Category: Food

New recipe book offers aphrodisiac foods

From finding comfort to strengthening our relationships, we use food to express and celebrate love in all kinds of ways — that’s the idea behind a new book being released this week, as it explores food’s roles in self-love and interpersonal relationships with personal anecdotes, spiritual techniques and more than 50 original recipes and illustrations.

A Kitchen Witch’s Guide to Recipes for Love & Romance, available Aug. 25, is the latest project from Dawn Hunt of the Cucina Aurora Kitchen Witchery, a Salem-based purveyor of gourmet foods like infused olive oils and risotto mixes. On Friday, Sept. 11, Hunt will host a virtual lecture and cooking demonstration featuring a recipe from the book. Then on Saturday, Sept. 12, she will be at the Bookery in Manchester for an outdoor book signing.

Hunt said the book’s genesis came from a “recipes for romance” cooking workshop she has taught in the past, which covered various foods with aphrodisiac properties.

“The class was all about foods that align with some sort of energetic qualities for self-love, or bringing new love into a romantic relationship or healing a family relationship,” she said. “I realized there was really nothing out there that had all these things together.”

She collected ideas for recipes over the course of the last five years. A chance encounter with a publishing scout for Simon & Schuster who visited her booth at a New York City show last year landed her a book deal.

Structurally, A Kitchen Witch’s Guide to Recipes for Love & Romance is divided into three sections. Each introduces a specific food — avocados, tomatoes, chocolate, cinnamon, strawberries and oysters are among them — by detailing its nutritional and aphrodisiac properties, followed by one or several recipes.

“The first section of the book is all about loving yourself, both when it comes to eating healthy and taking care of yourself, and also treating yourself to comfort foods and brownies and all that,” she said. “The second section is about learning to connect with others and draw love into our lives … and then the third section deals with keeping your relationships fresh and exciting. … Everything is all kind of weaved together with my own experiences and what I’ve learned.”

Hunt said about two-thirds of the recipes consist of new material, while the rest were recipes she had made before. You can learn to make everything from cinnamon crumb pound cake, avocado chocolate mousse, and strawberry, spinach and feta salad, to stuffed zucchini pinwheels, pomegranate mimosas with muddled raspberries, and pork loin roast with cherries and red wine. The recipes appear the sections Hunt felt they fit best.

“A lot of it had to do with what resonated with me,” she said, “so for example, I have a seafood risotto recipe that I put in the ‘rekindling’ section, because of how it’s made and the visualization and attention recommended for that recipe.”

The book was written with the same principles Hunt said she founded her company on — the idea of “spiritual nutrition,” or sharing positive energy with one another through food.

“The recipes are meant to be easy and accessible to everyone, and that was really important to me,” she said.

Featured Photo: A Kitchen Witch’s Guide to Recipes for Love & Romance

Meet the Kitchen Witch
Dawn Hunt of Cucina Aurora in Salem presents A Kitchen Witch’s Guide to Recipes for Love & Romance (available Aug. 25)
• Fri., Sept. 11, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.: Online lecture and cooking demonstration (tickets available through the Bookery in Manchester; bookerymht.com)
• Sat., Sept. 12, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.: In-person outdoor signing (admission is free, but masks are required)
Visit cucinaaurora.com

Madear’s relocates to downtown Pembroke, introduces bakery

Nearly a year after Madear’s hosted its final night of service on Hanover Street in Manchester, the Cajun comfort restaurant will reopen in its new home in Pembroke, featuring new menus, almost twice the dining capacity and, for the first time, a bakery.

Madear’s Southern Eatery & Bakery, as it’s now known, will have the distinction of being one of the few full-service sit-down restaurants in town when it opens in the coming weeks.

Chef-owners Robb Curry and Kyle Davis originally opened Madear’s, a 35-seat restaurant and bar, in the former space of a nail salon in July 2017. Curry, who grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, credits his paternal grandmother Martha “Madear” Sullivan, the restaurant’s namesake, with inspiring him to learn to cook when he was young.

As their following grew, so did their culinary inspiration. Davis said the pair’s desire to expand their Southern comfort offerings in the form of a bakery, coupled with the end of their lease on Hanover Street, was among the factors that contributed to their closure last October. At first they explored other options within the Queen City, but when those didn’t pan out they started broadening their search. In January they found the space that most recently occupied the Rock On Diner on Main Street in downtown Pembroke.

“We had breakfast here and we were like, ‘Oh, this is a really good place,’ and then about two weeks later we saw a For Lease sign, so we thought maybe it was a little serendipity,” Davis said. “This space allowed us to tick all the boxes. It gave us the size, the downtown access … and it put us right in between Concord and Manchester.”

At 56 seats, the new location is extremely spacious compared to its Manchester predecessor, with its dining room broken into four distinct arrangements. There’s an intimate lounge area and a bar with a copper countertop, plus multiple banquettes to the right of the entrance and family dining tables in the center of the restaurant that were made from reclaimed wood. The kitchen is also much larger, allowing Davis and Curry to introduce new menu items.

One of the most notable additions to the menu is a new bakery case that will be regularly stocked with scratch-made cakes, pies, cookies, tarts, croissants and other sweets.

