Tag: 210701

F9 (PG-13)

F9 (PG-13)

Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto gets even more reason to talk about family in F9: The Fast Saga, a rather slow entry in this “what if James Bond were a muscle car” franchise.

Dom (Diesel) and his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) are living off the grid. They are raising Dom’s young son, Brian (played by Isaac Holtane and Immanuel Holtane), and they don’t even have a phone (really?), so when old work buddies/Toretto crew “family” people Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridge) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) need to talk to Dom and Letty, they have to drive to the couple’s farm. (What do they farm, you ask? As far as I can tell, fancy guns and old vehicles.)

The trio arrives to tell the couple about a downed plane and an emergency communication, both involving Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell), the shadowy government guy from previous movies, and Cipher (Charlize Theron), a villain from the previous movie who was being transported in Mr. Nobody’s plane. Also being transported in that airplane, which seems like a super terrible idea, was part of a potentially society-destroying weapon, which means that when the plane is run out of the sky the baddies involved can collect both a piece of the weapon and a possible ally.

After some “I can’t get involved, I’m a parent now” from Dom, he eventually decides to join Letty in joining the crew to help Mr. Nobody. They head to the spot in Mexico where the plane went down but before they can learn too much about what happened, a local military force shows up. In the midst of what turns into a shootout car chase, another set of bad guys arrive, this one featuring a face Dom recognizes: Jakob (John Cena), his long estranged younger brother.

The Dom vs. Jakob battle serves as the center of this movie, and forces us to flash back to 1989 to the brothers as young men (teens? 20somethings?). The movie spends a lot of time on their relationship and how it formed the kind of adults they became and how Jakob suffered when Dom shunned him because “the worst thing you can do to a Toretto is take away his family” — blah blah blah, it’s a lotta chat that really takes the time away from the good stuff, like a scene in the present day where Sean (Lucas Black), of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift fame, straps a rocket engine to a car or a scene where some of our heroes are driving on a rope bridge after one side is cut.

Other things happen: As has been spoiled all over the place, Han (Sung Kang), who died in Tokyo Drift (the third movie) and then appeared in the next three movies of the franchise (because time, like gravity and physics in general, works differently in the Fast & Furious movies), returns here. Dom’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), who has been out of the franchise since the real-life death of Paul Walker and the retirement of his character Brian (to whom Mia is married), returns. This movie’s biggest star is probably the concept of magnetism; the movie has some fun with giant magnets in its various fight and chase scenes. An element of the final showdown involves space, which was great.

Yeah, I said space.

This may not be a popular opinion in the Fast & Furious community but I think these movies need at least a little action star power in the form of a Dwayne Johnson or a Jason Statham (the latter of whom was apparently in a post-credits scene that I did not stick around for because this movie is two hours and 25 minutes long and just enough with all that post-credits business, man). When Helen Mirren shows up to reprise her role as Queenie Shaw, mother of Statham’s Deckard Shaw character, you can see the difference between a strong screen presence having a good time hamming it up in these movies and the, uhm, not-exactly-master-thespians (at least, as this franchise presents them) in the main roles just sort of earnestly presenting some really silly dialogue. John Cena, who can be fun, isn’t given much room to play here; he frequently comes off as just sort of wooden until the movie’s final act. Theron really feels more like a guest role — it’s like even the movie realizes its bad guys aren’t that exciting and so it tries to dress things up with a little Cipher, all hissing insults and wacky hair.

Without big fun personalities having a big fun silly time and spreading that joy to you through the screen, you’re left with time between big action set pieces (which are the movie’s true big stars) to ponder the oh so many things that don’t make sense or aren’t explained or may have been explained in the last movie but no character details from the last movie are as memorable as the scene with a submarine-related car chase. Things like: Does the 1989 flashback mean that Dom is in his 50s? Actually, how old is anybody supposed to be? Is this really how magnets work? Is that really how space works? How does time work in this movie?

