In the kitchen with Doug Loranger

Doug Loranger of Nashua is the owner of Ranger’s BBQ (rangers-bbq.com, find them on Facebook @rangersbbq17), a food trailer specializing in a variety of styles of barbecue, including North Carolina-style pulled pork and slow cooked Memphis-style ribs. He also offers smoked brisket, pulled chicken and several sides, like homemade macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, cornbread and his smoked baked beans with bacon, which won first place in last year’s New Hampshire Bacon & Beer Festival. A Nashua native, Loranger lived in Texas for more than a decade, working in capital equipment sales, before returning to New Hampshire. After cooking barbecue for a Super Bowl party in 2017, Loranger said the feedback was so positive that it prompted him to begin seeking out potential trailers the following day. Currently you can find Ranger’s BBQ at 324 Daniel Webster Highway in Nashua (near the Tyngsboro, Mass., state line) most Saturdays or Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., unless Loranger is catering for a private event that weekend. Follow him on social media for the most up-to-date information.

What is your must-have kitchen item?
A big spatula to get the brisket out of the smoker easily. I have some custom spatulas from Humphrey’s Smokers out of Maine.

What would you have for your last meal?
Probably a good rib-eye or duck breast.

What is your favorite local restaurant?
Giant of Siam [in Nashua]. I just love how fresh their food is, and their service is excellent.

What celebrity would you like to see ordering from your trailer?
Aaron Franklin, because I’d like his take on my food. He owns Franklin Barbecue down in Austin, Texas. People wait in line for hours to eat at his place. They come from all over the world just to have his barbecue, so it would be neat to get a little bit of feedback from him.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?
My ribs. Both the ribs and the brisket tend to sell out very fast.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?
I don’t know that this is a recent trend, but New England is getting more ethnically diverse in its foods. It’s nice to see more … diverse [options] than when I was growing up.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?
Prime rib, or duck.

Homemade macaroni and cheese
From the kitchen of Doug Loranger of Ranger’s BBQ in Nashua

1 pound macaroni or pasta of choice
½ cup (or one stick) butter
½ cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons pepper
1 quart milk
1 quart shredded cheese of choice (Loranger likes to use a mix of provolone, cheddar, mozzarella and sometimes Gouda)

Melt the butter and mix in the flour to make a roux. Slowly add the milk so it gets warm as you add it. Mix in the salt and pepper. Add the cheese and stir until the mixture achieves a creamy consistency. Boil the pasta to al dente and add the mix to it.

Theater for kids

The Palace brings back live theater with summer series

After suspending its programming for four months, the Palace Theatre reopened its doors on July 7 with Beauty and the Beast, the first show of the 2020 Bank of New Hampshire Children’s Summer Series, which will continue with kid-friendly live theater performances every week through mid-August. Palace Theatre President and CEO Peter Ramsey discussed why the theater decided to move forward with live performances this summer and how Covid-19 has changed the theater-going experience.

What is the 2020 Bank of New Hampshire Children’s Summer Series?

We’ve done it at the Palace for 20 years now, and it’s become very successful. [The shows are] generally performed by college graduates and college students who are seeking theater degrees. … We generally have between six and 12 [shows], so for eight or nine weeks in the summer, we do a different children’s theater title every week. … We have a list of about 25 shows that we choose from, and they’re generally shows that are popular with people and that have a nice message. They’re typical kinds of shows that kids would like, because this is really for the kids. … It’s generally mothers, grandmothers and young children between [the ages of] 3 and 12 who come.

Why did you decide to move forward with the series, amid everything that’s going on with Covid-19?

The governor of New Hampshire and the CDC created guidelines about a month ago that allowed public theaters to open, so we worked with the City of Manchester and the State of New Hampshire to reopen under these guidelines. We had been closed for four months and lost $1.5 million in ticket sales. We had 70 employees, and now we’re down to 15, so we felt very strongly that this was an opportunity to keep some of our employees employed, and to invite the public back in.

How did your reopening week go?

People loved it. The response has been fabulous. [There was] not one complaint. Everyone brought a mask with them to the theater; we’ll offer a mask to anyone who doesn’t have one, but everyone brought one. … The phones have been ringing a lot this week, and people seem very excited about [the upcoming shows].

How has live theater at the Palace changed as a result of Covid-19?

