Sleazy Vegan’s new digs

The vegan eatery finds a new brick and mortar home in Concord

K.S. LeBlanc is happy to put down roots.

LeBlanc is the owner and operator of Sleazy Vegan, a popular food truck that has finally found a permanent brick-and-mortar location after a long journey.

“When we first started, we opened as a ghost kitchen back on April 1 of ’22. In September of this past year we were told that that place was no longer going to be available to us, and so we had to skedoodle. We had to find a new commercial kitchen to do our catering from and to be our commissary for food trucking, even though we don’t have a food truck exactly right now. We moved to what was formerly known as State Street Kitchen in Concord. There were actually two identities here. There was State Street Kitchen that was meant to be a pay-by-the-hour community-based kitchen for [new entrepreneurs]. And then in the front there’s a retail space that was, for a while, Pilar Art Studio. When we reached out to the owner of this building, to see about coming in and really having a much bigger footprint than just a community kind of user and taking over the kitchen and using that front spot, he was very amicable to the idea, and loved the idea of having the space get used more than it had been. So we moved in here in October and we took over that front retail spot as the Sleazy Vegan Cafe. And we’ve actually been running from here from seven in the morning until two in the afternoon, since October.”

Since then, LeBlanc said, she and her chef have been fine-tuning their menu, focusing on baking.

“We did all of our Thanksgiving catering from here,” she said, “all of our Christmas catering from here. Lots of pies. We’re making sourdough bread every week. We’re making three or four different kinds of vegan muffins every week. We’ve got … a sourdough cinnamon roll that we’re making every week.”

As of this week, however, the Sleazy Vegan will be open all day, LeBlanc said.

“[It will be] a full-service day here, where we’ll be running breakfast, lunch and dinner from the new location. We did two seated six-course dinners that were really great. They were lovely. It’s very private, kind of glam up the front, and the seating is limited to 10 or 12 people per service. So it’s very intimate and very quiet and private and a little more glammed up version of sleazy vegan chefery going on. We did two of those events in January that were fantastic, and we have another event coming up for Valentine’s Day. We’re doing a 6 p.m. service — a six-course dinner — and an 8 p.m. service.”

“So now there’ll be kind of two locations that will be here in Concord,” LeBlanc said. “There will be the Sleazy Vegan Cafe, which will be in the front, and then Sleazy Vegan Mobile Catering is in the back. And that’s where we’ll be doing our catering and our cooking classes. We’ll be hosting a Food is Medicine meetup once a month. At each meetup we will bring in an expert to help guide us through some plant-based health secrets and some plant-based health lies that we might believe and help us get healthier and more educated around what we can do for our health with plants. Our next one is going to be Feb. 18.”

LeBlanc said the new location gives her confidence that there is a demand for high-quality, plant-based food in Concord.

“People come here,” she said, “and it’s not by accident. They didn’t just accidentally show up someplace where everything happened to be vegan on the menu. They’re coming here because this is what they wanted, and they’re very excited to have some place where they can look at a menu and know that everything on the menu is right for them.”

The Sleazy Vegan
205 N. State St., Concord, thesleazyvegan.com. Open Wednesday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Featured photo: Sleazy Vegan Concord location. Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 26/02/12

Weather delay: The Fire on Main event hosted by 603 Brewery (42 Main St, Londonderry, 404-6123, 603brewery.com) originally scheduled for this weekend has been postponed due to anticipated weather conditions. It will be held Saturday, March 14, instead. Visit 603brewery.com/fire-on-main-bonfire-event.

There’s always room for dessert. And wine. LaBelle Winery Amherst (345 Route 101, Amherst, 672-9898, labellewinery.com) will host a Chocolate Desserts & Wine Pairing Class Thursday, Feb. 12, at 6 p.m. Wine Educator & Sommelier Marie King leads this interactive event where you’ll enjoy four desserts, each paired with LaBelle wines. The cost is $48.16.

All you need is truffles: Van Otis Chocolates (341 Elm St., Manchester, 627-1611, vanotis.com) will hold a chocolate truffle-making class Friday, Feb. 13, at 5:30 p.m. Guests ages 18+ will tour the chocolate factory, where a chocolatier will demonstrate how to make a chocolate ganache. Tickets are $55.20.

