In the kitchen with Pete Parenti

Pete Parenti of Milford is the owner and founder of Troubadour Spice Blends ( troubadourspiceblends.co, and on Instagram @troubadour.spice.blends), offering a lineup of two dozen handcrafted spice blends, from beef, chicken and rib rubs to an espresso steak blend, a Jamaican jerk blend, a hickory maple blend and several others. An Air Force veteran and musician, Parenti initially got into crafting his own spice blends as a side hustle, passing them out mostly to friends, family members and co-workers. When the pandemic hit, he decided to jump into it full-time, choosing the name “Troubadour” in reference to the song by country music legend George Strait. Each one of Parenti’s spice blends is inspired by his travels around the world, both personally and while in the military — in addition to ordering them online, you can find many of his selected flavors at Grasshoppers Garden Center (728 River Road, New Boston), Artisans Boutique by Recycled Creations (25 Main St., Wilton) and Sweet Beet Market (11 W. Main St., Bradford). Sweet Beet Market’s in-house cafe also offers the Troubadour Tempeh on its breakfast menu, seasoned with Parenti’s Jamaican jerk blend.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

It would be my stainless steel mixing bowl … because without that, I’m back to making one jar at a time. That big mixing bowl gives me the ability to make large batches.

What would you have for your last meal?

A bacon double cheeseburger, seasoned fries and an ice cold beer, preferably an IPA from maybe Smuttynose or Great North Aleworks. It’s got to be a New Hampshire IPA.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

Taco Time in Milford. … Great atmosphere over there, and great food.

What celebrity would you like to see trying one of your spice blends?

The Zac Brown Band. … I remember seeing that they do this thing called an Eat and Greet with their fans before a concert, and supposedly the food is fantastic.

What is your favorite spice blend that you offer? What is your favorite thing to use it in?

I like them all … but I think the one I find myself grabbing the most is my Lone Star chili and fajitas blend. It basically just reminds me of all the time I spent in Texas while I was in the Air Force and eating the food down there. … My favorite thing to put it in is something I call my Mexican casserole, and it’s kind of like a lasagna. I’ll layer flour tortillas, beef, refried beans, taco sauce, cilantro and then plenty of that seasoning.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

This might have been going on for a long time, but I just kind of became aware of it. … It seems to me that in New Hampshire, people are really on the lookout for high-quality all-natural ingredients. Either they’re cooking with them or they’re going to find them at a restaurant. … That kind of relates to what I’m doing too, because I definitely look for that when I make my spice blends. There’s no fillers, no MSGs [and] no anti-caking agents like silicon dioxide.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

Definitely pasta. It’s simple, easy, it makes a lot of servings and it’s delicious.

Homemade pasta carbonara
From the kitchen of Pete Parenti of Troubadour Spice Blends

1 pounds angel hair pasta, cooked al dente
2 sticks butter
1 cup heavy cream
1 shaker Parmesan cheese
8 eggs
1 to 2 packages bacon, cooked and chopped
Parsley, chopped
Troubadour Spice Blends Pig Dust seasoning
Black pepper

Boil the pasta until it is cooked al dente, then drain and place the pasta back into the pot (save a ladleful of pasta water for later). While the pasta is cooking, cook and chop the bacon, then set aside. Chop the parsley and set aside. In a large bowl, place the eggs, heavy cream, Parmesan cheese and the saved ladleful of pasta water. Whisk together and set aside. Finish the pasta by first adding in the sticks of butter. Slowly pour in the egg-cream-Parmesan mixture and stir everything together until the pasta absorbs all of the liquids. Add lots of Pig Dust seasoning, chopped bacon and parsley and a bit more Parmesan cheese. If desired, sprinkle on some cracked black pepper. Serve and enjoy.



Queen City roasts

Eighty-Eight Coffee Co. opens in Manchester

Over its nearly eight-year run, The Local Moose Cafe in Manchester gained a following for its soups, sandwiches and scratch-baked goods, including a rotating lineup of craft doughnuts. Now, the cafe’s owners are switching gears in favor of offering single-origin coffees roasted in small batches, in addition to teas, a daily selection of toasts and some grab-and-go pastries.

