Category: Food

All about herbs

NH Herbal Network’s Herb & Garden Day returns

Bringing its signature event to a new venue this year, the New Hampshire Herbal Network will host its 11th annual Herb & Garden Day outdoors on the grounds of the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum in Warner on Saturday, June 5.

This year’s Herb & Garden Day will feature a free luncheon, an herbal market and plant sale, local food vendors and children’s activities, plus a variety of workshops centered around herbs, mushrooms, medicinal plants, home gardening and other topics.

“You definitely don’t have to be an herbalist or even have a green thumb to attend,” event organizer Jessica Livingston of JLiv Inspirations said. “It’s open to the public, and there are workshops for all skill levels and interests.”

The evening before Herb & Garden Day begins, the New Hampshire Herbal Network will host a virtual presentation from 6 to 7:30 p.m., featuring clinical herbalist Maria Noel Groves of Wintergreen Botanicals in Allenstown. Groves will speak about the widespread increased interest in herbalism during the pandemic over the past year. Registrations can be made online now.

During the main event on Saturday, Livingston said, there will be four tracks of two workshops each for attendees to choose from, all led by local herbalists. Topics run the gamut, from herbal support and prevention during the pandemic to the impacts of healthy soil on your food.

Between workshops, local vendors from herbalists and farmers to crafters, artists and food purveyors will be on site. Attendees who want to skip the workshops and go right to the vendor fair can do so at a discounted price of $5, according to Livingston.

Food offerings throughout the day will include pastries, coffees and other items from Cafe One East in Warner, as well as several ethnic options provided by the Kearsarge Justice Alliance.

“We’re actually going to have a lot of local vendors who have been at the [Concord] Multicultural Festival as well,” Livingston said. “We’re going to have momos and samosas, empanadas, Somali meat pies, El Salvadorian tacos … and a variety of herbal teas.”

Other features of Herb & Garden Day are a plant sale, with the option to pre-order plants online, and various children’s activities like face-painting, sand art and thumbprint art.

11th annual Herb & Garden Day
When: Saturday, June 5, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (A virtual keynote presentation featuring clinical herbalist Maria Noel Groves of Wintergreen Botanicals in Allenstown will take place on Friday, June 4, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.)
Where: Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum, 18 Highlawn Road, Warner
Cost: $20 for access to the virtual keynote event on Friday and $25 general admission on Saturday, or $40 for access to both. Access to the vendor fair only (no workshops) is $5. Admission is free for children ages 12 and under.
Visit: nhherbalnetwork.wordpress.com/herbday
Event is rain or shine. All workshops and vendors will be outdoors. Social distancing and masks are required.

Feautred photo: Vendor Jess LaBrie, owner of Blackbird’s Daughter Botanicals in Barrington. Courtesy photo

Shop (and eat) local

Fresh Start Farms to open centralized “food hub” and market

A new store set to open in the heart of Manchester this weekend will be a one-stop shopping spot for locally sourced produce, meats, dairy products and various non-perishables — and it’s also going to serve as a centralized “food hub” and production area for Fresh Start Farms, a collective of more than 20 immigrant and refugee farmers in New Hampshire.

Fresh Start Market, a year-round retail space due to hold its grand opening on Saturday, June 5, was born out of a partnership between NeighborWorks Southern New Hampshire and the Organization for Refugee & Immigrant Success. According to Fresh Start Farms program director Jameson Small, the market has been more than a year in the making.

“NeighborWorks had bought the building at an auction, and they started finding out from people what they wanted in the community. The idea of a grocery store kept popping up,” Small said. “So they had approached us, and at the time, we were just farming in Dunbarton and Concord. We had no storefront, we had no refrigeration and no real wash stations.”

According to Small, the pandemic caused Fresh Start Farms to pivot its CSA model to mostly home deliveries. The kitchen side of the market was finished first to meet that demand.

The grand opening of Fresh Start Market’s retail space coincides with NeighborWorks Southern New Hampshire’s Wellness Weekend. But in the weeks to follow, Small said, it will be open only on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons to start, with the goal to expand later this year.

