Category: Food

Fog Cutter

Here is my take on this classic.

1½ ounces light rum — On this occasion I’ve used Captain Morgan’s Sweet Chili Lime, because I’m wacky that way.

1 ounce cognac

½ ounce London Dry Gin — We want some of that juniperish astringency in this drink to offset so many fruit flavors, so I’m going with a solid standby, Gordon’s.

2 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice

1 ounce fresh squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice

½ ounce orgeat — This is a sweet almond syrup that punches up the fruitiness of a tropical drink

½ ounce dry sherry to float

Add ice to a cocktail shaker, then add the rum, cognac, gin, lime and grapefruit juices, and orgeat. Shake thoroughly while listening to a song about making bad decisions on the beach. I recommend “Una Más Cerveza” by Tommy Alverson. Or anything by Jimmy Buffet.

Strain over crushed ice in a Collins glass. As it happens, I don’t have an ice maker in the door of my refrigerator, so I am forced to crush it myself, like a savage. I wrap a handful of ice cubes in a tea towel and smash it with something heavy.

Pour a float of sherry on the top of the drink with a straw and a paper umbrella.

This is fruity and refreshing, but at the same time boozy enough to get your attention. It goes down easily, but not so easily that it raises any suspicions. One will lead to a second. When you start to make a third Fog Cutter, a responsible person might remind you that you have a big day tomorrow.

The key phrase to remember here is, “Tomorrow’s not the boss of me!”

Featured photo: Cornmeal crepes. Photo by John Fladd.

Like a park, but with cappuccino

Village Play Cafe offers a place for parents and kids to relax

By John Fladd
jfladd@hippopress.com

The target demographic of Village Play Cafe in Manchester is a very specific one: parents of young children who haven’t talked to another grown-up in too long.

You can drink a latte and watch your child play in a safe, soft space, said Kristie Ranahan, owner and founder of Village Play Cafe,

“I always wanted to open a play cafe,” she said. “Eventually I said, ‘I’m going to do it.’ So I hired moms who needed a place to work where they could bring their kids. I had never been a barista before, so I signed up for a class in New Jersey for the SCA, which is the Specialty Coffee Association, and I got certified as a barista …”

One side of the cafe is set up with tables and chairs, as well as a counter to order drinks and pastries. The other half of the space is set up with mats, books and toys for children to play with.

The cafe’s menu is centered around breakfast and lunch items, Ranahan said.

“Everything is made pretty much in house. In the morning we have cereals, muffins, croissants, apple Danishes, that sort of thing. And then for lunch we do soups, salads and sandwiches. My soups are homemade. When I do birthday parties and tea parties and things like that, we’re baking everything.”

In addition to drop-in guests, Village Play Cafe will host birthday parties and special events, like tea parties, with a costumed character who greets the children, and a proper formal tea service for their adults.

“We’re trying to [hold] a character party once a month,” Ranahan said. “In December it was the Grinch.” For the adults, the tea and treats are served on china. “So with clotted cream, jam, and then you have different Danishes and pastries, depending on what I feel like making that week. Children get a take-home cup and two hours of play; parents get a full tea setup. And then we only sell 30 tickets total, including adults, to make it more an environment that is a little quieter, so there’s not too many children running around at one time.”

“We’re really just trying to make more of a community,” Ranahan said, “especially in the winter. The whole purpose is to give moms an outlet where they can meet other moms, socialize and get to help younger children.”

Village Play Cafe
Where: 589 Second St., Manchester (shares a parking lot with Burger King)
Hours: open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
More: 340-5362, villageplaycafenh.com
Frozen Tea Time with Elsa will take place Saturday, Jan. 18, from 2 to 4 p.m.

The Miller’s Tavern opens

A new restaurant brings lessons from one Elm Street corner to another

By John Fladd
jfladd@hippopress.com

For 15 years, The Farm Restaurant was a solid presence on Elm Street in downtown Manchester. Then after the holidays, it was gone.

Ryan Cox is part of the family that owned The Farm and several other restaurants in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

“What happened,” he said, “was the lease [for the Manchester Farm] had ended. We were there 15 years. We had a great run there. We love The Farm. We still have one location in Dover, New Hampshire, and one in Essex, Massachusetts, as well, and they’re still staying open. It was just one of these things where we couldn’t see eye to eye with the landlord, and with the age of the building, we just decided it was time to kind of look somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else” turned out to be on the corner of Elm and Lowell streets, in the location most recently occupied by Keys Piano Bar.