Eighty-Eight Coffee Co., as the Queen City Ave. shop is now known, arrived the week of Thanksgiving following a roughly four-month-long hiatus. Owners and brothers Bo Tong and Marc Lee — along with Tong’s wife, Natalia Umpierrez-Tong — temporarily took a break, closing the shop in early July with the goal to return later in the year.

“With The Local Moose, our intention when we opened seven years ago was to be a cafe, and from that, our menu grew and then it felt more like we were running a restaurant that served coffee,” said Umpierrez-Tong, who added that they began roasting their own coffees in house in 2020. “Whereas now, we’re a coffee roaster with some food items as well. … I think, for me, that’s one of the biggest differences is [that] now the focus is on roasting coffee, getting the profiles that we want and pulling out different flavors.”

The trio agreed that a name change was the best way to help introduce that concept. Their new name, Umpierrez-Tong said, is rooted in Chinese culture — both Tong and Lee are lifelong Manchester residents of Chinese descent.

“In China, the number 8 is considered very lucky, and two 8s are twice as lucky,” she said. “So we thought it would be fun to just bring some of our family’s culture to the community.”

From a Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk and espresso to house specials like a maple latte prepared with local maple syrup and a chili mocha with cinnamon, cayenne and chocolate sauce, there’s a lot of variety here for coffee lovers to enjoy. In addition to drip and pour-over coffees, there are cold brew and nitro brew options, with beans that are sourced from several regions in Central and South America, like Colombia, Mexico and Nicaragua.

“With the pour-over, we’re manually grinding and brewing the coffee for customers instead of, say, getting it out of an airpot,” Tong said. “It takes a little bit of time, but it’s fresher and it’s cleaner. The recipes we use for the pour-overs are precise for that bean.”

The shop also carries an assortment of loose-leaf teas and, for food, offers a small toast menu utilizing its own house-made white breads — there’s an avocado toast with local honey and Maldon salt, a peanut butter and banana toast with chia seeds and the option to add granola, and a cucumber and hummus toast with sesame seeds and pea shoots, among others. A pastry case at the shop’s front counter also regularly carries a selection of items like doughnuts, scones, muffins, cookies and pastries they call crunch rolls.

“It’s a Japanese milk bread with almost like a crunchy cookie topping,” Tong said of the crunch rolls. “That’s something that I actually tried to remake from a pastry house in Chinatown. … I wouldn’t say it’s 100 percent exactly like the ones in Chinatown, so that’s why I renamed it the crunch roll. So that’s something that’s different that I guarantee you won’t find in the city.”

Bagged coffees are available for sale inside the shop, and Tong said the trio also has plans to eventually obtain some local wholesale accounts.

Despite their name change, Umpierrez-Tong said they’ve already seen many of the same faces come through the doors in the days since their return.

“We are so humbled by the amount of customers that we retained,” she said. “Even after our longer than expected break, they came back and they were so psyched to see us.”

Eighty-Eight Coffee Co.
Where: 124 Queen City Ave., Manchester
Hours: Wednesday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
More info: Visit eightyeightcoffee.com, or find them on Facebook and Instagram

Featured photo: Photo courtesy of Eighty-Eight Coffee Co. in Manchester.

Food for thought

Trends, predictions and what’s to come for local food and drink in 2023

Another year is in the books for New Hampshire’s food scene. Here’s a look back on what local restaurateurs, business owners, event organizers and other notable figures contended with in 2022, plus a sneak preview of what’s to come in 2023.

An early surge

New Hampshire began the year amidst a winter surge of Covid-19, largely driven by the then-new omicron variant. Events responsible for bringing together large gatherings were once again canceled left and right, at a breakneck pace almost reminiscent of March 2020. The most significant? What would have been the anticipated return of New Hampshire Wine Week.

On Jan. 12 of this year — with two weeks to go until the Easterseals Winter Wine Spectacular — the New Hampshire Liquor Commission issued a statement canceling the celebration due to the rise in Covid cases.

What’s next for the future of Wine Week? A new name and a new time of year for 2023, said NHLC chief marketing officer Lorrie Piper. The large seminar-style tasting event traditionally serving as the week’s centerpiece has been rebranded as the New England Wine Spectacular and is scheduled to take place on Thursday, June 15.