Everything’s different. We are only selling tickets by phone. When a customer walks up to the front door, we greet them, we ask them to put a mask on and we ask them questions, like ‘Have you been sick?’ and ‘Do you have a fever?’ … There’s actually a list of seven questions that the State asks that we ask everyone who comes into the theater. … We’re at 40-percent [capacity], so we have about 350 seats blocked off where people can’t sit. There is six feet between every seat, so if a mom and daughter sit together, there would be six feet between them and anybody else. … The shows are very short they’re 45 minutes and we keep the doors open so we can keep the air going in the theater. … There are no concessions. … We have very strict rules for the ushers; they have to wear a mask, and they can’t touch anybody. … The actors [on stage] are always 25 feet away from the audience, so there’s a lot of room between them. We’ve always had the [Summer Series] actors come out and meet the kids after the shows, which is very popular the kids would wait an hour to meet Cinderella but we canceled that, so there’s no interaction between the audience and the actors this year, which is very important.

How was the cast able to rehearse safely?

They committed that they would behave themselves and be very careful. We tested some of them [for Covid-19], and others had already been quarantined. They all live at home. We know each actor. We’ve known most of them for four or five years through our children’s theater program; these are our young actors who trained with us, then went off to college. Backstage, they stay six feet apart at all times. They are very careful during rehearsals, and they rehearse with masks on. There’s very little interaction.

Did you need to modify the shows in any way to maintain distance between the actors?

Yes. There’s no hugging or kissing nothing like that. They’re very careful about staying separate. There’s no live music; it’s all tracked, so that helps. There are very few props and not a lot of things [for the actors] to touch. We have this beautiful video wall which is 20 feet high and 30 feet wide, and it looks really cool, so, because of that, we don’t need to use a lot of props.

What does the return of live theater do for the community right now?

It helps bring our community back together again. … It’s not normal to stay at home for months. Stress levels are very high. … Going to the theater allows you to smile. It allows you to do something with your child. These are family shows, and I think [families] can feel that it’s safe.

What are the Palace’s other plans moving forward?

We hope to open the Rex Theatre in two weeks and [accommodate] 100 people in there, safely spaced and wearing face masks. We hope to bring Bob Marley he’s a big, famous comedian to the Palace in August, and we hope to open up for our regular theater season in September … with Nunsense.

2020 Bank of New Hampshire Children’s Summer Series
The lineup for the rest of the summer includes The Wizard of Oz on Thursday, July 16; The Little Mermaid Tuesday, July 21 through Thursday, July 23; Aladdin Tuesday, July 28 through Thursday, July 30; Alice in Wonderland Tuesday, Aug. 4 through Thursday, Aug. 6; Peter Pan Tuesday, Aug. 11 through Thursday, Aug. 13; and Cinderella on Tuesday, Aug. 18 and Wednesday, Aug. 19. Showtimes are at 10 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Tickets cost $10. The Palace Theatre is located at 80 Hanover St., Manchester. Call 668-5588 or visit palacetheatre.org.

In the kitchen with Ed Ellis & Kim Ricard

Ed “Monkey” Ellis of Candia and Kim Ricard of Concord are the owners and founders of Monkey Time Bakery (177 Deerfield Road, Candia, 483-0220, find them on Facebook), a gift shop and homestead bakery offering a variety of specialty treats by order, like lemon bars, cinnamon rolls and carrot cakes. Originally from Newark, Delaware, Ellis has been in the Granite State for a decade. The bakery is housed in the front of his Candia home, in the former space of a general store. Requests for special orders are accepted through Monkey Time Bakery’s Facebook page, with pickups by appointment.

What is your must-have kitchen item?
EE: I just got a Bosch Universal Plus mixer that is phenomenal.
KR: My KitchenAid stand mixer. It makes cooking from scratch fast and easy.

What would you have for your last meal?
EE: Lasagna.
KR: Chicken Parmesan, fettuccine alfredo style.

What is your favorite local restaurant?
EE: In Candia, Cello’s [Farmhouse Italian] or Town Cabin [Deli & Pub]. I also like Tuckaway [Tavern & Butchery] in Raymond and Umami [Farm Fresh Cafe] in Northwood.
KR: The [Franklin] Oyster House in Portsmouth, Umami [Farm Fresh Cafe] in Northwood and Cello’s [Farmhouse Italian] in Candia.

What celebrity would you like to see ordering from your bakery?
EE: Puddles the Clown [entertainer and singer Mike Geier] of Puddles Pity Party.
KR: Rachael Ray.

