220609

Tempest redux

Guitarist Jesse Cook marks debut album’s 25^th

It’s easier to follow the puck on a televised hockey match than to discern what Jesse Cook’s fingers are doing on a fretboard. The Toronto-based guitarist defies the laws of physics every time he plays flamenco music on his nylon six-string. Since releasing his debut album, Tempest, in 1995, Cook has captivated audiences across the world.

He’s made multiple PBS specials, received several Juno nominations and earned 10 platinum and gold albums. He was seemingly born to play; Cook can’t remember when he first picked up a guitar but hears stories about jamming with a friend when he was 3 years old.

Cook took his first lesson at 6 and would go on to study at the Royal Conservatory, NYU and Berklee, determined to be a concert guitarist.

“But as I got close to graduating, I started to chicken out,” he recalled by phone recently, reasoning that “everybody would love to be a concert guitarist, but you can’t make a living doing that.”

So he turned to being a composer and working behind the scenes of film and television. But he kept getting noticed when he’d create a guitar piece. “People would say, ‘Oh, that’s so beautiful, you should record an album of your own music,” he said. “I was like, ‘Nah … nobody’s going to want to hear that.’”

Finally Cook relented and recorded his first album at home. He reluctantly pressed 1,000 CDs, and worried most of them would end up as coffee coasters. But with help from a couple of key television and radio appearances, the opposite happened. Cook sold them all out within a week.

This success created an unexpected problem; Cook didn’t have any money to make more discs. However, a distributor stepped in and pressed another 2,000 copies to satisfy burgeoning demand at record stores across the country. “Canadians are really supportive of our own, “ Cook said.

All the activity got the attention of labels below the border. and after a flurry of courtships Cook signed with Narada Records. “They swept me off my feet,” Cook said to explain why he chose the Wisconsin independent company over Windham Hill and a few other bigger-name operations.

It was a good decision; Cook’s new label quickly got him added to the prestigious Catalina Jazz Festival, held on an island on the coast of Southern California. Though booked in a small bar that weekend, he played to capacity crowds that spilled out onto the sidewalk. When Cook moved around the tiny island in one of their trademark golf carts, fans chased him like he was musical royalty.

Soon after, Cook’s album was in the Billboard Top 20, and he hasn’t looked back since.

“As soon as I stopped getting in my own way [and] chased my dreams … my life got way easier,” he said. “I had a full calendar, I was doing the things I’d always wanted to do and loving doing them, and there were way less annoying gigs. When you’re kind of a music mercenary you take whatever comes in the door, [but] once it’s your own project you only have to work with the people you like and admire.”

Cook is finally embarking on his pandemic-delayed Tempest II tour, supporting a re-recorded version of the record that started it all. When he appears at Concord’s Capitol Center on June 11, he’ll be joined by Matt Sellick. Cook calls the young native of Thunder Bay “the best flamenco guitarist in Canada,” adding, “he knows my music better than I do.”

Sellick encouraged Cook to revive “Switchback,” a song from his late 1990s catalog, and rework it as a guitar duet piece. Watching the two exchange frenetic runs on the track, now a regular part of shows, is a wondrous sight.

Also in Cook’s band, which formed a little over four years ago, supplanting his decades-old former group, are Portuguese drummer Marito Marques, bass player Van Mitchum and Fethi Nadjem on violin and other instruments. Cook spotted Algerian-born Nadjem while watching videos of friends on YouTube, and got an introduction through mutual friends.

“Once we finally got together, it was just this great collaboration,” Cook said of Nadjem, who provided integral support on Cook’s latest album, Libre. “I just love the way he plays, the way he hears music. He’s super talented.”

Jesse Cook
When: Saturday, June 11, 8 p.m.
Where: Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $35 and up at ccanh.com

Featured photo: Jessie Cook. Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 22/06/09

Local music news & events

• Local laughs: The monthly Comedy Out of the Box event has Matt Barry headlining. The Manchester comic went to the Shaskeen open mic over a decade ago on a whim and grew into a solid draw in his hometown and beyond, opening for the likes of Tom Green and the late Gilbert Gottfried. He’s joined by Mike Gray and Gilman Seymour, with Claremont funny man Chad Blodgett hosting. Thursday, June 9, 7:30 p.m., Hatbox Theatre, 270 Loudon Road (Steeplegate Mall), Concord, $16 to $22 at hatboxnh.com.

• Frankly singing: A benefit for children’s education offers dinner with music from Elijah Clark followed by Seriously Frank, a theatrical performance dedicated to America’s original blue-eyed crooner. Michael Mathews, David Groomes and Jessica Mathews run through hits like “The Way You Look Tonight,” “Lady Is A Tramp,” “Witchcraft,” “All The Way,” “Fly Me To The Moon” and “New York, New York.” Friday, June 10, 6 p.m., Spotlight Room at the Palace, 96 Hanover St., Manchester, $35 to $50 at eventbrite.com.

