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Finding his father

A.J. Croce’s family crossroads

Fittingly, the first song A.J. Croce ever recorded from his late father Jim Croce’s catalog was “I Got A Name.” He’d done hits like “Time In A Bottle” and “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” during Croce Plays Croce concerts for a few years, and a bit reluctantly at that. The decision to truly embrace the tribute show after a long and successful solo career involved some divine intervention, A.J. said recently.

When Jim Croce died in a 1973 plane crash, his son was 2 years old. One way he got to know him was as an archivist, poring over reels of tape for clues about his artistic process.

A fourth-generation musician on both sides of his family, A.J. Croce was destined to perform, but his apple landed away from the tree. He grew up playing piano, not guitar like his dad, and his tastes leaned toward blues, jazz and R&B instead of lyric-driven folk rock. A.J. went on to make multiple acclaimed albums rooted in a style one writer described as “part New Orleans, part juke joint, part soul.”

One day a few years ago A.J. Croce stumbled upon a crossroads while listening to his father’s writing tapes. When he wasn’t touring, Jim Croce would record ideas into a Wollensak recorder, and one particular reel was filled with material his son recognized immediately — they were selections he’d been performing for years.

“It gave me chills,” Croce said. “It wasn’t just obscure old jazz and blues and early country artists, but the exact, very obscure songs. So it was Fats Waller, who’s not obscure; but it wasn’t ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’ or ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ — it was “You’re Not The Only Oyster In The Stew,” which was one of the first songs that I played on a demo for Columbia way back in the late ’80s, early ’90s.”

Twelve of 15 were songs he’d done; Croce began to look at the connection to his father as more than biological.

“I’d probably been asked my whole career to perform his music, and as much as I love his songs, I was first and foremost a piano player,” he said, “and I was also more likely to play a song by Ray Charles or the Rolling Stones than something by my father. That really inspired me to look at the concert not just as a tribute to his music but to the connection that we have to music in general.”

Thus, the upcoming Croce Plays Croce concerts in New Hampshire and across the river in Vermont will blend selections from Jim Croce’s brief but prolific career — three albums made over 18 months in the early ’70s — and A.J.’s genre-crossing catalog, along with the music that inspired them both.

“The influences that we both share are so vast, it could be so many different things,” Croce said. “You can hear Jimmy Reed on songs like ‘You Don’t Mess Around With Jim,’ and Lieber & Stoller’s songwriting on many of the others, whether it’s ‘Leroy Brown’ or ‘Car Wash Blues’ — those sort of R&B influenced things.”

The show also celebrates Jim Croce’s innovative songwriting approach, which A.J. believes came into its own with his most enduring hit, “Time In a Bottle.” His dad wrote the song for him.

“It was sort of a musical epiphany that happened,” he said. “I think he felt like, ‘This is my last chance to do this for a living; I have a son now, I have a family,’ and he really went with it.”

Croce knows the foundational elements of his dad’s work, but believes it’s the relatability of hits such as “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels),” “Lover’s Cross” and character songs like “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” “Rapid Roy” and “Speedball Tucker” that ultimately set him apart.

“Being a record collector and sort of a musicologist, I think I can hear where those influences come from,” he said. “But what he does is so unique, different than almost anyone I’ve heard. He personalizes it from the perspective of not just him seeing these people, or being present around these people, but also making heroes out of sort of everyday folks.”

Croce Plays Croce

When: Thursday, Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Flying Monkey, 39 Main St., Plymouth
Tickets: $39 and up at flyingmonkeynh.com (13+)

Featured photo: A.J. Croce. Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins.

The Music Roundup 22/02/03

Local music news & events

• St. Pat’s prep: It’s getting close to shamrock time, so get ready with Enter the Haggis. A truly international band — they were formed in Toronto with musicians from Portland and Philadelphia — the Celtic-flavored rockers released their album The Archer’s Parade in early 2020 just as the pandemic hit. They livestreamed a few shows, then got back on the road to resume as an energizing live act. Friday, Feb. 4, 8 p.m., Bank of NH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord. Tickets $18 general admission, $25 reserved at ccanh.com.

• Solo turning: Though weather postponed his band’s recent show, Mindset X front man Steve Haidaichuk will perform as his alter ego The Deviant at the same downtown venue; their appearance is now moved to April 9. Playing alone, the singer-guitarist offers a decades-spanning set of songs that inspired him to become a musician, from Eagles and Billy Joel to One Republic — as the name implies, it’s a slight departure from prog rock. Friday, Feb. 4, 9 p.m., Angel City Music Hall, 179 Elm St., Manchester, angelcitymusichall.com.

