The Weekly Dish 23/08/31

News from the local food scene

• Try gourmet kettle popcorn and handmade wine: Visit Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline) between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 1, and Saturday, Sept. 2, for gourmet popcorn paired with handcrafted wine. From mango maple moscato, strawberry zinfandel and black currant wine to sweet caramel and brown sugar and garlic pepper and rosemary popcorn, there is a combination for everyone. Tickets start at $20 and can be purchased through eventbrite.

• Bourbon, wine, golf: Stonebridge Country Club in Goffstown (161 Gorham Pond Road) hosts Bourbon, Wine & Nine on Friday, Sept. 8, from 2 to 9 p.m. Sample wines, bourbons and scotches and enjoy food from Drumlins Restaurant. Festivities include a nine-hole scramble tournament, a putting contest, live music and chances to raise funds for The Liberty House Charity for Veterans and win prizes. Golf registration starts at 2 p.m. and tee-off is at 3 p.m. The tasting tent opens at 5 p.m. Tickets range from $25 to $60 and can be purchased via eventbrite.

• Meet Austrian winemaker and try his wines: Stop by Wine on Main (9 N. Main St., Concord) on Friday, Sept. 8, between 5 and 7 p.m. to meet Austrian winemaker Paul Direder and try his wines.

• Launch party for Botanica #9: Enjoy brunch, gin cocktails, music, a flower steam bar and more at Manchester Distillery’s (284 Manchester St., Manchester) Gin & Jam launch party for Botanica #9. The free event will be held on Saturday, Sept. 9, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. with an official toasting at 9 a.m.

• Medium reading and wine tasting: Psychic medium Jessica Moseley will hold a group medium reading at Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline) on Saturday, Sept. 9, from 6 to 8 p.m. Guests 21 and older will be offered a complimentary wine tasting flight of four vintages or a single glass of wine. Tickets are $45 and can be purchased on exploretock.com.

• Hampton Beach Seafood Fest: Don’t miss the 34th Hampton Beach Seafood Festival from Friday, Sept. 8, through Sunday, Sept. 10. More than 50 local food vendors and 70 local artisans will be displaying and selling their products, such as home decor, honey and hot sauce. More than 15 performances will take place over the course of the weekend on two stages, featuring The Great Escape, Maddi Ryan, Being Petty and Brandy Band among others. Festival events include a cornhole tournament, a 5K, a lobster roll eating contest, live culinary demonstrations, a mini air show, an art gallery and auction, and fireworks. Tickets are $10 per day. Visit seafoodfestivalmh.com.

Treasure Hunt 23/08/31

Hello, Donna —

I’m trying to get any information that you may know about this rocker. I’m not positive what century it’s from but I was told 19th by my mum. — Melanie

Dear Melanie,

Your rocker is called a stick-style rocker. The age your mom gave you is correct. It’s from the late 1800s to early 1900s, the late Victorian Era. It appears to be in original condition and in good shape for the age.

The values are tough. Antique rockers are not in high demand in this generation. The value should be in the range of $50. — Donna

Hydrangeas: You always win

Choose the variety that works best for your garden

Unlike the games of chance at our local fair, you always win when you buy a hydrangea. They generally bloom their fool heads off every year, even if you have poor soil and a poor track record in the garden. When I was a boy I noticed that every cemetery had hydrangeas, so I called them cemetery bushes (my parents knew few names of plants). Now is the time they are blooming, so it is time to go to your local, family-owned garden center and buy one — or more than one.

If you want a tall plant with instant curb appeal, buy what is called a hydrangea “standard.” A standard is a shrub that has been grafted onto a tall stem, usually about 5 feet tall. Hydrangeas start out low and often wide, but if you get a standard, you get something that looks a bit like a lollipop — or an instant small tree.

I have six different hydrangeas, each differing in bloom time, color, size of blossom and shape of blossom. Two of mine are standards and are about 25 years old. Each is 15 to 20 feet tall and wide.

The first standard I planted is what’s called a “PeeGee” hydrangea. PeeGee is shortened from the Latin name, Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora (which means large flower head). This is the classic cemetery plant, one that has been around since it was imported from Japan in 1862.

My PeeGee hydrangea has blossoms of various sizes, from 5 inches across to 8 inches or more across. Most blossoms are roughly globular, but some are a bit elongated, especially toward the top of the plant. The panicles are a mixture of fertile and showy infertile florets. The blossoms start out a green-tinged white, transforming to white, then pinkish and finally brown after frost. If you pick the blossoms before frost and put them in a dry vase, they will stay looking pinkish all winter and beyond.

I love my “Pink Diamond” hydrangea; it is also a H. paniculata grandiflora, and lives up to its name even better than a PeeGee. Its uppermost flower panicles can reach 12 inches long and 8 inches wide. The woody stems are thicker and stronger than on most hydrangeas, so they do not flop the way some others do when wet from rain. The pink panicles are a delight to behold.

