Category: Q&A

In the kitchen with Bradley Labarre

Bradley Labarre of Manchester is the new executive chef and program manager of the Recipe for Success culinary job training program at the New Hampshire Food Bank (700 E. Industrial Park Drive, Manchester, 669-9725, nhfoodbank.org), having assumed the role in early January. The free eight-week program helps people suffering financial hardships gain work in the food service industry in the state — students learn various skills such as nutrition, proper use of kitchen instruments and equipment, safe food handling and meal presentation. Labarre’s role with the Food Bank also involves coordinating food donations and managing its regular inventory of products, and he’s currently working on getting the Recipe for Success program accredited through the American Culinary Federation. A Queen City native, he’s been involved with the Food Bank as a volunteer for more than eight years, including as a participant in its annual Steel Chef Challenge.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

A very sharp knife.

What would you have for your last meal?

A perfect bowl of mushroom risotto, topped with an unctuous slab of nicely seared foie gras. … Of course, it would have to be followed by something sweet, so perhaps a nice slice of wild blueberry cheesecake or Blake’s brand Moose Tracks ice cream.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

At the top of my list right now is Greenleaf in Milford, with chef Chris Viaud. They are totally killing it over there. Every time we go there, our heads are exploding. … We love that place, and we love Chris too. He’s a super, super nice guy.

What celebrity would you like to cook for?

[Chefs] Alice Waters, Peter Hoffman or Dan Barber. I’ve been inspired by their farm-to-fork approach with food for years. … Cooking for any one of them would not only be an honor, but it would teach me so much about my deep-seated approach to cooking.

What is your favorite thing that you’ve ever cooked for the NH Food Bank?

One that really sticks out to me was the first meal we ever made for the Steel Chef challenge back in 2016, which was a beef tenderloin. Although it wasn’t the most difficult thing I ever made, it was one of the most memorable. Not only did I get to do this with my then future wife and a few friends, but this plate of food made such a difference in so many people’s lives.

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

Plant-based cooking. I’m noticing that more and more chefs are focusing more of their energy on plant-based foods made with care.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

Anything in my outdoor wood-fired oven. Specifically, though, I love a crisp, airy pizza topped with a few slices of fresh mozzarella, some spicy arugula and thinly sliced prosciutto. You can’t beat it. … [The oven] is handmade in Portugal and it weighs 1,300 pounds. I actually had to have a crane put it in my yard.

Wild mushroom risotto
From the kitchen of Executive Chef Bradley Labarre of the New Hampshire Food Bank

1 pound wild mushrooms
8 Tablespoons butter
2 small shallots, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 fresh thyme sprigs
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
¾ cup dry white wine
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
5 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1½ cups arborio rice
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Fresh parsley, minced (optional)

Warm broth over low heat in a small saucepan. In a heavy skillet, melt half of the butter over medium heat. Add mushrooms and shallots and saute until tender, about eight minutes. Add garlic, thyme sprigs, salt and pepper and stir for an additional minute. Remove mushroom mixture from pan and set aside. Add remaining butter to pan over medium heat. Once melted, add rice and stir until rice begins to look translucent. Add dry white wine and lemon juice and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly until the liquid is absorbed. Add mushroom stock or one cup of vegetable broth and stir until almost all of the broth is absorbed. Continue adding the broth one cup at a time and stir until the liquid is almost absorbed. Add mushroom mixture into the rice and stir to combine. Gently stir in the heavy cream and Parmesan cheese and cook for an additional five minutes on low heat. Transfer risotto to a serving bowl and top with freshly ground pepper, shaved Parmesan and fresh parsley if desired.

Featured photo: Bradley Labarre. Photo by Bruce Luetters of 3Sixty Photography.

On The Job – Bill Butts

Bill Butts

Client relations, commercial landscape and snow maintenance

Bill Butts is the vice president of client relations and sales at Outdoor Pride, a landscape and snow management company headquartered in Manchester that serves commercial clients throughout New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Explain your job and what it entails.

My job is to work with our clients and connect with them to make sure they understand the appreciation we have for their partnership. … I also oversee new business development and sales for our company, and I help our business developers and account managers to procure new work and add work to existing contracts.

How long have you had this job?

This is my 35th year working in sales … and my whole career has been [sales in] commercial landscape and snow management. This is my fourth year working at Outdoor Pride.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

Where I grew up, there was a golf course that was down the street from our property … and they gave me a chance to work there part-time. … That’s when I started to appreciate grounds and the maintenance of grounds, and I just kind of stayed with it.