F9 isn’t the sort of movie that should leave room for you to ask any hole-poking questions while you’re watching it. But the length — much of which goes to the Dom/Jakob relationship, which I was never all that interested in —really bogs the movie down where it should be light and zippy. A merciless editor needed to get in there and slice a good 45 minutes of story. Depending on how you count it, this movie has like three villains and that is at least one and a half villains too many.

I wanted to enjoy F9; I have been looking forward to it for months. But too much of its runtime featured me impatiently waiting through all the yammering. I wanted more fast, more furious and less of the franchise flotsam. C+

Rated PG-13 for sequences of (totally, delightfully improbable) violence (including so much shooting where nobody hits anything) and action (magnets! space!), and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Justin Lin with a screenplay by Daniel Casey & Justin Lin, F9: The Fast Saga is two hours and 25 unnecessary minutes long and is distributed by Universal Studios in theaters.

All the Fast

F9 wasn’t my favorite Fast and Furious movie but I am no less a fan of the overall franchise (heck, I’ll probably even watch this one again some day and enjoy it even more, freed of the whole “F9 is bringing back movies” thing).

So where can you find all the previous Fasts and Furiouses?

The eight-film collection — which includes a bunch of extras such as the 2009 short film Los Bandoleros — is for sale on iTunes for $69.99 for the bundle (as with everything mentioned here, this is as of June 28). You can get physical DVDs of that same grouping of movies for between $34.96 and $62.99, depending on the format, from Amazon. Even better, you can also buy a physical copy of the nine-movie set, which includes Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (a spinoff that is just a chef’s-kiss perfection-level example of this series at its least serious), for $52.99 for the Blu-ray. On its own, Hobbs & Shaw sells for $9.99 on iTunes.

In addition to buying or renting, where can you see the movies individually (preferably for “free” with a subscription service you already have)?

As of earlier this week, The Fast and the Furious, the 2001 first movie in the series, and 2 Fast 2 Furious, the 2003 second movie (and only Fast film not to include Vin Diesel’s Dom) are both currently available on HBO.

2006’s Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift, which features neither Paul Walker’s Brian O’Connor or (in any significant way) Diesel’s Dom, but does have characters who factor in to F9, currently appears to be just available for rent or purchase.

The key characters from the first movie are all back together for Fast & Furious, the 2009 fourth movie, which is really when the series starts to hit its stride (and where Gal Gadot joins on). I recently caught a few minutes of the super fun early scenes of this movie (Dom and his crew steal gas from a tanker truck while it travels at high speed; Brian crashes through several windows chasing a bad guy) on some basic cable-type channel. It also appears to be only available for rent or purchase but Fast Five, the 2011 movie that introduces Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs, is currently available on Peacock for free.

Fast & Furious 6 from 2013 brings back a character who died in an earlier movie, as well as introducing the London-based Shaw family (in the form of Owen Shaw, played by Luke Evans). Roku says this entry is available from Peacock with a subscription as well as TNT, TBS and TruTV (all with subscriptions or cable service).

Furious 7 from 2015 brings in Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw and sends off Walker, whose real-life death leads to the retirement of the Brian character from The Life. This is also the movie where a car drives from one skyscraper into another skyscraper way up in the sky in Abu Dhabi. I’m not going to try to argue that it is the best moment in film but, like, it’s on the list. Pretty high. You can see this movie on Hulu with a Live TV subscription or, according to Roku, with a cable provider login to FXNow.

The Fate of the Furious (the eighth film, from 2017) is poetry — you get Helen Mirren as mum to Statham’s character, the beginning of a beautiful frenemyship between Statham and Johnson’s character, a superbly well-choreographed fight scene involving a baby, a car chase involving a submarine.

As with Fate, Fast and Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (a sidequel from 2019 with more Johnson, more Statham, more Mirren, Idris Elba and Ryan Reynolds plus the Oscar-nominated Vanessa Kirby) doesn’t appear to be available on a streaming service, only for rent or purchase. But I greatly enjoyed it and these last three movies — Hobbs & Shaw, The Fate of the Furious and Furious 7 — might be my favorites of the franchise and would make a great dumb and fun triple feature.