• Salsa time: A Brazilian steakery turns up the heat with Latin Night, an evening of music and dance led by Eleganza Dance Company. The regular First Friday affair begins with a 45-minute bachata dance lesson, followed by DJ Jersey spinning salsa, bachata, cha-cha and kizomba tunes into the night, along with a performance by Eleganza Ladies. Friday, Feb. 4, 9 p.m., Gauchos Churrascaria Brazilian Steakhouse & Butchery, 62 Lowell St., Manchester, gauchosbraziliansteakhouse.com. Tickets are $10 at the door.

• England calling: To mark a half century since the release of Aqualung, Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre will play the iconic 1971 album in its entirety, with a band that includes former Tull members Clive Bunker on drums and Dee Palmer on keyboards. With timeless tracks including the title cut, “My God” and “Cross-Eyed Mary,” it’s arguably the best effort from a catalog that included some real greats, from Stand Up to War Child. Saturday, Feb. 5, 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $45 at tupelohall.com.

• Home quarters: After years of playing Las Vegas residencies, junk rockers Recycled Percussion decided to build their own venue, closer to their roots. Chaos & Kindness Experience opened last year, and features frequent appearances from the group that shot to national fame on America’s Got Talent, along with shows from other acts and unique events like an upcoming Tattoo Festival in March that will blend dance music and mass inking. Sunday, Feb. 6, 2 p.m., The CAKE, 12 Veterans Square, Laconia, $35 to $110 at tix.com.

At the Sofaplex 22/02/03

C’mon C’mon (R)

Joaquin Phoenix, Gaby Hoffmann.

Phoenix plays Johnny, a man suddenly thrown into the deep end of parenting, in the sweet and lovely C’mon C’mon, a film written and directed by Mike Mills (of 20th Century Women and Beginners fame).

Johnny finds himself suddenly charged with looking after 9-year-old nephew Jesse (an excellently natural Woody Norman, capturing kid oddballness without turning into a writer’s caricature of a child) when Jesse’s mom, Johnny’s sister Viv (Hoffmann), has to go from L.A. to Oakland to take care of Jesse’s dad, Paul (Scoot McNairy), who is suffering from mental illness.

Johnny and Viv haven’t been in each other’s lives much lately — they clashed over the care of their recently deceased mother, over Johnny’s unasked-for opinions about Viv’s relationship with Paul, over basic sibling stuff. But Viv is desperate and Johnny is willing to show up so she leaves Johnny to deal with Jesse — his Saturday morning blasting of opera, his odd tendency to pretend to be an orphan, his extreme (but, like, totally familiar to any parent) reaction to having sugar, his kid tendencies to not stay put. But also, his sudden pointed but thought-provoking questions, his delightful imagination, his charming goofiness, his curiosity at new things (like radio producer Johnny’s sound equipment and kid-interviewing project). So, you know, all the frustrating, wonderful, heartwarming-and-breaking stuff about kids.

The longer Viv has to help Paul, the more Johnny brings Jesse into his life — first to New York City and later to New Orleans, making sure he does basic things like brush teeth and do homework (ha, remotely — you don’t see much of that or this would go from a heartwarming look at parenting to a total nightmare horror story so fast).

Phoenix gives possibly his most relatable, most open and human performance as Johnny, a man who knows how out of his depth he is but doesn’t stop trying for Jesse and is aware that this terrifying and difficult scenario is his sister’s, like, Tuesday. Hoffman also gives a great performance as a woman trying to mom from afar while taking care of her co-parent (and ex, I think), largely to save her son’s dad — and to protect her son from the most difficult aspects of his father’s illness.

This doesn’t sound like the most uplifting subject matter, but it is presented with such grace and care, with such a real-world collision-of-fear-and-awesomeness look at parenting, that C’mon C’mon is just a delight. A Available for rent and in theaters.

Parallel Mothers (R)

Parallel Mothers (R)

Writer and director Pedro Almodóvar tells a story of mothers and daughters, secrets and reckoning with the past in the Spanish-language movie Parallel Mothers.

I mean, OK, he does that in most of the movies of his that I’ve seen — Pain and Glory felt like a striking departure because it was about a mother and son — but Almodóvar knows how to build fascinating relationships between imperfect women.

