In a statement, Gov. Sununu said that “the dangers of being a fire fighter go beyond running into a burning building, and today, New Hampshire is taking a leading role in having the backs of these heroes. This cancer screening program will have a lifesaving impact. New Hampshire’s fire fighters are the best of the best.”
This bill makes New Hampshire the first state in New England to establish an early detection cancer screening pilot program for firefighters.
Vote in honor of vets
According to a press release, Secretary of State David M. Scanlan and Senior Deputy Secretary of State Patricia Lovejoy introduced the “Vote in Honor of a Veteran” program, which gives New Hampshire voters the opportunity to recognize veterans and service members in their lives.
New Hampshire voters can visit.sos.nh.gov/vote-honor-veteran to submit the name of the veteran or service member they are voting in honor of and are given a chance to write a short testimonial on what their service means. The Secretary of State’s Office will send them a “Vote in Honor of a Veteran” pin to wear at the polls on Election Day, according to the press release.
In a statement, Secretary of State David Scanlan said, “New Hampshire enjoys free and transparent elections thanks, in large part, to the sacrifices of our veterans and service members. We’re pleased to officially vote in their honor and encourage New Hampshire voters to do the same.”
In a statement, Senior Deputy Secretary of State Patricia Lovejoy said that “the ‘Vote in Honor of a Veteran’ program provides New Hampshire citizens with a visible tribute to those who so proudly serve and have served this country in the United States Military Service. This program recognizes their efforts to keep our democracy strong and to ensure that we may continue to cast a ballot each election day. Through this initiative, New Hampshire voters can demonstrate the pride they feel for an individual, and, at the same time, encourage others to vote on Election Day.”
Navy Veteran Jacob Aldridge, who worked on the USS New Hampshire and as an engineering tech at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, designed the “Vote in Honor of a Veteran” pin, and was also a recipient of five Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medals and is currently pursuing a degree in fine arts at Great Bay Community College, according to the the release.
Wild, wild turkeys
According to a press release, the New Hampshire 2024 spring turkey harvest was lower than in recent seasons due mainly to decreased reproductive success and poult survival in 2023. Hunters harvested 4,563 turkeys this spring, which is a decrease of 18 percent from 2023’s tally (5,580) and 17 percent below the previous five-year average (5,503), but the 2024 harvest level was similar to 2017 and 2018.
Reproductive rates for wild turkeys are high during years with warm, dry spring and summer weather, but the opposite occurs when cool, wet weather persists for an extended period of time, according to the release.
Above-average rainfall during the spring and summer of 2023 resulted in lower nesting success and fewer turkeys maturing into the fall population last year, so a reduced harvest is conceivable, according to the release.
The 2024 harvest consisted of 12 (less than 1 percent) bearded hens, 661 jakes (14 percent), and 3,890 toms (85 percent), with the lack of juvenile males reflecting the poor weather conditions of 2023 and the overall decrease in harvest in 2024 presumably relating to the decrease in juvenile turkeys on the landscape, according to the release.
At the individual Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) level, turkey densities remained either above or consistent with objectives specified in the New Hampshire Game Management Plan in nearly all WMUs, according to the release.
Young hunters registered 423 birds during the special youth weekend that took place at the end of April and represented 9.3 percent of the total spring harvest, similar to the number of birds harvested by young hunters over the past two years, according to the release.
Of the 3,742 successful hunters this spring, 2,921 registered one bird and 821 registered two birds. Of the 821 hunters who registered two birds, 751 were adults and 70 were young people under the age of 16. The proportion of hunters who harvest two birds during the spring has remained consistent at 22 to 24 percent of hunters each year, according to the release.There was an increase again this year in online registrations with 3,150 (69 percent) of birds being registered online versus 1,413 (31 percent) that were registered in person, with participation in the online registration system growing each year, according to the release.
The summer 2024 Online Brood Survey is now underway, where Granite Staters can help monitor the wild turkey population and this year’s breeding productivity by reporting sightings of hen turkeys and their poults online at wildnh.com.