Cookie season: Girl Scout cookie booth season has begun, with booths scheduled across the area throughout the weekend including at the Irving Gas Station in Bow on the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 13; Chunky’s Cinema and Remix Roller Skating in Manchester at times on Saturday, Feb. 14, and Sunday, Feb. 15; the Brookline Transfer Station in the morning (through 1 p.m.) on Saturday, Feb. 14, and Sully’s in Suncook on Sunday, Feb. 15, from noon to 8 p.m., according to girlscoutsgwm.org. Click on “Find Cookies” to find booths this weekend and beyond.

Food and theater: The Capitol Center for the Arts (44 S. Main St., Concord, 225-1111, ccanh.com) will partner with Street Restaurant (76 N. Main St., Concord, 333-2125, streetfood360.com) on Feb. 17 for a special Community Night eventfrom 5 to 9 p.m. When you dine in at STREET and mention the Capitol Center for the Arts to your server, 20 percent of your meal will be donated to support it.

Observing a wine holiday: Join Barrel and Baskit (377 Main St., Hopkinton, 746-1375, barrelandbaskit.com) Wednesday, Feb. 18, for a celebration of National Drink Wine Day with a free wine tasting by Ruby Wines.

Kiddie Pool 26/02/12

Family fun for whenever

Winter fun!

• The Wilton NH Main Street Association will hold its Winter Fest on Saturday, Feb. 14, with ice carving in Main Street Park from 1 to 4 p.m.; a campfire with s’mores and hot cocoa from noon to 4:30 p.m.; a winter market at Wilton Town Hall, and a chili cookoff potluck from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Wilton Community Center, all according to a post on the Association’s Facebook page.

• The Squam Lakes Association Winterfest will take place Saturday, Feb. 14, from noon to 3 p.m. at 534 Route 3 in Holderness, according to squamlakes.org. The day will include a chili cookoff, winter mini golf, sledding, ice skating, a campfire with hot cocoa and s’mores, a Squam Lakes Natural Science Center Discovery Table and more, according to the website.

• And speaking of the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, 23 Science Center Road in Holderness, this weekend’s Wild Winter Walk takes place Sunday, Feb. 15, with 90-minute sessions at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.The walks are geared to ages 6 and up; see nhnature.org to register.

Valentine fun

• Bookery, 844 Elm St. in Manchester, will hold a Valentine’s Day themed storytime and craft for the book The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond on Saturday, Feb. 14, at 11:30 a.m. Reserve a spot at bookerymht.com.

• Valentine’s Day — Saturday, Feb. 14 — is also Second Saturday at the Currier Museum of Art, 150 Ash St. in Manchester, when admission is free for New Hampshire residents. This Saturday, the Creative Studio artmaking activity will feature heart collages and runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., according to the Currier’s In Focus newsletter. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. See currier.org.

On the court

• It’s another weekend of SNHU Penmen basketball with the women’s team playing Adelphi University at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 14, at Stan Spiro Field House at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. The men’s team will take on Adelphi at 3:30 p.m. Both teams will take on Franklin Pierce University in games on Wednesday, Feb. 18 — women at 5:30 p.m. and men at 7:30 p.m. See snhupenmen.com.

Treasure Hunt 26/02/12

Donna,

My father owned a restaurant years and years ago, and we found these plates from Syracuse China, 11 of them with this pattern on them. I’m wondering if they’re worth anything. Thank you.

Bob

Dear Bob,

Your Syracuse China plates stamped with the Cornell University coat of arms were used for some event or for the school itself.

Diner china, restaurant ware, can be very collectible, depending on the company and what it represents. Examples would be Howard Johnson’s, ships, military, etc. Condition is very important. Most collectors want them old but in new condition.

Syracuse China was around from the late 1800s through the 1960s. They made lots and lots of different industrial china.

The pricing on plates like yours again depends on what they say and condition. I did find some similar to yours in the range of $40 each. That would be you finding a collector of Cornell University items. I think if it were just for Syracuse China then the value would be in the $15 range each. Again the condition of each plate matters in giving them value.

I hope this was helpful, Robert, and you find a new home for the plates. Thank you for sharing.

Elle-ementary

Sherlock tale re-told in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson — Apt. 2B

The game is afoot, and the many tropes made famous in tales of the world’s greatest detective are extant in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B. The Community Players of Concord production, directed by Vicky Sandin, runs for three shows, Feb. 13 through Feb. 15, at Concord Civic Auditorium.

