Album Reviews 21/05/27

La Battue, Get Set, Go! (Parapente Records)

Second EP from this off-kilter but quite accessible group, which consists of a brother-sister duo from Rennes, France, and Korean musician Yurie Hu. Their first EP, Search Party, was more lo-fi, a cheese-fest in the tradition of Figurine and whatnot, but this release finds them upping their game to an encouraging degree. Their cited influences are Beach Boys, Steve Reich and Radiohead, and all that stuff is still here, if by “Beach Boys” they mean Grizzly Bear and all those other Aughts-era bands (I didn’t hurt myself falling backward in my chair when the shock hit me). It’s glitchy and buzzy when it lets the software trip out on busy Animal Collective-style fractals, and singer Ellie James’s floaty, non-goofy soprano is a nice departure from the male falsetto cringe I’d expected to hear. In other words, it’s pretty cool in a mellow way. Main quibble is that the first two songs are so similar that I can’t help but scold them for making such a rookie mistake, but again, it’s fine for what it is. B

Tombstones In Their Eyes, Looking For A Light (Kitten Robot Records)

Now here’s some pretty badass shoegaze if you’re into that stuff. This quartet is from Los Angeles, of course, home of — you know, basically everybody, because it’s the perfect place to work on songs that possess a vibe conflating slow-motion surfboard highlight-reel sensibilities with visions of apocalypse. OK, whatever, that’s what it evokes to me, with its fuzzed-out guitars, totally ghostly vocals and messy-enough engineering. Yeah, I’d be at least mildly psyched to receive a new Raveonettes promo album (as long as it comes all at once, not like the discombobulated, one-song-per-month fail of 2016’s Atomized), but while you’re waiting, this will do the trick. It’s like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club but with less petrochemical leakage, that is to say it’s less buzzy in a bar-band way. It’s pretty hooky throughout, too, intended for stoners who love watching a beach bonfire twinkle its reflection in the waves, which is basically a mindset everyone could use right now. A+

PLAYLIST

• The world keeps turning, gang. In fact, it turns so fast that every Friday, a bunch of brand new albums get jiggled loose and dumped into Spotify and Pirate Bay! And such will be the case on May 28, when albums such as Moby’s Reprise will hit the streets. You all know Moby from his Wally Cox-level good looks and all those old ’90s rave songs on his big album, Play, but nowadays he mostly enjoys pretending to be an expert political pundit, at least for TV viewers who believe Buzzfeed is an underground communist blog! This new album, his 19th, is, as the title implies, a bunch of rerubs of old tunes, recorded with the help of a string quartet and the Budapest Art Orchestra, because nothing says “afterparty ambiance” than string sections and a bunch of weird musicians who are probably related to Dracula. Oh, where were we, yes, that big hit of his, “Honey,” isn’t on here, but you can still rave it up with dumb, overblown versions of “Go” and “Extreme Ways,” and look, Kris Kristofferson adds guest vocals to a new version of “The Lonely Night!” I’ll admit that I don’t totally hate the version of “Porcelain” that’s on here; the tune was always glorified elevator music anyway, so mellowing it down a tad doesn’t dull its “autumn leaves falling in a park” vibe, although the guest singing from My Morning Jacket’s Jim James is (spoiler alert) absolutely awful. But don’t let that stop you.

• Well here’s a pretty kick-butt band, if you like the Allman Brothers and Southern rock and whatever, Blackberry Smoke! They’re an Atlanta quintet that’s been putting out albums since 2003, and what’s really cool about them is that, despite their radio-ready sound, they’re still a genuine independent band, having released records on upstanding indie labels like Rounder Records and Earache Records, which I had presumed dead long ago, but they’re still around. The band’s new album, You Hear Georgia, will be on 3 Legged Records, but once again it sounds super pro; the title track is loud-ass Americana-tinged throwback-blues-rawk, so if you’re sick of all your Charlie Daniels records, you should give these guys a chance.

• Man, I could’ve sworn I just talked about a new k.d. lang album, but this search feature gizmo in my Windows 95 MacIntosh machine says I didn’t, so we’ll take a quick look at her latest, Makeover! Wait a minute, what is this, another comp album, like that stupid Moby thing we were just chatting about? Yeah, it’s a bunch of redo versions of her older songs, kicking off with “Miss Chatelaine (St. Tropez Mix).” So dumb, it’s the same song as before, just with more of a Caribbean beat, what a ripoff, and OMG she’s such a fantastic singer, let’s just forget the whole thing.

