Food – Page 14

Too Many Pears

So you find yourself with half a dozen fresh pears on your hands. What does one do with Too Many Pears?

Pear Crisp

Filling

6 ripe medium-to-large pears, peeled, cored and chopped
½ cup (107 g) brown sugar
1 Tablespoon corn starch – This filling will be very liquidy, particularly if your pears are super-ripe and/or juicy. A full tablespoon of starch will help everything pull together as it bakes.
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
2 teaspoons bourbon – optional
Zest of 1 orange – This too, is optional. Bourbon and orange both get along extremely well with pears, but a love triangle of all three is a bit chaotic. You should probably pick one and give the other a lovely parting gift.

Crust

¾ cup (67 g) rolled oats – not instant or steel-cut oats
¾ cup (90 g) all-purpose flour
1⁄3 cup (71 g) brown sugar
½ cup (65 g) chopped nuts – Walnuts or pecans are traditional, but if you wanted to use hazelnuts, or even pistachios, who could argue with you? “Why, yes, Helen, I did use hazelnuts in the crust. **steely gaze** Thank you so much for asking.”
½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted (about 1 minute in your microwave)

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease an 8”x8” baking pan liberally with butter. I like to smear a full tablespoonful around with my fingers. You know, for thoroughness.

Combine all the filling ingredients. Stir and set aside.

In a separate bowl, combine all the crust ingredients except for the melted butter. Add the butter, and stir the mixture with a fork, until it all pulls together into a lumpy, streusel-y texture.

Pour the pear mixture into the buttery baking pan, then top with the crust mixture. Place the baking pan on a lined baking sheet, in case of a bubble-over situation, then bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

Remove the pear crisp from your oven when it looks golden-brown and gloppy. Let it cool for 10 minutes or so; at 350°F, the brown sugar/pear syrup is dangerously hot. Aim for “warm and comforting” rather than “hot from the oven.” Top with vanilla ice cream, or serve with a milkshake. You won’t be sorry.

Featured photo: Pear Crisp. Photo by John Fladd.

Pizza-focused course correction

Hellenic Pizzeria emerges on Elm Street

Walking down Elm Street in Manchester, you notice a new pizzeria next to Cat Alley, and you stop short. Wait a second, wasn’t that the new—?

Yes, owner Dionysius Lemos said, it was the Statesman Diner.

“We had an occupancy permit for 21 days. Out of 21 days, we only opened for nine days.” This problem, he explained, was with the Statesman’s kitchen’s exhaust system. “We kept triggering off the fire alarm in here. What was happening, the exhaust was going up the ductwork, but it was bellowing out because we have an open concept kitchen into the dining room, and it was affecting the patrons, and then the fire alarms would go off.”

This led to a quick redesign of the restaurant, one not built around an exhaust system. Lemos installed ventless pizza ovens and changed his restaurant’s focus to traditional Greek pizza. “We use a Greek recipe,” Lemos said. “It’s a Peloponnesian recipe for pizza. It comes from southern Greece. It’s been around for hundreds of years. Greeks’ public position [is] they recognize the influence that the Italians have had with pizza, but they’ve also played a major role with pizza since the 1600s. So this recipe is well over 300 years old. It’s a recipe that nobody uses anywhere around us.”

What makes Hellenic’s pizza special, Lemos said, is the dough.

“It’s a thick crust,” he said. “But the difference is in our fermentation process. We sit on the dough for two days. The longer you sit on that dough, the tastier it is.” The dough is cold-proofed, which means it is left to rise in the refrigerator, so the yeast in the dough has time to develop flavor.

“So we specialize in 10-inch Greek pies. Everything’s fresh. Our own dough, our own sauce, our own cheese, which we shred ourselves,” Lemos said. “We use a blend of cheddar and mozzarella.” The pizzas are baked for a short time at a high temperature. “We’re running at about 800 degrees, and we’re running seven-minute pies.”

While the Statesman had a long and ambitious menu, Lemos said, the change in concept has led to a smaller, pizza-focused range of dishes. But that leaves a question hanging in the air: What about the french fries?

