Tag: 240530

Watermelon Sherbet

There are two issues that need to be addressed right off the bat:

(1) Watermelon really, really seems like it should be spelled with two Ls. It’s just weird. Similarly, sherbet only has one R. (If you listen to a British person pronounce it, they do say “shuh-bet,” though it turns out that they aren’t talking about the same thing; their “sherbet” is flavored sugar powder, the type you find in Pixie Stix.) Every one of us grew up saying “Sher-Bert” and I’m willing to fight anyone who tries to correct me.

(2) How do you pick a decent watermelon? Ideally, you buy it at a farm stand and ask the person on the other side of the table to pick one for you. But if you are on your own in the produce department of a supermarket, look for one that has a dramatic pale spot on one side, where it lay on the dirt as it was growing. The sun never got to that spot, so it never greened up. Also, look for wide stripes, hopefully with two fingers-width between them. After that, just buy a lot of melons until you figure out which ones taste good to you.

Watermelon Sherbet
(See? Now that you’ve noticed it, doesn’t that just seem wrong?)

  • 1 quart (32 ounces, 950 ml) watermelon juice – from about half a medium-sized watermelon (see below)
  • a pinch of kosher or coarse sea salt
  • 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1/3 cup fresh squeezed lime juice (about three limes’ worth)

Cut your melon in half and scoop out just over a quart of flesh with an ice cream scoop. This is another case where a kitchen scale will be useful. Put your blender jar on the scale, tare (zero) it out, then transfer 35 ounces, or 1,000 grams, into the jar.

Blend the watermelon, slowly at first, then more vigorously, until it is completely liquified. Strain it through a fine mesh strainer, and you will be left with about a quart of juice.

Return the juice to the blender, and add the other ingredients. Blend it thoroughly a second time, then put it in the refrigerator to chill for a few hours. If you don’t have an ice cream machine, pour the sherbet base into a sealed plastic bag, and freeze it solid, and send it on another trip through your blender or food processor.

Churn the sherbet base in your ice cream machine, according to manufacturer’s instructions, then when it has reached soft-serve consistency transfer it to freezing containers — 1-pint, plastic takeout containers are great for this. Freeze for a couple of hours to firm up.

The sherbet is a bit of a revelation. It has a mellow, not-too-sweet watermelon flavor. The limes — which, let’s face it, will enhance any other fruit — brighten it up and make it taste exceptionally refreshing.

t he should have.

Featured Photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Rock ’n’ roll on a bun

New burger place downtown

A frustrating afternoon as a broke musician was a turning point for Ian Tufts, the creator and owner of BAD BRGR in Manchester.

“I had a fast food shake melt into the floorboard of my truck once,” he said. “I couldn’t get it out for the life of me.”

The lesson? Fresh, high-quality ingredients are really important. If you can’t dissolve it with cleaning fluids, you probably shouldn’t be eating it.

Or, in the case of BAD BRGR, serving it.

Tufts, a long-term passionate musician and burger fan, described the food and atmosphere at BAD BRGR as something that would appeal to someone like his younger self: “Burgers, fries, shakes, and rock ’n’ roll! I love being on the creative front; there’s a certain magic that comes from it.” This is a spirit that encapsulates burgers as much as music, he said.

This struck home to him during this month’s Taco Tour, when his restaurant had barely opened officially yet.

“We had live music playing the whole time, and non-stop service for four hours straight,” Tufts recalled. It was exactly the vibe he was looking to create. “We’ve got a young staff,” he said, “and keeping it cool and working together was great. We had people telling us that we had the smoothest service.”

BAD BRGR’s Manchester location is its second one, launched on the success of the first BAD BRGR, in Hampton Beach, which he opened three years ago. “This is 2.0,” Tufts said, adding that plans are in the works for additional locations.

BAD BRGR’s menu only offers seven or eight types of burgers.

“We like to keep it simple,” Tufts said. “Too many options paralyzes people. It takes away from the specialness. We’re always shooting for clean, specific flavors. To me, they’re like stars; I don’t want to muddy them up. I’ve always been a burger guy — a broke-musician-burger-guy — so I took notes of all my favorite burgers and combined the high points.”

What he ended up with was a type of burger sometimes described as a “smash-burger” — where the burger patty has been pressed thin onto the griddle at the start of cooking to give it a seared crust. This was something he didn’t even know was a thing.

“I’d never heard of smash-burgers,” he said, “but I started with what kind of burger I wanted, reverse-engineered it and ended up in the same place.”