• Disney magic: An all-ages midday show from The Little Mermen is a must for Disney fans. The critically lauded cover band ranges across the entire canon of films and musicals, from Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs to Encanto, with Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Frozen, Aladdin and, yes, The Little Mermaid woven in. The New York-based group received kudos from no less than famed Disney composer Alan Merken. Sunday, June 12, noon, Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $25 at tupelohall.com.

• Country comfort: A concert from the country rap band Moonshine Bandits receives some area flavor from singer Jodie Cunningham, making her first Lakes Region appearance in over a year. The duo of Dusty “Tex” Dahlgren and Brett “Bird” Brooks formed a couple of decades back and is best-known for party albums like Baptized in Bourbon and Whiskey and Women; their latest is Like ’Em Wild. Sunday, June 12, 6 p.m., Granite State Music Hall, 546 Main St., Laconia, $25 and up at ticketweb.com.

• Alfresco playing: Outdoor concert season shifts into gear as Peabody’s Coal Train performs. The Contoocook Valley supergroup is named after a line in John Prine’s “Paradise” and brings a vintage sound with songs like the old traditional “I’ll Fly Away” and the marriage of bluegrass with new country “Carrie Brown,” penned by Steve Earle during his brief late 1990s stint in the Del McCoury Band. Tuesday, June 14, 6:30 p.m., Angela Robinson Bandstand, Community Park, Main Street, Henniker, henniker.org.

The Bob’s Burgers Movie (PG-13)

The Bob’s Burgers Movie (PG-13)

As ever, the Belcher family’s burger restaurant teeters on the brink while the Belcher kids involve themselves in hijinx in The Bob’s Burgers Movie, a fun feature-length presentation of the animated TV series.

Bob’s Burgers apparently just wrapped up its 12th season, which is probably something like 10 more seasons than I watched. I didn’t stop watching for any specific reason; it’s just one of those shows that fell off my regular viewing rotation list. This movie will likely put it back, especially since off-kilter but ultimately kind comedy is especially appealing to me at the moment.

As in the show, Bob Belcher (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin, a vocal talent for the ages) and his wife, Linda (voiced by John Roberts), own Bob’s Burgers, a burger-based restaurant that always feels like it’s on the edge of closing. At the moment, the restaurant is literally one week from losing its equipment to repossession by the bank to whom the Belchers are behind on a loan payment. So things were looking rough even before a giant sinkhole opened right in front of the restaurant, making it hard for customers to even get inside.

The Belcher kids — eighth-grader Tina (voice by Dan Mintz), 9-year-old Louise (Kristen Schaal) and somewhere-in-between brother Gene (Eugene Mirman) — like all kids both root for and pity their parents while dealing with various dramas of their own. Tina is struggling with whether to ask Jimmy Pesto Jr. (also voiced by Benjamin) to be her summer boyfriend. Gene is trying to keep a band together to play at an upcoming festival. Louise is worried that she might not be brave, and that the pink bunny-eared hat that she always wears really is, as a classmate says, a sign that she’s a baby.

Louise decides that the way to prove her badassedness is to video herself going into the sinkhole, which leads to the discovery of a long-buried body, which leads to murder charges for the burger restaurant’s building owner, Calvin Fischoeder (Kevin Kline). Fischoeder’s legal woes further imperil the restaurant, so Louise decides it’s up to her to save the family by proving that he is innocent and uncovering the real murderer.

Somewhere in the middle of watching this movie I realized that I was deeply enjoying two elements in particular: joke density and small nuggets of surprising earnestness. A concept regularly discussed on the podcast Extra Hot Great and in other TV commentary, joke density is the fast-and-furiousness of the jokes, not just the “set up, laugh” but the small asides, little nuances of delivery, bits of sight business and small gestures that can pack oodles of laughs into every minute of a TV show or movie. It’s been long enough since I watched Bob’s Burgers that I forgot that this is often a high joke density property, with layers of humor in every line. It keeps the energy up without being messily frenetic and, even though maybe it shouldn’t, it adds to the “genuine oddballs” nature of these characters. Though everything about the Belcher family should read as, well, cartoony, they feel tonally real because if you’re lucky, every family is a charming gang of weirdos who love each other in part because of their weirdness.

Which brings me to the earnestness. Like unexpectedly large chunks of cookie dough in your cookie dough ice cream, this movie had a few moments of familial sweetness that delighted me. Because of how un-saccharine these characters are, they can really sell these moments and grab you in the throat right in the middle of, say, a fart joke.

All this is packaged inside a bit of capering on the part of the adults — their schemes to keep the restaurant afloat lead to an unlicensed food cart and Linda dressed like a burger that for some reason is wearing a bikini — and vaguely Scooby-Doo-ish mystery adventure for the kids, what with their bike rides to the nearby amusement park on the wharf and their uncovering of secret passages. And there is a wonderfully fitting bit of song work that actually has to be quite skilled to seem as “we are not professional singers” as it is.