As with all Sherlock mysteries, there’s a twist. In what she calls “cheerfully desecrating the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” playwright Kate Hamill reimagines the famous sleuth as a woman, along with her sidekick. In the process, she looks at their stories through a fresh and funny lens.

This is Sandin’s second Hamill production for Community Players. She previously directed her adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in 2023.

“I just know the vibe that she’s going for,” Sandin said by phone recently. “Kate Hamill and I are very tight in my eyes.”

Despite gender bending, familiar pieces are in place in Hamill’s play.

“What she did was modernize the canon,” Sandin explained. “Anybody who’s a Sherlock fan or who has read the stories will recognize tidbits from Conan Doyle’s original stories; she’s put those in there into the play as well.”

As Sherlock (a girl’s name too, but don’t call her Shirley), Suzanne Watts shines.

“This part was written for her, it’s just her all over,” Sandin said, adding that audiences will love her RP, Queen’s English accent. “I’ve always been so impressed by her acting charms, so I really wanted to work with her.”

Watts evokes the frazzled demeanor of television lawyer turned “cop-sultant” Elsbeth, with a distinct difference. “Our Sherlock is very much like that in the sense that she is able to put things together like Elsbeth and arrive at the solution sooner than everybody else,” Sandin said. “But she is not modest about her talent.”

Julia Kehr plays Ms. Watson, an American who’s moved to London for what one critic termed “an adult gap year,” who becomes Sherlock’s codependent flatmate. Sandin worked with Kehr in Pride and Prejudice. “She’s a very funny, comic, physical actor, and I just love watching what she brings,” she said.

Together they crack cases, all while Holmes is nagged by a crime she can’t quite name. “She’s solving all these little mysteries with Watson and she’s finding out that there’s a larger force at play … Holmes goes a little mental,” Sandin said. “When she figures out who’s doing all of this, it’s from the canon, but it’s not how you expect it to turn out.”

Travis Laughlin, who played the arch Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, is bumbling Inspector Lestrade. It’s a world away from his Masterpiece Theatre character, said Sandin. “There’s a whole level of amusement and laughter he’s brought to this part that I never knew existed … he is just laugh-out-loud funny.”

Rounding out the versatile cast are Heather McFadden playing Irene Adler with what Sandin termed “a lot of sexiness and suave,” Players veteran Karen Braz as Mrs. Drebber, Griffin Stuart as Texas tech billionaire Elliot Monk (the play happens amidst 2021’s late pandemic jitteriness), and Linda Pilla as grieving widow Mrs. Hudson.

Apart from the two Americans, everyone on stage uses different accents, but Pilla’s is genuine. “She was actually born and raised in Scotland, and in his books Conan Doyle made Mrs. Hudson a Scotswoman,” Sandin said. “She brings her native brogue from Glasgow … and does a wonderful job.”

As rehearsals have progressed, Sandin’s casting decisions have been reinforced.

“They know these characters more than I do,” she said. “They’ve started to interpret them in ways that are refreshing and new, which bring ideas on how to enhance the characters that they’ve built … that, to me, is the funnest part.”

Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson –Apt. 2B
When: Friday, Feb. 13, and Saturday, Feb. 14, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 15, at 2 p.m.
Where: Concord City Auditorium, 2 Prince St., Concord
Tickets: $22 and up at communityplayersofconcord.org

Featured photo: Suzanne Watts (Sherlock), Julia Kehr (Watson). Courtesy photo.

A Cup of Delicious

The joy of hot chocolate

According to Catarina Mahoney, co-owner of Brookford Farm, it’s important to drink hot chocolate in cold weather, which is why she only serves it once a year, at Christmas with the Cows, the farm’s holiday celebration.

“We make it here,” she said. “We developed the recipe ourselves. I use really good cocoa — organic, fair-trade and a full-fat bean. It’s really important for me that the flavor is very strong, so that it really tastes like something.”

For the chocolate-lover

Rachel Mack, co-owner at Loon Chocolate in Manchester, said the best hot chocolate takes you back to basics.