All the more reason to shell out for the whole package.

Featured photo: F9

The Anthropocene Reviewed, by John Green

The Anthropocene Reviewed, by John Green (Dutton, 274 pages)

If you only know John Green as the author of young adult novels such as The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down, you don’t know John Green. Of the successful pop novelists working today, Green has one of the more interesting careers, to include a YouTube channel and podcasts created with his brother, Hank.

Sometimes when a famous person tries to hoist a sibling to fame the effort seems sort of awk, as the kids say. (Two words: Randi Zuckerberg.) But Hank Green, John’s younger brother, has a mind equivalent to that of his more famous brother, maybe even superior. John Green says he looks up to him, even though he’s two years younger. He’s written two novels of his own (2018’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and 2020’s A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor.). And it was Hank who came up with the title of John Green’s latest book, The Anthropocene Reviewed.

The brothers were talking about “the sudden everywhereness” of reviews on a 1-to-5-star scale, and John offered that he’d long wanted to review Canada geese. Hank’s response became the title of the book, but before that, a podcast. Which is why, after five novels, John Green has moved into the contemplative essay space — and he has done it expertly.

To be honest, Green had me at the line in which he mentioned “writing” a podcast, which seemed a wondrous thing. Who “writes” podcasts? The ones to which I subscribe don’t seem to follow a script. But in fact, “The Anthropocene Reviewed” podcast is deeply researched, and its episodes (which indeed include one on Canada geese) translate nicely to the page.

The conceit of both the podcast and book is that Green rhapsodizes about any one or two topics — from Diet Dr Pepper to viral meningitis to the wintry mix — and gives it a rating. This is a brilliant concept that could have been done superficially and unsatisfyingly on TikTok or Twitter; in fact, probably someone is doing that. But Green thinks more deeply than that, and his ruminations on the QWERTY keyboard (4 stars), Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest (2 stars) and Super Mario Kart (4 stars) are charming forays through personal and product history.

There is a theme to all the ruminating, which is that humans are destroying the planet. The anthropocene, of course, is the unofficial name for the present geologic epoch, the proposed successor to the holocene. The term is largely used by people who study and/or worry about humans’ impact on the planet, and Green does both. In his chapter on Kentucky bluegrass, he imagines aliens coming to Earth and questioning us about the “ornamental plant god” that we worship in the front and back of our homes. “Why do you worship this species? Why do you value it over all the other plants?”

Green wonders that as well. Nearly one-third of drinkable, residential water in the U.S. goes to our lawns, which are a relatively new addition to the anthropocene. (Until about the 1500s, we spoke of only pastures and fields.) He also bemoans our use of fertilizer and pesticides (10 times more per acre than American farmers use on corn and wheat fields) and the grass clippings rotting in landfills. Maintaining a lawn is, essentially, “an encounter with nature, but the kind where you don’t get your hands dirty.” Kentucky bluegrass gets 2 stars.

Better, but not by much, is air conditioning, which has allowed “the most privileged among us” to put a barrier between us and the weather. “I am insulated from the weather by my house and in its conditioned air. I eat strawberries in January. When it is raining, I can go inside. When it is dark, I can turn on lights. It is easy for me to feel like climate is mostly an outside phenomenon, whereas I am mostly an inside phenomenon.” Three stars.

If there is a slight air of moralizing in the essays, it is well taken with Green’s acknowledgment of complicity with the sins. He has a lawn that he mows; he uses air conditioning. “Like an expensive painting or a fragile orchid, I thrive only in extremely specific conditions.”

So whether you wind up liking him or not may hinge on what you think of his assessment of Monopoly (the game, not our Big Tech overlords), Teddy bears, the song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” or the band The Mountain Goats.