The Bob’s Burgers Movie doesn’t require in-depth knowledge of the series to enjoy it, just a willingness to get to know (or renew your acquaintance with) this delightfully relatable cartoon family. B+

Rated PG-13 for rude/suggestive material and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Loren Bouchard and Bernard Derriman with a screenplay by Loren Bouchard and Nora Smith, The Bob’s Burgers Movie is an hour and 42 minutes long and is distributed in theaters by Twentieth Century Studios.

Featured photo: The Bob’s Burgers Movie.

Musical Revolutions: How the Sounds of the Western World Changed, by Stuart Isacoff

Musical Revolutions: How the Sounds of the Western World Changed, by Stuart Isacoff (Deckle Edge, 320 pages)

In modern parlance, we’re most likely to use the word “revolution” to describe a political uprising. But in Musical Revolutions, pianist Stuart Isacoff uses it like Copernicus did when describing the movement of the planets. There is still “a disruptive shock of the new” in this sort of revolution, he says, but there is symmetry, growth and expansion.

Isacoff, the longtime editor of “Piano Today” and the author of three other books about music, explores the disruptive shocks of music history in his latest book, which will appeal most to readers with a comprehensive music education. He also offers a general audience an overlook of things they have probably not thought of before: how and why, for example, “do re mi fa so la ti do” became a thing long before The Sound of Music and how the first music notations emerged.

The book also provides a fascinating thread on how music has been used — one might say exploited — to harness emotions and manipulate listeners, and the reason that certain forms of music (including opera) have been denounced as demonic throughout their history.

Early Christian leaders, for example, realized that meditative chants, used broadly and uniformly, could be a way of unifying a far-flung church. But they had to be taught, which was no easy task without sheet music. Enter an Italian monk named Guido, a singing instructor who would develop a form of musical notation using a staff of four lines with color coding that showed the singer what to sing. Guido’s system is the basis of the music we read today, although the four lines became five and the colors were replaced with clefs.

The development of uniform notation, however, also led to increasing complexity in music, as singers began weaving disparate melodies in songs that were harmonious but complex. While archeologists have found instruments dating back to the most primitive cultures (in Germany, they found a rudimentary flute made from a vulture bone is thought to be 35,000 years old), early Christians struggled with music’s ability to both enhance and distract from morality. St. Augustine, for example, was beset by guilt when he allowed a soaring melody to distract him from sober contemplation. And the “busy textures” of the complex harmonies known as polyphony was denounced by Pope John XXII, who said in 1324 that these cutting-edge medieval composers were “ceaselessly intoxicating the ear without quieting it, and disturbing devotion instead of evoking it.”

Things got worse with the invention of opera in the late 1500s. The first opera has been lost to time, so the first surviving one, called Euridice, was commissioned for the wedding of King Henry IV of France. It was, Isacoff writes, “music for a select audience, more to be admired than felt,” but it became all the rage, and “New theaters became staging areas for the hedonists and rabble-rousers” of the time, with box seats becoming venues not only for the enjoyment of music, but for engaging in “notoriously indecent behavior.”

Isacoff turns his attention to Johann Sebastian Bach in a chapter called “Out of the Bachs,” in which he chronicles the rise of the Bach family as multigenerational “musical royalty.” Amusingly, Isacoff reveals that the composer who is a giant of Western music was all too human and once had a knife fight with another music student after calling him “a nanny goat bassoonist,” which is as good an insult as any that Shakespeare composed.

He moves on to French composer Claude Debussy and synthesizer developer Robert Moog, before taking on jazz, which arose in late 19th-century America with an appeal that was “instantaneous and widespread.”

“It moved feet all over the country,” Isacoff writes, before exploding in Europe in the 1920s, helping to enable the celebrity of Josephine Baker. But then came Prohibition, George Gershwin, Paul Whiteman and the advent of what was known as symphonic or orchestral jazz, and the swing era in the 1930s and ‘40s. Isacoff examines how the music and musicians (like Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis) intersect with political and social events of the day.

He concludes by reflecting on how music and musicians are often targeted during cultural revolutions, as in China in the 1960s when musicians “began burying their instruments, destroying music books, and melting down their vinyl records” as artists and intellectuals lived under threat of imprisonment and death. Much has changed since then; New York’s renowned Juilliard School now has a campus in China.

Musical Revolutions ends somewhat abruptly, with Isacoff declining to take on the most prevalent popular forms of music in America today, rock and its derivative, rap. He addresses this omission early on, saying his expertise is the Western canon of music, and “If rock is to be written about, it deserves a more knowledgeable observer than myself.”

