Category: Food

Dog cafe prepares to open in Nashua

Ashyana Hall is in the final stages of launching Nashua’s first dog cafe, Pup In a Cup.

“It’s kind of a passion project that I started around two years ago,” Hall said. “I’ve been a dog trainer for about a decade and the biggest problem that I kept finding with my clients is they have nowhere to bring their dogs in the winter to practice socialization and be out with them. And especially this year, this year’s a great example of we’ve just been in a heat wave. They have nowhere to bring their dogs in the summer either now.”

Hall’s idea was to give dog owners a place to sit down with a snack, a cool drink or a cup of coffee, maybe meet some fellow dog people, and give their dogs a calm, vacuum cleaner-free space to relax.

“We’re going to have a full drink and snack menu for the dogs,” she said. “That’s mirrored to the human menu, so we make our own teas and smoothies and with that we have teas and smoothies that are dog-safe, dog-friendly and that are for them as well. The snacks look the same, or as close as we can get as possible. So you could go and enjoy a macaron or something like that with your dog.” The cafe’s baked goods will come from Lighthouse Local in Bedford. “They do a bunch of really cute doughnuts, they do cupcakes, and scones,” Hunt said. “So they do a bunch of different, just fun sweets and cookies. All the bakery goods for the humans are locally sourced from there.”

Pup In a Cup will also have two Quiet Rooms available for dogs, or even human children, who are still working on their people skills. Hunt sees them as a way to make the café more inclusive.

“As a trainer,” she said, “most — half if not more — of my clients were there for behavior modification, reactivity, things like that. You can rent [a Quiet Room] out for about 50 minutes and be out in public without your dog getting overwhelmed by there being too much going on because your dog’s not ready for it.”

At this point, Pup In a Cup is almost ready to launch. Human restaurants are inspected by the Health Department, but animal food — including food for dogs — has to go through the Department of Agriculture.

“The main thing that’s getting approved right now is the kitchen itself,” Hall said. “We’re essentially creating an airlock system [around the kitchen]. There is absolutely no direct access from the area where the dogs and people are to the kitchen. ” Hall said that she is excited to get started.

“I’m looking forward to the experience of it all,” she said.

Pup in a Cup
Pup In a Cup is expected to open in the second half of August.
295 DW Highway, Nashua, pupinacupcafe.com

News from the local food scene

• New doughnuts: What the Fluff! Donuts (87 Amherst St., Manchester, 233-1215, whatthefluffdonuts.com) slated to hold its grand opening on Thursday, Aug. 1. Located across the street from Victory Park and the Victory Parking Garage, What the Fluff! will serve “exceptional donuts [made] with the finest ingredients,” according to the website.

• Weenie Weekend: Celebrate Weenie Weekend Five at Candia Road Brewing Co. (840 Candia Road, Manchester, 935-8123, candiaroadbrewingco.com) Saturday, Aug. 3, and Sunday, Aug. 4. To commemorate the release of its Vienna lager, Wiener Lager, Candia Road will devote its entire menu to 24 different hot dogs.

• Tomatoes forever: Learn how to preserve fresh tomatoes to make salsa and sauces at Joppa Hill Educational Farm (174 Joppa Hill Road, Bedford, 472-4724, sites.google.com/theeducationalfarm.org/joppahillfarm), Sunday, Aug. 4, from 2 to 3 p.m. This class will be taught by Betsey Golon, certified master food preserver by the University of Maine. Tickets are $20 per person if purchased online, $25 at the door. This event requires registration.

• Veggies forever: The Tuscan Market (Tuscan Village, 9 Via Toscana, Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) will host a class called Pickling, Italian Style! on Sunday, Aug. 4, from 4 to 6 p.m. Participants will learn to make homemade giardiniera and some knife skills, too. Tickets are $70 each through the Market’s website.

Yogurt

• 1 half-gallon (1,900 g) whole milk
• 1 small container – 7 ounces or so – of plain yogurt; it doesn’t matter what brand, although I like Fage, but the ingredient label should say something like “Contains live active yogurt cultures” and then a list of their Latin names

Cucumber Syrup

• 1 large, flavorful cucumber, washed
• An equal amount, by weight, of white sugar

Equipment

• A food thermometer
• A medium-sized cooler. It could even be a disposable, Styrofoam one.