What kind of education or training did you need?

I studied business management in college and really felt like my hands-on knowledge [from working at] the golf course and my business knowledge from college was a good combination to stay in the landscaping industry. … There’s a lot of hands-on training that goes with this industry … that you get not from school, but just from being around and in the outdoors.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

I try to match my clients’ dress, and, over the years, my clients have started to put away the sport coat and tie and go more casual, like khakis and a polo. … It also has to be something that’s comfortable and allows us to do our job, which a lot of times [involves] having to walk around the properties on hot summer days or be out in the winter during a snow event.

How has your job changed over the course of the pandemic?

I’ve always been a face-to-face, handshake person, and the pandemic took that physical presentation piece away for a bit. It seems to be coming back now, but for a couple of years we were entirely remote. … That’s difficult in my business, because a lot of what I’m selling is trust and confidence, so not being able to … deliver my company pitch face-to-face may leave a little bit of a gap.

What do you wish you’d known at the beginning of your career?

I wish I knew the [large] number of opportunities this industry has to offer. … I don’t think I really knew, when I started my career, that I could be what I am today. … That might have given me a little bit of a different perspective.

What do you wish other people knew about your job?

A lot of people see me as someone who plays a lot of golf and has a lot of free time, but that piece of the business — the networking — is what I consider to be one of my strengths. It’s the ability to talk to somebody in a non-work setting and learn about their business and their needs and wants and how you can provide for them. … Also, I still have to get my [office] work done, so spending that casual time with clients during [the work day] means I have to work a lot of long hours

What was the first job you ever had?

Working at the golf course, raking sand traps. I would get a dollar a trap.

What’s the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received?

Treat your customers and your employees like family, and you’ll never really have any issues with growing your business or growing your team.

Five favorites

Favorite book: The Dynasty by Jeff Benedict
Favorite movie: Lone Survivor
Favorite music:  I lean toward country.
Favorite food: Marinated steak tips
Favorite thing about NH: The people are laid back.

Featured photo: Bill Butts. Courtesy photo.

Weekend scientist

Meet Aspire Intern Vick Mahindru

Over the last five months, Manchester High School West sophomore Vick Mahindru has had the unique opportunity of working with staff at the SEE Science Center in Manchester to develop and test the museum’s hands-on STEM exhibits. The Aspire Internship, offered at SEE in partnership with Sunrise Labs, a medical device engineering company in Bedford, is awarded each year to a local student of color who is interested in pursuing a career in science or education.

How did you discover this internship, and what made you want to apply for it?

What made me apply for this internship was that I always wanted to learn more about engineering, since it is one of my career interests, and evaluate and design different prototypes and then see the finished product at the end. I became aware of the internship [through] another opportunity, the Health Career Quest weekly class. In that class, every week [the organizers] would bring in guests to the meetings who were [in] health-, medical- and science-related [fields]. One day the guests were [from] the SEE Science Center, and they were telling us about their engineering feats such as the iBOT electric wheelchair, which interested me a lot in applying for this internship. I then officially wrote my cover letter and resume and submitted it and made sure to explain what this internship in particular meant to me.

What does it involve? What kinds of things do you do when you’re at the museum?

This internship involves learning about engineering, working with kids [and] collaborating with others…. The kinds of things I do when I’m at the museum are: I get to collaborate with the exhibit team and outside contractors to create exhibit prototypes; help to design evaluation tools … such as prototypes for Social Science Research [an academic journal]; and conduct research for exhibit topics such as the Amoskeag Mills.

Do you have any ideas about what you would like to study or pursue as a career in the future?
Yes, after my experience at this internship [and] with multiple extracurricular [activities], I am trying to narrow it down, [based on] my interests and skills, to a couple of career fields, such as engineering, medical, software engineering, orthodontics, real estate, nanotechnology engineering, Lego design, [a field that’s] music-related and the CIA.

What are some skills you’re learning at the museum that you think could be applicable to your future education and career?

I am learning in this internship … [about] how to build and test prototypes; resume-building; collaborating with others; workflow pacing [and] time management; and [how] to help design evaluation tools for social science research.


What is your favorite part of doing this internship?

My favorite part of this internship was every week, going on Sundays and working toward my goals, such as learning more about engineering, how to build and test prototypes and how to be more efficient and productive, and then seeing all those goals come to reality nearing the end of my internship.

What has been the most challenging part?

There weren’t really any challenging parts of this internship besides [having to] work individually on projects I was assigned and then give updates to my supervisor, which I was hesitant [to do] at first, but then [the projects] came out great.