Here we see Janis (Penélope Cruz) and Ana (Milena Smit), sharing a hospital room, as they are about to give birth to their babies. Both are single. Janis is a settled professional woman nearing 40; Ana is a teenager (how old exactly I’m not sure — high school or young college). Janis is grateful for this unexpected pregnancy, the result of an enjoyable (but concluded, maybe) affair. Even before we hear the details, it’s clear that there is some trauma attached to Ana’s pregnancy. Both women have their babies — Janis’ daughter Cecilia and Ana’s daughter Anita — and both have some emotional support in their corner: Janis has her longtime friend Elena (Rossy de Palma) and Ana has Teresa (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), the mother with whom she’s had a difficult relationship. At least, Ana has her mother’s financial support; a stage actress, Teresa lands a career-defining role and has to go on tour early in Ana’s new mom-hood.

Janis is managing with help from her housekeeper and, eventually, a good daycare, thanks to some photography work thrown her way by Elena. But she hits an unexpected emotional bump when Arturo (Israel Elejalde), baby Cecilia’s father, comes to see them. Though she ended their relationship — he’s married and wasn’t too keen on her keeping the baby — she is disappointed when he leaves moments after seeing Cecilia. Later he tells her he didn’t feel a kind of instant recognition for the baby, which sets Janis’ mind going in all sorts of directions, perhaps connected to the fact that she didn’t know her own father and was raised by her grandmother.

While Janis and Ana deal with their present-day motherhood, a story unfolds in the background connected to how Janis and Arturo first met. Arturo is an archaeologist whose work includes looking into the remains of those executed during the Spanish Civil War. Janis and the village she is from are looking to get help excavating an unmarked grave that they believe holds 10 men, including Janis’ great-grandfather. When Janis works a photo shoot for Arturo, she asks him if he will help the village work on the excavations — with the great-grandchildren and grandchildren and even at least one living child of the men eager to see them properly laid to rest.

It’s odd to have a melodramatic — to the point of soapiness — tale of Janis and Arturo and Ana layered over the top of this more searing historical tale of wrongs and the attempts to bring some sort of justice or at least recognition of what happened. There is a clear throughline — about having to acknowledge wrongs, despite the personal sacrifices, and make attempts to make amends. But it’s still jarring, at times.

That said, this is, as always, a well-crafted, thoroughly engrossing tale of women and their relationships to each other, of mothers and their difficult (but fiercely loving) relationships with their daughters, of coming to terms with sorrow and heartache and moving forward. Almodóvar does such a great job of getting to the raw emotion of these tangles — and of getting an emotionally raw performance from Cruz — that it overcomes what occasionally feel like dips into “too much”-ness, storywise. B+

Rated R for some sexuality, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, Parallel Mothers is two hours and three minutes long and distributed by Sony in theaters.

Featured photo: Parellel Mothers.

I Came All This Way to Meet You, by Jami Attenberg

I Came All This Way to Meet You, by Jami Attenberg (Ecco, 263 pages)

It is apparently the fashion to write a memoir about writing after having achieved at least some modest success. Maybe this isn’t new and goes all the way back to Montaigne, but the trend seems to have accelerated after Anne Lamott’s ever popular Bird by Bird, published in 1994.

Into this space enters Jami Attenberg, a novelist of acclaim whose body of work includes The Middlesteins, her 2012 portrait of a family obsessed with eating; 2017’s All Grown Up (given a B+ here), and most recently, 2019’s All This Could Be Yours.

In I Came All This Way to Meet You, subtitled “writing myself home,” Attenberg gets personal in a refreshingly candid manner. It’s not so much a book as it is a conversation, the sort that occurs at a bar after strangers have had a couple of shots.

It’s a conversation that takes place during the pandemic; Attenberg peppers the memoir with mentions of life during Covid-19 and she occasionally touches on ongoing social issues. But it’s mainly the story of an ordinary woman who got tired of all the ordinariness in her life and set out to build something different. As Attenberg writes in the opening, in which she bluntly summarizes the first 20 years of her working life, most of her jobs were essentially bringing other people’s ideas into being.

“Eventually I thought: What about my ideas? When do I own them?” she writes. “And once I realized that, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I could not stay where I was any longer.”

In a perfect world, an aspiring writer who comes to this conclusion would then find an oceanside cottage in which to write her first book, ensconced there rent-free except for the task of walking someone’s dog. And for Attenberg, it was in fact a perfect world, at least in this regard.

