Category: Food

Several years ago, in an action that can only be described as evil and motivated by malice, the National Biscuit Co. (Nabisco) discontinued a classic product, its Famous Chocolate Wafers, which generations of grandmothers and Home-Ec teachers had depended on as the key ingredient in Icebox Cake.

This modified version of icebox cake uses store-bought chocolate chip cookies and is very good — especially for Father’s Day. It only has four ingredients and does not actually involve cooking or baking, so it can be a decent project for kids to make.

One suggestion: When preparing food with small children, measure all the ingredients out ahead of time, and have everything laid out before calling the kids into the kitchen. Just trust me on this.

• 2 13-ounce packages of chocolate-chip cookies – the crisp kind, not the soft ones with the odd taste
• 3 cups (1½ pints) heavy cream
• 8-ounce package of cream cheese
• 2 Tablespoons powdered sugar

Crush 13 cookies into a bowl or large measuring cup. You could definitely do this in a plastic bag with a rolling pin, but I find it very satisfying to hold a couple of them at a time in my hand and tell them, “Oh, you know what you did,” and crush them by hand. On the seventh go-around, there will be one cookie left. Imagine his level of freak-out as he waits for his fate.

(If your children take a message from this as well, so much the better.)

Pour the heavy cream over the traumatized cookies and stir to make sure they’ve all gotten soaked. Set aside for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, line a loaf pan with plastic wrap. If you are like me, the wrap will flutter around and bond to everything in your kitchen, except the loaf pan, and this will easily take the 10 minutes you’ve set aside for the cookie crumbs to infuse into the cream. Your children will learn some colorful new language. After 10 minutes, strain the cookie/cream mixture. Give the leftover cookie sludge to your least whiny child.

With your electric stand mixer or hand mixer, whip the cream cheese until it is soft and fluffy, about four minutes. Use the mixer’s whisk attachment if you have one. Whisk in the powdered sugar, then drizzle in the cookie-infused cream. You will probably need to stop the mixer after a minute or so and scrape cream cheese from the bottom of the bowl, so it mixes well with the cream. Turn the mixer to its highest setting, and beat the cream cheese/cookie cream mixture, until it forms stiff peaks.

With a large spoon or a silicone spatula, spread two globs of the cream mixture across the bottom of the loaf pan, then lay down a layer of cookies on top of it. You will have to break a few in half or into four pieces to fill any large cookie-gaps. Spread down another layer of the cream mixture, then another layer of cookies. Continue doing this until you’ve used up all the cream mixture. Hopefully, you will have enough for a final creamy layer on the top of the loaf pan.

You will probably have some leftover cookies. Use your own best judgment, but they will go really well with freshly made iced coffee (see the cover story).

Cover the loaf pan with one more piece of plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for at least six hours, to let the cookies and the cream reach a state of détente. An hour before you want to serve this icebox cake, put it in the freezer, which will make it easier to slice into servings.

Featured photo: Icebox cake. Photo by John Fladd.

Cake Fest expects up to 125 cakes

The idea for Cake Fest came to Susan Witts, the owner of Susie Q’s Cakery, last winter.

“It was a cold day in January,” Witts remembered. “Obviously, I have a cakery, so I love cake. I’ve loved cake for a long, long time. And I thought, let’s have a big party all about cake. And then I thought, how am I going to do this? And the rest is kind of history now. We have our event scheduled for the Deerfield Town Gazebo or Town Hall. If it rains, we’ve rented out the whole space. And we will have up to 125 cakes that will be coming.”

Witts stressed that Cake Fest will not be a competition, but a celebration for people like her, who just love cake.

“Some people are making their own and so there’s a little bit of swag involved,” she said. “We are going to have a Cake Fest photo-op balloon arch. So if you want to show your cake off, that’s fantastic. If you want to go to Whole Foods and get a lovely cake there to share, that’s fantastic too. This is really about however you interpret cake.”

Witts said she has been inspired by Cake Picnic, an event that started in San Francisco but has evolved into a traveling celebration to cities around the world with the motto “No Cake, No Entry.”

“I was as intrigued as could be,” Witts said. They do it in only larger cities, but I thought, ‘Well, dang! Let’s do it in New Hampshire!’”

“So this is just about bringing the cake community together to share in some sweetness,” Witts said. “Each person signs up — all tickets are pre-sale, so there will not be any tickets available the day of the event. So you buy a ticket. You decide what kind of cake you’d like to make or where you’d like to buy one. And then you come to the event. and everyone will have a ticket and it will be whoever arrives first gets in line first and groups of 10 will get to go through the cake walk with pink boxes the size of large pizza boxes and you fill your box with slices of everyone’s cake.”

So, in essence, Cake Fest is a chance for cakers to collect slices of cake. To eat. Because it’s cake.

