Category: Food

In the kitchen with Amanda Spooner

Chef at Honey Cup Tea Room in Manchester. Spooner is also a caterer and personal trainer. “I was raised in the restaurants with my dad. I was busing tables at 6, 7 years old and then, around 12, was doing catering with my aunt’s company, Sunshine Catering. … My first job out of high school was at the Black Brimmer as a hostess, then as a server and a bartender. Then I went to La Carreta and was a bartender over there, and then I had my first baby. At that time I took a different [path]. I started catering, but I also was intrigued with health and wellness so I ended up getting my certification to be a personal trainer. I’ve been in that industry, maintaining my certification for about 20 years now. My husband and I ended up opening up Big Kahuna’s Cafe and Grill out of Merrimack. I operated that for about 10 years. When Mara [Honey Cup owner Mara Witt] started thinking about the concept of having her own place, she came to me and asked if I would be up for helping her out. … I had full artistic, creative freedom with this. The only thing I had to really do was home in on how she wanted to see everything, how she wanted to feel. And from that point I was able to curate a menu.”

What is your must-have item in the kitchen?

All I need is fire. If I have fire, I can cook anything. We’ve done open pit cooking. I’ve done rustic-style cooking, open flame. An oven’s great, but I can cook anywhere with anything. And that’s probably my strongest suit as a chef. Also love. Love is what makes food great.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

I think the “Chaffle” is really cool — the loaded potato waffle with cheddar, egg and potato. But our turkey sandwiches are the bomb, with herb cream cheese. I love the fresh herbs. I add in sage, basil, and thyme, garlic, and just emulsify that all together. It’s magical.

What is a trend you are seeing in food in New Hampshire?

I think we’re seeing a lot more of the cultural foods — things like African cooking, things that are becoming trendy on TikTok. There’s more of an interest in the flavors from around the world, which I admire.

What would you have for your last meal?

Lobster. All the lobster I could stuff in my face.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

In the summertime, I love cooking over fire. Then in the fall with the harvest, the harvest vegetables, the produce is just so beautiful … I love making stews with bones and bone marrow; it’s just rich, hearty, nourishing quality food.

1940s Recession Chocolate Cake

This cake was popular during the Great Depression and World War II because it uses no eggs, butter, or milk—ingredients that were often rationed, so it’s also vegan!

Servings: 8-10
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 30-35 minutes

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons vegetable oil (or melted shortening)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon white or apple cider vinegar
1 cup water

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease an 8×8-inch baking pan lightly with oil or non-stick spray.
2. Mix dry ingredients: In the baking pan (or a mixing bowl), whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. Make wells: Using a spoon, make three small wells in the dry mixture—one for oil, one for vinegar, and one for vanilla.
4. Add liquids: Pour the oil, vinegar, and vanilla into their respective wells, then pour the water over everything.
5. Mix gently: Stir the ingredients until well combined, making sure there are no dry spots, but don’t overmix.
6. Bake: Place in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
7. Cool and serve: Let the cake cool in the pan before slicing. You can dust it with powdered sugar or top it with a simple icing if desired.

Featured Image: Amanda Spooner. Photo by John Fladd.

Shakes and teas

New shop offers beverages with purpose

By John Fladd

[email protected]

Sean and Gina Wren picked a challenging location for a health-oriented business. PowerThirst, a shake and tea bar specializing in nutritional supplements, is located directly between a Mexican restaurant and a Domino’s Pizza on Mast Road in Goffstown. Two doors down is a tobacco and vape shop. On the other hand, there is a gym in the same plaza.

PowerThirst owner Sean Wren said the location has actually worked in their favor.

“We definitely have had a nice steady increase in traffic from the gym next door,” he said. “And then having the new Mexican restaurant next door [La Vaka Mexican Restaurant], it’s been fantastic, because I see so many people walking by, going into the restaurant, looking up, looking at our sign and looking in our window. I’ve had a number of people say, ‘Oh yeah, I was going to eat next door and I finally had a chance to stop by; I want to see what this place is all about.’”

What it is about is vitamin- and nutrient-enriched shakes and teas.

“PowerThirst is technically classified as a nutrition club,” Wren explained. “and what we provide are beverages for people who are looking to be more positive and health-minded. The teas have B vitamins, antioxidants, any number of our boosters for hydration, electrolytes, and things like collagen and different supplements to help with their overall health. The protein shakes provide protein and other nutrients. The goal is to keep everything tasting good, but also keeping it at a very low sugar content so people can be mindful of total caloric intake throughout the day.“

Customers order a tea drink or a shake at the counter, and the Wrens customize it according to flavor and the customer’s specific requirements. A long-distance runner might ask for different nutritional supplements than a power-lifter, for instance.

