Tag: 201203

Harpoon & Dunkin’

Coffee, doughnuts and beer together at last

Harpoon Brewery and Dunkin’ teamed up last year to bring the beer world the Harpoon Dunkin’ Coffee Porter. I thought it was a nice take on the coffee porter, featuring distinctive notes of roasted coffee and chocolate in a robust, malty package.

I suspect Starbucks fans disagree with me, so I just want to offer that qualifier right off the bat.

If you haven’t noticed, Harpoon and Dunkin’ decided to take things to another level this fall. I, as usual, am months behind, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a Harpoon-Dunkin’ mixed-pack during my pre-Thanksgiving run to the beer store. This was not your run-of-the-mill mixed-pack.

My wife requested pumpkin beer and I wanted a coffee-flavored brew, so the mixed-pack, which featured the Harpoon Dunkin’ Coffee Porter and a Pumpkin Spiced Latte Ale, caught my eye. The deal was sealed when I saw the mixed-pack included a Boston Kreme Stout and a Jelly Donut IPA. This is real.

Between Thanksgiving itself and the day after Thanksgiving, I enjoyed a pour of each one. What I enjoyed most and found most impressive about the entire foursome was that they held true to their pairings. The Coffee Porter truly tastes like the Dunkin’ original coffee blend and the Boston Kreme Stout tastes very much like a Boston Kreme doughnut, and so on.

I made my comment about Starbucks in jest but I suspect whether or not you like any of these Harpoon-Dunkin’ brews depends very much on whether or not you like Dunkin’ from both the doughnut and the coffee perspective. If you aren’t a fan of Dunkin’ coffee, nothing to see here.

I think the Coffee Porter was my favorite; I like the richness of the brew. That said, it’s not too heavy. I enjoyed it Thanksgiving afternoon as we finished up meal prep.

I can’t honestly say that I liked the Jelly Donut IPA, but my wife enjoyed it. I just didn’t think the sugary sweet jelly flavor paired well with the hops, but this legitimately tastes like a jelly doughnut. It’s worth giving it a shot as it may well be the most unique brew you’ve ever tasted.

The Pumpkin Spiced Latte Ale tastes so much like an actual pumpkin spiced latte that sometimes I forgot whether I was drinking a coffee or a beer. It’s sweet and features the combination of pumpkin, cinnamon and sugar you expect from this as a coffee — a tasty, seasonal treat. The pour is more or less the color of pumpkin, more orange-y than I expected.

The Boston Kreme Stout was excellent with notes of sweet chocolate and coffee and a smooth finish. This one was much lighter than expected, and because of that, I think this makes an excellent choice for someone who normally doesn’t like stouts.

A final note is that I feel that mixed-packs make excellent choices for holiday get-togethers, as they provide a variety of options and hopefully something for everyone. Now, I know we’re celebrating in smaller numbers this year so just go ahead and save that sage advice for next year.

Featured Photo: Courtesy photo.

In the kitchen with Carrie Williams

Carrie Williams of Contoocook is the owner and chef of the Flannel Tavern (345 Suncook Valley Road, Chichester, 406-1196, flanneltavern.com), a casual eatery on Route 28 that opened in April and offers scratch-made comfort foods. The menu features everything from burgers and sandwiches to appetizers, fresh salads, and plated entrees, like fish and chips, baked haddock, chicken fingers, lasagna rolls and macaroni and cheese. Beer and wine selections include both domestic and local options, with craft cocktails also available. Williams, who worked as a caterer for more than a decade, said the restaurant’s concept is based on many different types of comfort foods she grew up eating.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

I would be lost withoaut aluminum foil, and then obviously a chef’s knife. I have one that I use all the time, with an orange handle.

What would you have for your last meal?

Prime rib and mashed potatoes.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

I would have to say the Lakehouse Tavern in Hopkinton. They are really good. A lot of times, I’ll get The Bird Man, which is a huge sandwich.

What celebrity would you like to see eating at your restaurant?

Someone I’ve always wanted to meet is Van Morrison. We listen to him in the kitchen all the time.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

The chicken bacon ranch sandwich. It [has] chicken tenders with mozzarella sticks, bacon and our homemade buttermilk ranch on a kaiser roll. It’s our No. 1 sandwich.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

What I’m seeing across the board, especially with so many restaurants that have been closing, is that people are more going back to home-cooked meals and things that are just really comforting during such a stressful time.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

Thanksgiving dinner is one of my favorite things to put on. It’s always been a big deal in my family. We do turkey, boiled onions, sweet potatoes, my grandma’s cranberry relish and an apple sausage stuffing.