The buns are grilled in butter, but after that BAD BRGR’s Build Your Own option lets customers decide exactly how their burger ends up.

“People like what they like,” Tufts said, but added that overwhelmingly, the most popular burger they serve is the eponymous BAD BRGR. It was conceived as the perfect messy, post-gig burger for hungry, tired musicians. “It’s our meanest, late-night burger,” he said. “It’s liquidy-cheddary, with jalapeños. It’s our most popular, our namesake.” To get around the inconsistency of fresh jalapeños in New Hampshire, they use pickled ones, which adds a vinegar-y bite to cut through the liquid cheddar.

Tuft’s favorite burger, though, is the Belle, which comes with peaches and bacon. “I used to make this for friends, and they were always blown away,” he said.

And, of course, the shakes, which BAD BRGR calls milk slushes, are all-natural. “We won’t serve any plastic shakes here,” Tufts said.

BAD BRGR
1015 Elm St., Manchester
606-8806
Hours: Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to midnight

The Bennington Rhubarb Festival

Where everything is about rhubarb

At the Bennington Rhubarb festival: “We’re ‘All Rhubarb, All the Time’,” said Festival coordinator Molly Eppig. You should expect to eat, drink, and be immersed completely by rhubarb. Every event at the festival is rhubarb-themed.

Eppig said this is partially because of rhubarb’s community-themed social history.

“One of its nicknames is the Neighbor Plant. Going back to Colonial days, [if] you’d move into a new place, the neighbors would give you rhubarb. You might show up with just the clothes on your back, and the neighbors would say, ‘Let me give you some rhubarb to grow in your own garden.’”

But why a rhubarb festival?

“In 2013 my neighbor and I took it upon ourselves to start a festival for two reasons,” Eppig said. One reason was that Bennington didn’t have a festival at the time, and the other was to raise money for the town library’s Building Fund. “Looking at other festivals in towns around us, we noticed that they tended to be later in the summer — and that meant rhubarb. It’s [ready to pick] before the strawberries; it’s before the blueberries.”

The people in charge of The Festival, including Eppig, have put a great deal of thought into the different ways in which rhubarb can be celebrated, and over the years the number of events has grown, all with rhubarb as a priority.

“The very first Rhubarb Festival we ever held [in 2013] was basically a bake table, and we’ve grown from there,” said Eppig. The Bake Table continues to be the most popular attraction at the Festival.

“I’ve had people call me at seven in the morning and ask me if there will be pie to buy,” Eppig said, then answered rhetorically, with forced patience, “Yeeess.” This is the area where local bakers have really let their imaginations take flight. There are rhubarb pies for sale, of course, but bars as well, and coffee cakes, muffins and more.

The most prestigious event, though, is the pie contest.

“I can’t go a spring without making [rhubarb] pie,” Eppig said. “Everyone loves pie; I can’t imagine what kind of person wouldn’t.”

There is also a Rhubarb General Store at the Festival, where different rhubarb products are sold: fresh rhubarb stalks, jams, jellies and rhubarb crowns, “if no neighbor has given you any rhubarb to plant in your own garden,” Epping said. There is also a Drink Your Rhubarb tent in the afternoon, where people can buy or sample rhubarb-orange juice, rhubarb soda, rhubarb beer and rhubarb wine.

“That’s always an eye-opener,” said Eppig. “People are so surprised that such good wine can be made from rhubarb.” There is a rhubarb wine contest the preceding day with entries from New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts. “As far as I know, we have the only rhubarb wine contest anywhere,” Eping said.

A crowd favorite is a traditional “Hollering” contest. “Hollering is an old New England farming tradition,” Eppig said. “In the old days, the men and the older sons would be out in the fields, and women needed to be able to call out to them.” There was a certain prestige in the day to being a strong hollerer. The Festival has divisions for husband-hollering and wife-hollering, but Eppig says the children’s division is far and away the most popular — “Apparently, we have some very loud children.”

Bennington Rhubarb Festival
When: Saturday, June 1, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Sawyer Memorial Park, 148 Route 202, Bennington
Admission: free, with free parking.
Schedule of events: townofbennington.com/rhubarb-festival

The Weekly Dish 24/05/30

News from the local food scene

• Herbal infusions class: The Cozy Tea Cart (104A Route 13, Brookline, 249-9111, thecozyteacart.com) will hold a class on herbal infusions on Thursday, May 30, from 6 to 6:30 p.m. Participants will learn the difference between herbal infusions and tea, the health benefits of herbals, and the historical significance of healing herbs. They will also learn which parts of the plants to use, how to create their own blends, and how to properly prepare herbal infusions. Throughout the class they will sample four different herbal blends. The cost is $30 per person.

