Category: Food

The world of frozen desserts has gotten less straightforward recently.

There’s ice cream, of course, and there’s always been sherbet. But now, we find ourselves in a frozen jungle of sorbets, sorbettos, gelatos, granitas, and palettas — though not, tragically, the greatly missed Choco Tacos. **Bumps chest twice, and raises fist to the sky**.

What does it all mean? Here’s a short, mostly accurate breakdown:

Gelato – This Italian-style ice cream is made mostly from milk, with very little cream.

Sherbet – (Please note that there is no second “r.” I know! It came as a shock to me, too.) This is made usually using fruit flavors, and a very small amount of milk.

Sorbet – This refers to any churned frozen dessert product that doesn’t contain any dairy at all. It might seem super creamy from ingredients like coconut milk, but it never has any milk-milk in it.

That’s what we’re making today:

• ¾ cup (180 g) unsweetened almond butter
• ¾ cup + 2 Tablespoons (180 g) granulated sugar
• 2¾ cups (660 g) unsweetened almond milk
• ¼ cup (72 g) orgeat – an almond syrup, often used in tiki drinks
• blueberry jam

In a blender, combine all the sorbet base ingredients (everything except the jam). Maybe add the almond butter last, so it doesn’t gum up the blades of your blender. Blend — slowly at first, then more vigorously — for several minutes. Put the blender jar in your refrigerator to chill for several hours or overnight. (If you don’t have an ice cream maker, pour the base into a zip-close bag, and lay it flat in your freezer to freeze solid.)

Reblend your cold sorbet base, then pour it into your ice cream maker, and churn it according to the manufacturer’s instructions. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, cut your frozen sorbet base into ice-cube-sized chunks, and break them down in your blender or food processor. You will end up with soft-serve consistency ice cream.

Spoon the ice cream into freezing containers, alternating layers with blueberry jam. You’re looking for a ratio of about 60 percent sorbet to 40 percent jam. Store in your freezer for several hours to harden up. You can buy cardboard ice cream containers online, but one-pint, plastic takeout containers work well, too; just keep in mind that they crack easily when frozen, so you might only get one use out of each one. This recipe will make about a quart of sorbet.

There are some foods that don’t work with others. But then there are others — citrus fruits for instance, or almonds — that are the Miss Congenialitys of the food world. Almonds work especially well with blueberries.

Cold and almondy, with fruity overtones is a winning combination. And, not for nothin’, it’s very pretty.

Featured photo: Almond Blueberry Swirl Sorbet. Photo by John Fladd.

Nashua Summer Stroll offers food, music, dancing and more

Her official title is Communications and Events Specialist for the Mayor’s office, but one of Kathleen Palmer’s jobs is to plan very large parties. A case in point is this weekend’s Summer Stroll in downtown Nashua, which will take place along Main Street from 3 to 8 p.m. this Saturday, July 26.

“We’re very excited,” Palmer said, “to double the footprint of last year’s hugely successful event. This is the second time we’ve held this event. Last year, we thought it would be fun to create a warm-weather version of the popular Winter Stroll that is put on by Great American Downtown. So the City of Nashua Economic Development Division created this version. We weren’t sure how many people would come to a summer event, but we were very pleasantly surprised.” In fact, the attendance at last year’s event was estimated to be around 4,000 people.

This year’s Stroll will shut down much of downtown for a block party with games, prizes and live music, Palmer said.

“This will go from the intersection of Factory and Temple streets on Main, all the way down to Eldridge Street, which some locals will know as Bagel Alley. Last year we partnered with Positive Street Art to have a large local artists’ and makers’ area, where people could share their talents with the attendees. This year we have expanded to have other businesses and nonprofits attending as well.”