What is your personal favorite thing that you’ve ever baked?
EE: I really like apple dumplings. They are easy and the reward you get with the flavors is phenomenal.
KR: That is a tough one. I would say Texas sheet cake or carrot cake. I love chocolate and the frosting on the Texas sheet cake is divine.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?
KR: Gourmet burgers.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?
EE: Steak tips, either on the grill or broiled.
KR: Pizza, hands down, with [the] crust and sauce made from scratch.

Classic peanut butter cookies
From the kitchen of Ed “Monkey” Ellis and Kim Ricard of Monkey Time Bakery in Candia

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 stick butter, softened
½ cup peanut butter, any kind
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter, sugar and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Beat egg and add to butter mixture. Mix in vanilla extract. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. Slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture until just combined. Grease a cookie sheet with butter or line with parchment paper. Roll dough into balls, about a tablespoon each, and place on the cookie sheet. You should be able to get a dozen cookies onto one cookie sheet. With a fork that’s been dipped in flour, gently press on the cookies and make a crisscross pattern. Bake cookies for eight to 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and let cool.

Educational equity

Derry teacher earns sabbatical for Promoting Just Schools

The New Hampshire Charitable Foundation has awarded its 2020 Christa McAuliffe Sabbatical to Misty Crompton, a social studies teacher at West Running Brook Middle School in Derry. The sabbatical gives a New Hampshire teacher a year off with pay and a budget to work on a project focused on improving education in the state. Crompton discussed her project, Promoting Just Schools, and the need for educational equity.

What’s your background in education and equity work in schools?

I’m a Grade 7 social studies teacher in Derry. I’ve been a teacher there for 20 years. I’ve been on the executive board of my education association in Derry for over a decade. I belong to an organization called Leaders for Just Schools, and to a New Hampshire Human Civil Rights Committee. I also recently [became] an advisor with the nonprofit group Rise of Peace. I work with these organizations as well as my local school district right now in this equity work.

Why did you apply for the sabbatical?

It was the Just Schools program that really motivated and inspired me to [apply] for the sabbatical. … My heart was really invested in doing this work, but my realities made it difficult to dive in the way I wanted to. There are a lot of time commitments that come with my career, and I’m very busy with a million committees and clubs and volunteer organizations. … I’m also a mom of two active boys, an 11-year-old who has autism and an 8-year-old.

Why did you decide to focus your work on Just Schools and equity in schools?

I was asked to go to San Diego last summer for the Just Schools program. There were 100 educators there for four days, examining issues of equity and racial and social justice, and it was incredibly powerful and emotional. … So much fear and frustration had set in [because of] these huge divisions in our country right now, and we were all motivated by the fact that we didn’t want our students to feel hopeless about their future. … Education is complex and affects and influences many areas of our society. We have a great deal of power in education, and I feel like now is as good a time as ever to use our power as educators [to create] a more just and equitable society.

What’s on your sabbatical to-do list?

I’ll be working with my social studies department this summer … to examine the curriculum and see if there’s anything we can do to make it more inclusive, maybe a little less Eurocentric, and make sure we’re truly representing a diverse spectrum of people. … The pedagogy is important, but I think forming relationships with students and finding out [how] they feel … is a really simple and honest way to get started, so I’m also working with the Human Civil Rights Committee to collect student voices about whether or not they think school is a place where people are treated fairly and equally. … I’ll be working with my school and district [on] an opportunity audit … to make sure [our] schools are concerned with equity, growth and social justice and are really modeling that in their own policies and interactions. … [It’s] a really awesome opportunity to have meaningful conversations about … restorative practices, how we discipline students, how we view justice, and how we can better represent a diverse spectrum of people. … I’ll be working with educators, examining personal policy management and practices to help them better understand the impact of equity and bias, while learning it myself at the same time. … I’ll also be building a website and blog to guide educators to some specific resources … on how to examine equity in their field.

Why is this work something that’s needed now, and in New Hampshire?

We’re not exempt from this work. … We do have diversity in New Hampshire, and we definitely have some systemic issues that need to be examined. … We’ve seen things evolve with equity in special education over the years … but when it comes to certain other obstacles that are more socially related … there are still some issues of equity. … We have to show some commitment to change, to examine the status quo, and to admit some groups still have a vast amount of privilege over other groups. As difficult as this conversation can be, it’s an important one. … I feel like people are getting a little more serious about tackling that work right now. The conversation is ripe.

