Femme force

Wyn Doran readies next project

Watching a private screening of Beautiful Was The Fight provided a full-circle moment for Wyn Doran. The Nashua based singer-songwriter appears early in David Habeeb’s documentary film about the challenges faced by New England’s female and non-binary musicians. A nervous Doran is seen in 2017 auditioning for an eventual role in Liz Bills’ band. Years later she’s fronting her own all-female combo.

“We were babies,” Doran said by phone recently about the clip of her and Bills. “The first day we met was basically captured in that film, and now she is one of my absolute best friends.”

The journey from jittery aspirant to confident artist wasn’t easy, but watching Wyn Doran these days, it feels complete.

While singing backup for Bills, Doran made her stirring 2019 EP Thick of It, an effort marked by medical emergencies, bouts of stage fright, even a house fire. During the pandemic she released a few singles, including a reverent cover of Amy Winehouse’s “Back To Black.” In February she’ll enter the studio to record her first full-length album.

Fans can get an early preview of the as-yet-unnamed project, to be produced by Colin Lester Fleming at Great North Sound Society in Maine, when Doran appears at Stone Church Music Club on Jan. 25, backed by upright bassist and multi-instrumentalist Lucia Jean.

Catalyzed by Covid-19, playing live has become much easier for Doran.

“After not being able to get in front of people for such a long time, the second I could, the stage fright was gone,” she said. “It was this huge shift in mindset … this is something that I really enjoy and feel like I’m born to do; why am I sabotaging it with myself?”

With only the livestreams to do, Doran spent the pandemic creating, continuing after the world began to open up. When she wrapped up last fall, she had a unified set of songs worthy of her first long-player. “It was this big piece of work,” she said. “I really do see the album as a journey. I got the band, a producer, and we started workshopping things in December; it’s the real thing in February.”

Lyrically, the new record “is a mix of both my personal anguish and journey, and what I see as a greater view of humanity — the cycles we’ve woven ourselves into nationally and on a global level. It kind of ebbs and flows between getting really, deeply personal, those themes, and zooming way out to the beginning of time, and kind of how we all got here.”

Her longtime band — Jean and drummer Heidi Tierney — will work with Doran in the studio. “We’re going to really try and keep it true to our trio live show, but also play with the skills that we bring to the table,” she said, noting that Tierney also plays a variety of instruments. “I’m kind of blown away to have them, and so excited about these 10 songs.”

A songwriting retreat with Ben Folds a few years back helped Doran find her voice as a songwriter, and she’s come a long way since. During the pandemic she assisted Folds with a Zoom version. “That was a neat throwback,” she said. “First, it was the scared Wyn showing up for the start of my songwriting, then jumping into this role where I wasn’t just pouring out sweat, I was interfacing with it. He’s releasing an album this year, I’ll be releasing an album this year — who knows?”

Seeing Habeeb’s documentary gave her a sense of camaraderie, albeit bittersweet.

“I don’t want to put a negative slant on this, but there are people who think we’re the bassist’s girlfriend, just carrying the amp, and we really have to step up and advocate for who we are as a musician,” she said. “One of the special parts of the film was Dave showing that experience back to back to back … these things I used to feel so alone in experiencing; all of a sudden, you realize we’re all together, going through this collective struggle.”

Wyn Doran w/ George Barber & Paulie Stone
When: Wednesday, Jan. 25, 8 p.m.
Where: Stone Church Music Club, 5 Granite St., Newmarket
Tickets: $10 at stonechurchrocks.com

Featured photo: Wyn Doran. Photo by Devin Perry.

The Music Roundup 23/01/19

Local music news & events

Joke stop: Enjoy a triple bill of laughs led by Mark Scalia, a veteran comic whose resume dates back to the early 1990s and places like Comedy Connection. He’s spot-on about domestic life; after watching Magic Mike with his wife, he mused that the best way for a man to excite a woman isn’t by taking his clothes off but rather by picking them up. Liam Hales and Ethan Cannon round out the show. Thursday, Jan. 19, 7:30 p.m., Soho Asian Restaurant, 49 Lowell Road, Hudson, $18 at comedy-on-purpose.square.site.

Unity music: Get exposed to the sounds of Venezuela with Larry & Joe, the latest project from Joe Troop, founder and leader of Latingrass group Che Apalache, and Larry Bellorín, who is skilled at the Joropo subgenre Llanera, and also an asylum-seeking migrant who’s worked construction for the past for two years while pursuing immigration. The two play harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, upright bass, guitar and maracas, and sing. Friday, Jan. 20, 7 p.m., The Word Barn, 66 Newfields Road, Exeter, $23 at portsmouthtickets.com.

Fabulous: Home-grown tribute act Beatlejuice performs at a favorite stop. Originally led by Boston singer Brad Delp from 1994 until his death in 2007, the reverent cover band carries on with changing members. All have long resumes in the regional music scene and delight in doing Beatles songs from “Love Me Do” to “Paperback Writer,” always with drummer John Muzzy perched behind a genuine “Ringo” kit. Saturday, Jan. 21, 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $30 at tupelohall.com.

Harp escape: More genteel than, say, the pro football playoffs is Áine Minogue, an Irish harpist celebrating the 25th anniversary of her landmark seasonal album, To Warm the Winter’s Night. Born in Borrisokane, County Tipperary, she moved to the United States as an adult and continued to focus on the traditional music of her homeland. Critics hail her “sheer talent as a musician and storyteller.” Sunday, Jan. 22, 3 p.m., Amherst Town Library, 14 Main St., Amherst. Reserve at amherstlibrary.org.