Carrie’s coconut cream pie
From the kitchen of Carrie Williams of the Flannel Tavern in Chichester
9-inch pie shell, baked and set aside
1 cup shredded coconut, toasted to golden brown (1 to 2 minutes at 450 degrees)
3 cups heavy whipping cream
½ cup flour
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
Add heavy whipping cream, flour, sugar and eggs to a saucepan, turning on to medium heat and stirring constantly until thickened. Remove from heat and add ¾ cup of the toasted coconut and vanilla. Add mixture from cream, flour, sugar and eggs to the pie shell and cool for two hours. Top with whipped cream and the last ¼ cup of coconut.

Featured Photo: Carrie Williams

New York eats

Sunny Side Up Deli now open in Nashua

A New York-style sandwich shop with a unique New England twist, Sunny Side Up Deli, now open in Nashua, features local and regional breads, vegetables, coffees and other items to complement a full line of Boar’s Head brand premium cold cuts, cheeses, soups and salads. The eatery opened its doors last month in the former space of the Beadles Bead Shop & Boutique on Amherst Street, according to manager Tristan Hoffler.

The Boar’s Head line, founded in New York City more than a century ago, was a must for Sunny Side Up Deli to carry, Hoffler said, due to its quality and connection to The Big Apple. All breakfast and lunch sandwiches are made to order with freshly sliced meats, nothing precut, and served on breads from Tripoli Bakery of Lawrence, Mass. Gluten-free breads, buns and wraps from other purveyors, like LaMarca Bakery of Malden, Mass., are currently being tested.

“Our sandwiches are all perfectly layered … with meat, cheese and veggies,” Hoffler said. “You go to Subway or any other place like that around and you won’t find sandwiches like ours.”

Most of Sunny Side Up Deli’s offerings are named after Nashua area streets or points of interest — the Central Street, for example, is a traditional panini-pressed Reuben with freshly sliced corned beef, melted Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing on rye bread, while the Mine Falls sandwich features turkey, roast beef, capocollo, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onions, sundried tomatoes and a basil mayonnaise.

All of the sandwiches come with a bag of chips, a pickle spear and a small serving of Boar’s Head salad, like coleslaw or tortellini salad. The menu also includes grab-and-go salads, as well as a few breakfast sandwich options that are available all day, like a traditional over-easy egg and cheese sandwich with either bacon, sausage, ham or turkey, and A Better Morning, which features egg, cheese, bacon, peppers and onions on a kaiser roll.

Hot coffee from Wicked Joe of Topsham, Maine, is made fresh daily, and the plan is for Sunny Side Up to eventually expand to iced coffees and espresso drinks.

“[Wicked Joe has] 100 percent organic fair-trade coffee beans,” Hoffler said. “We picked them because we wanted to make sure that our coffee came from a good source.”

The deli has made fresh desserts in house, like cookies and parfaits, and will soon be offering knishes, or Jewish deep-fried potato-filled snack foods that are popular in New York.

Sunny Side Up Deli
Where: 427 Amherst St., Unit 9, Nashua
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.
More info: Visit sunnysideupnh.com, find them on Facebook @sunnysideupdelinh or call 417-7145

Featured photo:The Central Street: corned beef, melted Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing on rye. Photo by Matt Ingersoll.

Coffee and community

McLaughlin’s Country Market opens in Concord

Photo by Matt Ingersoll.

While looking for a commercial property to start his own coffee roastery, David McLaughlin came across a vacant storefront in East Concord — the old Quality Cash Market, which closed more than two years ago. In July, he and partner Tiffani McIntosh decided to check out the space and see what they could do with it.

“One of our biggest visions … was that it needed to be a place for the locals, in a comfortable, neighborhood setting,” McIntosh said.

McLaughlin’s Country Market, which opened on Nov. 17, features fresh coffees roasted onsite, in addition to groceries, beer and wine, and a diverse selection of locally made products — and coming soon, a Nadeau’s sub shop. McLaughlin is a longtime friend of franchise owner Jeremy Nadeau, who has five other locations in the state.