Because Cake Fest is a party, Witts said, “we have a wonderful acoustic musician coming in. We have a bar service so we’ll have bubbly because you have to have bubbly with cake. There will be face painting. It’s just a really really wonderful community event and who doesn’t like cake? Only mean, bad people. So you can bet that most of the folks there will be just really kind, wonderful people.”

Witts has heard rumors that some Cake Fest cakers have been carefully planning their cakes in extreme detail.

“I teach classes,” she said, “and I have Russian decorating tips to pipe tulips, and a woman was attending the class and she showed me her concept cake and she’s doing the cat from Demon Hunter. And then another woman has her favorite spice cake from her grandma. So it doesn’t have to be elaborate. It really is a question of what cake do you love from your childhood? What cake do you want to aspire to try and decorate? Bring it. Everyone’s cake is welcome. We’re going to applaud everyone and they’ll all be delicious.”

Cake Fest
When: Saturday, June 27, from 1 to 3 p.m.
Where: Deerfield Town Gazebo on Church Street.
Entry is $25. All tickets will be sold before the event; no tickets will be sold on the day of CakeFest. Visit susieqscakery.com/cake-fest-2026.

Featured photo: One of Susan Witts’ cakes. Courtesy photo.

Summer celebrations

• SEE Science Center (200 Bedford St. in Manchester) will hold its Kick Off to Summer Saturday, June 20, through Friday, June 26, “featuring activities using LEGO® Bricks and celebrating the 20th anniversary of the completion of our LEGO® Millyard Project,” according to see-sciencecenter.org, where you can find admission prices and pre-purchase admission. Through Labor Day, the Center is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the website said.

• The Wilton NH Main Street Association’s SummerFest will be held Saturday, June 20, according to facebook.com/wiltonmainstreetnh. “Main Street will be closed to traffic and full of vendors from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. We have live music on two stages during that entire time. The Lions will also have their annual Duck Drop fundraiser in the afternoon,” according to an email from organizers. “Activities move up to Carnival Hill in the evening from 6 to 10 p.m. That will include music provided by a DJ, kids’ games, a pie-eating contest and an amazing fireworks display by JPI Pyrotechnics, enhanced this year for the 250th birthday of America,” the email said.

• The Seacoast Science Center in Rye will celebrate World Ocean Celebration Day on Saturday, June 20, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. featuring games, educational activities, tide pool sessions, food trucks and more, according to seacoastsciencecenter.org, where you can purchase tickets.

• The 44th Somersworth International Children’s Festival will take place Saturday, June 20, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Noble Pines Park and on Main Street and feature activities for kids, food vendors, craft vendors, a World Cultures Passport Center, a kids’ play area, Wildlife Encounters, roaming entertainers, a petting zoo and more, according to nhfestivals.org.

• The Nesmith Library in Windham (nesmithlibrary.org) will hold its Summer Reading Program Kickoff on Tuesday, June 23, from 4 to 7 p.m. with lawn games, the Walking Gourmet Food Truck and Bryson Lang juggling at 6 p.m., according to the website.

Live performances

• Children’s musical performer Mr. Aaron will be at the Riverfront Park in Northfield on Friday, June 19, at 6:30 p.m., according to mraaronmusic.com. You can also catch him Saturday, June 20, at noon at the Seacoast Science Center in Rye for World Ocean Day, the website said.

• The Prescott Park Arts Festival’s outdoor production in Portsmouth Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella will begin its summer run on Friday, June 19, with shows through Aug. 9, according to prescottpark.org. Performances take place most Thursdays through Sundays at 7 p.m., with some matinee performances, according to prescottpark.org, where you can reserve blanket or table space.

• The Nashua Public Library, 2 Court St. in Nashua, will rock out on Tuesday, June 23, at 7 p.m. with its Teen Rock Show featuring Fates Collide from Nashua Community Music School, according to nashualibrary.org.

• Add your voice toK-Pop Demon Hunters Sing Along, part of the Summer Movie Clubhouseseries at Cinemark Rockingham Park (15 Mall Road in Salem; cinemark. com/theatres/nh-salem/cinemark-rockingham-park-and-xd), according to the website. The movie screens Wednesday, June 17, and Thursday, June 18, at 10:30 a.m.

The label on the bottle reads “Buchanan’s Pineapple.” It’s a brand of scotch flavored with pineapple and citrus fruit. Yes, the fruit flavors cover up the whiskey’s more subtle nuances, but let’s face it, if you were super-concerned about subtly nuanced flavors, you probably wouldn’t be playing around with pineapple-flavored scotch.

Which is not to say that it isn’t delicious. It’s actually very tasty — a little sweet, a little, er, scotchy — and has a lot to bring to a mixed drink. No, you won’t sit in a leather armchair, drinking it out of a snifter and reading poetry in classical Greek (or, for all I know, maybe you will), but it can act well in an ensemble cast.