Wild turkey management in New Hampshire is funded in part through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Restoration Program. Visit nhfishgame.com.
It’s New Hampshire Telephone Museum Benefit Night at Reed’s North Restaurant in Warner (2 E. Main St.) on Wednesday, July 17, in support of NHTM’s upcoming Honor Bear Project installation, taking place July 20 at the NHTM. The Honor Bear Project is a nonprofit charity organization that publicly coordinates the Flags for Forgotten Heroes program around New England to bring public awareness to the issue of veteran and first responder suicide, according to their website. Visit nhtelephonemuseum.org.
The Nashua Historical Society at the Speare Museum Library (5 Abbott St., Nashua) will host a free screening of At Home and Abroad: Nashua and World War II, a locally produced and professionally developed oral history project that features Nashua’s WWII veterans, homefront civilians and Holocaust survivors, on Saturday, July 13, at 1 p.m. The film lasts approximately one hour; doors open at 12:30 p.m. Visit nashuahistoricalsociety.org.
The Andres Institute of Art in Brookline (106 Route 13) presents a show of more than 350 oil portraits rendered by Anne Marie Zanfagna that were selected portraits from “Angels of Addictions,” with a special reception with the artist on Sunday, July 14, starting at 2 p.m. Visit andresinstitute.org.
Some things never change, like the annual return of Badfish to Casino Ballroom for a Fourth of July show, a tradition that began in 2007. What started near the end of the ’90s as a few URI students responding to the passing of Sublime lead singer and creative force Bradley Nowell has evolved into more than a tribute act.
They’re still performing songs from the short-lived ska-punk band, like “Santeria” and their namesake deep cut, but now a few original songs are part of their sets. Last December they put out a single called “High With You.” Badfish drummer Scott Begin expects more tracks will be released “strategically” in the coming months.
“We tried in fits and starts to do some original music over the years, and it was always a fun experiment, but nothing ever really felt like it stuck,” Begin recalled by phone recently. That changed when singer Pat Downs and Danny Torgerson, a multi-instrumentalist and Badfish’s newest member, did a few writing sessions together.
“They came up with some demos that we were really grooving on,” Begin continued. The latest is “FYPM,” a slow, steady growler of a kiss-off that’s definitely NSFW. It’s now on Badfish’s SoundCloud page. The group also performed a few of the new songs live during an appearance on the Sugar Shack podcast in January.
All the creative activity hasn’t changed their primary mission.
“We promote ourselves as Badfish – A Tribute to Sublime,” Begin said. “We certainly don’t want any confusion … people are still going to hear Sublime songs. In the future, if some of our originals gain some traction, that could be a reason to say, ‘Well, now we’re just Badfish’ and then maybe you’ll be hearing a good chunk of [those] as well as some Sublime songs — and maybe others from influences we like.”
In May, Sublime was back in the news when Bradley Nowell’s son Jakob appeared with a reunited band at Coachella. The event captivated both fans and the members of Badfish, who watched it from the green room in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, before a show. They’re now touring, with a stop at the Elevate Festival in Marshfield, Mass., scheduled for July 7.
“We were really excited to see it,” Begin said, noting Sublime drummer Bud Gaugh once sat in with Badfish, and that they even appeared with Nowell’s band Law at a few shows. “We were huddled around the TV like little kids, it was a really exciting moment. So, we’re really just excited to see that happening. I mean, it’s a huge thing.”
With Gaugh and fellow original member Eric Wilson now playing with the younger Nowell, the reunion effectively ended Sublime With Rome. Led by Rome Ramirez, it blended elements of a tribute act with new music. However, Ramirez is continuing the name using a different set of musicians, much to Nowell’s consternation.
“For there to be some other band out there performing shows without any original members and without anybody on the crew or management or performative side that even knew my dad or anybody in the scene, it’s mind-blowing to me,” he told the Boston Globe in a June 25 story. “I can’t tell you how angry it makes me.”