“Clearly over the past few winters, now that we have historical information on the pandemic, we know that we’re most likely looking at an uptick in Covid cases … and so when we kind of all got together and started talking about it, we just thought, ‘Why not June?’” Piper said of the NHLC’s decision to move the week. “It’s going to be great weather, I think people are going to be ready to get out there, and we won’t have the travel problems that maybe some people encountered during those winter months in New England. … So far, the conversations that we’ve had with the wine celebrities and the winemakers who come have been very positive.”

Details on 2023’s Wine Week are still being ironed out, but Piper said the plan is to keep the same format as in years past. The Spectacular will take place on that Thursday and will be surrounded by a week’s worth of other events like wine dinners at local restaurants and tasting and sampling events at several of the Liquor & Wine Outlet stores.

“I really want to have a very, very full calendar,” she said. “My own personal challenge is to make it really difficult for customers to pick which thing they would want to attend.”

Asked about trending products in 2022, Piper said the NHLC has been monitoring several — chief among them are wines and spirits in the ready-to-drink category, which overall enjoyed increasing sales at the nearly 70 Liquor & Wine Outlet stores. The number of ready-do-drink products available at each location increased by about 30 percent in 2022 compared to 2021, according to Piper.

“I think our customers love the opportunity to buy something that’s easy to prepare, that they are really just pouring over ice,” she said. “The makers of these products have recognized that there is a big need for it and our customers have certainly shown us that they love that ease of just being able to pick up a four- or a six-pack of canned cocktails. … We’re projecting that that’s going to grow even more in 2023.”

Low-calorie, low-alcohol and low-to-no sugar options — comprising what Piper called the “Better for You” category — have also become more popular, in addition to things like premium tequilas and mezcals, sparkling wines, spritzers and even barrel-aged whiskeys.

“I think kind of the overall trend that we’re seeing is more and more Earth-friendly processing and growing,” she said, “so we have customers that look specifically for organic wines and spirits. … The other thing that was happening was that, during the pandemic, a lot of the distillers and makers had some time to really think about reinventing some of the products or offering something really unique, and so now we see that coming onto the market.”

Food events return

A number of food festivals and events returned this year — in at least a few cases, for the first time since 2019. In downtown Manchester the Taco Tour was perhaps the most notable. The Greater Manchester Chamber worked closely with the City of Manchester’s Economic Development Department and Mayor Joyce Craig’s office to revive the popular street festival, which returned on May 5.

The event had the largest roster of participating restaurants — more than 70, many of which had not existed when the last Taco Tour took place. Firefly American Bistro & Bar took home the “Golden Taco” trophy after receiving the most votes by thousands of attendees — and a date of May 4 has already been slated for the Taco Tour to return in 2023.

“We are largely planning to replicate the event from last year, but we are looking for sponsors to support adding a concert to Taco Tour Manchester,” Cole Riel, member engagement coordinator for the Chamber, told the Hippo in an email. “We are sending out a message to restaurants and event partners soon with some updates.”

The Taste of Downtown Nashua, which allows participants to sample offerings from nearly two dozen restaurants, returned for the first time in three years in June, as did Merrimack’s Great American Ribfest & Food Truck Festival in July, and the Gate City Brewfest, also in Nashua, in August. In Concord we saw the return of the New Hampshire Brewers Association’s annual flagship festival in July, rebranded as the Keep NH Brewing Festival. That event has already garnered the support of more than two dozen participating breweries for 2023 and is slated to return on Saturday, July 8, at Kiwanis Waterfront Park.

And several new events joined the scene in New Hampshire in 2022. We saw the inaugural New England Coffee Festival in downtown Laconia in May, for instance, and the first New England Hot Sauce Fest at Smuttynose Brewing Co. in Hampton in July — they respectively brought together thousands of coffee and hot sauce aficionados with demonstrations, contests, vendors and giveaways. Both are due to return for the second year in 2023: The coffee festival is happening on Friday, May 19, and Saturday, May 20, and the hot sauce festival will return on Saturday, July 29.