Americana: Multi-genre acoustic roots band Dustbowl Revival began when a UMich writing grad went west chasing screenplay dreams, also taking his guitar. Performing with a group was “always the static in the back of my head,” Zach Lupetin told a writer once, so he placed a Craigslist ad for like minds. Eight core players would swell to a 20-plus-member collective over the years. Wednesday, Jan. 25, 7:30 p.m., Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club, 135 Congress St., Portsmouth, $10 and up at jimmysoncongress.com.

Plane (R)

Plane (R)

Plane go crash in Plane — a movie that will never be criticized for being too complex.

Right from the jump, this movie won me over by letting Gerard Butler, who plays Trailblazer Airline pilot Brodie Torrance (I mean, HA! with that name), just be Scottish and not try to hide his accent. That always weighs these goofy action movies of his down; Plane keeps the story relatively light so we can focus on what really matters — an airplane doing crashy things.

Brodie and co-pilot Dele (Yoson An) are flying from Singapore to wherever, I forget, not important, with a small flight crew and 14 passengers, including Gaspare (Mike Colter), who is being returned to the U.S. in handcuffs. He was wanted for a homicide — something that happened when he was in his teens — and was finally caught after a decade and a half in the French Foreign Legion. Also, some corporate jerk tells the pilots not to worry about the big storm in their path, they should just fly above it — not around it, though, because that would cost slightly more in fuel.

The storm will not let itself be flown over and even at 40,000 feet the airplane gets tossed about and eventually struck by lightning. The electrical stuff goes out, the plane has to make an emergency landing and the Captain-Sully-esque Brodie manages to sort of crash-land it (with lots of sheared off trees and bumps and skids) onto an unknown island. Though, as Dele explains, probably not an uninhabited island — he’s pretty sure they’ve crashed down on a lawless island run by let’s just say Bad Guys.

With no way to radio out, Brodie decides to go in search of someplace with a telephone — and he takes Gaspare with him as a way to keep an eye on him. Thus are the rest of the crew and the complainy passengers left with the titular Plane to be found by the Bad Guys, who know ransom potential when they see it.

Meanwhile, in New York City, a room full of corporate people who I don’t think get names take direction from Scarsdale (Tony Goldwyn), a guy whose whole deal is handling crises by talking tough and having mercenaries on speed dial.

I won’t say this movie has no unnecessary details. We learn that Brodie has a daughter, we learn some details from his past, it’s New Year’s Eve — none of this matters at all. The movie could slice these bits out and it would be fine and might improve some of the draggy moments when the plane isn’t crashing or Brodie and Gaspare aren’t fighting the Bad Guys. I did enjoy the moments when this movie called Plane is basically doing Plane — Brodie and Dele say words like “thrust” and “landing gear” and “radar” to each other and we see the plane take off or climb in altitude. These moments don’t really get us any closer to the fireworks factory of airplane-centric action or Gerard Butler-centric violence, but they do underline the theme of this movie, which is, to be clear, “plane” and nothing more.

This movie is so just “plane” that it almost defies ranking. You absolutely get “plane” and absolutely nothing else. Do I wish it were maybe a little more fun, a little more self-aware about how it is a Gerard Butler movie called just “Plane”? Sure, but nevertheless this nonstop service to “movie your eyes can watch while your brain takes a rest” gets you where you need to go. B-

Rated R for violence and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Jean-Francois Richet, Plane is an hour and 47 minutes long and distributed by Lionsgate in theaters.

A Man Called Otto (PG-13)

Tom Hanks plays the neighborhood grump in A Man Called Otto, a movie about a man lost in grief and depression.

But, like, whimsically!

After being forcibly retired from his decades-long job, Otto (Tom Hanks) now has more time to police neighborhood rules about parking and recycling and to grow increasingly despondent over the recent death of his wife, Sonya. (We see her in flashbacks as a young woman played by Rachel Keller; young Otto is played by Truman Hanks, son of Tom and Rita Wilson). He decides to “join you,” as he says, speaking to Sonya’s headstone, turning off the electricity and phone service to his tidy townhouse. But new neighbors, the very pregnant Marisol (Mariana Treviño) and her husband Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), distract Otto from his plans with their terrible attempts at parking a trailer. He fusses at them and then grumps that he’ll do it himself, getting in their car and parallel parking it — which is how he meets their young daughters, Luna (Christiana Montoya) and Abbie (Alessandra Perez), who are strapped in the back and instantly amused by grumpy Otto. Marisol also seems to find Otto and his prickliness kind of amusing and she barges past it to give him food by way of saying thank you and asking for more neighborly favors — an allen wrench, a ladder, a ride to the hospital when Tommy falls off the ladder. Against Otto’s will at first, Marisol and her family befriend Otto and, because Marisol is a naturally outgoing person, she pulls Otto back into the life of his neighborhood. She makes him part of a cat rescue, and thus does Otto end up with a cat. She seems to inspire his reaching out to Malcolm (Mack Bayda), a neighborhood teen who turns out to have been a student of Sonya’s. And even though Otto seems to continue seeking ways to “join Sonya” he also seems, little by little, more tethered to the wider world.