Rock’s story, of course, is ongoing; incredibly, the Rolling Stones are touring this summer, led by a 78-year-old Mick Jagger. A much-heralded Elvis movie is about to come out. Rock’s history and impact is everywhere these days; for everything preceding it, Musical Revolutions is a fine, if selective, primer. B+

Book Notes

This is a hot take, but I’ve never understood the appeal of murder mysteries. There are too many murders in real life, and murder as entertainment, as in the start of the new Mary Kay Andrews novel, The Homewreckers, feels sort of icky. And last month came the news that a self-published Portland author who wrote a treatise called “How To Murder Your Husband” was convicted of … murdering her husband. Let’s hope there’s no cause for authorities to start a post-mortem investigation of Agatha Christie.

All that said, I’m in the minority here. The reading public loves murder mysteries. Here are some recent ones you might want to consider:

The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray (Vintage, 400 pages) takes a Jane Austen character and has him murdered in the midst of a house party at a country estate, leaving the guests to figure out who did it.

Sulari Gentill’s The Woman in the Library(Poisoned Pen Press, 288 pages) offs a patron at the Boston Public Library and the suspects are four strangers sitting quietly around a table in the reading room.

A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons (Crooked Lane Books, 304 pages) is by Kate Khavari and involves a university research assistant’s search for the killer of a professor’s wife who dropped dead of apparent poisoning at a dinner party.

Then there’s Last Call at the Nightingale (Minotaur, 320 pages) by Katharine Schellman, which deposits a body outside a nightclub in New York during Prohibition, embroiling a young fun-seeking seamstress in a dangerous underworld of crime.

And coming at the end of the month is Hatchet Island (also Minotaur, also 320 pages) by Paul Doiron, a double-murder mystery set on an island off Maine that is a sanctuary for endangered seabirds.

If you like the book and also like fishing, there’s an added benefit: You can go fly fishing with the author, who is a registered Maine fly fishing guide who lives on a trout stream. Also, if you’re wondering, you pronounce his name “Dwarren,” according to Doiron’s website.

Book Events

Author events

• ANDREA PAQUETTE Author presents Loveable: How Women Can Heal Their Sensitive Hearts and Live and Love as Their True Selves. Sat., June 18, 6 p.m. Toadstool Bookstore, Somerset Plaza, 375 Amherst St., Nashua. Visit toadbooks.com.

• PAUL DOIRON Author presents Hatchet Island. Gibson’s Bookstore, 45 S. Main St., Concord. Wed., June 29, 6:30 p.m. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• PAUL BROGAN Author presents A Sprinkling of Stardust Over the Outhouse. Gibson’s Bookstore, 45 S. Main St., Concord. Thurs., June 30, 6:30 p.m. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

Poetry

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

Writers groups

• MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email pembrokenhtownlibrary@gmail.com.

Writer submissions

• UNDER THE MADNESS Magazine designed and managed by an editorial board of New Hampshire teens under the mentorship of New Hampshire State Poet Laureate Alexandria Peary. features creative writing by teens ages 13 to 19 from all over the world, including poetry and short fiction and creative nonfiction. Published monthly. Submissions must be written in or translated into English and must be previously unpublished. Visit underthemadnessmagazine.com for full submission guidelines.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., 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.

Album Reviews 22/06/09

Keith Hall, Made In Kalamazoo (Trios And Duos) (Zoom Out Records)

Sparsity, thy name is Made In Kalamazoo, and it has my endorsement for a few reasons. First, it’s nice that a jazz micro-combo led by a drummer starts its debut LP with an extended drum clinic; paradiddles and all sorts of other tricks simply rain from the speakers as something of a warm-up for the rest of what you’ll hear. Second, it’s a cozy, rather endearing statement of homecoming on Hall’s part; he played the New York jazz scene for nearly 10 years before coming back to his Michigan home base, which leads to a third positive here: Sax player Andrew Rathbun is outstanding, as is bassist Robert Hurst III. The recording is clear and pristine, but of course it has to be; this is as analog and stripped down as it gets, and these guys make great hay out of it. “Kzoo Brew” offers an extended bass/drums exercise that has a wonderful throwback feel, and the post-bop found in such pieces as “Douglass King Obama” remind me of Sonny Rollins’s Prestige Records-era output. Intimate and terrifically done. A+

Ianai, Sunir (Svart Records)

You know, every once in a while, we music journos trip over something that’s truly magical and have to chalk it up to fate, or the power of probability. This is one of those ultra-rare happenstances, an astonishing world music-tinged mega-release that will certainly please anyone who likes electronic New Age music, Enya more specifically. The whole thing is amazingly beautiful, evoking wind-swept deserts where a sexless mirage person is beckoning from atop a dune, singing and humming of hope and all that happy stuff. Influences include the native music of Scandinavia, Africa, Asia, Middle East and South America. Not much is known in the wider public about the performers but they’re apparently well-known throughout the music community, as he receives help from members of such bands as Massive Attack, Sisters of Mer-cy and Souvenir Season. Absolutely essential if New Age/yoga class chill is your thing. A+