But to be clear: Despite an occasional foray into the whimsical and comic, this is a book of largely serious reflections by a man who once planned to become an Episcopal priest and is writing (at times) during a global pandemic.

The book is heavy on wonder and gratitude, while cognizant that life can be wonderful and terrible at the same time. Five stars for the content, 10 for the delightful relationship of the Green brothers. A

Book Notes

In warmer climes, the unofficial start of summer is Memorial Day; in these parts, it’s the Fourth of July, which means it’s time to bring out the beach reads.

The term has been around for a couple of decades, beginning as publisher lingo for blockbuster books that would come out in the summer. Since then, it’s evolved to mean anything light and frothy and fun, preferably in paperback so it doesn’t matter if it gets sandy or wet.

Some authors have built careers on the beach read, most notably Elin Hilderbrand, who actually writes her beach reads on the beach. (She writes in longhand in a notebook on Nantucket.)

Hilderbrand’s 2021 offering is Golden Girl (Little, Brown and Co., 384 pages), which recently made headlines because of a controversial quote from one of the characters. After backlash on social media, Hilderbrand apologized for the reference to Anne Frank, which some saw as anti-Semitic, and the publisher will delete the quote in digital form and subsequent print editions.

Another no-brainer is from Emily Henry, the author who last year shrewdly published a novel called Beach Read (Penguin, 384 pages). It’s about two writers with writer’s block who wind up living next to each other at the beach for three months. She followed this up with this year’s People We Meet on Vacation (Berkeley, 384 pages). It’s about best friends who always vacationed together until they had a falling-out two years ago. This year, they’re trying to fix the rift by going on vacation again.

A few others making waves:

Summer on the Bluffs by The View co-host Sunny Hostin (William Morrow, 400 pages) is set in Martha’s Vineyard.

Our Italian Summer by Jennifer Probst (Berkley, 384 pages) is about three generations of women traveling through Tuscany and Rome.

Seven Days in Juneby Tia Williams (Grand Central Publishing, 336 pages) is about two writers who briefly loved each other in high school, then fell out of touch but kept writing about each other in their published books. Jodi Picoult is reported to have loved it.

The Guncle by Steven Rowley (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 336 pages) is about a gay sitcom actor who has to unexpectedly parent his young niece and nephew. Reviews say it’s both heartwarming and funny.

Books

Author events

• PAUL DOIRON Author presents Dead by Dawn. The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth. Thurs., July 1, 6 p.m. Tickets cost $60 to $180 per table. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• TERRY FARISH Meet-and-greet with picture book and young adult author. Kingston Community Library, 2 Library Lane, Kingston. Thurs., July 8, 3:30 p.m. Registration required. Visit kingston-library.org.

• CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE Author presents The Exiles. Hosted by The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Tues., July 13, 7 p.m. Virtual. Tickets cost $5. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• MEGAN MIRANDA Author presents Such a Quiet Place. Hosted by The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Tues., July 20, 7 p.m. Virtual. Tickets cost $5. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

Poetry

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

Featured photo: The Anthropocene Reviewed

Album Reviews 21/07/01

KPT, Obliterate (Give/Take Records)

Any gothies out there remember industrial DJ Terrorfakt? Oh come on, that’s got to jog a few low-tier brain cells if you were in the vampire-club scene around six or 10 years ago. He was quite the badass, making beats that were a little bit like Swans and a lot of bit like Skinny Puppy, thus he was more, well, danceable, for lack of a better word. This Minneapolis dude is somewhat similar but more Throbbing Lobster-ish, tabling noise experiments that are in general not at all danceable but plenty edgy. In fact this loose collection of six tunes is more in the vein of Kurt Vile or Einstürzende Neubauten than any of the usual Metropolis Records-signed suspects, but as I alluded, the binding vibe is Terrorfakt: unhinged darkwave intro bits eventually get taken over by pneumatic-drill pounding that’s super cool if you like it rough and dystopian. Odd factoid about this EP is that all the songs were written as agent/label demos and other such things, and none of them ever panned out. Now that’s what I call bleakness! A