After she spent decades working invisible, low-paying jobs — to include temping, waitressing, typing, blogging — a supportive friend helped set her up in this space, and Attenberg started bringing her characters to life. But that was the extent of her perfect world. It was a hard slog to get to where she is today, an “Author with a capital A,” and she shares her remembrances of this unglamorous life, much of which involved arduous road trips in an old car, trying to get people to buy her books when people didn’t want them — including, at one point, her publisher, who dumped her after her first few books didn’t sell well.

In many ways it would be hard to find a more unappealing depiction of a novelist’s life, from driving alone in a white-out in Wyoming to being booed at a literary festival when she was introduced as being from Brooklyn.

At one point she says this about a book tour: “I do my event. A Jewish event, a panel of four authors. I sell five books. Thanks, Jews. Another car to the airport, two hours before my flight. And there I sit.”

That paragraph, in all its pith, demonstrates precisely why this memoir is so engrossing. Attenberg is completely uninhibited; you never know what she is going to say next. The writing is as choppy as the sea, and as unpredictable, as is her life story, which she unspools gradually.

As much as the memoir is about Attenberg, it’s also about her friends. Despite being a generally anxious person, she has the enviable talent of finding and cultivating friends, such as the Alaska mom she met in Guatemala when she was doing travel writing — a woman who travels internationally for a month by herself every year — or the younger Italian novelist she spotted at a literary festival wearing a black Victorian gown. (“I immediately thought: Her, I must know.”)

On the subject of friendship, Attenberg waxes philosophical, writing: “The thing about bad friends is you never realize when you’re being one until it’s too late. Forgiveness and understanding? Not in this economy.”

She also brings that candor to writing about her romantic relationships. One, undertaken after a solitary trip to Sicily during which a restaurant refused to seat her because she was alone, was particularly promising: “No children, no desire for them whatsoever. No old marriages rotting in the past. We both owned our own homes. We both had flexible schedules. He even promised to quit smoking for me.”

There may have been no children, but a beautiful essay grew out of this relationship, about their trip to a “bone chapel” in Portugal — Capela dos Ossos, circa the 16th century, built using the remains of more than 5,000 people. Visiting it, Attenberg writes, she was “in a state of thrall to the bones.”

“Everything was dead … and yet it felt so alive to me at the same time. It was designed for thought. Alive and dead, stories everywhere. Thousands of possibilities, thousands of stories. The bones had been brought together in this space, the bones would never be alone. They have each other, I thought. And all of us, visiting them, every day.”

Bones became a metaphor for her life, and ultimately for the relationship as well. She is a work in progress, as we all are, but just is more talented than other people in lassoing the mess into art.

To call Attenberg an original thinker is an understatement. Her words crackle like an overbuilt fire, and whether or not you’ve read her work previously, this thoughtful memoir is worth a look. A

Book Notes

With Valentine’s Day coming up, you’re probably scouring the shelves of your local independent bookseller looking for the perfect book to give to your significant other. If you’re not, you should be. Chocolate is gone in a week. The perfect book may outlast your relationship.

You can buy love poems, of course — a new title is Love by Night (192 pages, Andrews McMeel) by SK Williams. But these are not to be confused with poems about love, such as Please Love Me at My Worst(Andrews McMeel, 144 pages), last year’s collection by Michaela Angemeer.

You can buy books about great relationships other people had — such as Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda (Bloomsbury, 432 pages), the story of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s marriage in their own words. Or books that promise to help you have a great relationship of your own, such as Fierce Love, Creating a Love That Lasts — One Conversation at a Time (Thomas Nelson, 240 pages).

Or you can forget the cheesy sentimental stuff and give your significant other a book about love that isn’t really about love, but just has love in the title and is a cool and interesting book. To wit: Love Poems (for Anxious People) by John Kenney, known for his writing in The New Yorker and also for two previous books, Love Poems for Married People and Love Poems for People With Children. It’s from G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 112 pages. With poems titled “Here comes someone whose name I should know” and “Am I meditating yet?” these are not really love poems, but that’s kind of the point.

I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness (Riverhead, 304 pages) by Claire Vaye Watkins is a novel released last fall that’s probably more of a wry gift for your BFF when you exchange cards about how much you hate Valentine’s Day. But we can’t resist the title. Premise: Woman with postpartum depression leaves her baby and husband and goes all Thelma and Louise without the Louise. It’s widely described as hilarious.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois (Harper, 816 pages) by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers was an Oprah’s pick last year and Barack Obama said it was one of his favorite books. It’s a novel that reads like poetry and it is not actually about Du Bois, the late Civil Rights activist, historian and sociologist, but his words are interspersed throughout.