Playlist

• Friday, June 10, will be the latest in an endless string of all-purpose summertime CD release Fridays, when albums come at us hot and heavy and, on very rare occasions, some are from actual artists who offer the world art rather than irritating nonsense. Speaking of that, have you ever noticed that it’s only country music stars who get married to each other and then get divorced for our entertainment? Just today I was reading a news story about Miranda Lambert dealing with her divorce from glorified used car salesman Blake Shelton last year or whenever it was, and it helped her write new songs for her new album, Palomino, which we talked about in this space a little while back. There are a bunch of those sad divorce stories in the country music world, but I’d like to see some regular non-country stars get married for the heck of it, like Eminem tyin’ the knot with Celine Dion, you know? Marriage stuff makes for great gossip in the country world, but you know who’s having none of that? Carrie Underwood, who’s still married to pro hockey player Mike Fisher! The moral is that love does last, people, even if you’re rich and constantly happy (as long as the nannies show up for work every day). Anyhow, that’s about all the wisdom I can impart on that subject, except to say that Underwood has a new album, Denim & Rhinestones, coming out on June 10, and it will feature a title track that’s pretty good if you like slightly Auto-Tuned female pop vocals and old Mr. Mister beats from 1985. A pleasant enough listen, not that there’s any real point to it.

• Vance Joy is an Australian indie-pop heartthrob whose 2018 full-length Nation Of Two was summarily dismissed by a Guardian writer as “an album of songs about relationships written, seemingly, from the perspective of someone who has learned about them from watching the romcoms Matthew McConaughey was starring in during his dark ages.” It’s hard for me to top that level of snark at the moment, only because I don’t really care about tuneage that’s only going to make it into the overhead speakers at Red Lobster and no farther than that, but I do have to deal with Joy’s new LP, In Our Own Sweet Time, so let’s get this out of the way before I just bag it and write about someone else. OK, so the single “Clarity” is the same sort of dishwasher-safe gruel described above, sounding more or less like Zero 7’s Jose Gonzalez trying to write a particularly pointless Ben Kweller song. There’s a Spanish horn part here that makes it almost bearable, and before that we have a rather animated rockout bit, so maybe it’ll be used as dance floor fodder in virtual bars when Mark Zuckerberg turns Facebook into “the Meta experience,” i.e. a glorified version of Second Life that will assuredly make social media more unbearable than it ever was.

• Uh-oh, guys, take cover, it’s a new album from Billy Howerdel, called What Normal Was. No, seriously, take cover, because this could be dangerously rockin’, as Howerdel is the guitarist from crazily overrated alt-rock outfit A Perfect Circle, the side project of Riff Raff look-alike Maynard James Keenan, of Tool! Yikes, let’s tread carefully, because this might be so awesome I’ll be zapped into dust. OK, I’m going in, guys. Right, the single, “Poison Flowers,” is a more goth version of any random Nine Inch Nails sort-of-ballad, which is fitting, because Howerdel’s band logo rips off Nine Inch Nails’. Awkward. Let’s move along.

• Lastly and leastly, it’s Cali pop-punk zeroes Joyce Manor, with their sixth album, 40 oz. to Fresno! The single, “Gotta Let It Go,” is such a Weezer ripoff that they should just change their band name to Wish We Were Weezer. Good lord, holy crow.

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).

Achieving whirled peas

In her Little House books Laura Ingalls Wilder made a big deal out of the changing of the seasons. Fall was an obvious one with all the emphasis on the harvest, etc., but springtime was also a really big deal for her.

In one of the books — I don’t specifically remember which one — she goes into a four- or five-page reverie about her mother making the first salad of the year. She describes the lettuce that she grew, and how her ma would make a dressing out of bacon drippings and vinegar.

“Oh, Ma!” the barefoot kids would cry, “Salad!”

“Hooray! Salad!”

“By gum, Caroline,” her Pa would say, “You beat everyone else all hollow for making salad!”

And Ma would blush, and admit that while it wasn’t perfect, it was, in fact, a pretty good salad.”

And I, as a child of the ’70s, would stop reading briefly, and shout at the book.

“Seriously, people! It’s a salad! Get over it!”

What I didn’t or couldn’t realize at the time was that this frontier family had just come off a winter of living on potatoes, salt pork and hardtack, and now even the potatoes were gone. They all had early-stage rickets and scurvy. Fresh, leafy greens must have hit their systems like a vitamin A speedball.

Now, while we haven’t spent the winter locked up in a one-room shanty on the prairie, we are coming off a long takeout and frozen dinner jag. Many of us have spent the past week or two standing in our gardens, hands on hips, staring down at the seedlings and going, “WELL?!”

The big stuff — the cucumbers, tomatoes, and corn — is still a long way off, but we are starting to get a few tiny things, vegetable flirtations, if you will, from our gardens.

Springtime Cocktail #1

Peas and mint are a classic combination. My question was a matter of ratios — how much mint to how many peas?