Whimsical suicidal ideation and performative grumpiness — sounds fun, right? There are moments when this movie feels right on the edge of “yikes, really?” and I think it’s only the American Treasure Tom Hanks-iness of Tom Hanks that keeps it from sliding over. Even so, there’s a lack of nuance and a flatness to the characters that really gets in the way of this movie reaching the emotional depths it’s shooting for. Hanks (actually, Hankses, because I’d include Truman’s portrayal) never really seems to calibrate Otto exactly right. There is often a collection of quirks and brow furrows standing in for a multi-dimensional person.

So, on the one hand, there’s a really too-sweet, too-greasy overall uneasy quality to this. But there are still some genuine moments and some nice scenes of relationships — Otto and Marisol, particularly the way he helps to build her up at the right moments but also Otto and Malcolm (those scenes do a better job filling in one of Otto’s big life disappointments than the eventual exposition about it do), Otto and the cat, and Otto and Reuben (Peter Lawson Jones) and Anita (Juanita Jennings), a neighborhood couple that had been longtime friends but from whom he had been estranged.

I’ve never seen the Oscar-nominated 2012 Swedish original A Man Called Ove on which this movie is based so I can’t offer a comparison. I think this variation is probably fine, offering some emotionally satisfying moments even, if you don’t think too hard about what’s actually going on. B-

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving suicide attempts, and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Marc Forester with a screenplay by David Magee (based on the screenplay of A Man Called Ove by Hannes Holmes, which was based on the book by Fredrik Backman), A Man Called Otto is two hours and six minutes long and distributed by Sony in theaters.

The Whale (R)

Brendan Fraser gives a legitimately very good performance — for which he has received awards nods including Golden Globe and SAG nominations — in the very frustrating The Whale, a Darren Aronofsky movie based on a play.

Charlie (Fraser) teaches English remotely to college students. Because his laptop camera is “broken” they hear his voice but don’t see him in his apartment, where he is nearly immobile on his couch, breaking out in sweats and suffering from wheezing and sudden pains in his chest. As Liz (Hong Chau), his friend and a nurse who regularly checks on him, explains, Charlie has dangerously high blood pressure and congestive heart failure and will likely not live beyond the week. He has gotten to this state from extreme weight gain, which we learn has happened since the death of Charlie’s longtime boyfriend. Realizing he’s at the end of his life, Charlie reaches out to Ellie (Sadie Sink), his teenage daughter whom he hasn’t really seen since the breakup of his marriage to her mom, Mary (Samantha Morton). He basically bribes Ellie, with money and the promise of doing her English homework, to hang out with him so he can get to know her.

As the days tick down, Thomas (Ty Simpkins), an eager little missionary with connections to a church Liz’s family belongs to, regularly stops by Charlie’s house, hoping to “save” him, even if Thomas doesn’t seem entirely sure what that would mean. Liz meanwhile seems to both hope she can convince Charlie to go to a hospital and be somewhat resigned to the fact that Charlie isn’t going to stop his rapid decline.

If you’ve heard about this movie at all, it’s probably because Fraser is sort of wrapped in prosthetics to make himself appear extremely obese and there has been, you know, discourse about that whole thing. This movie’s approach to Charlie and his weight does not, as Roxanne Gay in her New York Times article and others have pointed out, exactly radiate respect for Charlie as a fully worthy human. Fraser will have some moment of heartbreaking sweetness where Charlie talks about his love for his daughter, but then the movie lingers on Charlie in the shower in a way that made me want to tell the movie to knock it off.

And yet, this, the sort of body horror aspect infused into the story, is not the movie’s only, or even its biggest, problem. Fraser’s performance really does come through but it occasionally gets crowded out by the stageyness of the movie. There are times when you can all but hear someone reading a stage direction as a character unnaturally walks to a door or stares out a window. Samantha Morton’s lines are so play-ish, so not-how-people-talk that it frequently pulled me out of her scenes. Because Fraser and Chau (who also got a SAG nod) are pretty capable at sounding like humans, it is even more noticeable when Simpkins’ Thomas sounds like he’s doing a chunk of dialogue as part of an audition. The religion aspect of the story and the way he fits into it is just not smoothly integrated and sticks out as nuggets of “bigger meaning” — much in the way the news reports about the 2016 presidential primaries do (just no, movies, to using 2016 as thematic shorthand).

And then there’s Sink, making Ellie a teenager sort of vibrating with rage — at the father who left her, at the mother with whom she’s in constant struggle, at the school where she’s not thriving. It can be good and get to the part of Charlie’s choices that he hasn’t really dealt with. But it can also be “angry Rory Gilmore,” which just pulls the whole man’s-struggle-with-depression into a place of thin melodrama.

Fraser and Chau deserve their accolades from this movie. They did good work, but The Whale is exhausting. C+

Rated R for language, some drug use and sexual content, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Darren Aronofsky with a screenplay by Samuel D. Hunter, The Whale is an hour and 57 minutes long and is distributed by A24 in theaters.

Featured photo: Plane

Life on Delay, by John Hendrickson

Life on Delay, by John Hendrickson (Knopf, 272 pages)

Since childhood, journalist John Hendrickson has had a severe stutter — or, as the condition is formally known, severe “disfluency.” His stutter was so pronounced that once, in a school play, he had been assigned to say three words: “place,” “sound” and “celebration,” with meaningful pauses between each word. He couldn’t do it, even when the assignment was reduced to one word. He wound up being the only kid on stage who didn’t have a speaking role.