Which we’ll get to in a minute.

There is something else on the bottle’s label — a signature that reads “James Buchanan.” If that name sounds familiar, it’s the name of the president in office just before Abraham Lincoln. Most historians rate him pretty poorly as a president; a combination of poor judgement, bad luck, and rumors of a — for the time — scandalous personal life led to a rough four years in the White House. He left an ugly mess for Lincoln to deal with, and we know how well that turned out.

Now, I’m not saying that the James Buchanan on the label of this pineapple-flavored scotch is the same Buchanan who was partially responsible for the Civil War. But it would be foolish to discount the possibility.

OK, actually we do know it wasn’t the same guy, but I like to imagine Buchanan moving to Scotland for a fresh start after leaving office and going into the whiskey business. Which is why we’re calling this week’s cocktail:

Jimmy B’s retirement lemonade

• 1 lemon, thinly sliced
• 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
• 2 ounces Buchanan’s Pineapple

Combine the lemon slices and sugar in a cocktail shaker. Muddle them thoroughly — really grind them together for a full minute or so. Then, add the whiskey and five or six ice cubes.

Shake enthusiastically, until a line of condensation forms on the shaker or you hear the ice start to break up into small shards.

Do not strain this drink. Pour everything directly into a rocks glass, and drink it with an open mind and a light heart.

Does it taste like lemonade? Yes, a little.

Does it taste fruity and boozy? Definitely.

Does it taste of questionable choices? Perhaps, but it’s springtime, a time for impulsive decisions. You will not regret this one.

Probably.

Featured photo: Jimmy B’s retirement lemonade. Photo by John Fladd.

Bow Beer Garden offers picnic vibes

Some dreams are realized all at once; others happen one step at a time.

Dan Thomas from Hoptimystic Brewing (71 Main St., Sunapee, hoptimysticbrewing.com) has wanted to open a new brewery and restaurant in Bow for several years.

“We have been working on it for like three years,” he said, “and we finally got something to fruition. We were hoping to open a full build-out of a brewery and restaurant, but we hit a bunch of hurdles and this is what we could do — we created a completely outdoor space here in Bow, right on South Street.”

The Bow Beer Garden will have a definite picnic theme this first year, Thomas said.

“It’s 100 percent outdoors. It’s definitely an outdoor New Hampshire rustic vibe. It’s a wood chip base, and we’ve got picnic tables. We’ve got some shade, some sun. We have a modified shipping container that has a concession window in it, so everything is ordered right out of there. You order your beer, your pizza, all of it, in a one-stop shop, right out of the container. We’re using the food truck more as just a mobile kitchen. Although it’s there, the customers won’t really interact with that at all. It’s definitely a very, very low-key casual vibe. You’ll walk away with your beer, but if you’re getting pizza you’ll get a buzzer. And when your buzzer goes off, come up to the window, grab your pizza and off you go.”

The food side of the Beer Garden will be addressed by a local pizza institution, Thomas said. “We found a great partner in 900 Degrees from Manchester. We’re doing the beer and we’re offering a very limited menu from 900 Degrees, but it’s the pizzas that folks already know. We have six different pizzas available — all 10-inch pizzas.”

On the beer side, Thomas and his staff plan to serve some proven winners.

“We came up with a beer for 900 Degrees called the House Pie Pilsner,” he said. “That’s something that we’re brewing for them. We’ve had that on tap since Day 1, and that’s been a huge hit for us. It’s a nice, light, crisp, refreshing beer. It’s not the hoppiest beer for real craft beer enthusiasts, but it really attracts the masses. Then, one of my personal favorites, more for the craft beer enthusiasts, is our Smooth Operator IPA. That’s one we’re excited about. The thing about us, and we do this in our other tasting rooms, although we have a couple core beers that stay on tap, we’re constantly changing. So you’ll see in a couple of weeks we’ll have a couple of sours. We’ve got a Creamsicle IPA that we do once a year, which is super refreshing and popular. I think the thing about us is not so much that there’s one beer that defines us. We’ve had folks posting on some social media about how they appreciate the fact that we have variety.”

Thomas said that he has a good feeling about the new beer garden. “We’re still a work in progress for sure,” he said, “but we’ve got heating, we’ve got cold beer, and we’ve got hot pizza. Some of the aesthetic stuff we’re still working on. Every week, when you come, it’s going to look a little better. We’ve done a couple things this last week from when we opened, from the week prior. This week we’ve got a couple more things coming, and next week we’ve got a few more things coming. Every week we’re getting a little bit better. It was important for us to get open. And when folks come down, we’re happy to serve them.”

The Bow Beer Garden
Hours: Wednesday and Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 9 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 7 p.m.
More: Visit the Beer Garden’s website at hoptimysticbrewing.com/new-page, which is also a work in progress.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.