I looked through many, many recipes and found very little agreement. But Martha Stewart advised 10 ounces of peas to 1/3 cup of mint leaves, and if there is anyone I would put blind trust in on this matter, it would be Martha.

The great thing about this recipe is that aside from washing the peas and mint, you don’t have to pluck, chop or process them in any fussy way.

Preparing the gin:

1/3 cup (8 grams) fresh mint — Don’t worry about plucking the leaves. The stems will work well here, too.
10 ounces fresh sugar snap peas or snow peas in their pods
10 ounces (285 grams) medium-quality gin — I used Gordon’s

Measure all three ingredients into a blender — a kitchen scale is excellent for this.

Blend thoroughly for a minute or so.

Leave the mixture to steep for an hour.

Strain with a fine-meshed kitchen strainer.

Your yield will be about a cup (8 ounces) of Bright Green Gin — enough for four cocktails.

The cocktail itself:

2 ounces Bright Green Gin
1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
¾ ounce amaretto

Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.

Shake.

Strain into a chilled coupe glass.

This is what I call a classic Utility Cocktail recipe — two parts alcohol, one part citrus juice, ¾ part syrup or liqueur.

Amaretto has a reputation of being a bully and taking over any drink it’s a part of. When used judiciously, it is an excellent team player. Peas go extremely well with mint – that’s a given. They also go with lemon and with almonds. All these ingredients play extremely well together.

The first thing you notice, of course, is the color, a bright vibrant green that even the amaretto won’t dull. The pea flavor is distinct but not overly assertive. The acid of the lemon juice brightens everything up.

It is startlingly delicious.

And holds off scurvy. There’s no sense in taking chances.

(One observation: The Bright Green Gin has a short shelf life. It will start losing its vibrant color and flavor within a couple of hours, so it is best to drink it right away. This is a perfect before-dinner cocktail to share with friends, or for two of you to have two apiece.)

Featured photo. Springtime Cocktail. Photo by John Fladd.

Broccoli, apple and bacon salad

I’m going to start with a fact about this recipe: It needs about two and a half hours to be prepared. However, and this is a big however, only about 20 of those minutes are active cooking time. The remaining two hours are for the salad to become nice and cold. In fact, you could start this salad in the morning, let it hang out in the refrigerator all day, and finish it shortly before you’re ready to serve it.
You can think of this salad as a dish that has something for everyone. For your healthy eaters, it is filled with broccoli and has an incredibly healthy dressing. If you are cooking for people who like tartness, there are the Granny Smith apples. For a hot summer’s day, this salad is served ice cold. Plus, it’s topped with bacon, which tends to be a popular ingredient for many people.

Besides being a crowd-pleaser and quite easy to make, it also is a low-maintenance dish as far as ingredients go. There are no hard-to-find items. For the lemon juice, use bottled or fresh. If you can’t find a Granny Smith apple, feel free to pick a different variety. Just gather your ingredients, get the salad started and in the refrigerator, and you have a delicious side salad ready in a couple hours.

Broccoli, apple, and bacon salad
Serves 4

4½ cups broccoli florets
2 stalks celery
1 Granny Smith apple
¾ cup plain Greek yogurt
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons sugar
4 strips bacon

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
Add broccoli florets, and boil for 3 minutes.
Transfer to a colander, rinsing with cold water to stop cooking; drain well.
Chop celery into ½-inch pieces.
Core apple, and chop into ½-inch cubes with skin on.
Cut broccoli into bite-sized pieces.
Combine broccoli, celery and apple in a large bowl.
In a small bowl whisk together yogurt, lemon juice and sugar.
Pour dressing on salad, and toss well.
Refrigerate for 2 hours.
Cook bacon until crispy, using your preferred method.
Drain bacon on paper towels, and chop into a small dice.
Just before serving, top salad with diced bacon pieces.

Featured Photo: Broccoli, apple and bacon salad. Photo by Michele Pesula Kuegler.

French variety

Two reds that show off the diversity of French grapes

France is the largest country in western Europe. In the continent overall, it is second only to Ukraine and Russia, located at the eastern edges of the continent. However, the country is slightly smaller in area to the combined square miles of Colorado and Wyoming. It is smaller than the state of Texas, yet it has some of the most diverse terrain and climate of any of the wine-producing European nations. The terrain ranges from the mountainous edges of the Alps and Pyrenees to the rolling hills and plains to the north of Paris. And climate is influenced by these extremes, from the warm Mediterranean sun on its southern shores to the cool, sometimes rainy northern shores. Given this diversity of terroir, we are blessed with a full array of wines to sip or enjoy with our friends at dinner.

