Category: Food

Hot from the pizza oven

Simply Fired NH turns a home project into a local fave

Seth L’Heureux takes pizza-making personally. It’s almost impossible to achieve the extremely high temperatures necessary to make a classic Neapolitan pizza in a home oven. The crust doesn’t get the crispy-on-the-bottom-but-still-chewy texture that serious pizza enthusiasts prize.

So L’Heureux built a full-sized wood-fired pizza oven in his New Boston backyard.

“I researched [pizza ovens] to death,” he remembered. “The oven itself came in a kit from Australia. It’s a pre-cut kit — I call it Legos for adults — and it took us about two years to finish it. We started it one year, we built the base, and then started getting it out of the ground.” L’Heureaux said he didn’t have any previous masonry experience. “It was designed for somebody that’s never done masonry before. Everything we needed was jammed into this crate, and cut perfect. Everything fits exactly where it’s supposed to fit. And every time there was a tricky part, there’s a YouTube video for it. This guy’s literally, ‘OK, well this is the next step of your build.’ I’d go to YouTube, watch the videos and then go do it.”

After two years L’Heureux had a fully functioning professional-grade pizza oven. Which, he said, is when his family’s pizza obsession really took off.

“I do everything homemade,” he said. “I make the dough myself. The dough cold-ferments for two days before we use it. It gets almost like a sourdough flavor, but it’s, you know, I use regular yeast. I make my own sauce. We make a pepperoni with hot honey and ricotta — it’s the hot honey we make from peppers that my son grows in the garden. I actually just cured 40 pounds of bacon for a future pizza we’re going to do. I don’t just buy store-bought bacon; I buy the pork belly and I cure the bacon.” He remembers sending his wife to the butcher to buy the 40 pounds of pork belly. “And the woman told my wife, ‘It’s a little over’. My wife said, ‘It’s 56 pounds’. I said, ‘That’s not a little over — that’s 16 pounds over. 40 pounds is enough.”

Word spread about the pizza.

“We had friends and family who were always saying, ‘You’re going to sell your pizza, right?’ I said, ‘Oh, it’s a lot of work and probably not worth it,” but last year we built a Google form where people could order a pizza — mostly just friends that we knew, and we kept it quiet. We did a few pop-ups, tested it out, and then kind of were like, ‘Oh.’”

Jump forward another year and the L’Heureux family owns a small pizza business, Simply Fired NH (98 Carriage Road, New Boston, SimplyFiredNH.com).

“Right now we’ve been trying to do it every two weeks or so,” L’Heureux said, “but it’s weather-dependent, obviously. It’s all pre-order. We have a website with an order form. Usually it’s 15-minute windows where we ask people not to order any more than four pizzas. So if somebody goes in and only orders one or two, I’ll open up another spot right after it, because then I can get three or four in that window. They cook really quick. I’m usually cooking pizzas around 750, 800 [degrees]. It’s a really fast cook.”

L’Heureux said his wife posts when they expect to make pizzas on social media, “and the last two times, we’ve sold out [all our time slots] within the day. I think we’re at pretty much our max, like 60, 65 pizzas. We did 63 last Friday night, between four and eight o ‘clock, and that’s a lot. We’re hustling for four hours, pushing those pizzas out, but it’s a great experience for my kids.”

“I tell people the pizza oven is like my third child,” L’Heureux said. “We put so much blood, sweat and tears into building the thing, but we do love it. I always say if we ever move, we’re in trouble, because I’m definitely going to want another pizza oven wherever we go.”

Simply Fired NH
98 Carriage Road, New Boston
Simply Fired accepts orders for pizza roughly twice per month. Operating times are posted on Facebook and Instagram. Order through the Simply Fired website, SimplyFiredNH.com.

Featured photo: The L’Heureux family. Photo courtesy Seth L’Heureux.