Reached by email, coffee festival organizer Karen Bassett of Wayfarer Coffee Roasters in Laconia said the inaugural event drew more than 5,000 attendees to the area.

“We received so much amazing feedback and are excited to elevate the next festival,” Bassett said, going on to note that 2023’s event will feature a greater number of hands-on workshops and outdoor vendors, plus a “latte art throwdown” on the Main Stage of the Colonial Theatre in front of a grand audience.

A year of resilience

Concord welcomed a downtown restaurant serving brick-oven artisan pizzas, Bedford saw a new self-serve wine bar and Nashua became home to the first area establishment offering drinks made with the South Pacific root known as kava. In January, longtime Concord restaurateur Joel Harris of Dos Amigos Burritos opened his newest eatery on Main Street, the New Hampshire Pizza Co., following a renovation of the space the previous year. Other additions to New Hampshire’s food scene included Hare of the Dawg Bar & Grill, a family-friendly neighborhood restaurant in downtown Derry, in January; Bellissimo Italian Steakhouse, which opened in the former Fratello’s storefront on Main Street in Nashua in March; Vine 32 Wine + Graze Bar, a self-serve wine bar featuring Italian-made Enomatic dispensers, which also opened in March; and the joint retail shop owned by Loon Chocolate and 603 Charcuterie that opened inside The Factory on Willow facility in Manchester in February.

We also saw the arrival in March of Rambling House Food & Gathering, a Nashua restaurant with a seasonally rotating menu of locally sourced items and a craft brewery on site, known as TaleSpinner Brewery. Later in the spring, George “Rocky” Burpee of Shaker Road Provisions, a company specializing in homemade bacon, opened a storefront in Concord, and the summer brought us the Manchester vegan cafe The Green Beautiful; City Hall Pub, the newest venture of Mint Bistro and Elm House of Pizza owner Tim Baines; and Root Awakening Kava Bar in Nashua, which was touted as “New England’s first kava bar,” by owner Greg Gately, who noted at the time that only around 200 such bars existed nationwide.

In June, LaBelle Winery opened its long-anticipated sparkling wine tasting barn and vineyard wedding ceremony space at its Derry facility — its chief purpose, owner and winemaker Amy LaBelle said, is creating sparkling wine varieties via Méthode Champenoise, a classic French technique. While it’s perhaps probably the last major addition to the space for a little while — “I know my husband is excited because I promised him I wouldn’t build any new buildings,” she joked — LaBelle said she’s looking forward to the new year. On Saturday, Jan. 28, the Amherst vineyard is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a special masquerade gala, featuring a cocktail hour, a four-course dinner menu, and performers like jugglers and fire-breathers. The ALS Association, in addition to Empowering Angels, LaBelle’s own foundation promoting youth entrepreneurship, will be the event’s beneficiaries.

In the fall, we saw the opening of the Haitian eatery Ansanm in October, the latest venture of Top Chef alum Chris Viaud of Northern Comfort Hospitality — we should also note that, in February, Viaud was nominated as a semifinalist in the 2022 James Beard Foundation awards under the “Emerging Chef” category. We saw a rare milestone in October 2022 with the Red Arrow Diner’s 100th anniversary and just this month bid farewell to retiring longtime chef Edward Aloise and his wife, Claudia Rippee, owners of Republic Cafe and Campo Enoteca.

Asked about her thoughts on the hospitality industry in 2022 as a whole, LaBelle said that, while staffing challenges have loosened up at her two dining establishments — Americus Restaurant in Derry and The Bistro at LaBelle Winery in Amherst — inflation and rising food costs have been ongoing problems.

“Our staffing is in a much better spot than it was a year ago, certainly, so that’s helpful,” she said. “We’ve just had to ratchet up our labor costs, so we’re paying people more to get them … but the prices can’t really keep up with that, and so it’s a really tricky spot.”

Viaud also said rising prices have been among the biggest challenges his team has faced this year, but he added that staffing has improved. At Greenleaf, for instance, which celebrated its third anniversary in business in 2022, Viaud promoted chefs Justin O’Malley and Nick Breyare to oversee day-to-day operations in the kitchen, changing the menus within the growing seasons and leading the line cooks.