This was one of countless embarrassments in Hendrickson’s memories about his stutter, memories that followed him into adulthood, even as he forged a career writing for respected publications like Esquire, Rolling Stone and The Atlantic. “I wish I could pinpoint the moment that shame changed from something that periodically washed over me to something I lug around every day like a backpack,” he writes in his memoir Life on Delay.

Although disfluency affected every aspect of Hendrickson’s life, it was something that wasn’t talked about by his family, at least not in productive ways. His mother took him regularly to speech-language pathologists, his father believed that it was a passing problem that he would outgrow, and his older brother cruelly made fun of him. It wasn’t until after Hendrickson wrote about Joe Biden’s speech impediment for The Atlantic in 2019 that he began a journey to acceptance and healing that is the focus of this book.

Biden has spoken often about overcoming a childhood stutter; Hendrickson called him out on the fact that it still exists in the piece, titled “What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say.” In the piece, Hendrickson wrote not only about Biden’s struggle with disfluency, but also his own. It wasn’t the first time that a moving account of stuttering caught the general public’s attention; the film The King’s Speech has done so, as well as Katherine Preston’s book Out With It. Celebrities such as John Stossel, Samuel L. Jackson, Carly Simon and Ed Sheeran have dealt with stuttering and spoken about it openly.

But Hendrickson’s account resonated, not only with the 3 million or so Americans who stutter (70 million worldwide), but also with the people who love them. His inbox quickly filled up with poignant emails from people who wanted to share their stories, in large part because they had previously felt so alone in their struggles.

Stuttering, as Hendrickson points out, can be painful not only for people with disfluency but also for those around them. (Hendrickson once was turned down for a job at a coffee shop by an owner who said the shop was “a place where customers feel comfortable.”) There will always be jerks who respond cruelly, and those who are impatient and unwilling to be uncomfortable even for a short time; Hendrickson writes of what he calls “The Look” that crosses people’s faces when they realize he has trouble communicating.

But even people who are empathetic blunder when talking to someone with disfluency. “Have you ever told a stutterer to take their time? Next time you see them, ask how ‘take your time’ feels,” Hendrickson writes. “‘Take your time’ is a polite and loaded alternative to what you really mean, which is ‘Please stop stuttering.’”

He and many other stutterers also hate when people, in an attempt to be helpful, cut them off or try to answer their own questions for the stutterer.

While it is true that around 75 percent of childhood stutters will resolve by adulthood, Hendrickson doesn’t seem to think that’s because of interventions provided by speech-language pathologists; there are 150,000 or so of them in the U.S., but only about 150 are board-certified in stuttering. Speech therapy offered to children may give them strategies and their parents hope, but most children who still stutter at age 10 will continue to do so to varying degrees throughout adulthood, he says. And he is dubious of even world-famous clinics that boast of “cure” rates exceeding 90 percent.

At some point, he says, achieving fluency is not a viable goal. He quotes a speech specialist who says that people’s lives often change dramatically not because of sudden improvement in their disfluency but because they encounter “people who cared about them, who didn’t care about the fluency of their speech, but the content of what they were saying, and expressed to them that total acceptance.”

Hendrickson writes movingly of the small indignities of stuttering which stem from things that most people take for granted — the ability to place an order at a restaurant, to record a voicemail, or even introduce yourself to another person. He quotes a fellow stutterer as saying, “I would love the ability to go around and say hi to people and not feel the world was about to end.”

But although the narrative is encased in difficulties which relatively few people experience, its broader theme is more universal: healing from childhood and family dysfunction.

While conducting interviews for the book and getting to know stutterers around the world, Hendrickson also opened the Pandora’s box of his own childhood and adolescence, going so far as to interview teachers and friends from the past about how they remembered him and how his struggles affected them. His reporting also forced him to confront his parents and brother about their mistakes in progressively difficult conversations. As such, his story is one to which many people will relate even if they don’t know anyone who stutters.

Sometimes books that bloom from popular articles seem contrived, an unnecessary expansion that does little more than make money. That’s not the case with Life on Delay, which opens a window beautifully into human struggles that often go unseen. It is the rare sort of book with the potential to make us better human beings. A

Album Reviews 23/01/19

We Are Scientists, Lobe (Masterswan Recordings)

You may remember this New York City-based indie-rock band first surfacing in 2005 with their debut LP With Love And Squalor, a sturdy record that did well for sounding like a cross between Killers and Tokyo Police Club (I know, there’s not a terribly wide difference there aside from the energy levels, which is what I really mean). I remember not being blown away by them, but they were fine, no problems. On this, their eighth full-length, they’ve thrown off the self-imposed adherence to Aughts-era “polite-noise” that made the whole decade so loathsome and have matured into something quite remarkable, a sort of neo-post-punk thing that — at least I’d think — will be genuinely adored by the 50-ish Gen Xers of their age group (I’m sure it’s refreshing not to act 10 years younger than they are). What do I mean? Well, opening tune “Operator Error” is a great one, like an evolved version of something Mr. Mister would have tossed up as a single. “Human Resources” is even more rich and delicious, evoking Tears For Fears 2.0, and such and so. This one deserves a lot more attention than it’ll get. Shame about that. A+

Dust Bowl Faeries, Carnival Dust (self-released)