Pumpkins to eat, pumpkins to float in

Goffstown holds its annual Pumpkin Regatta

Saturday, Oct. 18, and Sunday, Oct. 19 mark Goffstown’s 24th Annual Pumpkin Regatta, so named because one of the highlights of the weekend is a race between competitors in giant hollowed-out pumpkins. But surrounding the actual race are pumpkin-themed and pumpkin-centered events from pumpkin carving to a parade of pumpkins to pumpkin painting to the dropping and smashing of giant pumpkins.

Tina Lawton is a member of Goffstown Main Street, which organizes the festival. She said it’s difficult to estimate how many people will attend the Regatta in a given year.

“We don’t have a gate that people go through,” she said, “so we can’t actually count them, but we think we’ll have at least 5,000 people over the course of the weekend, and maybe as many as 10,000. Every year there are families who travel here from out of the country. Last year we had somebody from Hungary.”

There are two food-centered events that have become traditions at the Pumpkin Regatta: a pumpkin cook-off, and a pie-eating contest.

This year’s cook-off will take place at Saint Matthew’s Episcopal Church (5 N. Mast St.) on Saturday afternoon beginning at 2:30 p.m. Home cooks and bakers will compete against each other in three categories: appetizers, main courses and desserts. There will also be a children’s division for competitors 12 and younger.

Lawton said the competition has become fierce over the years.

“Last year we had 16 individuals who entered,” she said. “We have a particular family who has participated for many years and they compete against one another, so that’s a fun sort of twist.”

Caroline Arend, the owner and head chef of Caroline’s Fine Food and the Pot Pie Bar (649 Mast Road, Goffstown, 404-6500, carolinesfood.com), will judge this year’s cook-off. She said she is interested to see what dishes make it to the competition, especially the baked goods.

“I look for a balance of sweet and savory,” Arend said, “and the taste of the pumpkin brings a little bit of both. It complements classic fall spices, like nutmeg and allspice.”

Surprisingly, Tina Lawton explained, Sunday’s pie-eating contest will not involve pumpkin pies. “We use chocolate cream pies,” she said. “We use a flavor that more people like. This year the Goffstown High School Student Council is organizing and will be emceeing that event and they are coordinating getting judges and some contestants. There will be three rounds of 10 in various different age categories and [the winners] will be whoever is the first to finish their pies in each of those rounds.”

For the past several years the pie-eating contest was emceed by Karen Henderson, owner of Goffstown’s hardware store. She said it is one of the most popular parts of the Regatta weekend.

“The pie eating contest has always been really a crowd favorite of people to watch,” she said. “People just will gather around and watch it, 10 or 20 people deep all around the table. We have three age groups and there’s usually a wait list of people who want to get in, who don’t get in on the first round. If we have extra spaces we’ll allow other people to do it. It’s hands-free and they can’t touch the pie with their hands and they can’t reposition it or anything like that; it’s just hands-free, and going at it with your face.”

She said rivalries have grown up around the pie-eating contest.

“We have a lot of people who come year after year and compete,” she said. “They’re like repeat winners and repeat performances.” There are champion pie-eaters, she said, who are very serious about retaining their titles.

Goffstown’s Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off and Regatta
When: Saturday, Oct. 18, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, Oct.19, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., culminating with the Giant Pumpkin Regatta in the river.
Where: downtown Goffstown
More: goffstownmainstreet.org/pumpkin-regatta

Featured photo: Pumpkin Regatta. Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 25/10/16

News from the local food scene

• Cupcakes! Popular bakery food truck Clyde’s Cupcakes (583-4850, facebook.com/clydescupcakes) has opened a storefront at 215 Canal St. in Manchester’s Millyard. Cupcakes and other baked goods are available six days a week, Monday through Saturday. Visit the Clyde’s Facebook page for hours.

• Win a year’s worth of breakfasts: Through Nov. 11 the Red Arrow diner chain is selling raffle tickets at all its locations to support Operation Delta Dog (operationdeltadog.org), a nonprofit organization with a mission to rescue and train shelter dogs as specialized service companions for veterans experiencing PTSD, TBI and MST. The raffle winner will receive “one free breakfast for two people each week, with a total limit of $20 per week,” according to the Red Arrow website. Tickets are $1 each, and if you purchase 30 or more you will receive a $10 coupon toward any future visit at Red Arrow Diner. Visit redarrowdiner.com.