“For the most part we have absorbed the costs of the inflation of goods … without any disruption to service,” Viaud said in an email. “For Greenleaf specifically, I would have to say that we are in a much better position in terms of necessary staffing this year compared to last.”

One encouraging thing for LaBelle is that she hasn’t had a hard time filling seats.

“People are still going out and enjoying a good meal, and we’re grateful for that,” she said. “I think people are still willing to spend the money to go out, but they’re just being a little more choosy about it and making sure where they’re going to spend their money is top quality, and that’s what LaBelle can provide.”

A Year in the Kitchen: 2022 edition

The Hippo’s In the Kitchen Q&A series continued in 2022, featuring voices of New Hampshire’s food scene, from restaurant chefs and bakers to homestead business owners.

We like to ask these experts for their thoughts on the food trends sweeping the Granite State. Food trucks won out as the most commonly cited trend this past calendar year, but other themes were also commonly mentioned, including farm-to-table and plant-based cooking movements in many Granite State restaurant kitchens.

“Using local farms is so cool because I think it’s a great engaging point for the servers to talk with the customer … so they get to know where their food is coming from, but they also feel like they are putting value into the economy in their area,” chef Matt McCormack of the Granite Restaurant & Bar in Concord told the Hippo in February.

Some interviewees this year chose more specific menu items as leading trends, like smash burgers, charcuterie boards and sampler-sized offerings such as flights and tapas.

“Just any small amount of something that’s served on one plate. You’re seeing a lot of that now — burger flights, taco flights, you name it,” Weare native Joe Bernier of the Angry Hog Barbecue Co. food trailer told the Hippo in May.

Megan Kurs of The Yolk Grill in Pelham gave us a similar answer in March, saying that the term “flight” doesn’t necessarily pertain to just beers or cocktails anymore but rather to any type of food that can be presented in a sampler-style setting. “People like to have different things they can take pictures for and post them on social media and tag us and things like that,” she said.

A fun question we always ask during these interviews is either “What celebrity would you like to see eating at your restaurant?” or “What celebrity would you like to have a meal with?” For the third year in a row, the No. 1 answer was television chef Gordon Ramsay of, among many other popular cooking shows, Hell’s Kitchen. Saurav Goel of Raga Contemporary Kitchen in Nashuatold the Hippo in April he considers Ramsay to be “a mentor in many ways,” while George “Rocky” Burpee of Shaker Road Provisions in Concord said in September he considers himself to be a “die-hard fan” of the chef. Justin Hoang of Luk’s Bar and Grill in Hudson and Bellissimo Italian Steakhouse in Nashua told the Hippo in July that he regularly watches just about every show Ramsay is on.

“As intimidating as he comes off as in those shows, I think he’s a phenomenal chef,” Hoang said.

The runner-up for the most commonly given answer to this question came as no surprise — Manchester’s own actor and comedian Adam Sandler. Other celebrities that received two or more answers this year? Actors Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey and Food Network personalities and chefs Alton Brown, Guy Fieri and Jeffrey “Duff” Goldman.

Finally, asking our interviewees to give a shout out to their favorite local dining establishments in the Granite State always yields a diverse lineup of answers. The most common answer of 2022 was The Riverhouse Cafe in Milford — three people throughout the year told the Hippo that the popular breakfast and lunch spot on the Oval is among their favorites. Industry East Bar in Manchester, Revival Kitchen & Bar in Concord, Surf Seafood in Nashuaand the Stark House Tavern in Weare were among some of the other recurring answers this year.

Featured photo: Firefly American Bistro & Bar received the “Golden Taco” trophy for winning the 2022 Taco Tour on Thursday, May 5. Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 22/12/29

News from the local food scene

A toast to the new year: Join the Copper Door Restaurant (15 Leavy Drive, Bedford, 488-2677; 41 S. Broadway, Salem, 458-2033; copperdoor.com) for a special New Year’s Eve prix fixe dinner menu, which will be served on Saturday, Dec. 31, from 4 to 9 p.m. at both locations, featuring meals of two, three or four courses. Options include truffled risotto, crispy Tuscan meatballs, shrimp bisque, butternut-apple salad, grilled filet oscar, braised short rib, sesame-crusted tuna, truffled mushroom ravioli, crispy duck confit, caramel apple pie and chocolate hazelnut cheesecake. The cost is $74 for a two-course meal, $84 for a three-course meal and $94 for a four-course meal. Reservations are highly recommended. The Copper Door’s regular menus will also be available from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at both locations, and live music will be featured from 6 to 9 p.m. For more ideas on how to spend New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day (there may still be time to plan depending on where you go), visit issuu.com/hippopress and click on the Dec. 22 issue to read the e-edition for free. Our New Year’s Eve listings begin on page 24.