But there are limits to how edgy you can be when selecting a book with love in the title. The ‘I Love My Instapot’ Anti-Inflammatory Diet Recipe Book: Not recommended. If that’s your only choice, go with the candy.

Book Events

Author events

• ERIK LARSON Author presents The Splendid and the Vile. The Music Hall Historic Theater, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth. Wed., Feb. 16, 7 p.m. Tickets cost $13.75. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• GARY SAMPSON AND INEZ MCDERMOTT Photographer Sampson and art historian McDermott discuss New Hampshire Now: A Photographic Diary of Life in the Granite State. Sat., Feb. 19, 9:45 to 11:45 a.m. Peterborough Town Library, 2 Concord St., Peterborough. Visit monadnockwriters.org.

• HOWARD MANSFIELD Author presents Chasing Eden. Sat., March 19, 9:45 to 11:45 a.m. Peterborough Town Library, 2 Concord St., Peterborough. Visit monadnockwriters.org.

• BECKY SAKELLERIOU AND HENRY WALTERS Becky Sakelleriou presents The Possibility of Red. Henry Walters presents Field Guide A Tempo. Sat., April 16, 9:45 to 11:45 a.m. Peterborough Town Library, 2 Concord St., Peterborough. Visit monadnockwriters.org.

Poetry

• ROB AZEVEDO Poet reads from his new book of poetry, Don’t Order the Calamari. The Bookery, 844 Elm St., Manchester. Thurs., Feb. 3, 6 p.m. Visit bookerymht.com.

• REBECCA KAISER Poet presents Girl as Birch. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Mon., April 11, 7 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

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.

Album Reviews 22/02/03

Power Paladin, With The Magic Of Windfyre Steel (Atomic Fire Records)

You know, I don’t think I’ve seen the words “Reykjavík, Iceland” in years, or at least since there was talk of the city hosting a biannual Olympics. Oh wait, though, that’s every year, including this one. But before I tangent all my allotted words away, this power metal band is from there, actual Iceland, and, as I fully expected, their childlike enthusiasm is off the charts. I’m sure I’d get along with them personally; not that I’m a Dungeons & Dragons guy, but I’ve never not gotten along with anyone who’s into those dragons-and-elves games, a passion that drives these five or six or however many guys. They’ve confessed to being fans of Dio, Iron Maiden, Hammerfall and Rhapsody, so they obviously have no shame, and that’s refreshing in its way; the true test, though, is the music of course. Toward that, we start with “Kraven The Hunter,” which recalls Motley Crue’s “Kickstart My Heart,” then move to the Savatage-ish “Righteous Fury,” and the title track, a pomp-blasted hit of epic metal. It’s all super tight, and look at how cute this all is; I can’t hate these guys at all, sorry. A

Martin Wind/New York Bass Quartet, Air (Laika Records)

Every time I think I’ve heard it all, something bubbles up from this massive pit of promotional albums and makes me go, “OK, another country heard from.” Picture it: four guys who all play double bass (i.e., the upright acoustic bass guitar), but instead of laying down the low lines for four different bands, they’re in one place, jamming to familiar tunes from various genres. If you need some sort of certificate of authority for this one, Rufus Reid thinks it’s great, as does 84-year-old bass icon Ron Carter, so all that’s really to be done here is listen to some of it. It starts off with the title track, two or three of the players bowing at the high end in a thing that threatens for a second to droop into the maudlin strains of “Whiter Shade Of Pale” but instead turns into J.S. Bach’s immortal ‘Suite No. 3 In D Major: Air’ (you heard it in the movie Se7en, when Morgan Freeman is in the library). It’s an eerie thing to hear, but these supremely talented guys make it sound natural, rather cello-ish. Return To Forever drummer Lenny White also helps turn that arrangement on its head, and later helps to nail down a cover of Weather Report’s “Birdland.” Quite the gold nugget for eclectic tastes here. A