• Beer and food trucks: The First Annual Budweiser Brewery Food Truck Festival will take place Saturday, Oct. 18, from noon to 6 p.m. at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery (221 DW Highway, Merrimack, 595-1202, anheuser-busch.com/breweries/merrimack-nh). Enjoy a lineup of New England’s favorite food trucks, Budweiser brews and other craft beverages, live music, and an artisan market filled with unique, handcrafted goods. General admission tickets are $6.92 in advance or $12.23 at the door. Visit eventbrite.com.

Samurai Cocktail

  • 2½ ounces medium-shelf vodka. Once you get to a certain price point with vodkas, it takes a pretty refined palate to distinguish between them. Once you add other, more flavorful ingredients, it becomes virtually impossible. You can tell when you’re dealing with the cheap stuff — it has a chemical taste that is not appealing. When you get to the Absolut/Tito’s/Grey Goose level, you can feel comfortable going with whatever is on sale at the liquor store that week.
  • 2 ounces sake — I went with a small bottle called Demon Slayer. I have to admit that the main attraction was a cool label.
  • ½ ounce elderflower liqueur. I like St. Germaine.
  • 1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice. If you think of cocktail ingredients as having personalities, lime juice is everyone’s best friend. She gets along with everyone but very seldom brings any drama. She’s the one you could call at 2 in the morning to talk about the weird dream you just had.
  • A large sprig or half a handful of fresh mint.

Start by bruising the mint. Squeeze it in your hand, then roll it around like you’re making a Play-Doh snake. Drop it into a martini glass. This drink is at its best when it is very cold, so using a glass with a stem is key; it keeps the warmth of your hands from heating the drink up.

Fill a cocktail shaker about a third of the way up with ice, then add the vodka, the sake, the elderflower liqueur and the lime juice. Shake vigorously, until you hear the ice start to break up in the shaker. (I don’t know about you, but tiny shards of ice floating on the surface of a cocktail are one of my Favorite Things. I do also like brown paper packages tied up with string, though.)

Strain the contents of the shaker over the bruised mint in the martini glass. The mint will act as both an ingredient and a garnish, so you don’t need to spend important Cocktail Time worrying about that.

Sit somewhere comfortable and devote 100 percent of your attention to your drink, which features a quality I don’t create often: subtlety.

Your first impression will be of the lime juice. She’s delicious here, but not as acidic as you might have been expecting. The elderflower liqueur has taken a bit of her edge off. Because she is such a good friend, though, as you sit savoring the first sip of this drink, she will say, “Oh, have you met my friends?” and she will introduce them to you, one-by-one, starting with the mint. There will be depth from the sake, and a very faint, mellow sweetness from the elderflower.

And you will remind yourself that while samurai were renowned as brilliant warriors, they were also expected to excel at something less in-your-face — flower arranging perhaps, or writing poetry.

It’s a good drink.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Pizza, bubble tea, pumpkins

Food and fall fun at the Milford Pumpkin Festival

New Hampshire’s pumpkin season will officially kick off this weekend in Milford. The Milford Pumpkin Festival has been held since 1994, said Festival Director Wade Campbell.

“We’re all things pumpkin,” he said. “We have pumpkin carving — students from Milford High School are doing pumpkin carving to bring down. We have something called a Small Pumpkin House — which is where we’ll put the carved pumpkins on display — made out of pallets from Pallet Works out of Amherst. And of course we do the Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off. The giant pumpkins will be on display Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They get upwards to almost 1,000 pounds. A few years ago we had the largest pumpkin ever grown in North America. The gentleman [who grew it] could have brought it to one of the large-scale events, like Topfield Fair or something, but he came to us instead. I thought that was kind of cool.”