There is one native hydrangea, called smooth hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens). It stays small, only 3 to 6 feet tall and wide. It does well in partial shade but is intolerant of dry soils. It will tolerate full sun only if the soil stays moist. ‘Annabelle’ is commonly sold in the nursery trade but I can’t imagine why. Yes, it does have huge panicles, but it has flimsy stems so the panicles droop or flop onto the ground.

According to the Mt. Cuba research station, the best hydrangea for pollinators is the smooth hydrangea called ‘Haas Halo,’ a native one. I planted several for a client one fall and they were immediately consumed by deer. But they came back the following spring and I surrounded them with wire fencing to keep the deer away. In Year 3 they are blooming nicely. The center of each flat flower head is full of small, fertile flowers surrounded by larger white flat, infertile florets.

Another favorite of mine is called ‘Quick Fire.’ Now in Year 5 for me, it is a shrub about 4 feet tall and wide; it is loaded with 4- to 5-inch flower heads. It opens greenish white, then turns white, then pink. The pink color comes on earlier than most others, hence the name. What I like about it is that it keeps a nice mix of white and pink panicles. I am now pruning it yearly to keep it at its current size. It blooms on new wood, so I won’t lose any blossoms if I prune it now or even in the early spring.

Many New England gardeners would like to be able to grow blue hydrangeas, so they buy them and find they really only perform well for one year. A variety called ‘Endless Summer’ came out in the ’90s with much fanfare, claiming it would do as well here as it does in the mid-Atlantic region. But it didn’t do well. Most buds are set the year before, and winter tends to kill them.

Readers often write me asking how to get the numerous blue panicles in years 2, 3 and beyond. I tell them to treat them as expensive annuals. Dig them up and throw them on the compost if they don’t succeed. Instead of Endless Summer, I call them Endless Disappointment. There are now other blue hydrangeas sold, and some may be OK for our climate.

My favorite hydrangea is the climbing hydrangea, H. anomola subspecies petiolaris. Climbing hydrangea is usually sold as a small vine in a one-gallon pot. It takes a long time to get to blooming size — often five or six years. Then it takes off and grows rapidly. The great thing about this vine is that it will bloom in full shade — I have it on the north side of my barn. It will attach to stone or brick surfaces but not wood, though it can climb trees. As it started growing it up my barn I attached it to the barn with a special plastic chain designed for staking young trees. Then later it grew through cracks in the boards and now needs no support — and usually blooms inside my barn! Like all hydrangeas, its flowers stay on and look interesting most of the winter.

So if you like the look of hydrangeas, go get one. I think most are wonderful.

You may email Henry at [email protected]. He is a garden consultant and the author of four gardening books. He lives in Cornish, N.H.

Featured photo: My PeeGee Hydrangea always puts on a good show. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Kiddie Pool 23/08/31

Family fun for the weekend

High-flying story time

• The picture book Paper Planes by Jim Helmore and Richard Jones is the focus of the storytime Saturday, Sept. 2, at Bookery (844 Elm St. in Manchester; bookerymht.com, 836-6600). The storytime and craft start at 11:30 a.m. and are free; register online.

Museum weekend

• McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center (2 Institute Drive in Concord; starhop.com, 271-7827) is open daily through Monday from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. (After Labor Day, the center returns to its Wednesday through Sunday schedule). The outdoor Science Playground can be accessed from inside the Discovery Center and is open through October from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and is included in admission to the center, which costs $12 for adults, $9 for ages 3 to 12 and $11 for ages 13 through college and for seniors, according the the website. Planetarium shows cost an additional $6 per person.

• The SEE Science Center (200 Bedford St. in Manchester; see-sciencecenter.org, 669-0400) is open daily through Labor Day — 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. (The center will be closed Mondays starting Sept. 11.) Admission costs $12 for ages 3 and up. Register now for an event on Thursday, Oct. 5, when admission to the museum is free from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. (registration is required), according to the website. At this family fun event, guests can explore the exhibits, view demonstrations and participate in science drop-in activities, the website said.

• The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (6 Washington St. in Dover; childrens-museum.org, 742-2002) is open daily through Saturday, Sept. 2, with sessions from 9 a.m. to noon or 1 to 4 p.m. and then Sunday, Sept. 3, from 9 a.m. to noon, and then the museum will be closed for its annual 13-day maintenance period. The museum (which is closed Mondays as well as for afternoon sessions on Sundays and Tuesdays) will reopen Saturday, Sept. 16, and will hold Toddlerfest, its annual celebration of the littlest museum-goers featuring special activities and events, Tuesday, Sept. 19, through Saturday, Sept. 30, including a reading of Eric Carle’s A Very Hungry Caterpillar with a visit from the Caterpillar (Sept. 29 and Sept. 30), a celebration of the museum’s 40th birthday on Sept. 23 and a Frozen dance party on Sept. 22.