Ready for flight: The Flight Center Restaurant Group, which operates both Flight Center locations in Manchester and Nashua, in addition to the 1750 Taphouse in Bedford, has acquired Smuttlabs Brewery & Kitchen (47 Washington St., Dover) — the storefront reopened to the public on Dec. 16 as Aviation Brewing Co., the company’s newest business venture, according to a press release. “We have been dedicated to supporting the craft beer industry … featuring the best local brews on over 50 rotating taps at our restaurants and have been working towards opening a brewery to complement this for some time,” Flight Center owner Seth Simonian said in a statement. “Acquiring the Smuttlabs brand and 7-barrel brewing system allows us to begin our next phase of growth in the craft beer world.” According to the release, Aviation Brewing, will begin operations as a restaurant for the next three to four months as the Flight Center Restaurant Group navigates federal and state licensing regulations to transition their restaurants into brewpubs, with the goal to begin producing its own beer in Dover. Aviation Brewing Co. is open seven days a week, featuring a menu of Detroit-style pizzas, appetizers and burgers, along with plated entrees, like braised short ribs and pan-crusted steak frites. Visit aviationbrewingco.com.

New Liquor & Wine Outlet store coming to Derry: The New Hampshire Liquor Commission is building a new Liquor & Wine Outlet store in Derry, which is expected to open sometime in the spring of 2023. According to a press release, the new outlet is located off Manchester Road in the Pinkerton Place shopping center, and will span about 8,000 square feet. It will feature high-efficiency materials and LED fixtures, plus oversized aisles for easy shopping and an extensive product selection. According to the release, it’s being modeled after several other recently built Liquor & Wine Outlet locations, including those in Manchester, Concord and New London. Since 2012, the New Hampshire Liquor Commission has renovated, relocated or built 40 new Liquor & Wine Outlets across nearly three dozen communities. Currently, the NHLC operates 67 of them statewide and has raised more than $4 billion in net profits since opening the first store in 1934, the release said. Visit liquorandwineoutlets.com for a state directory and details on product availability at each of the stores.

The Bee-Bee

A hot drink for the holidays

I’ve got a rule of thumb that makes a deceptive amount of sense.

When you’re looking at used copies of cookbooks, buy the one that is in the worst shape. If it’s badly stained and has torn pages, a broken spine and mysterious burn marks, that’s the one that has seen some action. Somebody was loyal enough to the recipes in it to take it into the belly of the beast. It must have something to recommend it.

Anyone I’ve ever given that advice to has nodded and agreed that this seems really reasonable.

The deception comes into play over time. Over the years, I’ve adopted an alarming number of these battle-scarred books, most of which have gone relatively unused.

A case in point is 1969’s Esquire Drink Book. I don’t remember how it ended up in my cocktail bookcase, but it is a perfect time capsule of Swinging ’60s bachelor drinks.

For example, the Bee-Bee.

Even by the standards of the time, the description of the Bee-Bee is a little tone-deaf, sexism and other isms-wise.

“This will bring on leprechauns and williwaws after the third cup,” he says.

Given that 3 cups of bourbon is 24 ounces of 100-proof alcohol, I suspect that it would be more likely to bring on paramedics and divorce attorneys, and yet—

Classic Bee-Bee

Ingredients

  • Zest of one lime – one of the really dark, leathery-looking ones
  • Zest of one orange – just a regular, undemanding orange
  • 1 Tablespoon honey
  • 1 cup bourbon – given how much you are going to adulterate it, probably not your best stuff.

Also, have an instant-read thermometer.