As with most harvest season festivals, a big focus of the weekend’s event will be food, Campbell said. “We have one whole street — which is Middle Street — that is dedicated to food vendors. And not only do we have food vendors there, on Middle Street, which range from pizza, to traditional fair foods like fried dough, sausage, to bubble tea; we’ll have seafood this year. And then all our venues — because we have five main venues — have at least one food truck or food available with plenty of food.”

Campbell said that this year the festival itself won’t feature any food-specific events, but that is a direction the organizers would like to move in. “We’re not doing any chili cook-offs or anything like that,” he said. “I’d like to bring that sort of event back. But right now the food is just from casual strolling. Pick what you like, pick what you want, and go from there. We shut down downtown completely during those hours, which allows people to walk around.”

Several downtown restaurants participate, Campbell said, including Brickhouse, Station 101, and Unwined.

“We have many venues throughout town now,” Campbell said. “Originally, it started just on the Oval. Now, it’s [five sites] — the Town Hall, Middle Street, Emerson Park, which is down by the post office. That’s where the Haunted Trail is. We have vendors down there. There’s the Community House Lawn, which is downtown. They do games and stuff and they do a lot of non -profit stuff over there. We are also doing stuff down at Keys Field. At night, we have an astronomy station for two nights in a row, weather permitting. You can look at the stars and they do presentations down there.”

Perhaps the coolest pumpkin event of the festival, Campbell said, has nothing to do with eating them. Dollars for Scholars has a trebuchet — something like a medieval catapult — set up at Railroad Pond, just off the Oval.

“They launch pumpkins into the water, and they try to hit a mannequin on a float,” he said. Additionally, he said, “we’ve got scarecrow-making over on the Community House lawn that’s run by the Lions and Rotary [clubs]. That’s their venue. And we have a haunted trail that’s Friday night and Saturday night. And a bunch of loud music. Each venue has music. We have a beer and wine tasting over on Community House lawn. And, of course, we have our big pumpkin lighting that kicks off our event.”

Milford Pumpkin Festival

When: Friday, Oct. 10, from 5 to 9 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 11, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 12, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: downtown Milford
More: milfordpumpkinfestival.org

Highlights, according to the website

  • As part of the Great Pumpkin Weigh Off, giant pumpkins will be on display throughout the weekend with winning pumpkins announced on Saturday at noon.The lighting of the town hall pumpkin will take place Friday 6:30 p.m.
  • The Haunted Trail will run Friday 6 to 9 p.m. and Saturday 5:30 to 9 p.m. Admission costs $7 for adults, $3 for ages 10 and under; children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.
  • The Boys and Girls Club of Souhegan Valley Pumpkinfest 5K and Kids Fun Run will take place Saturday morning. Register online through Friday. The fun run starts at 8:30 a.m. and the 5K starts at 9 a.m.
  • A Pumpkin Carving Demo will take place all day Saturday starting at 10 a.m. with Master Pumpkin Carver Jim Flis, according to the website.
  • A Milford Historical Walking Tour will take place at 8 and 9:30 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
  • Pumpkin Painting and Scarecrow Making will take place on the Community House Lawn Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (see website for pricing, as well as pricing for face painting).
  • A Rubber Duck Race will take place Sunday at 1 p.m.
  • There will be a bounce house and games in Emerson Park all three days.
  • Red Trouser Show featuring juggling and aerobatic stunts will take place Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m.

Milford Pumpkin Festival Music & Performance

According to milfordpumpkinfestival.org, this is the line-up for music and other live performances at the festival.

Friday, Oct. 10

  • Oval Stage: Rabbit’s Foot, 5:30 p.m.; Fox and The Flamingos, 7:15 p.m.
  • Community House Lawn Stage: Justin Cohn, 5:45 p.m.; Glitter Tooth, 7:30 p.m.
  • Intersection Of Elm & Union St: Red Trouser Show, 7 p.m.