Hellenic Pizzeria is next to Cat Alley, an alley covered on one side with murals of cats made by area artists, which has become a cultural landmark in Manchester. During renovations to the restaurant in its diner iteration, Lemos installed a walk-up french fry window on the non-mural side of the alley. The goal was to make top-quality fries available to late-night customers leaving concerts or downtown bars. There has been a lot of excitement about the french fry window among late-night foodies.

“The french fries are gone,” Lemos said sadly. “But the window is being repurposed. It will still be open, but it will serve rotisserie hot dogs. In deference to the cat people, it’s going to be called Cat Alley Landmark Dawgs. There will be a hot dog [available], a cheese dog, a chili dog, or a chili cheese dog. I’m really sad to see the fry station going — on weekends we’re selling 50 pounds an hour, some days — and that was when we were only open for nine days.”

Hellenic Pizzeria
Where: 836 Elm St., Manchester, 932-2751
Hours: Open seven days a week 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Hours of operation for the walk-up hot dog window are still being determined.

The Weekly Dish 26/01/01

• Hot pot: OBA Korean BBQ & Hot Pot has opened at 371 S. Willow St. in Manchester (obakoreanbbqhotpot.com). The all-you-can-eat Korean restaurant is open Wednesday through Monday at 11:30 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and until 10:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

• An Italian New Year’s Eve: There will be a Bubbles and Truffles New Year’s Eve event at Tuscan Market (Tuscan Village, 9 Via Toscana, Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) Wednesday, Dec. 31, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. This two-course cooking class will begin with a classic shrimp cocktail paired with a prosecco toast. Guests will then explore the elegance of truffles through a curated tasting, starting with truffle bites paired with Franciacorta, followed by fresh truffle-finished pasta tossed tableside in a Parmesan wheel and paired with a crisp Blanc de Noir. This will be a celebratory, elevated way to toast the new year. Tickets are $131.63 through eventbrite.com.

• Holiday ice cream: Social Club Creamery (138 N. Main St., Concord, 333-2111, socialclubcreamery.com) will continue to offer a special Holiday Series Menu through the end of December, with limited-time cookies, and ice creams including Peppermint Mocha, Cinnamon Roll Cheesecake, Gingerbread House, and Santa’s Oat Milk & Cookies (vegan).

• Melted snowman cookies: The Nashua Public Library (2 Court St., Nashua, 589-4600, nashualibrary.org) will host a Melted Snowman Cookie workshop for children in grades K-5, Monday, Dec. 29, from 2 to 3 p.m. “In this hands-on program, you’ll decorate your own melting snowman cookie using icing, candy, and other fun toppings. Learn some basic cookie decorating techniques, like spreading icing, placing decorations, and adding finishing touches, while giving your frosty friend a wobbly, ‘melting’ look. Space and supplies are limited,” according to the website.

• New year, new flavors: The Hooksett Library, 31 Mount Saint Mary’s Way in Hooksett, hooksettlibrary.org, has a Spice Club. While supplies last, pick up a spice kit with a new spice and recipes each month, according to the website. In January, the spice is ginger; pick up the spice kit at Patron Services on Jan. 20 while supplies last, the website said.

Milk punch

1 glass whole milk. Or almond milk. Or some other type of milk; your milk is your own business.

2 ounces very dark rum. I like black rum for this, but your mileage may vary.

(Actually, you know what? Classically, this is made with rum, but there is not any reason, no reason whatsoever, that you couldn’t make this with brandy, or bourbon, or Irish whiskey. Any dark spirit will serve you well here. You probably wouldn’t be happy with a Tequila Milk Punch, but on the other hand, who am I to say?)

¾ ounces simple syrup. Could you make this with another type of syrup? I’m pretty sure maple syrup would be very nice here.

Fresh-grated nutmeg. This is the one ingredient that is non-negotiable. If you’ve never grated your own nutmeg, you’ve been living a life of relative deprivation.