“What we found on Hanover Street was that a lot of people who really loved the baked goods would ask, ‘Can I order a pie to take home?’” Davis said. “So now we’re going to have a daily selection of things that are done like a traditional sort of bakeshop.”
But a bakery doesn’t mean Madear’s will be open in the morning. Instead, Davis said, they will likely open the doors at 4 p.m. each day, while ordering ahead is also available with a 24-hour notice.

“We’re not going to be doing breakfast sandwiches or anything like that,” he said. “We’re really trying to focus on more of the dessert-type bakery products that people can pick up on their way home, like a few slices of cake or some cookies or something … and then for people eating in the restaurant, the dessert menu will be a combination of what’s available in the bakery, plus our staples, like the bread pudding.”

If you were a regular at Madear’s on Hanover Street, you probably noticed that the menu changed four times a year, each season — that won’t be the case in Pembroke, Davis said.

“We learned some lessons … and we decided that we’d have a menu of staples and then do specials that are seasonal,” he said. “We’ve also changed some of the terminology on the menu. So instead of calling them ‘tapas,’ which confused some people, we have [the options listed as] small plates and large plates.”

You can expect many of the same favorites, like gumbo, jambalaya, fried crab meat, fried chicken and baked macaroni and cheese items — along with some new items never before seen on any Madear’s menu, like oxtail stew simmered in a chicken stock demi-glace, and bone-in pork chop smothered in Southern gravy and served over rice.

There’s a section of the menu devoted to grits, with the option of adding one of four sauces, as well as your own protein, from shrimp, gator or catfish, to andouille sausage, pulled pork or chicken tender. The eatery’s Southern craft cocktails are also returning, including staples like hurricanes and sazeracs in addition to seasonal specials.

Once Madear’s has settled into its adopted community, Davis said, many of its popular events — like the comedy nights, the pajama drag brunches and the monthly themed dinners — will all be due to return. Cooking classes and live musical performances are planned too.

“We really want to just get into the rhythm of running the restaurant for a little bit, but we definitely have events lined up,” he said.

Photo courtesy of Madear’s.

Madear’s Southern Eatery & Bakery
An opening date is expected in the coming weeks. Visit their website or follow them on social media for updates.
Where: 141 Main St., Pembroke
Anticipated hours: TBA
More info: Visit madears603.com or follow them on Facebook or Instagram @madears603

Annual Middle Eastern food festival returns

The Mahrajan Middle Eastern Food Festival might look and feel different this year, but organizers promise it will taste just as delicious. The annual three-day festival featuring authentic Lebanese foods will return to Our Lady of the Cedars Melkite Catholic Church in Manchester from Friday, Aug. 14, through Sunday, Aug. 16.

According to Rev. Thomas Steinmetz, this year’s festival has been significantly scaled back to comply with guidelines from the city’s health department. Most of the attractions that have been added to the festival over the years — such as dance performances, a petting zoo and bounce houses — have been eliminated.

“We decided to just concentrate all of our efforts on the food this year,” he said.

For the first time in Mahrajan’s history, advance online ordering will be available. In addition to takeout there will be socially distant outdoor seating options at the church.

“The way it’s essentially going to work … is people will pull into the parking lot, and as they come in we’ll ask them if they plan to sit and eat or order their food to go,” Steinmetz said.

Face masks are required for all who enter the church grounds, and seats will be spaced out to allow for social distancing.

Festival co-chair Marylou Ashooh Lazos said this year’s menu is slightly limited compared to those from previous events, but it features many of the same favorites.

The beef skewers are most notably absent from the menu, but marinated chicken and lamb will still be available, served with rice pilaf, lubyeh (green beans cooked and served in a tomato sauce) and bread.

In addition to the lamb and chicken skewer dinners, there is a lubyeh dinner of green beans served over rice pilaf; and a kibbee dinner (Lebanese meatloaf) featuring lamb, beef, pine nuts and spices with a side of yogurt. You can also order items like warak arish (stuffed grape leaves) with lamb and rice, cooked in a lemon broth; lamb or chicken shawarma; fatayar (meat or spinach pie); bread with fresh hummus; and tabbouleh salad with cracked wheat, parsley, tomato, red onion, lemon and spices.

“We still have a pretty big spread of desserts,” Lazos said, adding that one of the most popular, the baklawa, will be returning. She described it as being a bit lighter in flavor and texture than the type of baklava that is more commonplace at local Greek festivals. Several versions of it will be available, including with walnuts, with pistachios, and a chocolate baklawa with hazelnuts.

Other returning dessert options are the coosa pita (a custard made with a light-skinned summer squash, similar to zucchini); the ghrybe (almond butter cookies with powdered sugar); and the maamoul (date or nut-filled cookies).

In past years, there has also been a small menu of hamburgers, cheeseburgers and hot dogs for kids and those not interested in sampling the Lebanese options — that too has been removed.

Starting on Friday, Aug. 14, you can go to the festival’s newly redesigned website, bestfestnh.com, and place orders to be picked up or enjoyed at the church on your day of choice.

Featured photo: Scenes from past Mahrajan festivals. Courtesy photos.

Mahrajan Middle Eastern Food Festival
When: Friday, Aug. 14, 5 to 9 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 15, noon to 9 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 16, 1 to 5 p.m.
Where: Our Lady of the Cedars Church, 140 Mitchell St., Manchester
Cost: Free admission; food is priced per item
Visit: bestfestnh.com

Advanced online ordering is available. Masks are required when entering the church parking lot.