The market features a wide range of items from Fresh Start Farms farmers and around 85 other food producers across mostly New Hampshire and Vermont, from fruits and vegetables to milk, eggs, cheeses, maple syrups, cooking oils, grain products and more. A grab-and-go model is expected too, including a small offering of fresh fruit smoothies.

Small also noted that Fresh Start Market is the first and only Double Up Food Bucks location in the city of Manchester for low-income shoppers.

“Part of our total mission is food access,” he said, “so if you have a SNAP or EBT card, you can get any fresh fruit and vegetable here for half the price. … So we’re even able to compete with some of the larger entities on specific items.”

Fresh Start Farms, meanwhile, will continue to sell its produce at several farmers markets throughout New Hampshire, while a mobile market will also make weekly stops this summer.

Fresh Start Market
Grand opening is Saturday, June 5, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Where: 150 Spruce St., Manchester
Hours: After June 5, hours will be Wednesday and Thursday from 2 to 6 p.m., and will likely expand into the summer and fall months
More info: Visit freshstartfarmsnh.com, follow them on Facebook and Instagram @freshstartfarmsnh or call 606-2663

Feautred photo: Fresh Start Market. Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 21/06/03

News from the local food scene

• Season of strawberries: Join The Friends of the Library of Windham for a takeout-only strawberry festival on Saturday, June 5, with curbside pickup from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parking lot of Shaw’s (43 Indian Rock Road, Windham). Now through June 4, strawberry shortcake family fun packs are available to pre-order in serving sizes of four or six, featuring handmade biscuits, ice cream, freshly cut strawberries, Friendly’s vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. Visit flowwindham.org. Hampstead Congregational Church (61 Main St.) is also holding a strawberry festival on Saturday, June 5, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. That event will feature strawberry shortcake, baked goods, raffles and a plant sale. Admission is free. See “Hampstead Congregational Church, UCC” on Facebook for details.

• Bacon & Beer Fest returns: Tickets to this year’s New Hampshire Bacon & Beer Festival go on sale on Friday, June 4, at noon, with the event itself to take place on Saturday, Sept. 11, at The Biergarten at Anheuser-Busch Brewery (221 Daniel Webster Hwy., Merrimack). A fundraiser for the High Hopes Foundation of New Hampshire, the event brings together dozens of local restaurants serving dishes made with juicy bacon from North Country Smokehouse, with local brewers also joining in on the fun with beer and cider pairings of their own. A full schedule of live local music is also planned. This is the first Bacon & Beer Festival to take place since May 2019, following last year’s cancellation and this spring’s postponement — event hours are 1 to 4:30 p.m. (VIP ticket-holders get in an hour early). Tickets start at $60 general admission and are $100 for VIP attendees. Visit nhbaconbeer.com.

• Jewish feasts: As of June 1, online ordering is open for Temple B’Nai Israel’s New Hampshire Jewish Food Festival, which will be held virtually for the second year. Now through June 27, visit tbinh.org to order traditional Jewish-style foods, most of which are sold frozen with instructions for heating. New this year is a “picnic pack” made up of fresh ready-to-eat items, like Pullman style of Jewish-style rye bread with your choice of corned beef, tongue or Boston-style black pastrami; green half sour pickles, two pints of homemade coleslaw, one container of deli-style horseradish mustard and one pound of rugelach. Other options are matzo ball soups, chopped chicken liver, crispy potato latkes, New York-style knishes, and hamantaschen. Curbside pickups will be by appointment at Temple B’Nai Israel (210 Court St., Laconia) between Friday, July 30, and Saturday, Aug 1. Visit tbinh.org.

• Gyros to go: Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church (68 N. State St., Concord) will hold its next boxed Greek dinner to go event on Sunday, June 13, from noon to 1 p.m. Now through June 9, orders are being accepted for boxed meals, featuring gyro sandwiches, fries and a Greek salad, for $15 per person. The event is drive-thru and takeout only — email [email protected] or call 953-3051 to place your order. Visit holytrinitynh.org.