PLAYLIST

• Feb. 4 is here, can you feel the madness creeping in, on little tiny creepy feet? It’s frickin’ freezin’, frantic fam, I hate everything about it, and my seasonal affective disorder (or whatever it’s called, I just don’t like being cold) has me breaking down into teary madness every morning, just waking up and realizing that I still live in the North Pole and this will never end, ever. Other than that I am fine, I hope that you are well as well, as we examine the “slate” (I really hate seeing that word being used by a writer when “set” or “list” wouldn’t tick off half their audience) of new albums that’ll be released on the 4th in the hopes that someone will have one too many drinks and accidentally buy one. Hopefully no one accidentally buys the new album Pompeii from official crazy lady Cate Le Bon, because when she was writing it she was grappling “with existence, resignation and faith. I felt culpable for the mess but it smacked hard of the collective guilt imposed by religion and original sin.” Ha ha, she’s like Bjork but in clown makeup and outfits because she’s so edgy. She told the utterly enthralled, neckbearded writer from Pitchfork Media the album “was written and recorded in a quagmire of unease. Solo. In a time warp. In a house I had a life in 15 years ago.” Yes, Cate Le Bon, but what we really want to know is what snacks did you have? Probably nothing good, I’ll bet, and that’s why she lives a lonely fourth-dimension existence, being weird, all because she doesn’t have tasty shelled pistachios or chocolate cream pies. That’s basically all I eat now, someone should text her that diet tip, but in the meantime let’s see if my stomach can handle the new Cate Le Bon single “Running Away,” I’ll bet it can’t. Hold on, this isn’t so bad, it’s like a poor imitation of Siouxsie And The Banshees, but really, that’s what every band should be doing now, trying to imitate Siouxsie. Every once in a while a decent-enough melody trickles in, then disappears again into the sloppy imitation-’80s muck. Ok, this thing’s getting on my nerves, let’s just go to the next thingie.

• Oh terrific, can we just go back to Fake Siouxsie so I don’t have to listen to anything from Time Skiffs, the new LP from Animal Collective? I mean, all you ever needed to say in an Animal Collective CD review was “Cool fractals” and that was really it, although yes, they changed things up after the hipster crowd decided to abandon the band to the trash folder of college-rock history, so maybe there’s something worthwhile on this new “slab” (another word I hate to see used in a music review, because it makes the writer sound like they’re from the 1950s). I mean, it could happen, so let’s check out their new song “Prester John.” It’s noisy and creepy and slow. Wait, I get it, they’ve obviously been listening to a lot of Massive Attack, because this is just an edgy, grungy ripoff of “Teardrop,” which you know as the opening theme to the old TV show House. Next.

• OK, here we go, it’s a new album from edgy/gross/awesome metal guys, Korn, called Requiem! I’ll bet there’s no way I’ll have anything bad to say about their new tune “Start The Healing.” Whoa, bouncy beat here, my foot is already tapping, and — wait, this is some pretty basic nu-metal, almost kind of pop-punk, or like Tool. What the — oh, whatever, it’s Korn. They’ve earned the right to suck.

• We’ll end the week’s nonsense with indie-punk girl Mitski, because she’s awesome, so “Working for the Knife,” from her new album, Laurel Hell, must be awesome too. Wow, there’s like cowboy guitar in there, and it’s trippy but high-class, your girlfriend will probably like it. You should probably marry her, by the way. — Eric W. Saeger

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).

S’more wines

Fancy up the traditional dessert

In the fall of 2020 I wrote a column about port wine varieties and their pairings with s’mores. The article spoke to evenings, gathered around the campfire, savoring fine port wines and how they can pair to the welcoming warmth of both the fire and the gooey s’mores.

It is winter and the crisp air and snow are to be enjoyed. So get out and strap on those touring skis or snowshoes. Break out those skates and take a spin on the pond. After your “walk in the woods,” gather around a warm fire and break out the s’mores. But this time try a different spin on the s’mores. Ramp up with a few changes to the mainstay of graham crackers and marshmallow and pair those new s’mores to different wines.

For the traditionalist who likes their s’mores the way they have always had them, I offer the 2019 Sixth Sense Syrah, by Michael David (available at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets at $17.99). This wine hails from their Lodi, California, winery and vineyards planted in 1982. With a color of dark violet and nose of black cherry, plum and espresso, it is a perfect complement to the toast of the brown, melted marshmallow. Flavors of ripe raspberry and licorice, along with a bit of spice, carry through to the finish, pairing nicely with the dark chocolate in the s’mores. This is a real treat for the child that still remains in our adult bodies.

Time for a change-up? Add a little chocolate-covered bacon to the marshmallow, and you get that salty smokiness we all love. What to pair with this combo? The 2019 Cline Cellars Ancient Vines Zinfandel (available at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets at $17.99) brings the fruit-forward experience of the wine to the fore. With notes of strawberry, along with coffee and chocolate, there is a full mouth feel to the experience. The wine was aged on new and used oak, which brings notes of leather and vanilla to the mix. Coming from ancient vines planted in Contra Costa County, east of San Francisco Bay, this wine can be enjoyed now or in future outings for another five years.