More than a dozen food vendors and food trucks are slated to be on site. As listed on the Summer Stroll Facebook page (search for “Nashua Summer Stroll” on Facebook), these will include: Pureni Tea (purenitea.com), The Frosty Pedal (a bicycle-powered ice cream vendor, thefrostypedal.com), The Donut Shack (specialists in apple cider doughnuts, facebook.com/thedonutshacknh), Berry Sweets (dealers in chocolate covered fruit, berrysweetsft.com), Soel Sistas (comfort food specialists, soelsistas.com), Travelin’ Tom’s Coffee (a full-service coffee shop on wheels, travelintomscoffee.com), Oh Sugar Shack (fresh-squeezed lemonade and walking snacks), Alltown Fresh (Upscale coffee and sandwiches, alltownfresh.com), Bubble Bee Milk Tea (Boba tea and dumplings – facebook.com/Bubblebeemilktea), Pete’s Push Carts, Hazy Ice Cream (facebook.com/hazyicecreamllc), Biria Gordita Tacos (@birriagorditatacos on instagram), and Holly’s Kona Ice (shaved ice treats, facebook.com/HollysKonaIce).

One of the biggest changes to this year’s Summer Stroll, Palmers said, is what will be available for children.

“We also very much underestimated how successful the Kids Zone would be last year,” she said. “We just had some fun things for kids to do on High Street, at the corner of Main, but it got so overwhelmingly busy that we have now moved it down to be closer to the Bagel Alley end of the event so we can have a much more expanded footprint. There will be a gaming van — that’s a 30-foot van [where] you can go into air-conditioned comfort and play some video games if you need a break. We’re also going to have police horses for the kids to meet this year, and the ActorSingers are going to put on a performance from their upcoming kids’ show. Positive Street Art is bringing back their inflatable Paint Splatter Tent, which will be down in the Kids Zone.”

One goal of the Summer Stroll, Palmer said, is to inspire neighborhoods throughout Nashua to host their own block parties.

“We really want neighborhoods to start doing kind of old-timey block parties together. “We’d really love it if some of the other neighborhoods in town would also start doing things like this. Just get to know your neighbors, get together.”

Nashua Summer Stroll
According to a press release from the Mayor’s Office, “nearly 80 vendor tents, many food trucks and treat purveyors, and activities will be set up on Main Street for attendees to walk around and enjoy starting at 3 p;m. Main Street will be closed to vehicular traffic at 1:30 p.m. … Main Street will reopen to traffic at 9 p.m.”

Live music starts at 3:30 p.m. on the main stage, which will be set up at the Pearl/Main intersection.
3:30-4:30 p.m.: The FAR gets the energy going with hot hits and pop favorites.
4:30-5 p.m.: Theo Martinez, HTM Dance, will give free dance lessons right in the street.
5-6 p.m.: El Grupo Chevere takes the stage – now you can use what you learned.
6:30-8 p.m.: 4 R Souls drives it home with expert precision covers of classic rock.
Positive Street Art will hold “The Official After-Party of the Nashua Summer Stroll” at Martha’s Exchange (185 Main St.), beginning right after the live outdoor music. Tickets available online at shorturl.at/R66gV.
Visit eventhub.net/events/Nashua-Summer-Stroll-2025_6345.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

News from the local food scene

• New place to get Brazilian groceries: Popular Nashua market Sky Market and Butcher Shop has opened a second store in Manchester (388 Wilson St., Manchester, 809-1283, skymarket.site). Its website describes it as an authentic source of “Latin flavors at a fair price and true quality.” It is open Monday through Saturday, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sundays until 8 p.m.

• New spot for high-end coffee: William and Sons Coffee is opening a second location in Manchester at 814 Elm St., in the Beacon Building. The official ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place at 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 29. William and Sons specializes in expertly made coffee beverages, as well as teas, matchas and pastries. Visit wsonscoffee.com.

• Social districts: As reported by the Concord Monitor in an article by Sruthi Gopalakrishnan on July 9, adults will soon be able to drink alcoholic drinks in public in certain designated areas in New Hampshire. According to the text of HB 467, which Gov. Ayotte signed into law the week of July 7, on-premise licensees (such as restaurants, brew pubs and cocktail lounges) can sell drinks that can be consumed in a “social district,” an area that a city or town designates as such during specific hours. The bill also lays out the way a city or town can create a social district. The law goes into effect in September. See gc.nh.gov/house to read the full text of the law.