Wines for pairing

Finding food wines at Angela’s Pasta & Cheese

If you haven’t visited Angela’s Pasta & Cheese, on the corner of Chestnut and Appleton streets in Manchester’s North End, even once over its 40-year history, you have seriously deprived yourself of a real indulgence. Upon walking in, you are greeted by competing aromas of pasta and cheeses, imported meats and local breads. You are on “sensory overload” taking in the savories and sweets, competing for a primary position in your brain as you tour the store.

Angela’s is an institution that has endured but is also quietly evolving, having recently been purchased by Steven Freeman. The wine offerings are taking a slightly different course. Freeman is looking to offer wines that can be easily paired with the many food offerings the store has, creating an entire meal for you.

Our first wine, Cadre 2019 Stone Blossom Sauvignon Blanc, from Edna Valley, priced at $22.95, is described on the label thusly: “A new life of fragrant blossoms emerges from the rock and sea.” The color is very pale, a silvery light straw. Its nose is citric with a touch of grapefruit with floral, citric blossom notes. These citric notes carry through to the tongue, along with hints of green apple and a slight sweetness of a sugary melon. It is incredibly fresh with a long finish and with notes of minerality.

Paragon Vineyard, designated as Certified Sustainable, was planted by Jack Niven, who brought vineyards and wine-making to San Luis Obispo’s Edna Valley 48 years ago. The root stock is gamay noir, with the sauvignon blanc grafted in the early 1980s. Photos of the vines are impressive, as the trunks are thick, rustic and sculpted by the weather and time. The soils are described as clay with limestone, which impart their mineral nuances to the wine. Additional plantings of stock came from the Loire Valley, vines nurtured from mineral-laden soils.

The Edna Valley is unique in California in that it is but 5 miles from the coast and runs to the coast, as opposed to the many other valleys that run parallel to the coast. This geological formation allows the cool ocean breezes to bring the Pacific fog into the valley morning and night. Edna Valley was cited in a study by the University of Southern Oregon as the coolest growing region in all of California. This climate allows for bud break in February, with a growing season that can extend to the end of October.

Our second wine is a box wine, and why a box wine? For starters, it will allow you to pour a glass without exposing the rest of the bladder to oxidation. If you finish the three liters before 30 days, you are good! I do not believe a box wine has ever lasted 30 days for me!

Quandrum Red Blend, priced at $21.95, is a superb value as the box contains three liters of wine! This is also a wine made from sustainably grown grapes, from the dry, sunny region of La Mancha and the central inner plateaus of Spain. It is a blend of 80 percent tempranillo with 20 percent garnacha. The color is a dark, opaque maroon; the nose is rich with dried fruits that carry through to the tongue. This is a wine to stand up the Italian sausages and salamis of Angela’s but will also hold its own against any backyard burger, joined with a slice of Spanish manchego cheese.

Featured photo:

Becky Costello

Becky Costello of Londonderry is the owner of Owl Hill Preserves ([email protected], and on Facebook and Instagram @owlhillpreserves), a business she started in her home kitchen specializing in small-batch jams and jellies in a variety of unique flavor combinations. In addition to seedless raspberry jam and blueberry blackberry vanilla jam, some of her other offerings include maple peach whiskey jam, blueberry lavender jam, mint mojito jelly, apple pie jam and amber marmalade. You can contact her to place orders, or find her jams and jellies at Handmade In… (Pheasant Lane Mall, 310 Daniel Webster Hwy., Nashua); Recycled Creations Artisans Boutique (25 Main St., Wilton); the Manchester Craft Market (Mall of New Hampshire, 1500 S. Willow St., Manchester); Little Red Hen Farm & Homestead (85 Norris Road, Pittsfield); and Linda’s Less Traveled Treasures and Country Store (49 E. Broadway, Derry). Costello will also appear at the Brimfield Antique Show & Flea Market at the Deerfield Fairgrounds on May 29 and May 30.

What is your must-have kitchen item?
A wooden spoon, because you have to constantly stir.

What would you have for your last meal?
Pad Thai noodles.

What is your favorite local restaurant?
Pickity Place in Mason. I always like to go there with friends.