Looking to resurrect that child wonderment still within you? How about baking a batch of snickerdoodle cookies and replacing those store-bought graham crackers with the cookies in your s’more? Any of your favorite homemade cookies will do, sugar or chocolate chip, but the cinnamon in the snickerdoodles complements the fruit in the riesling I suggest here. The 2019 Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard Dry Riesling (available at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets at $17.99) is a perfect match! Estate bottled, from grapes grown on the west bank of Seneca Lake, New York, it is true to an old-world Riesling. With a 300-year family history of winemaking in the Mosel region of Germany, Hermann Wiemer came to New York in the 1960’s and found the cool climate and gravel soils of the western shore of Seneca Lake to be like that of the Mosel Valley. The layers of citric and other tropical fruit, along with a slight minerality, complements the sugar and cinnamon of the snickerdoodles.

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, a romantic, snowy afternoon outing must end at a fire pit with s’mores made with chocolate-covered strawberries, paired with a sparkling rosé wine. Mumm Napa Méthode Traditionnelle Brut Rosé (available at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets at $22.99) is the perfect complement to those lush strawberries. It has a beautiful pink color with rich fruit flavors that culminate in an elegant finish. A blend of 80 percent pinot noir and 20 percent chardonnay, it has aromas of black cherries, raspberries, along with citrus. It has a delightful full mouth feel as it bubbles over your tongue. As the label states, this sparkling wine is produced the same way as classic Champagne, that is with a double fermentation, and with a minimum of 18 months of yeast aging.

So release that inner youthfulness and play in the snow and on the ice. And after that, kick back over some adult-themed s’mores, made all the more interesting by changing up the recipes and pairing those new discoveries to different wines.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Greyhound leaving right about now

I know you’ve had a lot going on in your life lately — it’s the start of another pandemic year, your children are listening to strange music that references coconuts?, and there’s been that haunting, moaning sound coming from the basement — so it’s totally forgivable that it’s slipped your mind that February is National Grapefruit Month.

The good news is that you still have three weeks or so to put up the decorations and plan a Fresca™ party.

In the meantime, let’s make a grapefruit cocktail.

Citrus is a family.

Oranges are the mom — sweet, with the merest hint of bitterness, like a sigh of regret; the backbone of the family.

Lemons are the sexy aunt who makes a lot of important life decisions based on alcohol.

Limes are the workhorse of the family. They hold down 15 jobs and still manage to tackle the hard songs at karaoke.

Grapefruit is the cousin who, while having a very good heart deep down, is the one you call when you need something shady. Grapefruit knows a guy who knows a guy. He never hides in the background. Expect him at a wedding in a loud plaid suit and wingtips. He’ll tip the minister with a Benjamin in a handshake while telling an off-color joke.

When you make a cocktail with grapefruit, the bitterness isn’t a bug; it’s a feature. You have to embrace it. Even if, like me, you prefer cocktails a little on the sweet side, be aware that grapefruit will refuse to be covered up.

Perhaps the most classic grapefruit drink is a Greyhound, a spin on a Screwdriver; gin or vodka — sometimes rum — with the orange juice replaced with grapefruit juice. There are really only two ingredients, so the flavor tends to be very straightforward. I’ve tweaked this particular recipe to add a little more complexity.

Greyhound

(slightly modified)

Ingredients

2 2-inch slices of grapefruit rind (Just the thin outer layer. The grapefruit will bring enough bitterness without using any of the white pith under the surface.)

1½ ounces good gin — I like Death’s Door.

1 ounce St. Germain, an elderflower liqueur

2 ounces unsweetened ruby grapefruit juice

Muddle the grapefruit peel thoroughly in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. This will release citrus oil and add an extra layer of grapefruitiness to the finished drink. Feel free to really smash the peel.

Add the other ingredients and four or five ice cubes to the shaker, and shake thoroughly.

Strain over ice in a rocks glass.

Grapefruit is the dominant flavor in this cocktail. The St. Germain takes a tiny bit off the edge of the bitterness and adds a hint of — floralness? Florality? Gin has enough character to go head-to-head with the grapefruit. This is a classic drink that you’ve probably never taken for a test drive. I think this will be a bit of a revelation.

I remember hearing a country song when I was little. I was very young and I’ve never — then or since — been much of a country music fan, but you accept Art where you find it, and the lyrics have stayed with me for 50 years.

The singer — I think it was Roy Clark — sang about the sad realization that love has died between him and his woman. He watches her pack her bag with tears in his eyes, then drives her to the bus station. He watches her get on the bus, and then, in words that have haunted me for more than half a century:

…Now we’re here at the station

And you’re getting on

And all I can think of is

Thank God and Greyhound you’re gone!

