Category: Food

The Weekly Dish 25/10/03

News from the local food scene

• Fall Fest: 603 Brewery in Londonderry will hold a Fall Fest on Saturday, Oct. 4, noon to 8 p.m. featuring food trucks, live music and a DJ, local artisans, a stein-holding contest, kitchen specials and more, according to 603brewery.com.

• Apple season: Did last week’s cover story (page 10 in the Sept. 25 issue) about caramel apples have you craving an appley treat? Check out the Dover’s Apple Harvest Day 2025 festival on Saturday, Oct. 4, on Central Street in Dover from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It will feature a 5K road race and more than 100 vendors. Visit appleharvestday.com.

• Wine and chicken: LaBelle Winery Derry (14 Route 111, Derry, 672-9898, labellewinery.com/labelle-winery-derry) will host an interactive cooking demonstration and wine tasting Thursday, Oct. 2, from 6 to 7 p.m. called “Cooking with Wine: Make the Most of Rotisserie Chicken.” LaBelle’s chefs will demonstrate recipes that make the most of a rotisserie chicken and pair each with a LaBelle wine. Tickets are $40.

• Mac for a cause: Mr. Mac’s Macaroni and Cheese, 497 Hooksett Road in Manchester, is donating $2 for every “Take & Bake” order to benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Manchester and the Manchester Police Athletic League during October, according to a press release. The Mac Give Back fundraiser will run through the month and orders can be made at the Manchester location, by calling 606-1760 or at mr-macs.com, the release said.

• Wine and steins: Bert’s Beer & Wine (545 Hooksett Road, Manchester, 413-5992, bertsnh.com) will host “An Oktoberfest of Wine!” Monday, Oct. 6, beginning at 6:30 p.m. There will be a guided tasting led by a wine expert, a discussion of winemaking techniques and regional influences, and light food pairings designed to complement each wine. Tickets are $75 through eventbrite.com and include the purchase of a bottle of one of the three bottles tasted.

• Chili and beer: The annual Powder Keg Beer & Chili Festival will take place in Swasey Parkway in downtown Exeter on Saturday, Oct. 4, with general admission at 1 p.m., noon for VIP ticket holders, according to powderkegbeerfest.com.

• Music and beer: Henniker Brewing Co. in Henniker will hold its Oktoberfest Friday, Oct. 3, through Monday, Oct. 6, with Oktoberfest competitions, food vendors, the taping of the Oktoberfest Marzen Cask (Saturday at 1 p.m), live music each day and more, according to hennikerbrewing.com, where you can find the schedule of the weekend’s event. Find more Oktoberfests in last week’s food section; the story is on page 25 and you can find the issue in the digital library at hippopress.com.

Junk Mail

A surprising number of cocktail recipes call for Champagne.

Cocktails made in a bar often use it to give a bit of bubbliness to a drink, and it looks good on the list of ingredients on the drink menu. If you’re drinking by yourself, it’s a nice little bit of self-indulgence, and if you’re with friends or a date, you can have fun pretending to be sophisticated. It’s no big deal for a bar to keep a couple bottles of Champagne or prosecco on ice, and use up one or two in a brunch service.

At home, it’s a slightly different story.

If you’re throwing a party, and will be using up a bottle or two of the good stuff over the course of an evening, it’s one thing. But most of us make one or two cocktails at a time, usually to celebrate making it to Friday. We don’t generally have an open bottle of Champagne, and it seems silly to open one just to make a couple of cocktails. If we’re opening a bottle of champagne, why not just drink that?

Beer, on the other hand—

This is a riff on a popular drink from the 1930s called an Air Mail Cocktail. Our version is slightly more down-market, but not less delicious for it.

2 ounces rum – whatever rum you feel like. In my particular case, I still have a quarter bottle or so of some rum I infused with peanut butter and bananas earlier in the summer. It sits on my kitchen counter, and seems to ask, “If not now, when?”

½ ounce ginger syrup – see below

½ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice

1 ounce lager beer – again, whatever you have on hand.

Cheetos – Just because. They seem like a good pairing for this drink.

Pour the rum, ginger syrup and lime juice over ice in a cocktail shaker, and shake for 20 seconds or so, until there is a line of condensation on the shaker, and you can hear the ice cubes start to break up inside.

Strain into a cocktail glass, then add the beer. Don’t worry about mixing or stirring. Things will work themselves out.