All things extraterrestrial

Annual UFO Festival celebrates the “Incident at Exeter”

It has been 58 years since the Incident at Exeter, when 18-year-old Norman Muscarello saw an unidentified flying object, described as being about the size of the car with flashing red lights, on his way home one night in Kensington. The incident has been celebrated for the past 14 years with the annual Exeter UFO Festival. This year’s event will be held from Saturday, Sept. 2, to Sunday, Sept. 3.

The Exeter Kiwanis Club took over the event as a fundraiser from Dean Merchant in 2014, according to Bob Cox, the president of the organization. All of the profits go to children’s charities and programs and community programs.

“At the time it was only speaking events,” Cox said. “We took [it] on and expanded it to include the whole family [with] arts and crafts and food. … Each year we keep growing.”

Among the 10 speakers at the town hall will be award-winning documentary filmmaker Jennifer Stein, who will give her presentation on Sunday. She is involved with the Mutual UFO Network in Pennsylvania and Arizona, and has been in the UFO field for 25 years. This year Stein will take her audience on a virtual journey through the Sacred Valley of Peru, focusing on Cusco, Sacsayhuaman, Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu, where, she says, some of the most interesting and significant megalithic architecture exists.

“Ollantaytambo is a megalithic site that sits high up on top of a plateau … and it shows huge megalithic blocks of stone that really defy explanation of how they got there,” Stein said. “On the underside where they are not eroded by sun and weather, some of them have smooth granite blocks. They’re huge, as big as semi trucks. How the heck did they get there and who put them there and why?”

Another mystery is the nazca lines in southern Peru. These massive illustrations seem to depict monkeys, humans, lizards and scorpions among other images that can only be fully viewed from an aerial perspective.

“Many people think that it would be impossible for us to build them and they kind of say maybe an earlier culture that wasn’t from Earth built them,” she said. “Erich von Daniken was one of the first people to bring attention to the amazing enigmas of Peru … and [to] coin the phrase ‘ancient aliens.’ … He claimed in his [1968] book, Chariots of the Gods? that these things had to be built by a culture that had aerial abilities.”

Other speakers include paranormal researcher and investigator Mike Stevens, paranormal adventurers and authors Paul and Ben Eno, and ufologist Peter Robbins.

Other happenings include kids’ activities such as face painting and rock painting, an alien costume and alien pet parade contest, a souvenir shop, an opportunity to meet the speakers, food concessions, and trolley rides to the site of the incident.

“One of the favorite things for the kids and the Exeter community are those trolley rides,” Cox said. “Last year we had only one trolley … and they made four or five trips. It was so popular, we got a lot of feedback that we should have more this year, so we’re having two trolleys on Saturday and one trolley on Sunday to try to respond to their interests and requests, so that’s a big growth [opportunity] for the festival.”

Exeter UFO Festival

Meet the speakers
Where: Hampton Inn & Suites Exeter, 59 Portsmouth Ave., Exeter
When: Saturday, Sept. 2, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Cost: $25

UFO Festival souvenir shop
When: Saturday, Sept. 2, 8 a.m. to Sunday, Sept. 3, 4 p.m.
Where: Exeter Town Hall, 10 Front St., Exeter
Cost: varies

Town Hall speaker series
When: Saturday, Sept. 2, 8:45 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
Sunday, Sept 3., 8:45 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Exeter Town Hall, 10 Front St., Exeter
Cost: $35 for both days (no single-day pricing)

Food & refreshments
When: Saturday, Sept. 2, 9 a.m. to Sunday, Sept. 3, 4 p.m.
Where: tent by the bandstand
Cost: varies

Trolley ride to the “Incident at Exeter” site
When: Saturday, Sept. 2, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 3, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: Trolley leaves from 10 Front St. and goes to incident site 5 miles south in Kensington
Cost: $5

Kids’ activities
When: Saturday, Sept. 2, 10 a.m. to Sunday, Sept 3, 2 p.m.
Where: Town House Common Park, corner of Front St. and Court St.
Cost: Free

Alien costume & alien pet parade and contest
When: Saturday, Sept. 2, noon to 12:30 p.m.
Where: Town House Common Park, corner of Front and Court streets
Cost: Free

The Art Roundup 23/08/31

The latest from NH’s theater, arts and literary communities

• Singing for the holidays: The New Hampshire Gay Men’s Chorus will hold open auditions for its holiday concert series called “Holly, Jolly, Folly” starting Sept. 5. The auditions, which are open to new singers, will be held at the First Congregational Church (508 Union St. in Manchester) on Tuesday, Sept. 5; Tuesday, Set. 12, and Tuesday, Sept. 19, all from 6:30 to 7 p.m. A full chorus rehearsal will follow the first two audition times at 7 p.m. and a tenor rehearsal is at 7 p.m., according to a press release. The chorus is open to men over the age of 18 (gay, straight or male-identifying) who enjoy singing in four-part harmony, the release said. “Auditions are quick, private and easy. You don’t need to have any material or music prepared,” the release said. See nhgmc.com.