Sometime, an hour or so before bedtime, pour the milk into a saucepan, and cook it over medium heat to 190°F. Remove it from the burner, and keep an eye on it while you clean up the kitchen.

When the temperature of the milk has dropped to around 120°F, whisk in the container of plain yogurt. The “live cultures” the yogurt label referred to are strains of bacteria that feed on sugars in the milk and produce lactic acid, which thickens it up and makes it tangy. The live cultures you are adding to the warm milk have been living in the cold and dark for quite some time. When you plunge them into an infinite vista of untouched milk, they are going to behave much like a bunch of frat brothers given the keys to a brewery. They’re going to go a bit wild and put 110 percent of their effort into partying and reproducing.

Pour your proto-yogurt mixture into two one-quart containers, then place them in the cooler. To keep it warm, fill several bottles or jars with very hot water, and pack them around the yogurt jars. Wish everyone a good night, seal the lid, and go to bed.

The yogurt should do its thing for six to 12 hours. The longer the Bacteria Bros have to party, the more lactic acid they will produce, and the tangier the final yogurt will be. Open one of the jars and taste it. If it’s a little bland for your taste, refill the hot water bottles and leave the party to rage for a while longer.

You will end up with a very creamy full-fat plain yogurt. It will be about as thick as heavy cream. If you want to firm it up, drain it through a tea towel in a colander for half an hour or so. A lot of the liquid — “whey” is the official term — will drain off, leaving you with about a third less yogurt, but much thicker. When it’s at a consistency you like, put it in the refrigerator.

This is good yogurt — creamy, fresh and satisfying. But it is, as noted above, plain. If you’d like a sweeter, flavored yogurt, you could do a lot worse than hitting it with some cucumber syrup.

Before you make that face, consider that cucumbers are technically fruit.

Chop, freeze, and make a syrup out of a medium cucumber, with an equal amount of sugar. Strain it, and add it to your yogurt to taste.

Featured Photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Buena Gave serves summer drinks in a can

If you were to walk into a bar a couple of summers ago and order ranch water, you might have gotten some odd looks. Steve Poirier and the other owners of Buena Gave have been working to change that.

Poirier said that the first year he and his partners in the Manchester-based canned cocktail makers were trying to introduce their canned tequila drinks, their “ranch water” — a common drink across the southern U.S., particularly in Texas — was completely unfamiliar to New England customers.

“We still have ranch dressing conversations all the time,” he said. “Ranch water is obviously a massive thing down in Texas and any of the southern states. The original ranch water recipe is tequila, Topo Chico mineral water, real lime juice, and then salt or no salt, depending on your personal preference.” Now in its third year, Buena Gave Ranch Water is selling well.

“This cocktail is going to continue to boom,” Poirier said, “because tequila is on a rocket ship to the moon right now as a category. People are trying to clean up their drinking right now, and ranch water allows that to happen. It’s basic — no sugar, no sweetness, just back to basic ingredients.”

The Buena Gave team decided to start their own canned cocktail business because they saw an untapped market for simple tequila-based drinks. Poirier and his partners set out to make something different, with clean, easily tasted ingredients.

Poirier said customer demand has also been surprisingly high during the winter. “We see a lot of success with the ski community. We’ve had two great years at Waterville Valley ski resort. It’s the whole convenience factor — lower-calorie, cleaner drinking, cleaner taste, refreshing — that’s definitely becoming more of a thing as we meander through this whole process.”

The decision was made early on to limit the number of Buena Gave products to tequila-based cocktails that are popular in Mexico and the Southwest, near Jalisco, Mexico, where tequila is produced. A strong example of this is Buena Gave’s Cantarito.

“It’s a classic Mexican drink in tequila country,” Poirier said. “You get it at a lot of roadside stands and bars. It’s named after the mug it’s served in — a terracotta mug called a cantarito. It’s grapefruit juice and orange juice, with tequila, some soda water, sugar or no sugar depending on your preference. It’s like a mimosa meets a paloma. It’s super juicy, super citrusy. It’s unique [in this type of product]; the can is close to 28 or 30 percent fruit juice.”

“There are lots of places that just have beer and wine licences and don’t have full liquor licenses,” Poirier said, “and because of our alcohol level [6 percent ABV, or less], we fall into the beer and wine category. [We have customers] who have done really well with our Ranch Water, for instance, because they can’t carry full-proof spirits but they can carry canned cocktails.”