“We found this great location two blocks over,” Cox said. “And we were able to bring in a different one of our concepts, which is what we have in Methuen, Massachusetts. It gave us a chance to revitalize what kind of what we’re doing as a business.”

The new restaurant, which opened in early January, is The Miller’s Tavern. It specializes in upscale American pub food.

Cox said the Tavern is not the same place as The Farm, but they share some of the same DNA. “We’ve learned a lot in our 16 years of operating our company,” Cox said. “And so we’ve really been able to dial in our menu and really been able to dial in what we’re going for, which is an American tavern. It’s a place where we would like people to be able to come three days a week. Perhaps you come in for a burger and a beer and watch a game. Perhaps you come in another time for dinner. and perhaps you come in with your family if you want as well. The idea is to cater to all price ranges and all types of people.”

The concept of the menu at The Miller’s Tavern is to take pub classics and elevate them to their highest potential. Cox used mozzarella bites as an example.

“Instead of what people would buy as mozzarella sticks, frozen, we make them all in house,” he said. “We take real chunks of mozzarella, so when you stretch it, you take a bite, it stretches for days. We have our famous fajitas that we’ve taken from The Farm, which we would put up against any Mexican restaurant out there. Our steak tips, we make them in house. That’s a home run. We have a pizza oven. We have a panko chicken that we think is outstanding. Our fish and chips are seriously good — our seafood’s fresh, you know, which is something that we’ve kind of learned from being down on the coastal areas.”

Cox said there are also high-end items on the menu.

“On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, we have a choose-your-own-cut-size of rib-eye steak. You can choose a 16-, 18-, 20-, 24-, 28-, 30-ounce cut, if you’d like. We cut it for you right here, topped with gorgonzola cheese, caramelized onions, and onion rings on top of that, so it’s a really cool meal.”

The Miller’s Tavern
1087 Elm St., Manchester, 854-8442, themillerstavern.com
Open Monday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Weekly Dish 26/01/22

By John Fladd
jfladd@hippopress.com

• Whiskey 101: Arts Alley (20 S. Main St., Concord, 406-5666, artsalleyconcordnh.com) and Tamworth Distilling (15 Cleveland Hill Road, Tamworth, 323-7196, tamworthdistilling.com) will join forces to teach the basics of whiskey. Whiskey 101: Sip, Savor & Learnwill introduce participants to three distinct styles of whiskey — bourbon, rye, and scotch — while teaching how each is made, how to properly smell and taste, and what flavor notes to look for. This class will take place at Arts Alley on Friday, Jan. 23, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tickets are $65.87 through eventbrite.com.

• Pie and wine: On Friday, Jan. 23, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tuscan Market (Tuscan Village, 9 Via Toscana, Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) will host a class teaching participants tobake two seasonal pies from scratch with wine pairings. Tickets are $75.03 through eventbrite.com.

• Romantic Valentine’s Day dinners: Many area wineries will hostromantic dinners for two on the weekend of Feb. 14:

• Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com) This is a five-course, chocolate-themed dinner with a wine pairing for each course. $79 per person.

• Birch Wood Vineyards (199 Rockingham Road, Derry, 965-4359, birchwoodvineyards.com) This is a four-course meal, with wine pairings available. The cost starts at $85 per person but will vary depending on menu and wine options.

• Flag Hill Winery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com) This is a three-course dinner with wine pairings. Entree options include blackened terres major (a tender cut of beef), plantain-crusted halibut, and eggplant rollatini. The price is $65 per person.

• LaBelle Winery Amherst (345 Route 101, Amherst, 672-9898, labellewinery.com) This is a four-course dinner, each course paired with a LaBelle wine. The meal is accompanied by a string quartet. The price is $99 per person.

• LaBelle Winery Derry (14 Route 111, Derry, 672-9898, labellewinery.com/labelle-winery-derry) This is also a four-course dinner, each course paired with a LaBelle wine. This meal is accompanied by a jazz quartet. The cost is $99 per person.

Cornmeal crepes with strawberries and mascarpone

Crepes

  • 1¼ cup (285 g) whole milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 Tablespoons butter, browned
  • ½ cup + 2 Tablespoons (80 g) flour
  • ½ + 2 Tablespoons (100 g) cornmeal
  • 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mascarpone filling

  • 2 cups (1 16-oz container) mascarpone cheese
  • 4 Tablespoons sugar
  • Large pinch of fresh-grated nutmeg
  • Strawberry preserves, homemade or jarred
  • Finely minced basil for garnish

In your blender, mix the milk and eggs together. Add the browned butter and mix again. Add the dry ingredients — the flour, cornmeal and salt — and blend yet again. Add the vanilla and blend one last time. (Making crepe batter in a blender makes things go extremely smoothly — if you put the ingredients in in the right order. If you were to put the dry ingredients in first, with the wet ingredients on top, there is a good chance that the batter wouldn’t mix properly, and a gelatinized blob of flour would sit at the bottom of your blender jar, mocking you.)