“I love all ways that you can consume chocolate,” Mack said. “And as long as humans have been consuming chocolate, we’ve been drinking it. It started in a little different form than what we consider hot chocolate today, but I like hot cocoa that’s part of that same lineage. Delicious. We have had a cold, cold, cold New Hampshire winter this year. So I think maybe we all need just a little bit of extra hot chocolate for this winter.”

“We do hot chocolate two ways at Loon Chocolate,” she said. “We have a powdered hot chocolate mix, which is easy to make, easy to grab, and to have in your cupboard for when you have those unexpected snowstorms.”

“The mix only has cocoa powder, organic cane sugar and sea salt,” Mack said. “There’s no milk powder added at all. What’s awesome about that is you can add it to whatever kind of milk you want or a dairy-free alternative. So, I know I personally am leaning away from milk right now, so I like having the option for a dairy-free alternative. The other thing you can do, that I think is delicious — it’s a little more of a treat — is to actually turn one of our chocolate bars into a cup of hot cocoa. You can sit down and concentrate and you’re just enjoying that chocolate. I usually take about two-thirds of one of our chocolate bars — that would be one and three quarter ounces, maybe, maybe a little less. And you can use milk chocolate or you can use dark chocolate. I personally really love our Puerto Rico bar to make hot chocolate. It’s a 65 percent dark chocolate. [The intensity of dark chocolate is often measured by the percentage of cocoa solids it has.] So the Puerto Rico bar is a little bit sweet, has a really fudgy flavor, and so when you’re mixing that with whatever kind of milk you want it just has a decadent, creamy deliciousness; it is very chocolate-forward. But I can’t say that I don’t enjoy a little, little extra whipped cream now and then.”

Mack said a good cup of hot chocolate can benefit from the addition of a little spice.

“I add cinnamon quite often,” she said. “It doesn’t take much to really enhance the flavor. And, you know, cayenne makes a delicious chocolate. For as long as people have been drinking chocolate they’ve also been adding spice to their chocolates. It’s classic flavor, and if you are the kind of person who likes your food to bite back a little bit, I think cayenne is delicious.”

Consider the cacao

Maggie Prittie is a chocolate expert.

“I’m a chocolatier, a chocolate maker and a chocolate educator,” she said. When she eats or drinks chocolate she thinks about its history.

“Chocolate started roughly about 5,000 years ago. It was first consumed in a drinking form for the elite. The Spanish came to Central America and they brought it back to Spain and they began chocolate drinking — cacao cafes, which came way before coffee houses. It went from Spain and then to Germany. So it started spreading throughout Europe — but always for the elite.”

So good hot chocolate should be something you would feel good about serving to royalty.

“And that starts with a good chocolate,” Prittie said. “And that starts with the basic products, which is your cacao beans. How are they grown? How are they fermented? How are they dried? Were they properly taken care of? There’s a lot that goes into the proper production of chocolates that many people don’t know about or understand. Personally, I would look at the origin of the cacao and the additives. Be aware of your additives. You want to make sure that you do have some fat in there, which would be your cacao butter.”

photo of hot beverage container sitting on table beside package of European Hot Chocolate
Hot Chocolate Bar at Beccari Choclates. Photo by John Fladd.

European-style

Greg Chenevert is the head chocolatier at Beccari Chocolates in Hudson. He said the flavor of hot chocolate helps people step away from their stress.

“When people come into our shop,” he said, “I insist they sample something. Try whatever you like. Go crazy. It’s fine. We have something we call ‘the chocolate pause.’ When you have Beccari chocolate, the rest of the world fades away for a moment. Whatever’s going on, you have that moment where you’re just focused on the chocolate. And it’s wonderful.”

“A year ago, I got tired of drinking hot cocoa in America. And I’ve traveled to Europe, had European hot chocolate, loved it and decided to come up with a formula, a recipe for that hot chocolate and sell it here. So I spent the time, did the work, and now I’ve got a thick, creamy, European-style hot chocolate. It’s not so sweet. The way that I make it here, it has a touch of sugar in it. I mean a touch — like a teaspoon per quart — because I make it with sweetened condensed milk. I came up with the European, delicious flavor and people liked it. Generally, their statement is that it’s like drinking a chocolate bar. They try it and their eyebrows go right up and wow! And everybody, but everybody does this. We actually turn it into a frozen hot chocolate in the summer, so you can have it year ’round. People love that as well. They were surprised by the concept of frozen hot chocolate.”