Kenny Garrett, Sounds from the Ancestors (Mack Avenue Records)

Usually I try to avoid talking up a record whose release date is this far away (late August, so they’re saying), but me-oh my-oh, what a sweet album this is, from the veteran post-bop jazz saxophonist/flautist, here reminding everyone that his early days included stints with Miles Davis, Art Blakey and Freddie Hubbard, while wearing his Detroit (and Afrobeat) heritage proudly on his sleeve. The band is Garrett’s go-to quintet, gathered here to pay homage to legendary thises and thats, such as Black American church music (“When the Days Were Different”), Afro-Cuban (the title track) and (more than referentially) Roy Hargrove. Drummer wonks will feel their jaws dropping while trying to comprehend “For Art’s Sake,” in which Ronald Bruner and conga guy Rudy Bird morph into a relentless but gentle polyrhythm machine churning out a concoction of modern jazz and Nigerian Afrobeat. Doesn’t get more urban than this, guys, and the sound engineering is impeccable. A+

PLAYLIST

• All ahead flank and raise the mizzenmast, ya swabs, July 2021 is here, and with it will come bikinis on vacuous Instagrammers, the awesome new strain of coronavirus, and of course, on July 2, a bushel of new, freshly line-caught albums, from musicians, bands, and maybe even a few bored nouveau riche Hollywood imbeciles who have nothing better to do than make horrible albums with starving musicians and washed up “producers” who can be purchased outright with American Express Rewards Points! Ah, here’s one now, a new album, spazzing its way out of the fish barrel and onto my fisherman’s platter, it’s Get Up Sequences Part One, from British band The Go Team! You may have been exposed to their actually cool ravings before, a concoction made of hip-hop, indie, “double-Dutch” jump rope chants and “plunderphonics” (in other words, sound collages made of many familiar songs), but more likely you haven’t, and that’s OK! Throughout their 20-year career, these guys have collaborated with such artists as Deerhoof and Chuck D, had an album nominated for a Mercury Prize, and basically been accused of being incredibly awesome by everyone who’s ever heard them. At this writing, the newest single is “Pow,” a trippy dance track that sounds like a cross between Salt-N-Pepa, 1970s-psychedelica and Sonic Youth, something of that nature.

• I don’t know why anyone would want to, but if you were to go way back in time, specifically 1992, and you were a metal fan, you would have the pleasure of being one of the first people to hear The Red in the Sky Is Ours, the debut album from Swedish death metal band At the Gates! That album is a direct cross between math metal, Venom, and hearing your dad freak and run away from a nest-load of bees. They were gone for a long time, 19 years to be precise, until they resurfaced in 2014, with At War With Reality, and their latest, titled The Nightmare Of Being, is being released as we speak. That’s a lot of coverage I’ve just given these guys, but the fact is that I’m only interested in hearing whether they still sound like early tape-trader-era metal, with boom-box quality. Well, turns out they’re still all about crazed Cannibal Corpse caterwauling and Cookie Monster growl-singing but nowadays they’re also into epic Equilibrium-esque opera-metal, to go by splashdown single “Spectre Of Extinction,” which probably isn’t representative of the bulk of what they’re doing now, but it’s all good.

• Desperate Journalist is a post-punk-revival quartet from England, In other words they’re basically an ’80s band. They’re up to four albums as of Friday, when their newest, Maximum Sorrow, hits the streets! The push single at this writing, “Fault,” isn’t desperately ’80s at all, just a crockpot of Florence Welch, Joy Division and other common edge-rock. Matter of fact, there’s vibe from the first Cult LP too. It’s OK I guess.

• We’ll wrap up with Birmingham, U.K., R&B singer Laura Mvula, whose new record, Pink Noise, is on the way! She is bald, which means she hates conformity, and the new single “Got Me” has the same beat as Michael Jackson’s “Man In The Mirror.” In fact, the song is mostly Thriller throwbackism, which is rather conformist, now that you mention it.