Have you ever had the post office hold your mail for you while you’ve been on vacation? Then when you get back, and get your mail all at once, it is a kaleidoscope of brightly colored political flyers, seed catalogs, time-share offers, and a postcard from yourself telling you how much fun you were on your vacation? The Junk Mail cocktail is a bit like that experience. Depending on what kind of rum you use, and how gingery your ginger syrup is, bright, fun flavors will come at your mouth from every direction.

This is a drink that will remind you that you really are fun when you relax a little.

Ginger Syrup — Grate a large hand of ginger on a box grater. Don’t worry about peeling it. Combine equal amounts of water and sugar by weight in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil to make a simple syrup. Remove from heat, and stir the shredded ginger into the syrup. Cover the pot, and leave everything to steep for several hours, or overnight. Strain through a tea towel, twisting and wringing the towel, to squeeze the ginger pulp. Bottled, this will keep in your refrigerator for a month or so.

Featured photo: Junk Mail. Photo by John Fladd.

Try the pasta flora

Holy Trinity Church holds its Greek fest

By John Fladd

jfladd@hippopress.com

In the pastry tent at Holy Trinity Church’s Greek Food Festival in Concord, if you look carefully, between the kourabiedes and the baklava, tucked away over by the loukoumades, you will find the pasta flora.

“Actually, I make some of the pasta flora myself,” said Constantine Newman, Holy Trinity’s priest. “Basically, it’s a dough crust — sort of a cookie-type crust — covered with jam, usually strawberry or apricot or something like that. And then it has a latticework in pastry over the top of it.”

The pastries — and more broadly, the Festival itself — is the Greek congregation’s big opportunity each year to reach out and connect with its community.

“It’s an effort of the whole parish,” Newman said. “It’s a way of showcasing the way our parish comes together and works together. And it’s good to get our people working together so they get to know each other better. We look forward to that.”

Holy Trinity does that through food.

“We feature traditional Greek dishes,” Newman said, “like lamb and chicken souvlaki, which is a Greek shish kebab. We have pastitsio and then moussaka. Pastitsio is like a Greek lasagna and moussaka is pretty much the same thing except with eggplants instead of noodles. We have Greek meatballs. We have loukaniko, which is a sausage, and that’s made for us by a butcher in the area.” There will also be gyros, he said, made from a mixture of lamb and pork.

Preparing such a large amount of food is a communal effort, he said, that starts weeks and even months in advance.

“The more complex [dishes] like the moussaka, we did in July,” he said, “and then we keep it frozen because it takes so long to do some of them. It’s better to get them done ahead of time. Some of it has to be very fresh, though. We’re going to be making over the next week, the baklava and the galaktoboureko, which is also a nice pastry. It’s two layers of phyllo dough, and in between is a cream of milk and eggs and butter.”

Margaret Gegas is in charge of getting many of these dishes prepared in the months leading up to the Festival.

“I buy all the ingredients,” she said, “and then I have a crew that comes in and prepares all the spinach pies, what we call spanakopitas. All the spinach pies, we had to freeze because we make 40 big pans of spinach pie. We usually work a couple of days a week and some evenings as well. It’s been a month now that we’ve been working on the spinach pies. We’re making and freezing pasticcio, which is a traditional macaroni dish with ground meat and a bechamel sauce on top. Those are baked and served in squares at the festival. We also have moussaka, which is the eggplant dish with the bechamel.”

Gegas said the recipes for the food at the festival are so old that nobody remembers when and where they came from.

“They’re traditional Greek [recipes], just a tradition for many, many years, as far back as we know,” she said.

“Also,” she added, “we have ladies baking the traditional powdered sugar cookies, which people love. And then we have a couple of cookies that are dipped in syrup — they’re a very syrupy cookie.”

Greek Food Festival

Where: Holy Trinity Church, 68 N. State St., Concord, 225-2961, holytrinitynh.org)
When: Saturday, Sept. 27, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be church tours at 1 and 3 p.m.

Featured photo: Spanakopita. Photo from the Holy Trinity Church Facebook page.

Get your Märzen and festbier

Local breweries hold Oktoberfest celebrations

By John Fladd

jfladd@hippopress.com

According to Carla Reardon, the Event Manager for the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in Merrimack, the Oktoberfest event taking place at the brewery this weekend is the recontinuation of a time-honored tradition.