Saturday, Oct. 11

  • Keyes Memorial Park Stage: Gary P & Wendy 11 a.m.; Stone Hill Station, 11:45 a.m.; Alivia Ferdinand, 12:40 p.m.; Tumble Toads, 1:30 p.m.; Groove Hound, 2:40 p.m.; Kevin Kierstead, 3:40 p.m.; Toni Lynn Washington & The Motivators, 4 p.m.
  • Oval Stage: Jiggery Pokery, 10 a.m.; The Two’s , 11 a.m.; Jamdemic, 12:15 p.m.; Fatha Groove, 1:45 p.m.; Pop Farmers, 3:30; The Incidentals, 5:15 p.m.; Ballou Bros Band, 7 p.m.
  • Community House Lawn Stage: Chris Roberts with Katie Roberts, 10:30 a.m.; Chris Gunn, 11:45 a.m.; Vale’s End, 1 p.m.; 21st & 1st, 2:30 p.m.: Soul Circuit, 4 p.m.; Humans Being, 5:45 p.m.; Cosmic Blossom, 7:30 p.m.
  • Intersection Of Elm & Union St: SVB&G Club Competitive Dance Team, 11:45 a.m.; Flying Gravity Circus, 1 p.m.; Red Trouser Show, 7 p.m.

Sunday, Oct. 12

  • Oval Stage: Paul Driscoll, 10 a.m.; Murphy-Clark, 11:15 a.m.; The Slakas, 1 p.m.
  • Community House Lawn Stage: RGB, 10:45 a.m.; Crescendos Gate, noon; Caylin Costello, 1:15 p.m.
  • Appearing in front of Brickhouse Restaurant and Chaotic Lily: Milford Pumpkin Festival Dance Jam, 11:30 a.m.; A Company of Witches, 1 p.m. with an Encore at 2 p.m.

Featured photo: Milford Pumpkin Festival. Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 25/10/09

News from the local food scene

• New Friendly Toast location: The Friendly Toast has opened a new location in Concord: 22 S. Main St., Concord, 227-6839, thefriendlytoast.com/concord-nh. It is in the Arts Alley building next to the Bank of NH Stage. This is the chain’s 15th restaurant.

• NH Chocolate Expo: The New Hampshire Chocolate Expo will take place Sunday, Oct. 12, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the DoubleTree Expo Center in downtown Manchester. It will feature tastings and sales of chocolates and other specialty foods as well as craft beverages, according to thechocolateexpo.com, where you can purchase tickets.

• Moomoos and Mimosas: Local Street Eats (112 W. Pearl St., Nashua, 402-4435, local-streeteats.com) will host a Moomoos and Mimosas event Sunday, Oct. 12, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. There will be an ala carte brunch menu available, as well as a mimosa and mocktail bar.

• Closing day of the farmers market season in Bedford: The Bedford Farmers’ Market (Murphy’s Taproom Parking Lot, 393 Route 101, Bedford, 547-2000, bedfordnhfarmersmarket.org) will hold its final market of the 2025 season on Tuesday, Oct.14, from 3 to 6 p.m. featuring local foods and crafts.

• Basketball and burritos: The YMCA Downtown Manchester (30 Mechanic St., Manchester, 623-3558, graniteymca.org/location/manchester) will host a free event featuring basketball and burritos, Wednesday, Oct. 15, from 5 to 7 p.m. Your teen can join the Saint Anselm College basketball team for a one-hour basketball clinic at the YMCA East Gym, followed by burritos. During dinner teens will have the opportunity to talk with the college athletes about their journey and high school advice. It is free to register for both members and non-members; attendees must be 13 to 18 years of age.

• Sal’s celebrates pizza: Sal’s Pizza restaurants in Derry, Manchester and Salem are celebrating National Pizza Month with a deal: two 16-inch cheese pizzas for $10, according to a press release. See sals.com. Incidentally, October was designated National Pizza Month in 1984 by the publisher of Pizza Today magazine (pizzatoday.com) and then, in 1987, by Congress, according to Wikipedia.

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