Our first wine, a 2019 Pascal et Alain Lorieux Chinon Red Loire Wine (originally $54.99 at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets, reduced to $24.99), is a creation of 100 percent cabernet franc grapes. These grapes are grown worldwide and are principally used for blending with other varietals, such as in Bordeaux-style wines, where they are blended with cabernet sauvignon and merlot. Cabernet sauvignon and merlot grapes can trace their beginnings to cabernet franc grapes. This wine comes from the Chinon appellation, along the Loire River Valley. This appellation has been vinifying cabernet franc wines since sometime in the 17th century. In general the cabernet franc grape is similar to the cabernet sauvignon but buds and ripens at least a week earlier, allowing it to thrive in cooler climates than cabernet sauvignon, such as in the Loire Valley.

This grape adapts to a wide variety of vineyard soils. We have said before that terroir affects the grape, the color and the notes of a wine, and this is certainly true of cabernet franc. The soils of the Chinon appellation are a chalky limestone and produce a heavier, more full-bodied wine. Cabernet franc coming from the Finger Lakes Region of New York, with its gravel-based soils, tends to be a bit “thinner” than this Loire Valley wine. However, it has nonetheless taken off in the region because it produces wines of better quality and because of its ability to ripen more reliably than other reds.

The wine has a beautiful deep garnet color, producing notes of red cherries and raspberries, along with some slight undertones of plum and blackberries. The tannins are slight, with notes of cedar. This is a rich, soft wine that we paired with hamburgers, grilled to be very rare and then loaded with blue cheese and mushrooms. This wine turned the simple meal into one of elegance.

Our next wine comes from the south of France, only about a seven-hour drive from Chinon, but a world away in climate and soils. The 2020 Réserve des Diacres Châteauneuf-d-Pape (originally $39.99 at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets, reduced to $23.99) is a classic southern Rhône wine. The color is a slightly transparent purple; to the nose there are plums and blackberries. These notes follow through on the tongue, with a solid, dry presence, not “jammy” but still full of fruit and bold. There is alcohol at 14.4 percent, but it doesn’t burn your nose.

To look at the label, one would think this is a winter wine. While not a sipping wine, this is an excellent accompaniment to grilled lamb, or low-fire grilled rustic vegetables in olive oil. The wine is blended by Baptiste Grangeon, owner and winemaker at Domaine De Crista, a vineyard and winery situated on some of the best soils in the southern Rhône valley. To create an affordable wine, he sourced grapes from three different terroirs within the region, with a sand and limestone base, topped by the famous river-washed rock that holds the heat of the midday sun. The grapes are principally grenache, blended with syrah. The grenache is high in sugars, thus producing high alcoholic wines. The syrah introduces just enough “jammy” fruit to soften the grenache. This is a beautiful wine to enjoy with a backyard barbeque.

Two different wines from one country, offering widely different notes to the palate, provide one with an opportunity to enjoy a wide spectrum of experiences. Enjoy your barbecue!

Featured photo. Courtesy photo.

In the kitchen with Meredith Thomas

Meredith Thomas of Derry is the owner and founder of Mimi Rae’s Gluten Free Bakery (mimiraesglutenfreebakery.com, and on Facebook and Instagram), a producer of small-batch handcrafted gluten-free items like cookies, scones, breads, bagels, cinnamon rolls, cake pops and more. Originally from the Chicago area, Thomas moved to New England about three years ago. She first got into making gluten-free treats shortly after her husband was diagnosed with Celiac disease — eventually, after a period of developing and mastering her technique, Thomas started selling her treats at the encouragement of her family. Find Mimi Rae’s Gluten Free Bakery at the Salem Farmers Market (Tuscan Village, 10 Via Toscana, Salem) on Sundays, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and at the Derry Homegrown Farm & Artisan Market (1 W. Broadway, Derry) on Wednesdays, from 3 to 7 p.m. Thomas’s gluten-free treats can also be ordered online.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

My No. 1 thing is my mixer. I have two mixers — one for making some bigger, heftier doughs and then one for frostings.

What would you have for your last meal?

Risotto is my favorite. I like the versatility of it.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

We love Sabatino’s [North] in Derry. Their risotto is amazing.

What celebrity would you like to see trying something that you’ve baked?

I follow a lady named Tara Thueson. She’s an Instagram influencer and she’s gluten-free.

What is your favorite gluten-free item that you offer?

The chocolate chip cookies. As basic as they are, I love to just take a regular cookie and then add a little flair to it. … For example, in the wintertime I’ll add in peppermint M&Ms.

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

I see a lot of bakery storefronts now with these huge jumbo cookies. People get so excited for them.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

Honestly, dinner is my favorite thing. We have four kids [and] we are so busy with activities and sports with the family, so it’s super important for me to always have a dinner prepared and ready to go. … My kids also love fettuccine alfredo, and the Barilla gluten-free pasta is our favorite that seems to hold up the best.