• Our final contestant is Moon Drenched, the new record from Bent Arcana, a messy experimental nonsense band from — let’s see — OK, I can’t find it, who cares, they’re from somewhere. “The War Clock” is one of their disjointed, dissonant, brain-damaging songs, maybe you’ll love it if you like bands like the Books or Captain Beefheart, or if you’d love the sound of a monkey playing Bowie albums backwards while screeching random monkey-talk in your ear.

Wines for pairing

Finding food wines at Angela’s Pasta & Cheese

If you haven’t visited Angela’s Pasta & Cheese, on the corner of Chestnut and Appleton streets in Manchester’s North End, even once over its 40-year history, you have seriously deprived yourself of a real indulgence. Upon walking in, you are greeted by competing aromas of pasta and cheeses, imported meats and local breads. You are on “sensory overload” taking in the savories and sweets, competing for a primary position in your brain as you tour the store.

Angela’s is an institution that has endured but is also quietly evolving, having recently been purchased by Steven Freeman. The wine offerings are taking a slightly different course. Freeman is looking to offer wines that can be easily paired with the many food offerings the store has, creating an entire meal for you.

Our first wine, Cadre 2019 Stone Blossom Sauvignon Blanc, from Edna Valley, priced at $22.95, is described on the label thusly: “A new life of fragrant blossoms emerges from the rock and sea.” The color is very pale, a silvery light straw. Its nose is citric with a touch of grapefruit with floral, citric blossom notes. These citric notes carry through to the tongue, along with hints of green apple and a slight sweetness of a sugary melon. It is incredibly fresh with a long finish and with notes of minerality.

Paragon Vineyard, designated as Certified Sustainable, was planted by Jack Niven, who brought vineyards and wine-making to San Luis Obispo’s Edna Valley 48 years ago. The root stock is gamay noir, with the sauvignon blanc grafted in the early 1980s. Photos of the vines are impressive, as the trunks are thick, rustic and sculpted by the weather and time. The soils are described as clay with limestone, which impart their mineral nuances to the wine. Additional plantings of stock came from the Loire Valley, vines nurtured from mineral-laden soils.

The Edna Valley is unique in California in that it is but 5 miles from the coast and runs to the coast, as opposed to the many other valleys that run parallel to the coast. This geological formation allows the cool ocean breezes to bring the Pacific fog into the valley morning and night. Edna Valley was cited in a study by the University of Southern Oregon as the coolest growing region in all of California. This climate allows for bud break in February, with a growing season that can extend to the end of October.

Our second wine is a box wine, and why a box wine? For starters, it will allow you to pour a glass without exposing the rest of the bladder to oxidation. If you finish the three liters before 30 days, you are good! I do not believe a box wine has ever lasted 30 days for me!

Quandrum Red Blend, priced at $21.95, is a superb value as the box contains three liters of wine! This is also a wine made from sustainably grown grapes, from the dry, sunny region of La Mancha and the central inner plateaus of Spain. It is a blend of 80 percent tempranillo with 20 percent garnacha. The color is a dark, opaque maroon; the nose is rich with dried fruits that carry through to the tongue. This is a wine to stand up the Italian sausages and salamis of Angela’s but will also hold its own against any backyard burger, joined with a slice of Spanish manchego cheese.

Featured photo:

Becky Costello

Becky Costello of Londonderry is the owner of Owl Hill Preserves ([email protected], and on Facebook and Instagram @owlhillpreserves), a business she started in her home kitchen specializing in small-batch jams and jellies in a variety of unique flavor combinations. In addition to seedless raspberry jam and blueberry blackberry vanilla jam, some of her other offerings include maple peach whiskey jam, blueberry lavender jam, mint mojito jelly, apple pie jam and amber marmalade. You can contact her to place orders, or find her jams and jellies at Handmade In… (Pheasant Lane Mall, 310 Daniel Webster Hwy., Nashua); Recycled Creations Artisans Boutique (25 Main St., Wilton); the Manchester Craft Market (Mall of New Hampshire, 1500 S. Willow St., Manchester); Little Red Hen Farm & Homestead (85 Norris Road, Pittsfield); and Linda’s Less Traveled Treasures and Country Store (49 E. Broadway, Derry). Costello will also appear at the Brimfield Antique Show & Flea Market at the Deerfield Fairgrounds on May 29 and May 30.

What is your must-have kitchen item?
A wooden spoon, because you have to constantly stir.

What would you have for your last meal?
Pad Thai noodles.

What is your favorite local restaurant?
Pickity Place in Mason. I always like to go there with friends.

What celebrity would you like to see trying one of your jams or jellies?
Tom Hiddleston.

What is your favorite jam or jelly that you make?
My personal favorite is the blueberry lavender jam, because I just love the combination of flavors. I usually like it on an English muffin.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?
I would probably say food trucks. I’ve just noticed that they seem more prevalent now than they ever have been.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?
Pizza. My husband is actually in the process of building us an outdoor wood-burning pizza oven.