“If they have the time,” Wren said, “I would talk with them and ask them what they’re currently doing. And then just give them some general guidelines as to things they might want to try, because in the world of fitness and nutrition … everybody’s body’s different. There’s no cookie-cutter approach of ‘this is what you have to do if you want to be good at X’. It’s going to be a little bit different for everybody.”

Wren looks at his job as providing a counterbalance to some of the dubious nutritional information that many people are bombarded with.

“It’s a tough place to be if you’re someone who’s trying to get into fitness and you don’t have a lot of background in [nutrition],” he said. “Because while the internet is fantastic, you can find anything you could possibly imagine on there, and, there are a lot of charlatans out there and there’s a lot of people selling snake oil and just telling you this is the new hot thing that’ll change your life. My goal here is to provide people with the most simplified, straightforward answers to get them moving in the right direction and make a lot of those decisions for themselves and be as informed as possible. Because yes, you’ll have people who like a new supplement will pop up and everybody says it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. And then a year goes by and all of the actual research comes out, it doesn’t do anything.”

That relaxed, comfortable attitude is reflected in the interior of PowerThirst. There is comfortable seating, and space for customers to sit and talk with each other or to take their time enjoying their drinks.

“I didn’t want to set this up and have it be too over-the-top gym health-related,” Wren said. Someone who doesn’t necessarily go to the gym all the time or is in that space would think, ‘Oh that’s not for me.’ We want to feel very welcoming to anybody who just enjoys a delicious beverage, wants to make some slight changes in their life, all the way up to people who are like hardcore athletes, gym goers, high school athletes.”

PowerThirst

Where: 553 Mast Road, Goffstown, 937-2412, powerthirstnh.com
When: Open seven days a week: Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Featured photo: PowerThirst owner Sean Wren. Photo by John Fladd.

Kitchen futures

Culinary cards get you thinking about your day and your meals

By John Fladd

[email protected]

There are any number of ways to get inspiration in the kitchen and to become more thoughtful about your food. Dawn Aurora Hunt has a new one: a deck of cards.

“This is the Kitchen Witch Culinary Oracle Deck,” Hunt said. “This is different from a tarot deck, because a tarot deck has suits and you’ll always have certain cards. This is a fun tool; you could use it for insight and inspiration, but you could use it just for cool recipe ideas.”

The Culinary Oracular Deck is a set of 50 large, illustrated cards, similar in appearance to tarot cards, each with a different kitchen ingredient or tool.

Hunt, the owner of Cucina Aurora Kitchen Witchery in Salem, spends a lot of time thinking deeply about cooking and the sharing of food.

“Everything I do is about cooking with love,” she said, “cooking with intention and finding a deeper meaning in food and our connection to food through the seasons and mindfulness.” It was this introspective examination that led to the development of her new Oracular Deck. “I was teaching classes on the deeper meanings of simple food ingredients for a while and people have been saying to me, ‘You know, this would make a really cool oracle deck, so that people could take the class and work with that information in an easy way.’ I have a couple of other cookbooks that I wrote that are sort of themed similarly; this has been a natural progression for that.”

Hunt used one of the cards as an example. “One way that you might use these cards would be in the morning while you are maybe having a cup of coffee or getting ready for your day, you might shuffle up the cards and pull one card out of the deck. Maybe you pull the card that says ‘eggs’. Eggs are associated with new birth, new life and fertility. So you might read about the symbolic meaning of eggs on the egg card, and it says that your endeavors are about to reap rewards. What have you been working on? What have you been working toward or fighting for? When the egg card shows up for you, things in your life are about to come together. So you can take that message into your day.”

Alternatively, Hunt said, you might not have eaten eggs in a while and this might simply inspire you to cook or eat something eggy. Each card has suggestions of dishes and a simple recipe. So you might find yourself making quiche for dinner. Almost all the recipes are ones that are easily customizable.

According to Hunt, that was a deliberate decision.

“I have a ton of food allergies,” she said. “So when I am creating recipes, I’m coming from a perspective of whether I can eat this and how people with other limitations might enjoy it. So there’s always comments in my recipes about how to make something gluten-free or how to make it dairy-free or if you’re vegan maybe you want to do this other thing. I try to make it as accessible as possible. I try to keep all of my recipes simple, accessible. And in most cases you probably already have 75 percent of the ingredients lying around your house. The truth is, the simpler the recipe, the simpler the ingredients — in my opinion — the better the meal is. The more we connect with those ingredients and the closer we are to Mother Earth and what Earth is giving us.”