Retro Playlist

’Twas late June 2011, and as always there were new albums all over the place, and I reviewed them here in these pages and tried to make funny jokes, some of which probably rubbed some people the wrong way but I can’t be sure. All the new albums came out on Tuesdays back then, and the July 5 slate was pretty full. There was British stuffed-shirt proggers Yes, who released their first studio album in 10 years, Fly From Here, but there were no advance songs for me to snark about. Nevertheless I forgave them “for not updating their MySpace profile with a teaser track” (it’s been so long that I can’t even remember if MySpace had become a punchline yet, but I’ll assume it was).

As well, I brought up Neon, the third LP from “cow-pie-kicking country star Chris Young,” who had “won top prize on the Nashville Star TV show in 2006, mostly because he doesn’t sound like Toby Keith.” Surely you remember.

One of the two main focuses that week was Devil’s Music, the 2011 from the great soundsystem Teddybears. It was something of a very mild letdown compared to 2006’s Soft Machine, which featured the tune “Punk Rocker,” a masterpiece of shlock-techno featuring none other than Iggy Pop. Only problem with putting something that awesome on an album is that it’s literally impossible to top, but these nutty Swedes were able to get B.o.B. to add his pop-rapping to the street-cruising “Get Mama A House.”

“Generation Ringtone” was what millennials were called before they became hyper-woke Instagrammers later in life. In 2011 they usually ignored and insulted new prog-rock acts (bands like Mars Volta are still treated horribly to this day), but if a band snuck in a little country/folk/Grateful Dead vibe, they usually did get some unwarranted respect (the dreadful Umphrey’s McGee for example). Anyway, White Denim released an LP titled D that week, and it was OK, I summarized: “If you wish ELP had jammed with the Allman Brothers, certainly, buy this album.” That’s actually pretty high praise, technically, come to think of it.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Fireworks and beer

Celebrate the Fourth of July with the perfect brew

Do you remember what you had planned for the Fourth of July last year? That’s a trick question. We both know you had absolutely nothing planned. The 2020 Fourth of July took a hit just like everything else last year.

Actually, that said, my family was preparing for my dad’s 70th birthday, as he was born on July 5. It was supposed to be the first time we got together as a family, albeit outside and socially distanced, since the world came to a halt in March 2020.

I was looking forward to having a beer with my dad, and it was off to a good but very brief start when the skies opened up and thunderstorms took over. Hey, we tried. But Covid-19 won in the end. In hindsight, I suppose it was predictable.

This year, we’re all overdue for a party. I know my dad is.

With last year behind us and a light visible at the end of the tunnel, this year feels different. I don’t think people are going to be attending the same old Fourth of July cookout this year. This is the year to take things up a notch.

I mean, bring the burgers and dogs, but let’s also throw a couple T-bones on the grill in honor of what we missed out on last year. I think we should all be allowed to have an extra-large ice cream sundae on the Fourth this year too, or maybe an ice cold root beer float.

That goes for beer too. Don’t hold back on your beer choices this year. This is the year to wait in line for the beer you want. There. I said it.

Here are three beers that will help you celebrate the Fourth of July.

Combover IPA by Schilling Beer Co. (Littleton)

You should probably just go to Schilling for the Fourth and have some delicious pizza by the river as you drink amazing beer. You can’t beat the view. You can’t beat the pizza. And you can’t beat the beer. This is your quintessential American IPA: supper hoppy, bursting with notes of citrus and pine, and, maybe surprisingly, a little hint of strawberry. I would wait in line for this beer.

Seize the Bean Coffee Milk Stout by Throwback Brewery (North Hampton)

I know, it’s super hot and who wants a rich, creamy stout when the sun is cranking? Well, sometimes when the sun goes down on the Fourth of July, people light fires and then enjoy toasted marshmallows and smores. And I think this brew would go absolutely perfectly with a summer bonfire on the Fourth. This is rich, decadent and full of chocolate and coffee flavor but relatively low on alcohol, which makes this just slide right down.

