Category: Food

New Hampshire World Christmas Market

Michaela Herholz is the COO and CFO of Nourish New England, a nonprofit organization that works with food banks, soup kitchens and other groups that fight hunger.

“The purpose of our nonprofit is to support food insecurity charities in the community,” Herholz said.

Nourish New England is the host of the first ever New Hampshire World Christmas Market set for Dec. 13 and Dec. 14 at the Anheuser-Busch complex in Merrimack. Herholz said this inaugural market will draw together vendors and guests from widely different backgrounds.

“We have at least 80 vendors lined up to sell food and crafts,” she said. “We have 11 food trucks lined up, representing food from around the globe. And there will be additional food vendors who will be in our tented space. This Market will be at the Biergarten [at Anheuser-Busch] in Merrimack. It’s primarily an outdoor Christmas market, but there will be an indoor space at the beer garden, which will be serving glühwein, which is a traditional German spiced mulled wine.” Herholz said that it was important to Nourish New England to feature local vendors.

”Sweet Finnish Bakery will be one of the vendors; among other things, they make Finnish coffee breads. Auntie B’s will sell Greek pastries. And Mount Dearborn Farm will have some traditional German cookies. The Seacoast Pretzel Company will have traditional German pretzels.”

Because this event is a world market, there will be food and crafts representing holiday traditions from around the globe, Herholz said.

“Deadproof Pizza Company is one of the food trucks that’s going to be there, and we’ve also got Wicked Tasty Food Truck and Empanadas Deluxe 603. One of our sponsors is Sweet Dreams Confections. They’re based in Derry. And they donate a portion of all of their profits to local charities, particularly food insecurities. So they’ve been a great collaborator with us as part of our nonprofit mission this past year. Linda, who is the owner of Sweet Dreams Confections, sells sourdough breads and some other goodies like that.”

“All of the craft vendors are local artisans,” Herholz said, “selling handmade items. We have some vintage Christmas vendors. Others are doing crochet. We have local artists whose artwork is on ornaments or you can buy their framed artwork.”

In a Nov. 20 press release, Nourish New England described the event as being “inspired by the historic Christmas markets of Europe, and specifically the German Weihnachtsmärkte. It will feature a 1,000-foot festive walkway lined with curated food and craft vendors selling wares with origins from Christmas Market countries you expect, such as Germany, Poland, Hungary, France, and Switzerland.”

Herholz said the Christmas Market will have other attractions over the two days, in addition to food and crafts, such as live music.

“We have a Boston-based band that is called Blindness. They’re a two-person band, and the best description of their music is probably alternative rock. They’ll be [performing] some Christmas music as well as some of their own music. And we will have the Granite State Bellringers doing a performance, so we’ll have that nice traditional aspect from that. We’ll have a Santa photo station set up in the former horse stables that [ Anheuser-Busch] has converted to indoor space. The bar will be open at that end of the Market, too.”

Herholz said one of the events she is most looking forward to has nothing to do with food, crafts or bell-ringing.

“We’re working with a company called East Coast Evolution Leadership,” she said. “They’ll be doing a Krampus Run. Or maybe it’s a Krampus March. Either way, their team will be there, dressed as the Krampus.”

2025 New Hampshire World Christmas Market
Where: Anheuser-Busch complex, 221 DW Highway, Merrimack, 595-1202, anheuser-busch.com/breweries/merrimack-nh
When: Saturday, Dec. 13, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 14, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Admission: $10, with discounts for seniors, children, veterans and first responders. Proceeds from the market will go toward Nourish New England.
More: visit nhworldchristmasmarket.com.

Christmas With the Cows returns to Canterbury

By John Fladd

jfladd@hippopress.com

According to Luke Mahoney, owner of Brookford Farm in Canterbury, the farm’s yearly tradition of Christmas With The Cows has its origins in Germany.

“My wife and her mother come from Dresden, Germany,” he said, “where they have this really fantastic Christmas market. And we now live on a farm. So we decided to merge the two worlds where the German Christmas street market meets an organic farm in the countryside. So there’s elements of both throughout the whole thing.”

Brookford Farm’s website describes Christmas With the Cows as “a celebration of our animals returning to their winter housing from their green pastures. Mostly outside, it has a festive atmosphere, with family-friendly DIY crafts, and farm fresh food.” Mahoney said that the food is a cornerstone of the celebration.

“It’s a merger of German cuisine and farm-to-table food,” he said. “Ninety-five percent of what is in the food is grown on the farm, but it’s German-inspired. There’s sausages and [farm-made] sauerkraut. We have cheese and latkes, which are potato pancakes, served with applesauce and sour cream from the farm. There will be quark balls [quarkbällchen in German], which is a real classic German Christmas market specialty. It’s a sort of a doughnut made with fresh quark cheese that we produce on the farm.” (Quark is described as a fresh, soft, and creamy cheese with a mild, slightly sour taste, similar to a cross between thick yogurt and cottage cheese.)

Mahoney said there will also be traditional German goulash and a traditional bread-like cake (or cake-like bread) called stollen.

“I think probably every part of Germany claims to have the best,” he said,” but Dresden is world-renowned for its stollen. When my mother-in-law came to the U.S. she brought the recipe with her, and we’ve been making it every year ever since. Again, it’s made with our own ingredients; we’re not growing the wheat, but the butter and milk come from our farm. We’ll have that for tasting, but also for sale.”

For many years, all of the farm’s fermented products were made by an employee from Russia, whom Mahoney described as “a wizard of fermentation.”
“Sadly,” he said, “this year, she actually passed away. But she wrote all her recipes down, and my wife led the sauerkraut production this year. Her son might be there to help us.”

All the farm’s dairy, Mahoney said, comes from 100-percent grass-fed Normandy cows, a French breed. Ironically, Christmas With The Cows is one of the few events that doesn’t feature Brookford Farm’s trademark Cow Parade, when the dairy herd returns from pasture to marching music. That’s down to the time of the year, Mahoney said.

“They’re in the barn for the winter,” he said, “so this is the one event where a parade is not included, but the cows are like ever-present. They kind of oversee the whole event from their barn and people can approach them, feed them hay, and folks can choose Christmas trees for them. We make a kind of mock Christmas tree forest in front of the cows, to make them part of the event.”

Christmas With the Cows
Where: Brookford Farm, 250 West Road,
Canterbury, 742-4084, brookfordfarm.com
When: three consecutive weekends, Nov.
29-30, Dec. 6-7, and Dec. 13-14, from 11
a.m. to 5 p.m. General admission tickets
(13+) are $14 through eventbrite.com or
$15 at the door. Tickets for children 4 to 12
are $9 online, $10 at the door. Children 3
and younger are free.

Featured photo: Cow at Brookford Farm. Courtesy photo.