Pineapple sage chicken
Courtesy of Becky Costello of Owl Hill Preserves (using her own pineapple sage jelly)
Using a whole three-pound chicken, put fresh sage leaves under the skin. Rub the outside with melted butter, olive oil, dried sage, thyme and rosemary. Cook for 45 minutes. Melt pineapple sage jelly in the microwave for about 30 minutes, then pour onto chicken and cook until brown and crispy.

Featured photo: Becky Costello

Flavors of Haiti

Chef Chris Viaud is on the far right. From the left is Chris’s brother Phil, Phil’s wife Sarah, their father Yves, mother Myrlene, sister Kassie, sister Katie and Chris’s wife Emilee. Courtesy photos.

Local chef, family present monthly Haitian dinner series

On New Year’s Day, Culture in Milford shared a piece of owner and chef Chris Viaud’s Haitian heritage through a menu special of soup joumou, a pumpkin-based soup also commonly referred to in Haiti as “freedom soup.” The response was so positive that Viaud decided to turn it into a dinner series, bringing his entire family together to present authentic Haitian dishes each month.

Ansanm, as the series is now known, gets its name from the word meaning “together” in Haitian Creole. Viaud, along with his parents, Myrlene and Yves, siblings Phil, Kassie and Katie, wife Emilee and sister-in-law Sarah all work together to present a menu of scratch-made Haitian items that are now prepared and served out of his other Milford restaurant, Greenleaf.

“As I’ve been growing as a chef, I’ve always had a desire to learn more about my heritage through food. I just had this innate feeling that I needed to do more and relate food back to the beginning for me, to what I grew up eating,” Viaud said. “The concept was also born out of a desire to bring my siblings and parents closer to learn more about the food, because in the coming years we’ll be sharing it with my daughter as well.”

Ansanm’s logo features an illustration of a hibiscus flower, the national flower of Haiti, along with the red and blue colors seen on the Haitian flag.

Viaud’s mother, Myrlene, with whom he has memories of helping out in the kitchen growing up, is the primary head chef of the series. Depending on the month, most dinners are served on the third or fourth Sunday, with online pre-ordering available a few days before. While the first few dinners were takeout only, the most recent one also had a dine-in option at Greenleaf.

Items have included griot (marinated twice-cooked pork) and poule nan sós (braised chicken in Creole sauce), each of which is often served with rice, plantains or pikliz, a spicy pickled vegetable slaw consisting of cabbage, carrots, onion and peppers. Diri djon djon, a rice dish made with black mushrooms that are native to Haiti, is another item recently added to the menu.

“Diri djon djon is the most iconic rice dish in Haiti, just because the mushrooms are so hard to find and are expensive,” Viaud said.

Other featured menu options are a potato and beet salad; chicken or mushroom and vegetable pate; and a Haitian-style spaghetti with peppers, onions and spices in a tomato sauce. Ansanm also offers a scratch-made pineapple upside down cake for dessert, as well as bottles of Cola Couronne, a tropical fruit soda known as the oldest manufactured soft drink from Haiti.

New dinner pre-orders are regularly updated through Ansanm’s website and social media pages.

“Seeing its growth has been tremendous,” Viaud said of the series. “We’ll definitely be doing some fun things this summer, like hopefully hosting a dinner outside with a steel drummer doing live Caribbean music.”

Ansanm
Visit ansanmnh.com or follow them on Facebook and Instagram @ansanm.nh for updates. Dinners are typically held during the third or fourth Sunday of each month, with all orders prepared and picked up at Greenleaf (54 Nashua St., Milford).

Feautred photo: Braised chicken with rice and peas, fried plantains, and pikliz. Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 21/05/27

News from the local food scene

• More markets return: For the first time in two years, the Derry Homegrown Farm & Artisan Market is returning to 1 W. Broadway in Derry on Wednesday, June 2, from 3 to 7 p.m. The market always features a wide variety of produce, meats and other items from local vendors, in addition to live music, local art and more. It will continue every Wednesday through the end of September. The Canterbury Community Farmers Market will also hold its opening day on Wednesday, June 2, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. in the parking lot of the Elkins Public Library (9 Center Road, Canterbury), while the Weare Real Food Farmers Market moves outdoors for the first time this year on Saturday, May 29, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at 65 N. Stark Hwy. in Weare. Visit canterburyfarmersmarket.com and wearerfm.com, respectively, or check out our coverage on southern New Hampshire summer farmers markets, which begins on page 20 of the Hippo’s May 20 edition.