Tie Dyed Dry-hopped Pale Ale by Great North Aleworks (Manchester)

I’m legitimately scared you are going to drink too much of this. It’s got the hop character that beer drinkers these days love but in a package that is just so much more palatable and drinkable. I hadn’t had one of these in a while and cracked one open recently, and I said to my wife, “I could drink a million of these.” I didn’t and I’m not going to, but I think you’ll appreciate how this beer combines big hop flavor with an easy-drinking brew.

What’s in My Fridge
Naughty Nurse by City Steam Brewery (Hartford, Conn.)
I went to my cousin’s wedding a couple weeks ago and it was just so hot and humid. It’s the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been in a suit — and I didn’t even wear a tie. It’s an understatement to say I was thirsty. The Naughty Nurse is an amber ale — and can I just say amber ales are underrated as a style — and this was both refreshing and flavorful. It’s got a little caramel sweetness and a little bitter spice in a very sessionable package. Cheers!

Tim and Amy Dally

Tim and Amy Dally of Milford are the owners of Tim’s Drunken Sauces & Rubs (967-4242, [email protected], find them on Facebook), a food trailer they launched in the spring that specializes in barbecue items like ribs, pulled pork and beef brisket, in addition to other options like burgers, tacos, Philly cheesesteaks, loaded fries, fresh-squeezed lemonades and fruit smoothies. They also offer their small-batch sauces and rubs, many of which will incorporate alcohol, like their signature maple bourbon sauce. Find them at 244 Elm St. in Milford most Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tim’s Drunken Sauces & Rubs also appears at local breweries like Able Ebenezer Brewing Co. in Merrimack and Spyglass Brewing Co. in Nashua, and has a few public events scheduled this month, including Ashland’s Independence Day Celebration on July 3 and the annual Twilight at the Currier block party at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester on July 17.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

Tim: My probe thermometer.

Amy: My burger spatula. It’s a nice wide one, so you can get right under there. If I don’t have that, it’s not coming out right.

What would you have for your last meal?

Tim: Hibachi.

Amy: Definitely Italian. Something with cheese and sauce and pasta, [like] chicken Parm or eggplant Parm.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

Tim: Jade Dragon and Golden Koi [in Milford].

Amy: Pastamore [in Amherst]. It’s family-owned, and probably the most authentic Italian food that we have found since moving here, other than in Boston. They’re really great people and their food is great.

What celebrity would you like to see ordering from your food trailer?

Tim: J. Lo [Jennifer Lopez].

Amy: For me, it would have to be Gronk [former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski].

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

Tim: The brisket. We’re doing both plates and sandwiches, and we sell it by the pound.

Amy: Mine is the pulled pork macaroni and cheese burrito, and I dip it in the maple bourbon sauce. It’s fantastic.

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

Amy: In all honesty, I would say food trucks, just from all of the people that have reached out to us. … There are so many places in New England where food trucks are a thing, and New Hampshire is finally getting on that bandwagon.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

Amy: Lasagna. I do a meat lasagna with Italian sausage in it, and my kids love it. It’s their favorite.

Tim: Hibachi. I make my own teriyaki sauce and everything.

Smoked baked great northern beans
Courtesy of Tim and Amy Dally of Tim’s Drunken Sauces & Rubs

1 bag great northern beans
1 red onion
1 pound bacon
3 garlic cloves
¾ cup maple syrup
¾ cup bourbon
½ cup molasses
½ cup apple cider vinegar
5 cups barbecue sauce
6 tablespoons ketchup
6 tablespoons tomato paste
7 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Pork belly (cut into 1-inch cubes; about 5 to 10 cubes)
5 tablespoons paprika
3 tablespoons dry mustard
1 teaspoon cayenne powder