These guys had me at “Hudson Valley, NY’s goth, rock, cabaret, vaudeville, and folk [band],” a combination of descriptors that the world needs much more of. As you’d expect, this quintet is visually appealing to cynical outcasts: guys dressed like beer-barrel polka-meisters; cute girls with plush antlers on their heads, but like someone (OK, everyone) once said, the proof is in the listening, and this six-song EP has all the necessary boxes checked, I assure you. Accordion-fueled oom-pa-pa in “Cuckoo”; Decemberists-tinged furry-pop in “Changeling”; a creepy campfire mumble-along (“Medicine Show”); vintage spooky-ghost-whistling in “The Old Ragdoll” — this bunch isn’t kidding around, especially in the video for “Lost in Time,” which rattles off every steampunk trope like it’s a test. Bandleader Ryder Cooder (apparently no relation to Ry) got Melora Creager of Rasputina to help produce this act’s first album and hasn’t looked back; if you’re a frequent attendee at spooky-cons, you’d better get on board fast. A+

Playlist

• You have got to be kidding me. The next general-CD-release date is already Jan. 20? How did that even happen? I mean, I don’t have a problem if this dumb winter wants to fly me right out the window and land me in a nice greasy beach Snack Shack staring down the barrel of a fried seafood platter, let’s do this. I’m already ready, since I hate everything about skiing and/or generally slipping on ice like a funny dancing clown on my way back into the house to gulp quarts of hot cocoa and try to find something decent on Netflix (there isn’t, and I should really just cancel my subscription right this minute, seeing as how I’m all set forever with gross serial killer mysteries with Finnish voice overdubs and people acting all nice and European and normal). Yessiree Bob, get me out of this insane frozen tundra post haste and serve me clams, fast-forward this crazy thing, but for now we shall suffer through these frozen winds, freshly blown onto our faces from Canadian igloos, and go check out some of these albums. I think we should start with British synthpop girls Ladytron, because the last I heard from them they were sort of a one-trick (albeit sexy, mind you) goth-tinged synthpop band that did little to differentiate themselves from mid-aughts euro-club acts like Miss Kittin and all that. With “Misery Remember Me,” the single to their new one, Time’s Arrow, though, I’m hearing a definite shift to traditional shoegaze — crank the reverb and the emotional unavailability, bake at 300 and serve. The beat is quite nice; now let’s see if I can find something I can actually mock.

• According to Wikipedia, Dave Rowntree is, let’s see, an English musician, politician, solicitor, composer and animator. Wait, did I take wrong turn at somewhere, oh OK, never mind, he’s the drummer from famous oi/pub band Blur, meaning Rowntree got his political campaign seed money by way of royalties from the ridiculously overrated Madchester, uh, classic, “Parklife” (think of a song that’d be in the buds of a gang of football hooligans who’re chasing Mr. Bean around a sleepy British burg and you’re there). But ours is not to tool on Blur’s oeuvre or find fault with British politics (if they have any). Nay, we’re tasked with looking at Rowntree’s debut solo album, Radio Songs, and trying to justify its ever being made. OK, listening to rope-in single “Devil’s Island,” I have nothing in the way of good news. There’s a kind of dumb synth line, ably made worse by an off-time clicking noise, and Rowntree talk-sings like the guy from Psychedelic Furs. It would probably be listenable if you were having a few “pints” at a pub in Lancashire On Whatever, but American audiences will listen to it and simply say, “Oh, a new Elvis Costello song I think,” and that’s why America rocks.

• Oh great, another album from Guided by Voices I have to deal with, it’ll never end, friends. This one’s called La La Land, and as always, it will consist of the last 20-odd songs that came to hilariously over-prolific songwriter Robert Pollard whilst he was in the water closet. You know the drill, it’s like King Gizzard, this guy puts out an album every three months, and the single from this one is “Queen of Spaces,” made of an acoustic guitar arpeggio that’s OK, then he sings and it sounds like he’s eating a Twinkie while he’s warbling like a half-sober Tom Waits. OK.

• Lastly we have July Talk, with their new LP, Remember Never Before. The rollout single is “After This,” an ’80s-tinted dance-chill number that will make you think of A-Ha, as if you didn’t already have enough difficulties to deal with.

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).

Squeeze & punch

How to squeeze a lime

(Or a lemon, or an orange, or a tangerine, but limes lend themselves to being squeezed; they have the fewest inhibitions of any citrus fruit.)

Method 1 – Pure brute strength

Wash your hands.

Carefully place the lime on a cutting board in front of you. Carefully cut the lime in half.

Center your thoughts, then pick up half a lime, hold it over a bowl, and crush it.

The key here is rage. Naked, blind fury, if you can manage it. If you are a sports enthusiast, or a middle child, this should be fairly easy for you. The pain from previously unknown cuts on your hand will only make you angrier, eliciting even more juice.

Method 2 – An improvised reamer

A fork works well for this. So does a pair of kitchen tongs.

Cut the fruit in half, as before, but this time retain your composure. Insert the business end of the fork or tongs into half a lime, then twist it around, while squeezing with the hand that’s holding the lime. Tell the lime, “You might feel a little discomfort.”

You should be pleased with the result.

Method 3 – A hand-held juicer

Sometimes called a hand-juicer — though that implies that it actually juices hands — this looks something like the love child of a pair of pliers and a tea-strainer. It’s usually yellow or green — depending on the size of the fruit you intend to squeeze — and some models have a second squeezing cup, so you can tackle lemons and limes. It seems very gadget-y and might not fill you with confidence at first glance. It does a shockingly good job of squeezing citrus, though, and has become my juice extractor of choice.