• September at Andres: The Andres Institute of Art (106 Route 13 in Brookline, andresinstitute.org) will hold a “Mindful Outdoor Experience” featuring a trail walk and more with Heather Sweeney, certified Kripalu Mindful Outdoor Guide, on Saturday, Sept. 9, from 10 to 11:30 a.m., according to the website. The cost to register is $25.

On Saturday, Sept. 16, Andres will kick off its annual International Sculpture Symposium, when artists create new sculptures to add to Andres’ trails, with an opening ceremony at 1 p.m.; the public is invited to this free event. On Friday, Sept. 22, there will be a ticketed, catered barbecue with the symposium artists — Ivona Biocic Mandic from Croatia, Finn Cossar from Australia and Renubala Kashyap Rajput from India, the website said. The public can learn more about the artists at a Symposium Artist Showcase on Saturday, Sept. 23. A lobster boil dinner with the artists (also a ticketed event) will take place on Friday, Sept. 29, at 5 p.m. A panel discussion with Symposium Alumni Artists is slated for Saturday, Oct. 7. The closing ceremony for the symposium is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 8, at 1 p.m. View the artists’ pieces as they work on them at the Studio, Monday through Friday between Sept. 24 and Oct. 4, the website said.

The Institute’s 12 miles of trails, which feature more than 100 sculptures, are open daily from dawn to dusk, the website said.

Kicking off season 9
Hatbox Theatre (Steeplegate Mall, 270 Loudon Road in Concord; hatboxnh.com, 715-2315) will kick off its 9th season with Phylloxera Production’s Stage Struck, a “wild comedic thriller” according to a press release. Robert, a former stage manager in London’s West End, is now a house-husband for famous actress wife Anne, whose therapist threatens to upset the balance of Robert’s life of dalliances in this play from playwright Simon Gray and directed by Gary Locke, the release said. The play contains adult language and violence and is not recommended for children, according to the press release. The production runs through Sunday, Sept. 24, with shows Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $25 for adults and $22 for seniors and students.

• Poems and prose: Rebecca Kaiser Gibson, who runs The Loom poetry reading series in Harrisville (theloompoetry.com) and is the author of books including the novel The Promise of a Normal Life and the poetry collection Girl as Birch, has several events in September. She will discuss her experience teaching poetry in Hyderabad, India, in the presentation “The Gods Next Door, a Glimpse into India” on Wednesday, Sept. 13, at 6:30 p.m. at the Derry Public Library (64 E Broadway in Derry; derrypl.org, 432-6140); go online to register. On Sunday, Sept. 17, at 1:30 p.m. she will be at Del Rossi’s Trattoria (73 Brush Brook Road in Dublin) with Oliver De La Paz. See rebeccakaisergibson.com for more on the author.

• September at Balin: Balin Books (375 Amherst St. in Nashua, 417-7981, balinbooks.com) has author events on the schedule for September. New Hampshire author Paul August will discuss his novel The Canaries on Saturday, Sept. 9, at 1 p.m. On Tuesday, Sept. 12, Melanie Brooks will read from her memoir A Hard Silence and discuss it with author Suzanne Strempek Shea, according to a social media post from the bookstore. See melaniebrooks.com for more on the author and her book. (Brooks will also be at the Bookery in Manchester on Sept. 14, Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough on Sept. 16 and Gibson’s in Concord on Sept. 20.) On Saturday, Sept. 23, at 2 p.m. catch the return of naturalist author Sy Montgomery and wildlife artist Matt Patterson, this time with their book Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell, which is slated for release Sept. 19. The duo were at Balin earlier this year for The Book of Turtles. See symontgomery.com for more on all of Montgomery’s works.

Off to see the wizard
Tickets are on sale now for The Wizard of Ozat the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org, 668-5588). The show, which boasts the familiar songs performed by the cast and a live orchestra and “masterful special effects,” opens the 2023-2024 St. Mary’s Bank Performing Arts Series, according to a video posted on the Palace’s social media. This professional production runs Friday, Sept. 8, through Sunday, Sept. 24, with shows at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays as well as Thursday, Sept. 21, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $49 for adults, $28 for 12 and under and $33 for seniors, according to the website.

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