• Save the date: Southern New Hampshire Food Truck Festival will take place on Saturday, Aug. 2, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 3, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Hampshire Dome (34 Emerson Road in Milford). Tickets cost $6 at the gate, according to gnefoodtruckfest.com. Kids age 14 and under get in free. The fest will feature live music, craft beer and cocktails, more than 50 vendors, according to the website.

• Dinner in Northern Italy: Tuscan Market (Tuscan Village, 9 Via Toscana, Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) will host a Demo Dinner, Friday, July 25, beginning at 6 p.m. In this Northern Italian Summer Dinner, learn about regional Italian wines while dining on a three-course meal by Chef Jarrett Kellerman and Wine Director Joseph Comforti. Tickets are $120 each through the Tuscan Market website. Visit tuscanbrands.com/store/events.

• A small handful of fresh basil (about 5 g) – leaves and stems
• 1½ teaspoons granulated sugar
• 2 ounces cachaça or flavorful rum
• 1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
• 3 ounces passionfruit cocktail – you can find this on the top shelf of the bottled juice aisle at your supermarket or in any Latin grocery store or bodega
• 3 ounces good tonic water to top – I like Fever Tree

Aside from being delicious, the cool thing about this drink is that it is super easy to make, but it also involves several flashy-looking (but easy) bartending techniques.

Drop the basil into the larger half of a cocktail shaker, then add the sugar. Aside from adding sweetness to this enterprise, it is also abrasive, and will help break down the basil when you muddle it.

Cool Bartender Technique #1 – Muddle the basil. All this means is that you’ll mush the basil up with a stick — in my case, I use the billy-club-like pestle from my largest mortar and pestle. Smash the basil leaves up, and grind them up with your muddler (stick) and the sugar. After a minute or so of energetic muddling, the basil will have turned gloppy (a technical term) and dark green. Rattle your muddler against the sides of the cocktail shaker to knock off any basil or sugar that might be stuck to it.

Cool Bartender Technique #2 – Add the cachaça to the basil glop, and dry-shake it. Dry shaking means to shake ingredients without ice. In this case, a lot of the flavor of the basil is found in aromatic oils that you have liberated with your muddling. These oils aren’t water-soluble — in other words, they won’t mix easily with water-based ingredients. They are, however, extremely sociable in the presence of alcohol. (Aren’t we all?) By shaking the basil and cachaça together without any ice, the alcohol will have a chance to strip away the basil’s more sophisticated flavor compounds.

Once the basil oils have been suspended in alcohol, they will mix more readily with the rest of the ingredients. You can add the ice, now. Also add the lime juice and the passionfruit cocktail. (Shake the passionfruit cocktail, in case it has separated.) Seal the cap on your cocktail shaker, and shake the mixture enthusiastically.

Cool Bartender Technique #3 – Strain the passionfruit mixture over fresh ice in a tall glass. There are several ways to strain a cocktail. If you have shaken it in a two-piece Boston shaker, you can simply break the seal between the two halves, and carefully pour the liquid out from where the two halves meet. This will do a good job of keeping the old ice and any large blobs of basil mush from getting into your glass, but you might find yourself with a few more floating bits of basil than you want. I double down and pour the mixture through a mesh drain strainer — about $2 at any hardware store — which limits any green floaters to very small pieces of basil.

Depending on the size of your tall glass, and how much ice you’ve put in it, you might find that your passionfruit-basil mixture fills it almost to the top. In this case you might have to take one for the team and drink a vigorous sip of this highly flavorful drink to bring the surface level down a couple of inches from the top of the glass.

Finally, add three ounces or so of tonic water to the glass, and stir it gently, to add some effervescence to it. Garnish with one of the spent lime halves, and drink with a straw. It tastes fruity and sweet and sour, with funkiness from the cachaça, acid from the lime juice, and a lingering kiss of basil.

Highly recommended.

Featured photo: Basil Cachaça Smash. Photo by John Fladd.