A note on fresh orange juice

If you only need a few ounces of orange juice for a cocktail, a very good option is squeezing a couple of clementines. They have a fresher, zingier taste than orange juice from a carton, and they are roughly the same diameter as a lemon, so they are relatively easy to squeeze. I have found that after I have juiced both halves of a clementine, if I stack the spent carcasses of the two halves in the larger bowl of my hand-held juicer and squeeze them again I can extract a little more juice and theoretically a little citrus oil, which will intensify the flavor of the juice.

A very juicy cocktail

This is an adaptation of something called a Tangipahoa Planter’s Punch that I found in an extremely distressed copy of 1937’s Famous New Orleans Drinks and how to mix ‘em:

Ingredients

  • 2 ounces pineapple/mango juice. Could you use plain pineapple juice? The Fruit Police, or possibly the Tangipahoa Parish Liquor Commission, would probably not come crashing through the window, if you did.
  • 2 ounces fresh squeezed lime juice (see above)
  • 2 ounces fresh squeezed clementine juice. Could you just use Tropicana? That’s between you and your conscience.
  • 3 ounces white rum
  • ½ ounce raspberry syrup (see below). Could you use grenadine instead? I suppose so, if you were a COWARD!
  • 5 to 6 ice cubes

Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker, and shake until the ice starts making “I can’t hold it together much longer, Captain” sounds.

Pour into a pint glass and garnish as you see fit.

A lot of tropical drinks have a sort-of generic, yeah-there’s-some-fruit-in-here background flavor. The nice thing about squeezing your own juices into this one is that you can taste each individual ingredient. The lime, clementine and raspberry all step forward and raise a hand if you look for them. The rum stands in the back with hands in pockets, humming to itself.

You know those miserable winter days when all you want to do is sit by a fire, read a book and eat soup? Alternate that with drinking this and lying on the couch and watching game shows. You’ll feel 12 percent more optimistic about life.

Raspberry syrup

Combine an equal amount (by weight) of frozen raspberries and sugar in a small saucepan.

Cook over medium heat. The ice crystals in the berries have already punctured the cell walls, and you will be surprised at how much liquid they give off.

Bring to a boil, to make sure that all the sugar has dissolved, then remove from the heat.

Strain through a fine-meshed strainer, and store in your refrigerator for about a month.

Feature photo: Tangipahoa Planter’s Punch. Photo by John Fladd.

In the kitchen with Rivka Rowe

Rivka Rowe is the owner and founder of Home Made by Rivka (homemadebyrivka.com, and on Facebook and Instagram @homemadebyrivka), a producer of homemade small-batch jams, jellies and spreads available in nearly two dozen flavors throughout the year. She started canning in 2011 and had turned her passion into a business by 2015. Among her most popular products are the wild Maine blueberry spread, the strawberry rhubarb jam, the carrot cake jam and the bananas Foster spread. Flavors like the pomegranate spread and the lemon honey jelly, Rowe said, go great with goat cheeses on crackers mixed into yogurt. The spiced pear spread is also a perfect glaze for pork or chicken, she added, and any of them can be mixed into softened vanilla ice cream and refrozen in single-serve cups for a quick treat. Locally, you can find Home Made by Rivka products in eight-ounce jars at Pop of Color (816 Elm St., Manchester) and at the Manchester Craft Market inside the Mall of New Hampshire (1500 S. Willow St.). Rowe also participates in farmers markets in Candia and Wolfeboro during the summer months.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

From a practical standpoint, my spoonula. It’s a spoon and spatula hybrid, and it’s perfect for stirring jam, mixing big batches and things like that. … From a less practical standpoint, I would say my audiobooks.

What would you have for your last meal?

There’s a restaurant … called Khaophums in Dover. Very specifically, it would be their vegetable pad Thai and vegetable spring rolls.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

My favorite restaurant overall would be El Camino Cafe in Plaistow. They have the best empanadas, and any of the rices are amazing.

What celebrity would you like to see trying one of your products?

It would be a toss-up between Sean Brock and Vivian Howard. Both of them are chefs that have a huge passion for the slow food movement … and heritage styles of cooking, and I really appreciate that, both personally and in business.

What is your personal favorite product that you offer?

I’d have to say the bananas Foster spread. I made that one for myself when I was coming up with flavors. I spread it in warm crepes and fold them up with vanilla ice cream on top.

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

I don’t know if it’s a trend, per se, but the interest in globally inspired cuisine is something that I’m seeing more and more.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I make a lot of quick stir-frys. I really like Asian cuisine.

Hamantaschen (Jewish jam cookies)
From the kitchen of Rivka Rowe

For the dough:
¾ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
⅔ cup white sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2¼ cups all purpose flour
1 to 5 teaspoons water, as needed
1 eight-ounce jar Home Made by Rivka jam, at room temperature

Sift together the flour and salt and set aside. Cream together the butter and sugar with a hand or stand mixer until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla to the sugar mixture and combine. Add the flour mixture into the wet ingredients in two batches, making sure to combine completely. If the dough is a little stiff, add the water, one teaspoon at a time, until the dough resembles a thick sugar cookie-type consistency (you may not need any water, or you may need to add the full 5 teaspoons). Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap or a tea towel and let it rest in the refrigerator for one hour.