• Books and berries: The Friends of the Library of Windham will present their 38th annual Strawberry Festival and Book Fair on Saturday, June 1, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Windham High School (64 London Bridge Road, Windham). Homemade strawberry shortcake will be served, and the festival will have live music, raffles, local vendors, games and more. Visit flowwindham.org.

• Gate City gustation: The Taste of Downtown Nashua, presented by Great American Downtown, returns to the Gate City on Wednesday, June 5, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. More than 30 restaurants, shops and other local businesses will have temporary food service set up inside their establishments, where samples will be served to ticket holders. Tickets start at $39.99 per person and include access to samples from all of the event’s participating vendors. Visit downtownnashua.org/taste.

On The Job – Hannah Cole Dahar

Multi-disciplinary Artist and Art Teacher

Explain your job and what it entails.

My day job is as a high school art teacher. I teach advanced placement, honors, drawing, painting and jewelry. As an artist [coledahar.com] I have a practice where I create wearable sculptures and paint women wearing them as historical and mythological figures that are reimagined through a feminist lens.

How long have you had this job?

I’ve been an artist pretty much all my life; an art teacher, I’ve been doing that for about 25 years. I’ve taught 3-year-olds and my oldest student was 96 years old.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

I graduated from art school in the ’90s with a fashion degree and I found out quickly that I really wasn’t crazy about that field. I bopped around for a little while and a friend offered me a job teaching and I found I loved it, everything about it. At the same time I promised myself that if I was going to go back to school and get a teaching degree, that I would always maintain an art practice. I think that’s very valuable for students to see, that a teacher not only can talk the talk but walk the walk….

What kind of education or training did you need?

As an artist, I have a BFA, a bachelor of fine arts in apparel design, an MFA in drawing and painting, and I have an MAT, a master of arts in teaching, for my teaching license. There’s been a lot of training. I also make it a point to seek out artists that I want to learn from, teaching artists as well. I study under different masters, both jewelry and painting.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

Generally things that I can put through the laundry, because art is a messy business.

What is the most challenging thing about your work, and how do you deal with it?

Time and having enough of it. I wish that we had 30-hour days so I could really get into things. It’s a balance having those two careers … trying to devote enough time to my own practice…

What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your career?

Basically, how to network within the arts community, how to find a group of artists to run critiques with…. I didn’t know how much I didn’t know until I stumbled upon it, so I try to give my students a heads up…

What do you wish other people knew about your job?

That it is highly rewarding but it is a lot of work. You work really hard and then when the opportunity comes around you’re able to take advantage of that opportunity….

What was your first job?

I started busing tables for my grandmother’s restaurant when I was 12 years old. Before that I babysat.

What is the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t wait for inspiration to come to you. … If you’re unsure of starting a piece, work in your sketchbook. If you’re stuck on one, you can move to the next. It’s important to try to create every day. —Zachary Lewis

Five favorites
Favorite book: I am a sucker for the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
Favorite movie: Pan’s Labyrinth
Favorite music: It’s usually like indie, goth, a little bit of swing.
Favorite food: If I’m going out, I’d have to say I love Vietnamese food.
Favorite thing about NH: You can be immersed in nature one part of the day and in a really urban setting the next.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Treasure Hunt 24/05/30

Dear Donna,

I saw your article in the Hippo and was hoping you could take a look at these few pieces of antique furniture we have of my mother’s and great aunt’s. We are looking to possibly sell the pieces but are not sure of their current worth and do not have much information about them.

Do you possibly have any info or thoughts on a value if we were to sell them in their current condition?

Thank you for your time.

Karen

Dear Karen,

I have to start by saying all the furniture looks to be in great clean and usable condition.

Now for the tough part. Antique and old furniture seems to have really gotten less interest in the past 10 years for common pieces. The modern, more light style of decorating doesn’t want to fill a room with warmth. To me that’s what old and antique furniture is. Also has lots of history to it.

The values on the pieces you sent photos of would be in the $50-to-$100 range. Now you have to find a market for them. Advertising in your town would bring you the most value. Bringing in a buyer might mean lower prices. Remember they have to then re-sell them. If you could find a use for them in the family that would be priceless!

Thanks for reaching out and I hope this helps.

Donna

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