Flights of fancy

Many of us have had coffee flights, or beer or wine flights — small samples of different varieties of the food or drink in question, served side by side to allow us to compare and contrast them. At The Spot Eatery in Hooksett there is a hot chocolate flight.

“It’s four different kinds, 4-ounce servings,” said Sarah Lucas, co-owner of The Spot. “We have flight flavors that we’ve set up, but then also you can make your own and just go wild with it.”

The Spot’s flavors of hot chocolate are themed around different places, Lucas said.

“Right now we have a couple of … flights,” she said. “We were inspired by local ski mountains. We have an M&M flavor for Pats Peak. We have a caramel one for Cannon Mountain. We do s’mores; we do mint. Right now, because of the Super Bowl, we’ll have a Drake Maye flavor that I believe is going to be a chocolate chip cookie flavor, but then we’ll do more places. We’re planning a New England version, and a Seattle, which I believe is going to be another coffee-related one, so we’ll have a shot of espresso in the hot chocolate as well.”

Lucas and her staff use milk for their hot chocolate, she said, and semi-sweet chocolate instead of cocoa powder. “And then we also do a couple of white chocolate-based ones as well,” she said.

The hot chocolate bar

For Chris Guerrette, owner of Lickee’s & Chewy’s Candies and Creamery in Dover, four types of hot chocolate sounds good but is just a starting point.

“We do have this crazy thing we do,” he said, “maybe twice a year, with unlimited toppings — a Hot Chocolate Bar. We have, I don’t know, about a dozen or 16 or so toppings available. Customers come in, they get a big giant cup. We fill it halfway with hot chocolate, a whole bunch of marshmallows, whipped cream, and then every topping you could think of under the sun, just like a sundae, you could have as many of them as you want. It’s a little crazy.”

Guerrette said the hot chocolate at Lickee’s and Chewy’s has a dairy base.

“It’s heavy cream. It’s whole milk, a special dark chocolate mix, and we add gourmet chocolate to it as well. So it’s a nice, really flavorful hot chocolate without it sort of being almost over the top where it’s almost too thick or too strong in any certain direction. And we make about 15 different flavors, with Torani syrups, as well as things that we have in the shop like hot Nutella. So we’ll add actual Nutella and then blend that together and then top it with various toppings. The most popular of our toppings is where we take a big old scoop of our house-made marshmallow cream and we put it on top of the hot chocolate and toast it with a torch …. [Y]ou end up actually having to eat that marshmallow with a spoon.”

Cocoa powder vs. hot chocolate powder
Cocoa powder is the dried and ground-up solids of a cocoa bean. It hasn’t been sweetened or played with in any way. It’s nothing but chocolate flavor. As is often the case, you get what you pay for. The higher the quality of the cocoa, the more it will cost.
Hot chocolate powder is a mixture of cocoa powder, sweetener, usually powdered milk, and sometimes dehydrated marshmallows. The two powders are not interchangeable.

Marshmallow topper

Krista Mellina, owner of the Twisted Mallow Co., sells a hot chocolate mix that includes her specialty marshmallows.

“There’s no dairy in it,” she said, “but it’s still very rich and has hints of vanilla from some of the sugar that I put into it — vanilla sugar. But that’s not the focus of my company. It’s been a nice pairing with some mini marshmallows that I’ve made. I’ll cut them up and bag them and attach them to the little bag of hot chocolate. The favorites are vanilla, of course, and peppermint and cinnamon and a raspberry chocolate. Those seem to be the ones that people gravitate toward. I was offering people the vanilla, but they could have a choice. They could pick whatever marshmallow flavor they wanted with their hot chocolate mix as they were buying it.”

Mellina said it’s a bit of a mystery how hot chocolate and marshmallows got together to begin with.

“I think it might have started with Fluff,” she said. “Like parents would put Fluff in their kids’ hot chocolate and then the marshmallows kind of became a thing. Kids love the Fluff. It’s foamy and it adds a little bit of different flavor. Sometimes I feel like my mom did it because when you’re taking your first sips, it’s so hot, it would kind of buffer the hot.”

Regardless, Mellina said, “There’s not enough hot chocolate in our lives. You can always have more.”