What sustainable changes do you hope to see in the school system after your sabbatical is over?

I would love to see a commitment to equity work become self-sustaining and contagious in society … and I want to push and swing the pendulum toward that as much as I can during the sabbatical. … For me, it’s not about any one specific [goal]; it’s about sparking a movement and getting back to reexamining priorities within our schools that have been shuffled aside over the years. … We can’t keep pretending schools are a place where you walk in, get your basic skills served up, take a standardized test and go home. I think we all know the realities of school and the impact it has on our lives and personal development is greater than that. … There are people in New Hampshire who would … feel a real sense of hope knowing educators are committed to understanding [what these] equity issues are … and my hope is teachers will take action, and students will really know and believe their schools are advocating for them.

Helping families cope

A funeral director talks about the impact of Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic put funeral homes in a unique predicament; while the increased number of deaths in the state led to an increased demand for end-of-life services, emergency orders from the governor significantly limited the services that the funeral homes could provide. Buddy Phaneuf, fourth-generation funeral director and president of Phaneuf Funeral Homes & Crematorium, which has five locations throughout New Hampshire and Vermont, discussed how funeral homes and families of deceased have been getting through the pandemic, and how funeral arrangements will be handled moving forward.

What restrictions were put on funeral homes during the state’s Stay-at-Home Order?

We were considered an essential business, so we were never legally mandated to close. … The original restrictions imposed by the state up until Monday [June 15] were that gatherings or services at funeral homes had to have under 10 people. We were also affected by restrictions on churches — a lot of them were closed and not allowing services — and cemeteries, which, at one point, only allowed two people to gather close to a grave.

What restrictions are in place now that the Stay-at-Home Order has been lifted?

The governor is limiting funeral homes to [using] 50 percent of their capacity, but we’re still not comfortable having that [many people]. Our main location in Manchester can accommodate 400 people. That means we are still allowed to have as many as 200 people there, and you just can’t effectively [enforce] social distance with 200 people. We’re doing everything on a case-by-case basis right now based on what makes the most practical sense for us. … We’re also doing all the common-sense stuff: social distancing, wearing masks, providing hand sanitizer, cleaning public rooms multiple times a day, using signage and multiple entrances and exits to manage the flow [of visitors].

What are some of the biggest challenges funeral homes have had to face during the pandemic?

Nearly a third of New Hampshire’s Covid-positive patients [who died] came through one of our facilities. Dealing with an extra 40 to 50 deaths a month is significant, plus all of the mixed messages we were getting from state, national and international [health organizations] about how Covid is spread. Can you get Covid from a deceased body? Can you have an open casket [service] for a deceased Covid patient? Some [health organizations] were saying one thing, and others were saying something else. … Another thing is that our staff has been on the frontlines [of the pandemic]. … They’ve had to go to homes where a person may have died of Covid, and the family members in those homes could potentially have Covid. We didn’t always have all of the PPEs [personal protective equipment] … so funeral home staff really put their neck on the line.

How has the pandemic impacted funeral homes, business-wise?

Funeral homes aren’t unique; they’ve been just as impacted by this pandemic as restaurants and retail shops and so many other businesses [have]. … We’ve lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue. … Even though we’ve been serving more families, the families are downgrading their services. Instead of a traditional funeral, they’re doing a cremation. Instead of having a wake, they’re just going to the cemetery. The flowers, the limos, the processions people aren’t doing that right now, and funeral homes rely on that to pay their basic expenses. … The reality is, a lot of the smaller mom-and-pop funeral homes have not been able to cover their expenses, and they will have to close.

How have families been handling funeral arrangements during the pandemic?

It runs the gamut. Some people want to have the big public service at a church with a big wake and a luncheon, so they’ve decided to wait a few months until they can have that. Other people didn’t want to delay things or drag things on for months. They said, ‘It is what it is, and we need to deal with it,’ and they had a small, private service. Some people decided to do a private service now and are planning to do a more public, celebration-of-life event later on.

Have you been able to accommodate families with special requests or unique circumstances during this time?