Gluten-free fettuccine alfredo
From the kitchen of Meredith Thomas of Mimi Rae’s Gluten Free Bakery

1 box Barilla gluten-free fettuccine pasta
2 room temperature eggs
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup frozen peas
½ cup cooked bacon

Fill a pot with water and bring to a rolling boil. Add pasta. After five minutes, pull out one cup of pasta water. Whisk the eggs and slowly add the pasta water. Drain pasta and place back in the pot. Add egg and water mixture to the pasta and mix thoroughly. Add Parmesan cheese, peas and bacon (optional: if pasta is too thick, milk can be added to make it creamier).

Featured photo: Meredith Thomas. Courtesy photo.

Nest for success

“Parent-focused, child-friendly” cafe now open in Londonderry

A new cafe in Londonderry has been specially designed to cater to families with young children, with a variety of built-in amenities like a Montessori-style play area, a “treehouse” reading nook, a chalk wall, changing tables and a bottle-warming station, all in addition to a menu of coffees, teas, smoothies, baked goods, kid-friendly snack dispensers, bento boxes and more.

It’s called The Nest, and its grand opening arrived on June 6 after more than a year of planning. Owners Jamie and Ryan Getchell are themselves the parents of three kids, ages 6, 5 and 22 months old — Jamie Getchell said the idea for the business came to the Londonderry couple following their own experiences visiting cafes and coffee shops with their kids in tow.

“We’d take our firstborn daughter and there would be no changing table, or she’d start crying and people would give us these looks like we were interrupting them if they were working, and we’d feel bad,” she said. “So we stopped doing that … but then it just felt like the only place to take the kids would be Chuck E. Cheese, or a trampoline park, or some other place with loud music and flashing lights. … It felt like there was just something missing for parents.”

Photos courtesy of The Nest Family Cafe.

The couple soon started developing a business plan and conducting research, visiting as many area cafes and coffee shops as they could along the way to figure out how to best make theirs accommodating to children. Unlike at some “play cafes” in other parts of the country that charge visitors to use the amenities by the hour or the child, Jamie Getchell said those at The Nest are free to use. There’s also a “blessing corner” of the cafe that features shelves of free donated diapers, wipes, baby formula and other items for any families in need of them.

“We wanted to flip the model a bit and say that we’re parent-focused [and] child-friendly,” Ryan Getchell said. “Our goal was to design a space that gives mom 45 minutes to an hour to sip a great cup of coffee and talk with other moms while the kids can play. … We’ve had friends come in with their kids and they already beeline it right to the small chairs and the play area.”

The roughly 1,500-square-foot space includes traditional cafe seating that’s adjacent to the gated play area, designed to look like a bird’s nest. On the other side of that is a lofted reading nook, along with custom-built table seating for kids and a chalk wall mounted near the floor. Around the corner at The Nest’s rear is where you’ll find the cafe’s private family area, which has a changing table, a complimentary bottle warmer and a breastfeeding chair.

But the drinks and food served at The Nest are by no means afterthoughts — the Getchells have worked closely with their neighbor, who happens to be a regional sales manager for Peet’s Coffee. They’re now members of the company’s Proudly Pouring program, which Ryan Getchell said allows them to create their own drink menu of any of Peet’s Coffee’s products. Their lineup of drinks includes a variety of hot and iced coffees, in addition to cold brew and a full line of espresso drinks. Through Peet’s Coffee’s sister company, Mighty Leaf Tea, there are also multiple flavors of iced tea shakers, which are made with real fruit pieces and purees.

Other drink options include smoothies, of which there are five flavors out of the gate to start.

“Friends and other moms have been saying to us that if their kids are going to come, they are going to want smoothies,” Jamie Getchell said. “So we were creating all of these smoothies and we kind of gathered what we liked and didn’t like about various recipes we found.”

She added that, while the couple’s original plan had been to serve paninis, feedback on social media and in focus groups regarding potential allergy concerns ultimately led them to pivot to offering “nest boxes,” or bento boxes filled with a variety of ingredients for kids or adults. Each specialty nest box contains its own collection of pre-selected items, or you can build your own.

“Whether it’s yogurt, apple slices, turkey and cheese rollups, or tuna fish or chicken salad … it’s a perfectly portioned healthy box for a kid, or mom or dad can get one too,” she said.

The Nest is also partnering with Klemm’s Bakery of Windham to source various pastries and baked goods like doughnuts, muffins and cookies. A snack dispenser features several kid-friendly snacks and cereals, and a retail area of the shop has parents and kids covered for a variety of essential items, from diapers, wipes and spare onesies to coloring and sticker books.

In lieu of entertainment you might find at a traditional cafe like live music or poetry readings, Jamie Getchell said The Nest is partnering with several local organizations, like the Leach Library in Londonderry to hold readings, and Party Palace for costumed character appearances.

The Nest Family Cafe
Where: 25 Orchard View Drive, Unit 1, Londonderry
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed on Sundays.
More info: Visit thenestfamilycafe.com, or find them on Facebook and Instagram @thenestfamilycafe

Featured photo: Photos courtesy of The Nest Family Cafe.

Tag: 220609