The cocoa bomb

When it comes to rich hot chocolate at home, Jaime Metzger, the manager of Granite State Candy in Manchester, said what you’re looking for is called a “cocoa bomb.”

three balls of chocolate sitting in paper wrappers, topped with chocolate stripes and crumbs of other candy
Cocoa Bombs from Granite State Candy Shoppe. Courtesy photo.

“It is a chocolate shell and it is filled with hot cocoa mix,” Metzger said. “You can fill it with cocoa and marshmallows, you could do peppermint, you could do caramel, you could do anything. The whole fun thing is putting it in and then pouring hot milk or hot water over it and letting it open up. And then you stir it up. Six or seven years ago I saw people making cocoa bombs and said, ‘Hey, we should do that. Why aren’t we doing it?’ So we started doing it in the first year and we couldn’t keep up with demand. We kept getting orders after orders after orders, and finally we had to tell people no, no more. But it’s cool because it’s our chocolate and … you can do it with water, you can do it with milk, you can do cream, you can do any of them.”

Metzger’s personal favorite is a salted toffee version.

“Because,” she said, “you know, salt makes everything better. It just takes it to a whole new level. The shell is half dark chocolate, half milk chocolate, with hot cocoa mix and toffee pieces inside, and then toffee pieces on the outside with a sprinkle of salt.”

Hot, hot chocolate at home

As chocolate expert Maggie Prittie said, Central Americans have been growing and developing cocoa for 5,000 years or more. The Aztecs used cocoa beans as currency and credited chocolate with mystical abilities and increased fertility. There is a legend that the Aztec Emperor Montezuma II drank 50 goblets of it a day. The Aztecs drank it unsweetened and heavily spiced, in a water base.

Here is a recipe, by me, that takes inspiration from cocoa’s origins.

Aztec-inspired hot chocolate

On advice from Catarina Mahoney of Brookford Farm and the staff at Loon Chocolate, this take on hot chocolate has a water base and is dairy-free. Because modern palates are accustomed to chocolate that ranges from semi-sweet to very sweet, this recipe is sweetened with hot honey. It can be adjusted for spice-phobes or vegans. It is very rich and deeply satisfying, with a subtle kick of musky spiciness from the hot honey.

  • 1/3 cup (52 g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 4 cups (900 g) water – Milk works well, as does rice milk.
  • ¼ cup (20 g) unsweetened cocoa powder. (This is not the same as powdered hot chocolate mix.)
  • 1/2 cup (168 g) hot honey – This is honey that has been infused with chilies. You can find it in most supermarkets. If you are deeply suspicious of spiciness, you can use regular wildflower honey. If you don’t eat honey, you can substitute half a cup of brown sugar, with a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 Tablespoon vanilla

In a large saucepan, combine the chocolate chips, cocoa, salt, and hot honey, with about a cup of water, or whatever you are using as a base. Whisk it over medium heat until it is thoroughly incorporated. You’ll know when you’ve hit that point when you can’t get any melted chocolate to stick to your whisk.

Whisk in the rest of the water, and heat the mixture to a low simmer. Remove it from the heat, and whisk in the vanilla.

Makes just over a quart (32 fluid ounces) of hot chocolate, or approximately five servings.

The hot cocoa panel

  • Catarina Mahoney is co-owner of Brookford Farm (250 West Road, Canterbury, 742-4084, brookfordfarm.com)
  • Rachel Mack is co-owner at Loon Chocolate (195 McGregor St., No. 121, Manchester, 932-8887, loonchocolate.com)
  • Maggie Prittie is a chocolatier and chocolate educator (worldwidechocolate.com/community/prittie-chocolat)
  • Sarah Lucas is co-owner of The Spot Eatery (1461 Hooksett Road, Hooksett, 664-4249, thespoteatery.com)
  • Chris Guerrette is the owner of Lickee’s and Chewy’s Candies and Creamery (53 Washington St., Dover, 343-1799, lickeesnchewys.com)
  • Krista Mellina is the owner of Twisted Mallow (533-8455, twistedmallowcompany.com)
  • Greg Chenevert is the head chocolatier at Beccari Chocolates (203 Central St., Hudson, 577-8817, beccarichocolates.com)
  • Jaime Metzger is the manager of Granite State Candy Shoppe (832 Elm St., Manchester, 218-3885, granitestatecandyshoppe.com)

Featured photo: Lickee’s and Chewy’s Hot Chocolate Bar. Courtesy photo.

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