The re-emergence of an official Sublime didn’t put Badfish at a similar crossroads, however.
“Our approach has always been the same; we love the music of Sublime, and we want to perform it as best we can,” Begin said. “If anything, it feels like Sublime is a little bit more in the public consciousness now [and] it makes us excited that maybe more people will be turned on to Sublime that maybe had not been prior to this reunion.”
Begin and his mates are keen to hit the beach this Fourth of July weekend.
“I think I can speak for the band; this is definitely one of our favorites to play,” he said. “It feels like a real event, because it’s become a tradition. I don’t know how many times it’s been a sellout, but it certainly has several times, and it’s great to play in a historic kind of venue like the Ballroom. And it’s always a complete rager; people come out and they’re ready to party. It’s one of my favorite gigs of the whole year for sure.”
Badfish – A Tribute to Sublime When: Saturday, July 6, 8 p.m. Where: Casino Ballroom, 169 Ocean Blvd., Hampton Beach Tickets: $27 at casinoballroom.com
Lily Gladstone turns in another captivating performance in Fancy Dance, a movie on Apple TV+.
Thirteen-year-old Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) goes nearly everywhere with her Aunt Jax (Gladstone). They live together in the family’s house on the Seneca-Cayuga Nation Reservation in Oklahoma. They fish for crawfish together, they work together to do a little light car boosting. Roki is saving her earnings from those endeavors to pay for entry in the upcoming powwow in Oklahoma City where she and her mother will wear their regalia and dance in the mother-daughter dance. But despite Jax’s semi-encouraging “she’s never missed a powwow before”-type statements about Roki’s mother, the hard set of her face and the stack of “missing” posters she carries everywhere tells a different story.
Tawi (Hauli Gray), Jax’s sister and Roki’s mother, has been missing for a few weeks. Tawi and Jax’s brother JJ (Ryan Begay), a tribal police officer, tells her he’s tried, with minimal success, to get the FBI involved in investigating Tawi’s disappearance. Jax takes it on herself to organize searches, hang posters and even push her way in to unfriendly situations to ask men who may have seen Tawi if they know anything about her whereabouts.
Despite Jax’s hopes that Tawi could still return soon, the state’s child services informs her that criminal charges for drugs in her (Jax’s) past keep her from being a fit guardian for Roki. Frank (Shea Whigham), Tawi and Jax’s white father they haven’t seen much of in the years since their mother died, and his new wife Nancy (Audrey Wasilewski), are given custody of Roki. Though Roki hopes to still attend the powwow, Frank and Nancy say they’ve been told Jax can’t be with Roki unsupervised. Jax at first tells Roki “next year” but then, perhaps sensing that there won’t be a next year for Roki and Tawi at the powwow, borrows Frank’s car and takes Roki on a road trip to the event.
Or, to put it the way the FBI sees it, Jax steals Frank’s car and kidnaps Roki, leading to an Amber Alert and statewide hunt for them by local and federal law enforcement.
Jax doesn’t at first realize the seriousness of the situation but even when she learns that Frank has called the police she continues forward in her twin missions to take Roki to the dance and to find information about Tawi. JJ both tries to bring Jax home and helps her in her quest. Both of them hope that perhaps this FBI attention will shine some light on Tawi.
I went into this movie rooting for Gladstone and I was not disappointed. She elevates everything she’s in, helping to highlight this movie’s solid storytelling despite some indie movie scruffiness. Gladstone makes you believe every moment of Jax’s struggle and makes you feel her exhaustion and desperation as well as her deep love for Tawi and Roki.
Which maybe doesn’t sound like the funnest use of your movie-watching time, but Fancy Dance manages moments of heart and sweetness among the bitter. And at just about 90 minutes it’s a well-crafted story. A-
Rated R for language, some drug content and sexual material, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Erica Tremblay and written by Erica Tremblay and Miciana Alise, Fancy Dance is an hour and 30 minutes long and is streaming on Apple TV+.