Put your blender jar in the refrigerator and chill the batter for at least half an hour.

If you have a small, non-stick skillet, this is its big moment. Place it over medium heat, and melt a lump of butter in it.

Take your crepe batter from the refrigerator and give it another spin in the blender to make certain that everything is well mixed. Because the cornmeal is heavy and is prone to sinking to the bottom of the batter, you might want to reblend the batter after every two crepes.

Pour about a quarter of a cup into the hot melted butter, and swirl the pan around to spread the batter over the entire bottom of the pan. Return the pan to heat, and cook your crepe until the top surface isn’t shiny anymore and the edges start to brown just a tiny bit. Then lift a corner of the crepe with a spatula, and flip it over with your fingers. Cook the B-side of the crepe for another minute or so, then transfer it to a plate.

If you are using a non-stick pan, you will not have to rebutter it. If you are using a different species of frying pan, you will probably want to regrease it between crepes. Cook crepes until you have used up all your batter.

Separately, mash the mascarpone, sugar and nutmeg together, and stir until they combine into a very stiff mixture.

Now you have a choice. If you want sweet dessert crepes, fill them with strawberry preserves and top with the mascarpone topping. If you want a less sweet, slightly savory crepe, fill it with the mascarpone and top it with strawberry preserves. Either way, garnish with minced basil.

Serve with ice-cold milk or sparkling wine.

Featured photo: Cornmeal crepes. Photo by John Fladd.

Try the wine and meet the makers

New Hampshire wine week offers tasting and learning opportunities

The annual New Hampshire Wine Week features tastings including at New Hampshire Wine and Liquor Outlets, special wine dinners and culminates in the New England Winter Wine Spectacular, an expo featuring dozens of wine makers, importers, exporters and dealers.

This year’s Wine Week also features a new event.

“It’s called Sommelier Select,” said Justin Gunter, the Liquor Commission’s Wine Marketing Specialist. It will be a blind tasting event held on Wednesday, Jan. 21, in Concord, he said, and guests will taste a number of wines, guided by three professional sommeliers. “Our three somms will be leading a panel on that evening with 120 guests. And they will blind taste all nine wines, in three flights.”

Representatives of some of the makers of the wines tasted will be on hand, Gunter said. “They’re going to be there for a kind of a meet and greet at the end, to answer the questions that come up during the tastings.”

The goal of New Hampshire’s Wine Week overall, and of the Sommelier Select event in particular, Gunter said, is to help customers develop a personal relationship with the wines they buy.

“It’s a challenging time in the beverage industry,” he said. “We want to make sure that we have a strong footprint in the state of New Hampshire for wine and what it can bring and the social aspect of it. So we want to make it as interactive as possible.”

The following evening, Thursday, Jan. 22, the 20th Annual New England Winter Wine Spectacular will be held at the Doubletree Expo Center in Manchester.

“[I]t’s looking absolutely fantastic for this coming year,” Gunter said. “We have 154 tables for sampling [in the main exhibition space], plus we have another 24 tables in our Bellman Cellar Select Room, which is the higher-end, more exclusive lines.” One special aspect of the Wine Spectacular, he said, is the opportunity to meet wine makers and vineyard owners who produce the wines being sampled. “As of right now, we have around 40 wine personalities that are scheduled to be here, and that’s going to be owners, winemakers, just representatives of the wineries that are very near and dear with these offerings that we have.”

“One thing that we introduced this year is we’re introducing pavilions within the Expo,” Gunter said. “We’re trying to create a little bit of a wine tasting within the wine tasting, so that brokers can feature wines with a restaurant of their choice. They’re selecting the restaurant to participate in their pavilion, so they can pair the wines with the actual food served at the restaurants that feature them.”

New Hampshire Wine Week
The Sommelier Select event will take place Wednesday, Jan. 21, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Grappone Conference Center (70 Constitution Ave., Concord, grapponeconferencecenter.com). Tickets are $65 each; see nhwineweek.com.

The 20th Annual New England Winter Wine Spectacular will take place Thursday, Jan. 22, at the Doubletree Expo Center (700 Elm St., Manchester). General admission tickets are $75 each and have a 6 p.m. entry time; see nhwineweek.com.

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