“The last time that we held Oktoberfest here at the Brewery was in 2018,” Reardon said, “and we decided to bring it back. It’s a three-day event and we’re going to have a variety of live music performances, games, German beer, and vendors, and it’s going to take place at our newly developed event space down at the stables.” She explained that the Stables used to be actual stables to house visiting Clydesdale horses, “but we have repurposed the space.”

One of the highlights of the event will be the German beer. Most Americans think of Anheuser-Bush as a quintessentially American company, but it’s actually a worldwide corporation, including breweries in Germany, making German beer, like the three types being served at the Merrimack event.

“We’ll have our Spaten lager,” Reardon said, referring to a mild, Munich-style lager. “We will have our Spaten Oktoberfest [a darker Märzen style of beer], and also our Franziskaner [a German Hefeweizen, a copper-colored wheat beer].”

There will also be food vendors on site, as well as food trucks, live music, and local artists and craftspeople from all across New England, Reardon said.

More Oktoberfests

Several area breweries are holding Oktoberfest celebrations in the next few weeks. Know of any not mentioned here? Let us know at jfladd@hippopress.com.

• Candia Road Brewing Co. (840 Candia Road, Manchester, 935-8123, candiaroadbrewingco.com) will host Füt Fest on Saturday, Sept. 27, from 1 to 8 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 28, from 1 to 5 p.m., to celebrate the release of its seasonal Märzen beer. The weekend will feature a special menu and line up of bands on both days

• There will be an Oktoberfest Party at Concord Craft Brewing (117 Storrs St., Concord, 856-7625, concordcraftbrewing.com) Saturday, Sept. 27, from noon to 9 p.m. Celebrate Oktoberfest with German food specials, special glass steins, give-aways and house-brewed kolsch and festbier. Visit facebook.com/ConcordCraftBrewing.

• To Share Brewing (720 Union St., Manchester, 836-6947, tosharebrewing.com) will hold its seventh annual Oktoberfest on Saturday, Sept. 27, from 1 to 8 p.m. to celebrate the release of its Oktoberfest Altbier. The day will feature drink specials, beer bratwurst, oompah music, stein holding contests and more; lederhosen and dirndls are encouraged. Visit facebook.com/tosharebrewing.

• Oktoberfest 2025 will take place at the Spyglass Brewing Co. (306 Innovative Way, Nashua, 546-2965, spyglassbrewing.com) Saturday, Sept. 27, from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. There will be live music, food specials, yard games, Das Boots for drinking and buying, and more. Visit facebook.com/spyglassbrewing.

• Henniker Brewing Co. (129 Centervale Road, Henniker, 428-3579, hennikerbrewing.com) will hold its Oktoberfest Friday, Oct. 3, through Monday, Oct. 6, with Oktoberfest competitions, food vendors, the taping of the Oktoberfest Marzen Cask (Saturday at 1 p.m), live music each day and more, according to hennikerbrewing.com, where you can find the schedule of the weekend’s events

• 603 Brewery in Londonderry will hold a Fall Fest on Saturday, Oct. 4, noon to 8 p.m. featuring food trucks, live music and a DJ, local artisans, a stein holding contest, kitchen specials and more, according to 603brewery.com.

• Mountain Base Brewery (553 Mast Road, No. 111, Goffstown, 935-7132, mountainbasebrewery.com) will host the Fourth Annual Mount Uncanoonuc Brewfest on Saturday, Oct. 11, from 1 to 5 p.m. There will be brewery reps and food vendors in attendance, as well as live music and more. Visit facebook.com/mountainbasebrewery.

• Sunstone Brewing Co. (298 Rockingham Road, Londonderry, 216-1808, sunstonebrewing.com) will host Oktoberfest – A Renaissance Faire Celebration and Oktoberfest Beer Release on Saturday, Oct. 11, and Sunday, Oct. 12., from 1 to 9 p.m. Expect crafts, vendors, competitions and more.

Oktoberfest at the Biergarten

Where: The Biergarten at Anheuser-Busch in Merrimack
When: Friday, Sept. 26, from 6 to 10 p.m.; Saturday, Sept. 27, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 28, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (The celebration is 21+ on Friday and Saturday from 4 to 10 p.m.)
More: The event will feature German beer, food trucks, live music and more — lederhosen welcome, according to a post on The Biergarten’s Facebook page, where you can find a link for tickets (also via budweisertours.com/mmktours).