Would you recommend this internship to other students? What kind of student do you think would be a good fit for it?

Yes, I definitely would recommend this internship to other students. The kinds of students that I would think would be a good fit for this internship are students who can give 100 percent commitment and reliability to this internship.

Featured photo: Manchester High School West sophomore Vick Mahindru. Courtesy photo.

In the kitchen with Matt Romano

Matt Romano of Manchester is the owner of Grace’s Kitchen Pizza Truck (find them on Facebook @graceskitchen603), which launched last fall. Named after Romano’s paternal grandmother, a major influence on his life and cooking, Grace’s Kitchen Pizza Truck features a menu of specialty pizzas available in a variety of flavors, as well as other items like hand-breaded chicken tenders, loaded Tater Tots, french fries and fried Oreos. The truck has parked at multiple spots across southern New Hampshire, like J&F Farms in Derry and Over the Moon Farmstead in Pittsfield, as well as in the Merrimack Valley and North Shore areas of Massachusetts. Romano is also booked to appear at several upcoming festivals this spring and summer, including Intown Concord’s annual Market Days Festival this June. Weekly posts on the truck’s whereabouts are updated on its Facebook page. Grace’s Kitchen Pizza Truck is also available to book for private events and parties.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

I would say a ladle. Especially with pizza, a ladle is very important when it comes to spreading on the sauces, and then I also use it for other menu items, whether it’s covering chicken tenders in Buffalo sauce or teriyaki sauce, or covering tater tots in cheese or gravy.

What would you have for your last meal?

My mom’s macaroni pie. It’s a recipe that’s been passed down a couple of generations, starting with my nana, down to my mom, and now I’ve been tweaking it.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

The Crazy Noodle [House] in Londonderry. The food there is awesome, it’s always so fresh, and the service is always great. … I take my niece and nephew there usually about once a month or so, and they love it.

What celebrity would you like to see ordering from your truck?

Jon Favreau. He had that movie, Chef, which revolves around a food truck, and he’s got a great TV show on Netflix too that’s based off of that.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

That would be one of our specialty pizzas, which is called the Mac 10. It’s a spinoff of a fast food favorite with a little bit of a kick. … We do 19-inch round pizzas and we sell them by the slice.

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

I don’t know if it’s just me being new to the market, but it seems like food trucks are on fire this year. … The reason why I got into them was because I love how they give people a chance to really show off their menu to a large crowd in a small area. You go to a food truck festival and you can choose from 20 to 30 different types of food … and each chef is homing in on whatever they want and making it the best that it can possibly be.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I love making my own Greek marinated chicken and making some sort of kebab or healthy salad with it from scratch.

Easy chicken broccoli alfredo casserole
Courtesy of Matt Romano of Grace’s Kitchen Pizza Truck

1 pound chicken breast, cut into one-inch pieces
2 broccoli crowns, chopped
1 pound penne or similar pasta
3 cups alfredo sauce
2 cups ricotta
2 cups mozzarella
¼ cup grated Parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Boil pasta to al dente. Saute chicken in a pan. Combine chicken, pasta, broccoli, alfredo sauce and ricotta in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Add mixture to a casserole dish. Layer mozzarella and then Parmesan on top of the casserole. Bake for 40 minutes or until the top begins to brown.

Featured photo: Matt Romano. Courtesy photo.

On The Job – Lou Saviano

Lou Saviano

Compost collector

Lou Saviano and his fiance, Meagan Boucher, are the owners of Renewal Garden & Compost, a residential compost pick-up business serving the greater Manchester area.

Explain your job.

Primarily, we collect food scraps from households, businesses and events [and] process the food scraps into compost to be used as a soil additive at farms and for gardening. … We [also] offer backyard raised garden builds and vegetable and meat CSA delivery. Our goal is to divert waste from going into landfills and turn it into nutrient-rich soil … to help support local farms.

How long have you had this job?

We started Renewal one year ago.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

I studied environmental science at the University of New Hampshire. When workplaces started to shut down … [and] my place of work quickly switched from an office to remote … I gave the work-from-home a chance, which gave me a lot of time to reflect. … I remembered why I had chosen to study environmental science. I wanted to work outdoors, but here I was, sitting at a computer. I realized I needed a change, and we started talking about starting our own business. … There’s a need for compost pick-up in Manchester and surrounding towns; many people don’t have the space to do it themselves. It all seemed like a natural fit to begin this journey.

What kind of education or training did you need?