Featured photo: Greyhound. Photo by John Fladd.

Overnight apple oatmeal

When I think about breakfast recipes, I usually think about something to make on the weekend, when time doesn’t matter. Perhaps it is a new flavor of sweet roll or maybe a seasonal quick bread. When creating this recipe, however, I had a busy morning in mind, because although it needs a minimum of eight hours of chilling time, the rest of the time — chopping, mixing, and cooking — is a total of maybe 10 minutes.

For a simple recipe, it has a number of ingredients. First, old-fashioned (or rolled) oats are essential. Quick-cooking and instant oats won’t produce the desired texture. Second, you can use sweetened applesauce, but you may need to reduce or eliminate the added sugar. (You can add the sugar at the end so you don’t end up with a too-sweet dish.) Third, you don’t have to use almond milk. You can use another plant-based or even regular milk. I would choose lower-fat and unsweetened versions to keep this recipe nice and healthy. Fourth, the apple choice is up to you. I like Fuji because it has a decent amount of crunch and a bit of sweetness. Pick the apple you like best. Fifth, no matter the apple you choose, don’t peel it. The apple skin will add more vitamins and texture to this dish.

Now, with all of those hints shared, you have an incredibly simple recipe that produces a wonderful winter breakfast. Though it sits in the refrigerator overnight, you heat it before serving. Then you have a warm, hearty and healthy breakfast to get you ready for the cold outdoors. If you prefer your breakfast served cold, this recipe can do that also. Just add the diced apple before serving, then stir and eat.

Overnight apple oatmeal
Serves 2

3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup natural applesauce
3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 medium Fuji apple

Combine oats, applesauce, almond milk, sugar and cinnamon in a medium bowl.
Stir well to combine.
Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.
Divide oatmeal into two cereal bowls.
Core and dice apple; divide between bowls.
Stir well.
Microwave each bowl for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring at 30-second intervals, until hot.

Photo: Overnight apple oatmeal. Photo by Michele Pesula Kuegler.

In the kitchen with Donna Tammaro

Donna Tammaro of Derry is the owner and co-founder of Tammaro’s Cucina (469 Charles Bancroft Hwy., Litchfield, 377-7312, tammaroscucina.com), an eatery offering home-cooked Italian meals that she opened last July with her daughter, Lindsey Russo. Tammaro’s Cucina features a diverse menu of of dishes cooked to order, including chicken Parm, meat lasagna, stuffed shells, and chicken broccoli alfredo, plus hot subs, Sicilian pizzas, and a rotating soup of the day with flavors like Italian chicken or pasta fagioli. With 24-hour advance notice, half- or full-sized pasta trays can be ordered that feed about six to eight or 12 to 16 people, respectively — each comes with a loaf of garlic bread featuring a garlic butter Tammaro makes in house. Originally from the Boston area, Tammaro also lived in Manchester for several years.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

My Cuisinart food processor.

What would you have for your last meal?

Lobster, steamed with butter.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

Ignite [Bar & Grille in Manchester]. My sister and her family go there all the time and that was how I started going. … I love to get a lot of different things there. Their steak tips are really good.

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

Adam Sandler.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

The Tammaro’s tortellini special. It’s a five-cheese tortellini with alfredo, and it’s got pancetta, spinach and mushrooms. It was my own creation.

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

Mexican food. I feel like I’ve seen so many Mexican places opening up lately.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I love to cook hamburgers on the grill. I also really like to make American chop suey.

Italian mac and cheese
From the kitchen of Donna Tammaro of Tammaro’s Cucina in Litchfield

8 ounces fontina cheese, shredded
8 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese
¾ cup heavy cream
2 Tablespoons butter (plus extra for greasing)
1 pound cavatappi pasta
¼ cup breadcrumbs
2 Tablespoons fresh basil, minced

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Heat a saucepan over low-medium heat. Add fontina, mozzarella, heavy cream, butter and half a cup of Parmesan and stir until combined. Cook for about four minutes, or until the cheese is melted. Bring a pan of water to a boil and cook the pasta. Drain and add to the cheese mixture. Mix well. Grease the dish slightly with butter and dust with the breadcrumbs. Pour the pasta and cheese sauce into the dish. Sprinkle remaining breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese on top and bake for 30 minutes. Garnish with basil.

Featured photo: Donna Tammaro. Courtesy photo.

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