[We have been] thinking outside the box and coming up with some really interesting and creative ideas. … In one case, we had an open casket for a young person who passed away, and there were 200 people here. Of course, we couldn’t let 200 people in, so we let 10 people in at a time, and it was a whole-day event, but that was what we needed to do to help [the deceased’s] family and friends grieve and say goodbye. … We also have a camera in our chapel, so we’ve been able to do some livestream services. Families can either just watch the service or … we can set them up on Zoom. We actually did that for an immigrant family who wanted to have an overnight vigil because that’s part of their customs and traditions, but of course everyone couldn’t spend the night together, and a lot of family members were still in their native country, so we set up a camera in front of the casket with a Zoom [session]. Around 50 or 60 family members signed in over the course of the evening.

Justice for all

Thompson organizes Black Lives Matter Nashua

As the racial justice organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, Jordan Thompson has done a variety of advocacy work, been involved with political campaigns and supported the efforts of other individuals and groups fighting for racial justice throughout the state. The nationwide invigoration and growth of the Black Lives Matter movement following the May 25 killing of George Floyd prompted Thompson to organize Black Lives Matter Nashua. He discussed the group’s mission and the need for more racial justice work in New Hampshire.

Why did you pursue a career in racial justice work?

It’s always been very personal for me. … My family has been deeply involved in politics. … Growing up in the foster care system showed me there’s a real need for the centering of social services. There’s a need to address a lot of disparities in our health care system. Child welfare reform is a major issue that we need to address. After I aged out of the foster care system at 18, I started working with a nonprofit called the National Foster Youth Institute in Washington, D.C. … We wanted to tackle federal legislation to address [child welfare] issues, but also challenged folks to go back to their home states and be the change they wanted to see at a local and state level. Immediately after I came back from Washington, D.C., I decided that I wanted to run for office. I ran twice in New Hampshire, first for moderator, then for the state House, unfortunately losing both times. I lost my primary for the state House by 30 votes; it was a very close race. I had decided that public service is what I wanted to do. I wanted to amplify the efforts and voices of young people of color in New Hampshire.

How did Black Lives Matter Nashua begin?

Of course, I was very saddened by the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. I had worked with Black Lives Matter Manchester, which is a really incredible group … and I felt inspired by that. I knew there were groups in Nashua that wanted to be more engaged in this work. … We formed … in response to the growing need to address racial justice in New Hampshire, specifically in the southern tier. We organized a vigil and protest … and had a really good attendance of over 1,200 people.

What is [its] ongoing mission?

We’ll be continuing … to rethink the role of law enforcement in our communities, to address a list of demands that we intend to present to our congressional delegation in our state and local leadership, and to provide a space for black and brown people to survive and thrive in their communities. We [plan to meet] with members of law enforcement so they can hear from youth that are impacted by these issues; having town halls with our local, state and federal delegations; and trying to lay out clear demands for policy reforms, then holding elected officials accountable to those demands once they’ve been agreed to. … We’re also working with the Greater Nashua NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] and Black Lives Matter Manchester … [and] supporting protests and vigils that have popped up in the area and surrounding towns like Merrimack and Londonderry.

How did Black Lives Matter Nashua’s first vigil and protest go?

It went really well. We had a few agitators at the very beginning, but other than that, it was very peaceful. We had an incredible program of speakers [who delivered] inspiring messages. … I’m grateful that we continue to set the standard here in New Hampshire that our protests and demonstrations are peaceful and provide an opportunity for lasting change.

What measures are you taking to ensure safety at these gatherings?

We’re continuing to coordinate with local law enforcement to make them aware of the presence of agitators before they have the opportunity to agitate, and we’re trying to follow a lot of the guidelines that have been set in relation to the pandemic, making sure that folks wear masks and that people are adhering to social distancing.

What are some of the biggest issues affecting people of color in New Hampshire right now?

We suffer from the same issues that black communities face nationwide. There is a lack of access to opportunities, housing [and] quality and accessible education. … Representation is another big one. We do not have representation in local , and because we have such a small demographic of black and brown people in New Hampshire, we really need an entity that is going to be effective in getting our voices heard. … Thankfully, Nashua’s law enforcement has a good working relationship with our members.

How can people get involved?

Attend a protest. Call your representatives with a clear set of demands, and then hold them accountable. … We’re constantly posting content on social media to engage people … who want to call their senators, state representatives and Governor Sununu. We have graphics with very specific action items to give people a script and dialogue to follow. … These are going to be difficult conversations. … Learn how to listen. Realize that you may be coming into this very ignorant, and that’s OK. There’s no such thing as a perfect ally. There’s no such thing as someone who knows every single thing that there is to know about these issues. We’re all learning together. — Angie Sykeny

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