Although it wasn’t necessary for starting a compost business, [studying at] UNH did provide a foundation for this passion. I was fortunate enough to work on both the organic and conventional dairy farms. What’s required for starting a business is patience and perseverance. I’ve also obtained my certificate in solid waste management in order to process compost, according to New Hampshire DES rules.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire? 

Wrangler [jeans in] Cowboy Cut, a Renewal T-shirt, good dirt-working boots, Darn Tough socks, a ballcap, sunglasses if it’s hot and a flannel if it’s cold.

What do you wish you’d known at the beginning of your career?

Part of the fun of owning our own business is figuring out how we’re going to solve problems that arise. One thing that has been interesting to troubleshoot is frozen compost in 64-gallon totes. … In extremely cold temperatures, not all of the material can be emptied. At first we tried using hand tools to chip away at the frozen compost but quickly realized it was more efficient to invest in extra containers and switch the frozen ones out for empty ones, then store the frozen containers and wait until a warmer day [to empty them]. [Challenges] like this are what make the job interesting.

What do you wish other people knew about your job? 

Many people have heard about composting but aren’t yet aware that we’ll do the work for them. Our job is to make composting easy for households and businesses. Also, I’d like people to think of food scraps as useful material. If you switch to that mindset, we can divert waste from filling our landfills … and turn it into nutrient-rich material.

What was the first job you ever had?

Market Basket cart collector extraordinaire.

What’s the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received? 

No matter what it is [that you do], choose it.

Five favorites

Favorite book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Favorite movie: The Fighter 
Favorite music:  Country, [especially] Toby Keith
Favorite food: Lobster
Favorite thing about NH: The outdoors. We’re so fortunate to have a ton of outdoor activity options with the White Mountains, the Atlantic Ocean and so many lakes, ponds and rivers all right here in the state.

Featured photo: Lou Saviano and fiance Meagan Boucher. Courtesy photo.

Care for carers

SNHMC welcomes new chief nurse

Meet Susan Santana, the new vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center in Nashua.

What is your background in health care?

I came from Lowell General Hospital, and I’ve been a nurse for over 30 years in various leadership positions. I have extensive experience driving and improving nursing practice. … I have a lot of experience in the Magnet designation program and the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s program, which is a designation for excellence in patient care, and that has really been the footprint that has driven much of what I’ve done as a leader in nursing. … I would say that, as a leader, I’m compassionate, visible, accessible and approachable. I’m focused on the work environment for nurses and also, more broadly, for all health care workers. My No. 1 professional passion is to create an environment that empowers the voices of the nurses so that they can provide quality care for patients, and to create a culture of teamwork and shared decision-making.

What does your job entail?

I oversee all of the nurses and their practice at Southern New Hampshire Health. I’m visible to the frontline nursing department, and I work collaboratively with the non-clinical departments, as well, with the goal of improving care for our patients [at SNHMC], and patients within our community. I’m involved in driving strategy that makes for a very strong Patient Care Services Division and positioning us to be the best place to work and the best place to practice medicine.

What are some of the biggest challenges in the nursing field right now?

I would say that the biggest challenges are staffing and the impact that the pandemic has had on the health care environment as a whole. There is a shortage of nurses. Many people are deciding to leave health care due to the effects of the pandemic. We’re working very closely on recruitment, retention and growing our workforce. Workforce development and professional development of our employees is of great importance, so we’re making sure that we’re partnering with human resources and posting those positions. … Also, because there aren’t enough nurses, the nurses are often working overtime, and they do get tired, so it’s very important that we support those nurses who are working tirelessly to care for our patients.

What do you hope to accomplish in your role?

To bring pride and excellence to the nursing division, to continue the good work that’s been started by this organization and to create a work environment that is a magnet for people to want to work in. … My vision is to have an engaged workforce that simply enjoys and loves the work that they do, and a workforce that is driven by the outcomes of their patients and in being involved in making a difference by improving the care of the patients.

What do you find rewarding about your work?

Helping to grow our young nurses and to mentor them as young leaders. Seeing that growth is very rewarding, and you don’t see it everywhere. The culture here at [SNHMC] is very special, and the teamwork and commitment of its employees is really second to none, so being in an environment like that is certainly rewarding, as well.

Why should someone consider a career in nursing?

I would say that nursing is one of the most rewarding fields that you can go into. There are endless opportunities as a nurse in this health care environment. There’s nursing inside of health care organizations, nursing in the community, the business side of nursing — there’s something for everyone in the nursing profession.

Featured photo: Susan Santana. Courtesy photo.

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