What celebrity would you like to see trying one of your jams or jellies?
Tom Hiddleston.

What is your favorite jam or jelly that you make?
My personal favorite is the blueberry lavender jam, because I just love the combination of flavors. I usually like it on an English muffin.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?
I would probably say food trucks. I’ve just noticed that they seem more prevalent now than they ever have been.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?
Pizza. My husband is actually in the process of building us an outdoor wood-burning pizza oven.

Pineapple sage chicken
Courtesy of Becky Costello of Owl Hill Preserves (using her own pineapple sage jelly)
Using a whole three-pound chicken, put fresh sage leaves under the skin. Rub the outside with melted butter, olive oil, dried sage, thyme and rosemary. Cook for 45 minutes. Melt pineapple sage jelly in the microwave for about 30 minutes, then pour onto chicken and cook until brown and crispy.

Featured photo: Becky Costello

Flavors of Haiti

Chef Chris Viaud is on the far right. From the left is Chris’s brother Phil, Phil’s wife Sarah, their father Yves, mother Myrlene, sister Kassie, sister Katie and Chris’s wife Emilee. Courtesy photos.

Local chef, family present monthly Haitian dinner series

On New Year’s Day, Culture in Milford shared a piece of owner and chef Chris Viaud’s Haitian heritage through a menu special of soup joumou, a pumpkin-based soup also commonly referred to in Haiti as “freedom soup.” The response was so positive that Viaud decided to turn it into a dinner series, bringing his entire family together to present authentic Haitian dishes each month.

Ansanm, as the series is now known, gets its name from the word meaning “together” in Haitian Creole. Viaud, along with his parents, Myrlene and Yves, siblings Phil, Kassie and Katie, wife Emilee and sister-in-law Sarah all work together to present a menu of scratch-made Haitian items that are now prepared and served out of his other Milford restaurant, Greenleaf.

“As I’ve been growing as a chef, I’ve always had a desire to learn more about my heritage through food. I just had this innate feeling that I needed to do more and relate food back to the beginning for me, to what I grew up eating,” Viaud said. “The concept was also born out of a desire to bring my siblings and parents closer to learn more about the food, because in the coming years we’ll be sharing it with my daughter as well.”

Ansanm’s logo features an illustration of a hibiscus flower, the national flower of Haiti, along with the red and blue colors seen on the Haitian flag.

Viaud’s mother, Myrlene, with whom he has memories of helping out in the kitchen growing up, is the primary head chef of the series. Depending on the month, most dinners are served on the third or fourth Sunday, with online pre-ordering available a few days before. While the first few dinners were takeout only, the most recent one also had a dine-in option at Greenleaf.

Items have included griot (marinated twice-cooked pork) and poule nan sós (braised chicken in Creole sauce), each of which is often served with rice, plantains or pikliz, a spicy pickled vegetable slaw consisting of cabbage, carrots, onion and peppers. Diri djon djon, a rice dish made with black mushrooms that are native to Haiti, is another item recently added to the menu.

“Diri djon djon is the most iconic rice dish in Haiti, just because the mushrooms are so hard to find and are expensive,” Viaud said.

Other featured menu options are a potato and beet salad; chicken or mushroom and vegetable pate; and a Haitian-style spaghetti with peppers, onions and spices in a tomato sauce. Ansanm also offers a scratch-made pineapple upside down cake for dessert, as well as bottles of Cola Couronne, a tropical fruit soda known as the oldest manufactured soft drink from Haiti.

New dinner pre-orders are regularly updated through Ansanm’s website and social media pages.

“Seeing its growth has been tremendous,” Viaud said of the series. “We’ll definitely be doing some fun things this summer, like hopefully hosting a dinner outside with a steel drummer doing live Caribbean music.”

Ansanm
Visit ansanmnh.com or follow them on Facebook and Instagram @ansanm.nh for updates. Dinners are typically held during the third or fourth Sunday of each month, with all orders prepared and picked up at Greenleaf (54 Nashua St., Milford).

Feautred photo: Braised chicken with rice and peas, fried plantains, and pikliz. Courtesy photo.

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