Heat all ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan, over medium-low heat. (The lower temperature will give the alcohol time to strip some of the flavorful oils from the citrus rinds.) Bring to a temperature of about 170º. Alcohol boils off at a lower temperature than water, so bringing this to a full boil will strip off most of the bourbon. (I flamed off all the alcohol from some rum once and “disappointing” does not begin to describe the results.)

Rest for three minutes. This will give the bourbon a little more time to wash the citrus zest. Yes, it will cool somewhat, but you do the exact same thing when you make a good cup of tea. Think of this as extremely dodgy tea.

Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into an Irish coffee glass. To be clear, this is 8 ounces of bourbon and, at 170, the alcohol doesn’t cook off. You’ll want to share this one with a few fellow revelers to stay upright.

Shockingly, this is very good. Dangerously good. The bourbon is mellowed out by the honey and citrus. It tastes comforting. It has subtle butterscotch notes that suggest that maybe things aren’t that bad. That maybe you’ll get through all this. That maybe you should make another cup—

So I guess the question is this: Is there a way of lightening the Bee-Bee up so you don’t end up making a pass at a hat rack, and yet that doesn’t strip it completely of its dangerously seductive nature?

Maybe.

Modified Bee-Bee

Ingredients

  • Zest of 1 lime – dark and leathery
  • Zest of 1 orange – calm and demure
  • 3 ounces ginger brandy – I like Jacquin’s
  • 1 ounce Irish whiskey – I like Paddy’s for this. It brings a lot of flavor, without taking itself too seriously.
  • 1 Tablespoon hot honey
  • ½ cup boiling water

And that same thermometer, which has probably been surprised and delighted to find itself in an adult beverage today instead of a pork chop.

Again, heat all the ingredients except the water in a small saucepan, over medium-low heat, bringing the mix to 170º.

Again, rest for three minutes.

Strain into an Irish coffee glass, stir in the hot water.

This version of the Bee-Bee doesn’t taste the same as the original, but it has the same “Hey, buddy, I don’t know if anyone has told you lately, but you are very attractive and have a really great sense of style” quality of debauched, contented comfort to it. (Keep in mind that while only half as dangerous as its big brother, this drink still has 4 ounces of alcohol in it. For either drink, sharing is strongly recommended.) The ginger plays well with the spice of the hot honey. The alcohol is still there and lets you know that it is still there, but it plays so well with the citrus that you hardly notice the number of ill-advised ideas you come up with over the next half hour.

Featured photo: The Bee-Bee. Photo by John Fladd.

Apple cranberry compote

I am back to thinking about snacks again this week. Why not? December is basically a month-long eating festival.

In the world of snacking, although charcuterie boards are ever so popular, sometimes it is nice to offer just one type of cheese and cracker. However, you can elevate that pairing by adding some toppings. You can keep it simple with some Dijon mustard or honey to drizzle on the cheese and crackers, or you can make it just a bit fancier with this apple cranberry compote.

And if you have leftover compote, a night at home and time to cook a meal, you can serve the compote with roast chicken or pork. Fancier than plain applesauce, it adds a nicely sweet component to your protein.

Let’s talk about the ingredients. For the apple, you want a firmer variety. I prefer a Granny Smith or Fuji; you can choose any apple that would work well for baking. As you’ll see in the recipe, I add a tablespoon of brandy. It’s optional, but it does add a tiny bit of flavor as well as a hint of warmth. The rest of the ingredients are fairly straight forward. If you’re looking for a bit more pop to this recipe, feel free to finish it with the tiniest pinch of salt. It will make the sweetness of the compote shine even more.

Apple cranberry compote
Serves 4

4 apples, peeled and cored
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 Tablespoon brandy, optional
3/8 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup dried cranberries

Dice apples into small, bite-sized pieces.
Combine apples, lemon juice, brandy, sugar and cinnamon in a medium-sized pot over medium-high heat.
Bring to a boil, then turn to low and cover.
Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add dried cranberries, cover, and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring once or twice.
Remove from heat, uncover, and allow to cool slightly.
Serve or transfer to a storage container and refrigerate.

Featured Photo: Apple cranberry compote. Courtesy photo.

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