Once the dough is rested, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Flour your work space and rolling pin. Roll the dough out to 1/8 inch in thickness and cut circles out using a cookie cutter, drinking glass or ring twist from a canning jar. Spoon 1 teaspoon of the jam into the center of the circle and prepare to fold it into a triangle shape — the cookie should be a triangle shape with the jam center showing. Fold over the left side of the circle at an angle, followed by the right side, overlapping at the top to form a point. Resist the desire to pinch the dough corner together. Fold the bottom of the circle up to form the two bottom points of the triangle — there should be a jam center, also in the shape of a triangle, if it’s folded correctly. Press down slightly on the corners to bond; pinching will come undone during baking.

Place the cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for eight to 11 minutes, depending on your oven. The cookies will not spread, although the jam may leak slightly. The cookies should still be very light in color with just a hint of golden brown at the corners (if 1 teaspoon of jam is too much for the size of your cutter, feel free to adjust accordingly). Allow the hamantaschen to cool slightly on a baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack, as the jam will be very hot. Cool completely before eating.


Featured photo: Rivka Rowe. Courtesy photo.

Taste of Bedford returns

Fourth annual fundraiser to feature local samples, raffles

After a couple of years off, Bedford-area restaurateurs, bakers and caterers will once again gather inside the town high school’s cafeteria for Taste of Bedford, set to return on Tuesday, Jan. 24.

The tasting is the flagship fundraiser for Bedford High School’s Distributive Education Clubs of America. Attendees will have access to samples of a wide array of local food offerings.

“We try to promote it to families as a great alternative for a Tuesday night dinner,” said Betsy Doyle, DECA advisor and a science teacher at the high school.

Because Taste of Bedford has not taken place the last two years due to pandemic concerns, Doyle noted that there is a greater than normal number of new participants this year. It’s also going to be the largest lineup of restaurants to date in the event’s history. Among them are Rig A Tony’s Italian Takeout & Catering, which opened a new storefront in town back in June 2021; and Wicked Good Butchah, which relocated to a larger space inside the former Harvest Market in late February that same year. Simply Delicious Baking Co., known for its scratch-baked goods like scones and cookies; and The Inside Scoop, a Bedford ice cream shop, will also be there.

The most recent Taste of Bedford, in January 2020, was the first time it expanded to restaurants in some neighboring communities, and Doyle said that will continue. El Rincon Zacatecano Taqueria, a Mexican restaurant in downtown Manchester, is participating this year, as is Playa Bowls, a fast casual concept specializing in acai bowls, poke bowls, smoothies and other health-focused options; and Sweet Ginger, a Thai restaurant in Merrimack.

“We have a student leader who is different every year, usually a junior,” Doyle said. “They’ll visit as many local restaurants as possible and basically ask that they come and participate, [and] sample whatever part of their menu they would like the community to try. We try to do as much advertising as possible for these businesses.”

She added that a few additional businesses — Tucker’s, which opened its sixth location in Bedford in October 2021, and Great New Hampshire Restaurants, the parent company of T-Bones Great American Eatery and the Copper Door Restaurant — have donated gift cards.

“They weren’t able to donate food and time to personnel, so instead, they offered us gift cards to raffle off to our attendees in lieu of food,” she said.

Proceeds from Taste of Bedford help to reduce overall travel expenses for DECA students, who participate in business competitions in New Hampshire and across the country.

“The students themselves sell tickets to the event, and the money they collect … goes directly under their name for the purposes of travel through the club, so for competition fees, travel fees and things like that,” Doyle said.

Participating establishments
• The Bagg Lunch (bagglunch.com)
• Ben & Jerry’s (benjerry.com)
• El Rincon Zacatecano Taqueria (elrinconnh.com)
• Great New Hampshire Restaurants (greatnhrestaurants.com; gift card raffle only)
• Hannaford Supermarkets (hannaford.com)
• The Inside Scoop (theinsidescoopnh.com)
• Playa Bowls (playabowls.com)
• Rig A Tony’s Italian Takeout & Catering (rigatonysitalian.com)
• Simply Delicious Baking Co. (simplydeliciousbakingco.com)
• Sunshine Baking (sunshineshortbread.com)
• Sweet Ginger Thai Cuisine (sweetgingerthai.com)
• Taipei & Tokyo (taipeiandtokyo.com)
• Taj India (tajindia.co)
• The Thirsty Moose Taphouse (thirstymoosetaphouse.com)
• Tucker’s (tuckersnh.com; gift card raffle only)
• Wicked Good Butchah (wickedgoodbutchahnh.com)
• Yianni’s Pizza (yiannispizzanh.com)

Taste of Bedford
When: Tuesday, Jan. 24, 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: Bedford High School, 47B Nashua Road, Bedford
Cost: Online tickets are $10 per person, $30 per family of four or $40 per family of five (families must include at least one parent)
Visit: tasteofbedford.org

Featured photo: Taste of Bedford. Courtesy photo.

Familiar but elevated

Riverside Grille coming to New Boston

Goffstown couple Shawn and Kristen Roy both have several years of experience working in New Hampshire restaurants — she most recently an assistant general manager of The Homestead in Merrimack, and he a former chef at O’Brien’s Sports Bar in Nashua and The Coach Stop in Londonderry, among others. Now, the Roys are getting ready to launch their own concept in the nearby town of New Boston, featuring an eclectic modern-American menu alongside a full bar in a family-friendly casual setting.

Known as the Riverside Grille, the eatery will also be offering a variety of gluten-free options. It’s housed in the River Road building near the Goffstown and New Boston town line that most recently was home to The Chef, which closed back in August.