Oracle Deck

A Kitchen Witch’s Culinary Oracle Deck: Gain Daily Insight and Bring Magic to Your Meals with Everyday Ingredients is available through the Cucina Aurora website, or where books are sold, and costs $24.95.

There will be a launch party for the deck at Moon River Wellness Center (17 Windham Road, Pelham, 635-8938, moonriverwellnesscenter.com) Sunday, Feb. 23, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is free.

Featured photo: Dawn Aurora Hunt. Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 25/02/20

News from the local food scene

By John Fladd

[email protected]

• New coffee shop: Two Moons Coffee and Curiosities has opened in South of the 6 Salon (155 Dow St., No. 102, Manchester, 782-7198, southofthe6.com). Described on the South of the 6 website as having a “spooky-vintage-bookstore vibe,” it serves coffees, teas, smoothies and baked-in-house pastries. Open Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

• Food donations and beer: To Share Brewing (720 Union St., Manchester, 836-6947, tosharebrewing.com) will host a food drive to benefit the New Hampshire Food Bank (nhfoodbank.org) Saturday, Feb. 22, beginning at 5 p.m. Bring a donation and get a chance to spin To Share’s Prize Wheel for a chance to win awesome prizes.

• Worldly wines: Wine on Main (9 N. Main St., Concord, 897-5828, wineonmainnh.com) will host a free wine tasting with Tom from Pearl Lake on Saturday, Feb. 22, between 1 and 4 p.m. Taste four wines from around the world. The store is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. as well.

• Irish and delicious: Peddler’s Daughter (48 Main St., Nashua, 821-7535, thepeddlersdaughter.com) will host its Annual Guinness Dinner Wednesday, Feb. 26, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. There will be four beers, four courses and endless fun conducted by “Cicerone” Michael Reardon, New England Guinness Ambassador, with special guest speaker Malcolm Patterson from Diageo Guinness USA. Tickets are $65 each through eventbrite.com.

• Tea in history: Register now for a special tea lecture. The Cozy Tea Cart (104A Route 13, Brookline, 249-9111, thecozyteacart.com) will host a discussion on “The Social Impact of Tea in Our History,” beginning with the discovery of tea and the spread of tea throughout Europe, the tea trade with China and the Opium Wars, its impact on the U.S., and the First World War. Throughout the presentation, enjoy sipping teas from the major tea-producing countries. The lecture will take place Thursday, March 20, from 5 to 6:30 p.m., but registration is required at least two weeks in advance. Tickets are $30 per person through the Cozy Tea Cart website.

Drinks with John Fladd

Trinidad Sour

It’s easy to fall into a rut.

Ruts are comforting. They provide predictability and structure in a chaotic world with too many unwelcome surprises.

So it’s easy — for me, at any rate — to fall back on simple utility cocktails, made from three ingredients; four if you count ice. Some sort of spirit, something sour, and something sweet — this is the basic structure of a daiquiri, a gimlet, a margarita or a sour.

But a rut — no matter how comforting — can close you off from new possibilities. In this case, the mind-expanding novelty is using Angostura bitters as the main alcohol. Normally bitters are used — extremely sparingly — bring a bitter flavor to help balance out an otherwise sweet drink. Most of them, though, are suspended in a base that averages around 45 percent alcohol, or 90 proof. So, there is no reason why you couldn’t drink them in more substantial amounts.

1½ ounces Angostura bitters – you will probably want to use a knife to pry off the plastic cap that limits you to a dash of bitters at a time, or you’ll spend the next 15 minutes shaking your wrist to fill a jigger

½ ounce rye whiskey

¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice

1 ounce orgeat – this is a sweet almond syrup, usually used in tropical drink; here it is used to balance out the bitter herbiness from the bitters

Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.

Shake it. At this point, you know how to do this.

Strain into a coupé or Nick & Nora glass.

Ask your digital assistant to play “Pressure Drop” by Toots and the Maytals.

Spend the next two and a half cocktails trying to identify what it is you’re tasting.

Probably the least useful word to describe this particular drink is “delicious.” It is actually delicious in fact — that’s not the issue. There’s a sweet, sherry-like, almost raisiny flavor that isn’t actually all that much like raisins or sherry. There’s a sweetness in the front end, but a bitter aftertaste that is nothing like dark chocolate or anything else you would call “bittersweet.” There are herbal notes from the Angostura — but not mint or rosemary, or any herb that you’re probably familiar with. You can try reading the label, but the Angostura Co. has kept their ingredients secret for over 200 years with the kind of secrecy usually reserved for nuclear codes.