Rinse beans. Add six to eight cups of water to a saucepan and bring to a rapid boil. Boil for two minutes. Remove from heat and cover. Drain beans and rinse. Add six cups of water to the saucepan. Add beans and simmer on low to medium heat with lid tilted until desired tenderness. Cook the bacon and set aside. Drain the grease out and add the pork belly. Dice the onions and cook for 5 minutes. Add the diced garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add 6 cups of water, along with the maple syrup, bourbon, molasses, apple cider vinegar, barbecue sauce, Dijon mustard, ketchup, tomato paste, paprika, dry mustard and cayenne powder. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Add cooked bacon and place in smoker for 3 to 5 hours at 250 degrees.

Featured photo: Tim and Amy Dally – Tim’s Drunken Sauces & Rubs

Home-cooked Italian

Tammaro’s Cucina coming to Litchfield

Donna Tammaro and her daughter, Lindsey Russo, quickly gained a following among family and friends last year for trays of their homemade Italian dishes, starting with Russo’s lasagna before expanding to others like meatballs, chicken alfredo, stuffed shells and eggplant Parmesan. The feedback was so positive that it inspired them to pursue opening their own restaurant, where they’ll soon be offering a variety of scratch-made options to the public for the first time.

Lasagna from Tammaro’s Cucina. Courtesy photo.

Tammaro’s Cucina, on track to open later this month in northern Litchfield, is expected to feature a diverse menu of homemade Italian dishes cooked to order, plus a case of take-and-bake pasta trays, pastries and other options. Many of the dishes are named after and use recipes from multiple family members, including MaryAnn Tammaro — Donna’s mother and Russo’s Nana — as well as Russo’s aunt and even a few of her cousins from overseas in Italy.

While cooking most of the meals out of MaryAnn’s home kitchen in Manchester, Donna Tammaro and Russo looked for potential restaurant locations over the course of several months. A friend eventually tipped them off earlier this year about a small space on Charles Bancroft Highway in nearby Litchfield that would soon become vacant.

Tammaro’s Cucina will feature salads, soups and a few Italian hot subs like chicken Parmesan, meatball, and sausage, pepper and onion. But the stars of its menu will be the pasta dishes, from Russo’s meat or cheese lasagna to chicken penne broccoli alfredo, shrimp scampi, chicken ziti broccoli in a garlic wine sauce, and a five-cheese tortellini. Each will be served with two pieces of garlic bread, made with Tammaro’s own garlic butter in house.

“Some dishes will have other sides you can choose,” Russo said. “We’ll have risotto, ricotta mashed potatoes, broccoli, mixed vegetables and mozzarella sticks for sides. … We’re also going to be doing cheese and pepperoni Sicilian pizzas.”

A few pasta dishes, Tammaro said, will likely be cooked in half trays ahead of lunchtime and available out of a grab-and-go case. Several homemade desserts are also expected, including cannolis, lemon or blueberry ricotta cake, tiramisu and assorted Italian cupcakes and cookies.

Half- or full-sized trays of any of the menu’s pastas will be cooked to order too, feeding about six to eight or 12 to 16 people, respectively, according to Russo.

Potential specials may include Italian meatloaf with ricotta mashed potatoes, or items traditionally served around the holidays like pizzagaina.

“Pizzagaina is a meat pie with Italian cold cuts and fresh ricotta and Parmesan cheese,” Tammaro said. “It’s absolutely out of this world. … My mother used to make one that was so huge.”

While they expect to offer mostly takeout and delivery, Russo said there will be a few tables inside for customers to dine in, as well as outside the restaurant in nice weather.

Tommaro’s Cucina
An opening date is expected in the coming weeks. Call, email or follow them on social media for updates.

Where: 469 Charles Bancroft Hwy., Litchfield
Anticipated hours: Tuesday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m.
More info: Follow them on Facebook @tammaroscucina4 or on Instagram @tammaroscucina, email [email protected] or call 377-7312

Featured photo: Penne with meatballs from Tammaro’s Cucina. Courtesy photo.

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