McIntosh said the market has already had a tremendous amount of support.

“Even before we opened, people had been coming to the door and asking us when we are opening and what’s going to be here, so we’ve been developing relationships for two months,” she said.

Freshly roasted in house under the name Second Love Coffee, the coffees at the market are part of a passion project for McLaughlin. With varying flavors and degrees of sweetness and acidity, each blend is available for self-serve pouring, or you can get any of them as small batches of bean or ground coffee for home use, prepared fresh on the Java Master roaster in real time.

“You can generate all kinds of flavors out of one bean, just by roasting it differently,” said McLaughlin, who has been home-roasting on and off for several years and gets his green coffee beans from Colombia and Costa Rica. “The Java Master is nice because you can roast one to six pounds at a time, so you could come in and say, ‘Can I get three pounds of this bean,’ and then have it roasted while you’re waiting, or [you could] pick it up the next day.”

While McLaughlin’s doesn’t have a butcher shop like its predecessor, a variety of pre-packaged sliced meats are for sale out of the market’s grocery area, as well as basic items like milk, eggs, bread, cheeses, produce, snacks, sodas and pastries. There is also a special section dedicated to products made in New Hampshire — McIntosh has worked with local purveyors of barbecue sauces, doughnuts, maple syrups, goat milk soaps and other items to stock the shelves with.

You’ll find the new Nadeau’s order counter near the back of the building. While that is expected to be fully operational very soon, according to McIntosh, Nadeau’s in the meantime has provided the market with cold sandwiches for sale and is currently training employees at other shop locations to come work in Concord. She said plans will likely be in the works soon to arrange a joint takeout service of items between Nadeau’s and McLaughlin’s.

“Let’s say you’re out of milk, and you want to pick up a sub for dinner while you’re here. We can collaborate and you can get whatever grocery items you need,” she said.

McLaughlin said he and McIntosh have already seen their fair share of repeat customers in just a short period of time being open.

“It’s definitely more of a little shopping market for the neighborhood versus a lot of transient business coming and going and you might not see them again,” he said.

McLaughlin’s Country Market
Where: 11 Eastman St., Concord
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
More info: Find them on Facebook @mclaughlinscountrymarket or email [email protected]

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 20/12/03

News from the local food scene

• More Greek eats to go: Join St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church (1160 Bridge St., Manchester) for Lamb on the Run, a drive-thru pickup luncheon happening on Sunday, Dec. 6, from noon to 2 p.m. Meals are $20 and include baked leg of lamb au jus, served with rice pilaf, green beans in red sauce and a Greek salad. Pre-order by calling 925-2692 or emailing [email protected]. In Concord, Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church (68 N. State St.) will host its next drive-up Greek dinner to go on Sunday, Dec. 13, from noon to 1 p.m. (pre-ordering by Dec. 9 is required). That meal will feature lenten- or meat-stuffed grape leaves, Greek-style roasted vegetables and a dessert and is $15 per person. Call 953-3051 or email [email protected].

• Takeout every Tuesday: As a new initiative to support city restaurants throughout this upcoming winter season, Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, in partnership with Intown Manchester and the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, recently announced a social media campaign called Manchester Takeout Tuesdays, according to a press release. “With Manchester Takeout Tuesdays, our city can come together to safely support our restaurant community while also containing the spread of Covid-19,” Craig said in a statement.

• Bakery will challenge fine: A Bedford bakery is challenging a $500 fine it received last week from the state Attorney General’s office for an alleged coronavirus emergency order violation, according to a press release. Simply Delicious Baking Co. will receive financial support from the Mont Vernon-based Liberty Defense Fund of New Hampshire to fight the fine, which was issued following an alleged violation of Emergency Order No. 52, by not requiring customer service staff to wear masks or face-coverings when directly interacting with customers. The bakery, according to the violation letter, had until Nov. 30 to pay the $500 penalty. “We have taken a number of precautions to keep our space safe, including the recommended social distancing,” bakery owner Alexa Firman said in a statement. “The mask mandate goes against my inspiration for starting this business: to build a face-to-face community space … and I believe people who make the choice to come in and enjoy that environment should have the right to do so.”