Add ice, milk, liquor and syrup to a cocktail shaker.

Ask your digital assistant to play “Christmas” by Darlene Love. (Is this the best Christmas song ever recorded? Possibly. There’s also “Sleigh Ride” by the Ronnettes.)

Shake the cocktail shaker like it’s been very, very naughty.

Strain it over fresh ice in a tall glass, then grate fresh nutmeg over it.

This is a creamy, foamy, not-too-sweet, boozy interpretation of a glass of milk that goes as well with French fries as cookies.

Featured photo: Milk punch Photo by John Fladd.

2025 was a year of hellos and goodbyes

A look at the city’s restaurant scene

Erik Lesniak works in the Manchester Economic Development Office. His job involves keeping track of businesses as they appear and fade in Manchester, particularly restaurants. He said 2025 was a particularly dynamic year for the city’s food scene.

“There is a rarity of having a long-standing restaurant in the city of Manchester,” he said. “I can’t speak for any other community, but places like the Puritan Back Room, that have 100 years of service by one family, are almost unknown here. … Nine out of 10 times you get these restaurants that operate five or 10 years if they’re lucky. A new owner comes in because the old owners want to retire or their kids aren’t taking over the family business. It’s been a big change over the whole industry“

Lesniak mentioned several fairly recent restaurants that closed this past year within a few blocks of each other on Elm Street as examples, including The Birch on Elm, Keys Piano Bar and the Statesman Diner, which rebranded as Hellenic Pizza.

With that said, Lesniak stressed that while there were some high-visibility restaurant closings over the past year, there is a strong demand and momentum for new places.

“In many cases,” he said, “spaces are being quickly reactivated by new businesses, like Miller’s Tavern, which will open in the former Keys Piano Bar location.”

Manchester’s increasingly diverse population has opened up opportunities for restaurant concepts that wouldn’t have been seen even 10 years ago.

“I mean, when you look downtown,” Lesniak said, “We have Indian, Thai, we’ve got American, Italian, fast casual, we’ve got a wide selection of areas that hit all markets. New concepts have come in, or played off previous concepts, and slowly started to succeed in their own right, the way they deliver. And I do feel like, even moving into the future, we’re going to see a lot of that throughout the city, especially downtown. We’re going to see restaurants switch hands and switch concepts as the trends change. For example, if people aren’t going out to drink beer as much anymore, they’re more into things like craft cocktails and fresh fruits in cocktails or mocktails.”

Lesniak said the impact of restaurants on Manchester’s economy will be extremely important for the foreseeable future.

“I think that we’ll have more restaurants opening,” he predicted. “The No. 1 industry right now asking to open up in the city of Manchester is hospitality. [There’s] retail, here and there, but the number of entrepreneurs who want to come in and open a restaurant is staggering. Behind the scenes, the new business owners are putting in long hours and making tough decisions and personal sacrifices to make their concepts work. I have so much respect for everything they add to the community”

“I think a word to summarize this past year, for me, my own personal opinion, is ‘emotional,’” Lesniak said. “When you look at our city as a whole, you see longstanding restaurants, that have lasted at least 10 years or so. And the owners are your mom-and-pop or your real family businesses. When you see them leave, it’s emotional because it’s a piece of the culture that’s taken with them. And that’s the end of their journey, potentially. There are other restaurants dying to come into those spaces, but that’s the end of that story for that business. And then in the community or the neighborhood that supported them, now there’s a void. So whoever goes in there, it may not be the same cultural flair that they had. It may be a different concept. It may not even be a restaurant. It could turn into a convenience store, or a market, or a retail, or a service. And so that neighborhood or that community within those areas faces some powerful hellos and goodbyes. So I’d say ‘emotional’ is really what the word of the year is.”

Gyros and cauliflower tacos

Local eaters discuss their favorite meals of 2025

What was the best thing you ate this year?

That’s the question we asked of several local foodies and food-adjacent folks. Here’s what they thought was the tastiest part of 2025.

Christine Gagnon

Owner, Uncanoonuc Foraging Co.