“It’s familiar food that, if we go out to eat, is what we would want,” Shawn Roy said of the eatery’s concept. “Being in New Boston, in the woods, it’s not Manchester where you’re going to have a huge diverse crowd, so you’re going to want to give them the burgers and the steaks.”

Since their initial announcement on social media, Roy said, there has been a tremendous amount of interest and anticipation among those in town who have frequented the space over the years. The week before Christmas they sold $4,000 worth of gift cards in the span of just five days, despite not yet being open. Several former waitstaff and bartenders of The Chef have also come back to join the Riverside Grille’s team.

plate contained 3 egg triangular egg rolls filled with beef, one cut in half to see inside, small dish of dipping sauce
Reuben egg rolls with a side of Thousand Island dressing for dipping. Photo by Matt Ingersoll.

To oversee kitchen operations, the Roys have hired Jonathan Paradise as their executive chef.

Paradise most recently worked at The Thirsty Moose Taphouse in Merrimack but also has culinary stints with Michael Timothy’s Dining Group and The Common Man Roadside Market.

Riverside Grille’s menu is made up of plated entrees like steak tips, baby back ribs and barbecue grilled salmon, in addition to a lineup of burgers, wraps, sandwiches and flatbread pizzas. More unique offerings include zucchini fritters with Parmesan cheese and marinara sauce, and a Mediterranean sampler served with fresh hummus, tzatziki, salsa and a toasted flatbread.

“I have this cucumber salsa recipe for the Mediterranean sampler that, I mean, is just really good. You can’t really explain it. You just have to have it,” Shawn Roy said. “So it’s mostly stuff like that that, again, is familiar but just a little bit different.”

Kristen Roy added that the couple’s plan is to roll out some seasonal menus, likely starting with one in the spring. There’s also a full bar with craft beers, wine and cocktails, and a menu of sweets and desserts in which they hope to incorporate some local bakeries. Even the children’s menu will include some options that Shawn Roy said you don’t see all the time, such as the ability to swap items in order to build your own meal.

“We’re really very focused on the food,” Kristen Roy said. “That’s really where we want to do a good job, because if we deliver on what we’re promising, they are going to come back.”

Riverside Grille
An opening date is expected soon. Visit their website or follow them on social media for updates.
Where: 737 River Road, New Boston
Anticipated hours: Tuesday through Friday, 4 to 9 p.m., Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
More info: Visit riversidegrillenh.com, find them on Facebook and Instagram or call 384-2149

Featured photo: Buffalo chicken wrap. Photo by Matt Ingersoll.

The Weekly Dish 23/01/19

News from the local food scene

Dinner and a show: Join the Bank of New Hampshire Stage (16 S. Main St., Concord) for a special South Asian Showcase on Wednesday, Jan. 25, at 6 p.m. The evening will feature an authentic Nepalese dinner, along with traditional Nepalese and Hindi dances and classical music of Nepal, Bhutan and India. Performances are by both local students and the Himalaya Heritage Music Group, which also performs every year at the Concord Multicultural Festival, according to event coordinator Jessica Livingston. Tickets are on sale now for $58.75 per person — seatings are general admission tables, with four seats per table. See ccanh.com. Livingston, who organizes the annual multicultural festival in the city every September, is also now working to introduce multicultural programming and initiatives at both the Capitol Center for the Arts and the Bank of New Hampshire Stage. One of those, set to launch this month, is a new Culinary Artist in Residence program. “The goal … is to provide use of our commercial kitchen to a culinary entrepreneur to build their food business in a low-risk setting,” Livingston told the Hippo in an email, adding that Batulo Mahamed — a familiar face of the multicultural festival for her Somali meat and veggie pies — will be the new program’s first participant. Batulo’s Kitchen, Livingston said, is set to be up and running within the next few weeks and will be offering lunch pickup, delivery and catering services. Visit batuloskitchen.com for more details.

Mocktail madness: The third annual New Hampshire Mocktail Month continues through the end of January. According to a press release, the New Hampshire Liquor Commission has partnered with Brown-Forman and nearly 40 Granite State restaurants and bars to promote alcohol-free libations known as mocktails on their menus. As part of the initiative, the NHLC has also launched an online recipe guide for those who would like to learn how to craft their own mocktails from home. The guide, which features recipes from each participating restaurant, is complete with all of the ingredients, garnishes and tips needed to make your own drinks, and — if you wish to do so — has optional alcoholic ingredients to turn them into cocktails. Additionally, the NHLC is inviting those who visit each participating establishment to share their experiences by posting photos of their mocktails on social media, tagging @nhliquorwine and adding the hashtag #NHMocktailMonth to their caption. To view and download the recipe guide, visit liquorandwineoutlets.com/responsibility.

Sustainable wines: Derry’s Appolo Vineyards has been recognized as the first winery to be included in the New Hampshire Sustainable Craft Beverage Recognition Program. That’s according to a press release from the state Department of Environmental Services, which goes on to say that the free, voluntary program is offered to those in the industry who “go above and beyond to produce high-quality eco-friendly craft beverages.” Established in 2006, Appolo Vineyards focuses on sustainability from the ground up, producing its wines in 100 percent recyclable containers. All grape materials such as skins, seeds, stems and leaves are composted or given to local farmers for animal feed, and owner Mike Appolo also has plans to become LEED Green Building certified and install solar power. Visit appolovineyards.com or find the winery on Facebook @appolovineyards to learn more about their sustainability initiatives.

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