So what are we left with?

Bittersweet fruitiness with herbs and the tiniest bit of rye in the background. This is the kind of cocktail you would drink with — OK, I don’t know what the day-to-day life of a monastic abbot is, but if he gets any vacation time and were to take a holiday in the Caribbean, this is what he would drink, wearing sandals, and a tropical shirt covered with pictures of little monks on it.

He would have checked into the hotel under the name Costello — a tiny, private joke that would make him smile to himself. The staff would greet him with fondness, and he would greet them by name in return.

At the bar by the pool, the bar manager would tap the young woman on duty on the shoulder and send her to wait on other customers, while he would mix this cocktail without needing to be told.

“Long flight?” he’d ask the abbot. “You look like you could use this.”

“Bless you, Leo,” the abbot would say, with a look of relieved fondness on his face. “You, sir, are a saint.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Leo would say.

What’s your food story?

Project looks at relationships to what we eat

By John Fladd

[email protected]

Shanta Lee knows that you have a fascinating story about food, and she wants to hear it.

“We all are connected as humans to food,” she said. “Whether or not we want to walk across that bridge, whether or not it’s something either warm and cozy for us, or painful and uncomfortable, we all have a connection and a relationship to food.”

Lee is an artist, oral historian, photographer and poet. Her current project is called Food Stories: We Are What We Eat. She is gathering stories from people from different backgrounds that tell something specific about their relationships with food.

“It’s a discussion between food, memory, identity and our stories,” she said. “And the main goal is to get people thinking about ‘How do these things intersect?’ It’s all the different ranges and ways that we are connected to food — not just personal stories either, but also individuals who work in food industries, people who work with food sustainability, people who work with food insecurity, ordinary people who recall why they really can’t stand a certain kind of food.”

Ultimately, Lee said, these stories will culminate in an exhibition.

“Those stories, those vignettes, those visuals, those are all going to be within an exhibition that’s happening at some point in the fall this year in Manchester,” she said. “I’m still looking for a place. At some point soon, I’ll be putting out a call to artists, and inviting them to contribute to this exhibition as well, if they have their own pieces that they want to be a part of this exhibition about food.”

One of the parts of Lee’s project that excites her is a book that will tie in with the exhibition.

“When the exhibition takes place,” she said, “There will be a booklet, what you might traditionally call an exhibition catalog, and some of the stories will be in there. There might be some of the questions that I use to help prompt the writers who contributed the stories, so that maybe people can continue talking about the food stories, and still engage with the project.”

Some of the early stories she has received have been engrossing, Lee said.

“There is a story I just got from a person named Taffi: ‘One afternoon I was washing chicken feet and cleaning gizzards before putting them in the freezer. Each pair of chicken feet seemed to be speaking to me. I loved the unusual textures and colors of both chicken feet and the skins of gizzards, so I ran for my camera. I took pictures of various arrangements. For years, I’ve been concerned about the food I eat. I grow and put up most of what I eat. I buy my meat from farmers I know.’”

“So, Lee observed, “it’s talking about this deep relation to food and also the relationship to this specific kind of food.”

Another story came from a novice cook who was deeply determined to bake lasagna but got distracted by a video game and burned it to cinders.

“It was a funny story,” Lee said, “because we’ve all been there. We try so hard, we toil on it, on the dish, and then it burns. Again, whether it’s a bridge that brings together or a bridge that involves some kind of reaction to [a shared experience], there’s always a story with it and you don’t need much when it comes to involving or including food.”

Lee will collect stories for the next three or four months.

“I’m going to wrap up collecting stories by early June,” she said, “so I can prepare for the exhibition in the fall. People will be able to submit their stories to me through my website, ShantaLee.com, but I also have a Facebook page called Food Stories. People can DM me there, if they want. Ballot boxes will be showing up in different places in Manchester, so if people are so inclined to put pen to paper, they could do that.”

Ultimately, Lee said, this project is about the way food brings people together. “There’s a whole range of what attracts us to or detracts us from food,” she said, “but it’s also a social and cultural lubricant. There’s a reason we have the phrase, ‘breaking bread together.’”

Food Stories
To find out more about the Food Stories project and Shanta Lee’s partners in the project, visit shantalee.com/foodstories, her “Food Stories” Facebook page, or instagram.com/mz.shanta_lee.

Featured photo: Shanta Lee. Courtesy photo.

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