Saint Peter’s holds its annual fundraising cook-off

Lee O’Connor is the chairman of the Chili and Chowder Cook-Off for Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church in Londonderry, which will take place this Saturday, March 21. O’Connor said the Cook-Off has become one of the most important events of the year for St. Peter’s.

“This is an event we’ve been having for nine years,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for people to cook chili and chowder with a chance of winning prizes and a chance to support important local programs. This year we’re supporting the Liberty House in Manchester, which helps local vets get their lives back together. [The Cook-Off] has become a big community event. We have a lot of people walk in just to have some chili and chowder and support a local cause. We probably have 100 people there and a lot of people just walk in just to support the event.”

The competition is open to anyone who wants to participate, O’Connor said. “Anybody can cook. We typically have 25 to 30 entries of either chili or chowder. People can either email our church or contact me, or in worst case, just walk in with their entry. There’s a $10 entry fee to submit a recipe, but with the opportunity to win several prizes. We’re excited to invite everybody to cook and to eat.”

While cooks are welcome at the cook-off, O’Conner said, anyone with an appetite is encouraged to come taste the entries and decide for themselves what the rankings should be. “To dine is here is the best bargain in town,” he said. “It costs $15 for all the chili and chowder you can eat.”

O’Connor said the ratio of chili to chowder varies from year to year, but there are usually more chili entrants than chowders.

“We’re encouraging folks to consider making their favorite chowder recipe,” he said, “but we’ve probably got close to 20 chili entries right now, and I think seven or eight chowders. So our judges are going to be busy.”

He said planning a strategy to appeal to the judges can be tricky.

“The judges have a judging sheet,” he said, “but these are not professional judges, so it largely comes down to their own personal taste. But the judging sheet helps them determine how much heat is in each chili. They look for meat or vegetarian flavors. Surprisingly, we have a lot of vegetarian entries that sometimes win. The winning chilis should have a distinct taste and some level of heat could be determined by the judges.” That level of heat can be pretty intense, he said. “There’s typically a couple of hot chilis that I like a lot — some five-alarm chilis.”

On the chowder side, O’Connor said, entries span the chowder spectrum.

“Clam chowder is a classic,” he said, “and so is corn, but sometimes we get … Manhattan clam chowder…. There’s some entries that border on soups that have an Italian flair; there’s some pasta in them sometimes. This is New England, so there’s seafood chowder, clam chowder, fish chowder, and corn chowder is a big one. So that’s what my wife makes.”

The secret to a winning chili or chowder, O’Connor said, will be big chunks of fresh ingredients. “I think that with chili,” he said, “having a quality meat and quality preparation is key to this. I think typically people who put time and effort into preparing meat tend to do better here.”

And it doesn’t hurt to look good.

“Contestants have to bring chili in a crock pot already heated,” he said. “And if it looks good in the pot and maybe has some condiments that you bring with it, those tend to catch the judge’s eye as well. Presentation is important.”

Ninth Annual Chili Chowder Cookoff
When: Saturday, March 21
Where: Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church, 3 Peabody Row, Londonderry, 437-8333, stpeterslondonderry.org
Cooks can register by signing up at church or emailing the church at church@stpeterslondonderry.org. There is a $10 entry fee. There is also a kids’ dessert competition, which is free to enter. Tasting tickets cost $15, $7 for ages 10 and under, according to the church’s Facebook page. The event will also include piñatas for kids and raffles, the post said.

Featured photo: Last year’s judges. Courtesy photo.

It’s 3.14 times as delicious as any other day

This Saturday, March 14, is one of the happiest days of the year for math enthusiasts. Written numerically, the date is 3/14, and of course 3.14 is the number pi (π) rounded to the nearest hundredth. “Pi Day,” also thought of as “Pie Day,” is a day of celebration for geometry fans, pun enthusiasts and of course pie lovers.

Canterbury Shaker Village (288 Shaker Road, Canterbury, 783-9511, shakers.org) will embrace Pi Day this year. From 1:30 to 3 p.m. on March 14 the museum will host a Pi Day event with an informal lecture on the history of pie and its connection to Canterbury’s Shaker community — they were considered brilliant cooks and bakers. The event will allow guests to eat pie, and let pie enthusiasts mingle and share their collected passion.

“It actually is a very nice pie symposium,” said Garrett Bethmann, Manager of Communications and Engagement for the Shaker Village. “It’s just easy breezy as, you know, just like the smell [of a fresh-baked pie] coming out of your window. We just want people to have as sweet a time as pie is.”

“We’ll be playing a little bit with that mathematical concept as well as showing how pie [the pastry] fits into that. We’ll look at how pie has been used in American culture over the years, and how Shakers thought about pie and how they incorporated them into their daily life. I saw recently we got some floor plans that had an integrated pie safe situated in it for one of our buildings. It was certainly on their mind. And so we’d like to showcase how that looks and how people can learn about it.”

The baking community will also be celebrating Pi Day.

“Oh, we’ve gota Pi Day menu!” said Brittani Randal, co-owner of The Sunflower Bakery and Cafe (50 Broad St., Nashua, 505-0794, thesunflowerbakerycafe.com). “Last year, the number of pies we could make was just based [on] what we could bake from our house, and now that we have our [brick and mortar bakery] those numbers don’t even count anymore. Last year we had eight to 10 [types of pie], but that didn’t include our black bottom pie, which has been our most popular pie so far, and I don’t think we were offering the strawberry dream pie either, so there will probably be at least 10 [varieties of pie].” She said one of Sunflower’s corporate clients has already ordered 250 individual-sized pies for Pi Day.

Denise Nickerson, owner of The Bakeshop on Kelley Street (171 Kelley St., Manchester, 624-3500, thebakeshoponkelleystreet.com) plans to go all out for Pi Day this year.

“We’re going to have every single kind of pie you can think of,” Nickerson said. “We’re going to have probably 25-plus [types of pie], depending on what people order. People come up with some interesting ideas and we’re planning to have as many different pies as we can. Our most popular, of course, is apple or chocolate cream. We’ll definitely have those. Lime is really popular and we’ll go from there.” The Bakeshop has a reputation for outstanding doughnuts. “We’re making some kind of a pie doughnut,” Nickerson said, “but that’s still under development; my team is working on it.”

For 24 hours, from midnight to midnight, on Pi Day all locations of the Red Arrow Diner (112 Loudon Road, Concord, 415-0444; 137 Rockingham Road, Londonderry, 552-3091; 61 Lowell St., Manchester, 626-1118; 149 DW Highway, Nashua, 204-5088, redarrowdiner.com) will offer all slices of pie for $3.14, according to a statement from its corporate office.

Alison Ladman, owner of Crust and Crumb Baking Co. (126 N. Main St., Concord, 219-0763, thecrustandcrumb.com), said her plans for Pi Day are simple: “All we’re doing is baking a whole lot of pies. We want to make sure we don’t run out, and we recommend that any customers who have their heart set on a particular type of pie should pre-order online to make sure we still have some for them.”

NH’s Maple Weekend
To access an interactive map of sugar houses participating in this year’s Maple Weekend, visit nhmaplemap.com.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.