• Grape expectations: Join LaBelle Winery for a ribbon cutting and grand opening celebration of its newest location at 14 Route 111 in Derry, set for Wednesday, June 2, at 3 p.m. There will be tours of the property, wine and food samplings and free rounds of golf for those who pre-register. LaBelle Winery’s new space, which has been opening in several phases over the past few weeks, includes a brand new restaurant concept called Americus, plus a retail market of prepared and made-to-order foods, multiple performance and event spaces and a nine-hole golf course. Plans are also in the works for the first Champagne house in New Hampshire to be built on the property. Visit labellewinery.com or check out our coverage on the new space in the Hippo’s May 6 edition, beginning on page 22.

• Support local eateries: The Boys & Girls Club of Central New Hampshire is once again going virtual for its annual Taste of New Hampshire this year, this time over the course of 12 days. From Tuesday, June 1, through Saturday, June 12, discounted gift cards for more than 40 local eateries will be available for purchase. You can purchase the gift cards or bid on auction items during those days, either paying $20 for a $25 gift card or $40 for a $50 gift card. The restaurants receive 100 percent of the proceeds, while the Boys & Girls Clubs benefit from the silent auction and sponsorships. Visit tasteofnewhampshire.com or search “Taste of New Hampshire” on Facebook for more details.

• Taking flight: Flight Coffee Co. of Bedford is moving to a new location in town, holding its final day of service at 30 Harvey Road on Saturday, May 29, and reopening at 290 Route 101 next to Wicked Good Butchah on Monday, June 7. “The time has come for us to leave our small outpost and take flight over to our new location on the corner of [Route] 101 and Wallace [Road],” read a May 16 post on the shop’s Facebook page. For nearly a decade Flight Coffee Co. has been a favorite spot in Bedford for its single-origin coffees, also offering teas, espresso blends and fresh doughnuts. Visit flightcoffeeco.com.

On The Job – Victoria Bombino

Victoria Bombino

Dental assistant

Victoria Bombino is a dental assistant at Simply Pediatric Dentistry & Orthodontics in Pelham, where she works alongside the dentist to provide dental care for children.

Explain your job and what it entails.

Understanding patient care, which means helping make the kids feel comfortable at the dentist; educating kids on the importance of good oral health; and working closely with [the dentist] Dr. Boulos doing frenectomies, fillings and anything relative to [dental procedures]; as well as customer service, making sure the dentist is a fun place to go to, and ensuring that parents feel good about the experience as well.

How long have you had this job?

I’ve had this current job for roughly four months now. I’ve been in the dental field for three years.

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

When I was younger, I didn’t like my smile, but I loved going to the dentist. I had the opportunity in high school to start [attending] a technical high school. It had [a] dental assisting [program] there, and that immediately drew my attention. I decided to try it out, and I’ve stuck with it ever since. I attended the University of New England for dental hygiene to continue [the education], but, due to Covid, I took a semester off, and that’s when I ended up landing a job here, as a dental assistant. … Ultimately, I would love to become a dentist.

What kind of education or training did you need?

[To be] a dental assistant, you need your high school diploma, as well as your radiology [training requirement], which is an additional course that you have to take. … You have to always stay up to date with the current technology and the best practices of dentistry. There are … certain procedures where we use certain [equipment], such as the Solea laser, that the dentist has to go [receive training] on, and then the dentist will show the assistants the right and wrong ways [to operate it]. … I’m still working [toward becoming] a Certified Dental Assistant; there are multiple other courses and certifications [required] to become a CDA.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

For our work uniform, we wear scrubs with a water-resistant lab coat over it. … Advanced PPE for patient and team health is huge. We wear a Level 3 mask, and we wear a face shield over it when we’re working closely with a patient. We throw away our used masks every second that we can and put on a new one. I even wear a hair cap, just to make sure everything stays nice and safe for everyone.

How has your job changed over the last year?

Dental offices have always taken the highest level of safety precautions when it comes to personal hygiene, such as hand washing, and wearing PPE, so it has changed less than a lot of people might have guessed. We have [added] extra [precautions], though, such as reduced waiting room time and full sterilization of the dental rooms between each patient.

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

Individuals can be scared at the dentist, but it’s OK; try not to take it personally, and just comfort them as much as you can.

What was the first job you ever had?

My first job was at a prom dress store called Glitterati in Danvers, Mass.

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

Leave work at work.

Five favorites
Favorite book: Divergent by Veronica Roth
Favorite movie:Miss Congeniality
Favorite music: Country
Favorite food: Anything Buffalo
Favorite thing about NH: The scenery. Waking up and seeing all the trees never gets old.

Featured photo: Victoria Bombino

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