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 25/09/25

News from the local food scene

By John Fladd

jfladd@hippopress.com

• Closing: Mike’s Italian Kitchen (212 Main St., Nashua, 595-9334, mikesitaliannh.com) has announced that its last day of business will be Saturday, Oct. 4. In a message on the restaurant’s website, a statement read in part, “We have made the difficult choice to close our doors, while we focus on expanding our Buckley’s Market Cafe concept in downtown Portsmouth. Then, we will take the appropriate time to decide whether to reconceptualize or find an operator to fill our Main Street space in the future.” Mike’s Italian Kitchen is part of the Michael Timothy’s Dining Group, which has locations in Nashua, Merrimack, Portsmouth, Hollis and Woburn, Mass, according to mtdininggroup.com.

• Grazing: Wine on Main (9 N. Main St., Concord, 897-5828, wineonmainnh.com) will host a DIY Graze Box and Wine Pairing workshop Tuesday, Sept. 30, from 6 to 8 p.m. Learn techniques to build your very own “Grazing Box” using fresh ingredients while enjoying a wine tasting. The cost is $71.61 per person through eventbrite.com. There will be a second session of this workshop the following evening, Wednesday, Oct. 1.

• Building good layers: There will be a hands-on class to learn lasagna-making at Tuscan Market (Tuscan Village, 9 Via Toscana, Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) Thursday, Sept. 25, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. This workshop will guide you through making a creamy spinach lasagna, layering noodles, a rich béchamel-like sauce, and a flavorful spinach and cheese filling. Tickets are $69.89 through eventbrite.com.

• Harvest happening: Pumpkin Blossom Farm (393 Pumpkin Hill Road, Warner, 456-2443, pumpkinblossomfarm.com) invites you to close out the lavender season with a Harvest Celebration on Saturday, Sept. 27, and Sunday, Sept. 28, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Enjoy a weekend of live music, a lavender craft beer and wine tasting, and more. There will be a Lavender Brews and Stews meal of specially curated foods. Reserve your place through the Farm’s website.

Cherry-Sesame Crisp

  • 2-pound bag frozen cherries
  • Zest and juice of one large lemon
  • 1½ Tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon rosewater — if you decide you want more next time, go ahead, but proceed with caution
  • 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
  • 1 Tablespoon water
  • 1 cup (120 g) flour
  • 1 cup (99 g) sugar
  • ½ cup (68 g) coarsely chopped pistachios
  • ½ cup (1 stick) butter
  • 1/3 cup (44 g) sesame seeds
  • 1¼ teaspoons kosher or coarse sea salt
  • 1/3 cup (80 g.) tahini (sesame paste)

Preheat your oven to 375°F.

In a large bowl, combine the cherries, lemon juice and zest, brown sugar, and rose water. Set aside.

Speaking of “aside,” an aside on rosewater: It would be a jaded and heartless person who didn’t like the smell of roses, which makes it a really good background flavor in Indian and Middle Eastern dishes. Rosewater goes well with stone fruit like plums or peaches, and with Middle Eastern ingredients like sesame or pistachios. Here, we’ve paired it with cherries. Be careful though — if you don’t put enough of it in a recipe, you won’t be able to taste it. Add one drop too many, and you’ll be hit with the essence of grandmother soap. Thread the needle,

Back to business: in another bowl, combine the flour, sugar, pistachios, sesame seeds, salt, and butter. Work the mixture with your fingers or a pastry cutter until it breaks up into something that looks like granola. Add the tahini, and stir everything to combine until it looks like extra-clumpy granola.

In a small bowl or ramekin, mix the cornstarch and water into a smooth slurry. This is like a paste, but runnier. Add it to the cherry mixture, and stir everything to combine. As the cherries bake, the cornstarch will help thicken the juice, so that everything will pull together when the crumble is finished.

Pour the cherry mixture into an 8”x8” baking pan, then cover the surface with the sesame crumble topping. Lumps are not only OK but encouraged.

Put the pan on a baking sheet for when (not if) some of the cherry filling flings itself out of the pan to an uncaring world during the baking process. Bake on the center rack of your oven for about an hour, until the topping looks golden brown.

Let the crumble cool, then eat with ice cream.

This is one of those desserts with a different combination of flavors and textures in each bite. The jammy cherries are tart and sweet, with a hint of roses. The crumble topping is rich with butter and sesame, with a whisper of bitterness that off-sets the sweetness. Each bite has a different fruit-to-crumble ratio.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

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