• New local shrub release: Djinn Spirits (2 Townsend West, Suite 9, Nashua) recently announced the release of a new product, Winter Sun, a mango rosemary shrub, according to a press release. The third product in Djinn’s Codename series, Winter Sun became available at the distillery on Nov. 10. According to the release, shrubs are drinks that date back hundreds of years and typically pair a fruit with vinegar and other flavors. Winter Sun’s flavor profile features vinegar that is offset by the sweetness of the mango, and rosemary to build complexity with an aromatic savory note. Visit djinnspirits.com.

Tree talk

Help yours survive and thrive

I’ll have to admit that I see many fewer volcanoes of mulch snuggling up to trees in public places. I think the word is out, at least with municipal workers, that trees can be damaged or killed by over-exuberant mulching. Among homeowners? I’m not so sure. Let’s take a look at the problem.
Tree bark is wonderful stuff: No matter the weather, bark protects its tree from rain, snow, cold or drought. But it is only rated for above-ground use. Bury tree bark, or cover it with mulch, and microorganisms will break it down and attack the green layer of cambium beneath the bark.
So what is this cambium layer? It is an active, growing layer of cells that produce the phloem and xylem tissue that provide for the transportation of necessary liquids and that provide mechanical strength. If the cambium layer is destroyed, the tree will die — but not right away. Most experts say that if the cambium layer is compromised, it can take six to 10 years for a tree to decline and die. First signs of the problem include tip dieback — top branches losing leaves — and earlier fall color than previously seen.
When you mulch around a tree, you should leave space between the tree trunk and mulch. Some say, leave a doughnut hole around the tree. How much? Four to six inches is good, depending on the size of the tree. Bigger tree, bigger space. And even if you have started with a mulch-free space around the tree, don’t assume there is still a space. Go look. Gravity works 24/7, and rain and wind can move mulch a little.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not against mulching around trees. It serves two important functions. It keeps down weeds, and it keeps away exuberant guys (usually) with weed whackers. No mulch? That guy with ear protection and a raging string trimmer can girdle your tree in a heartbeat. And that would be as bad as letting mulch slowly rot the bark.
By pulling away the bark mulch, you can save the tree. I have removed mulch and seen damaged bark. But if the cambium is still functioning, the tree can recover, and I’ve seen that, too.
There is another way that the cambium layer can be compromised: covering the trunk flare with soil at planting time. Burying the portion of the tree that should be above ground will lead to a slow death.
Growing trees is an industry. Americans buy hundreds of thousands every year. They are sold at local family-run nurseries and big box stores, but they’re often started in nurseries in the warmer regions of the United States. Trees are often grown in fields, like corn, and then lifted and potted up to be sold to your local nursery.
If you ask how deep to plant your little tree, the most likely answer (from my informal survey of homeowners) is “Plant it just like it is in the pot.” But that is generally bad advice. The process of taking a field-grown tree and getting it into a plastic pot is not precise. Time is money, so trees are often plunked in containers with little regard for the depth they were growing in the field. The trunk flare (that part that should be above ground) is often buried.
To recognize the trunk flare of a tree, go outside and look at a tree planted by Mother Nature. You will see at the base of a tree that there are above-ground roots heading away from the tree, and that the base of the tree widens just above ground level. That wider portion is the trunk flare and must be above ground.
Before planting a tree, take your fingers and pull away the soil from the tree trunk at the surface until you can see the trunk flare. If the tree has been in the pot for a few years (often the case for larger trees) and the flare has been covered, little roots have started to grow out of the trunk flare and should be cut off.
Larger trees for sale at nurseries have often been moved from their original pots or bags to larger ones. At that juncture, soil is added, and it often covers the trunk flare. I have planted trees that came from the nursery with four to six inches of soil over the trunk flare. By removing that, I saved the trees.
What should you do if you planted a tree without regard to trunk flare? Take a look at it carefully. If your tree trunk is as straight as a telephone pole at the soil surface, you need to do some digging. You need to expose the trunk flare.
I like to use a single-tine hand tool called the CobraHead weeder (CobraHead.cm) to expose the trunk flare. I gently and slowly loosen soil and pull it back with my hands. In fact, I use my fingers as much as possible, as I don’t want to damage the bark on the trunk flare. Once you see the flare, re-grade the soil around the tree trunk. It is not as scary a proposition as it sounds.
Trees are our friends. You have to be sure they are properly planted and tended, so go look at yours. You may have to do some work on the next warm day.

Featured Photo: Don’t create mulch volcanoes like this. Courtesy photo.

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