Tag: 240905

Amplified

Rocking up the blues with Anthony Gomes

Anthony Gomes stands where many tributaries meet to feed a river. “Painted Horse,” originally released in 2009 when the guitarist was a member of Nashville-based New Soul Cowboys, is indicative of this. The power trio paid tribute to country music in a decidedly rocking way, while keeping the blues influence front and center. In late 2021 he revived the song for a new album.

Gomes, in a recent phone interview, remembered a time when detractors from both sides called him either too rock for blues or too blues for rock, and deciding then to use that to his advantage. Now he’s signed to a new label that includes several heavy metal bands. To celebrate, he went into the studio with Korn’s drummer Ray Luzier and Billy Sheehan, a bass player whose resume includes David Lee Roth, Mr. Big and The Winery Dogs.

“Painted Horse” was one of five old songs that Luzier and Sheehan helped rock up for High Voltage Blues, though Gomes chose to leave in the banjo — twang on that! Last year Gomes’ new label, Rat Pak Records, remixed 2018’s Peace, Love & Loud Guitars, adding three bonus tracks. The guitarist is wrapping up work on a new album called Praise the Loud.

There’s a rocking message behind all of this, and Gomes delivers it on tracks like the AC/DC doppelgänger “White Trash Princess” and “Fur Covered Handcuffs,” though the latter, a chugging boogie punctuated by fiery solos, provides clues to the Toronto-born blues rocker’s origins.

His big break came when someone from B.B. King’s staff heard Gomes playing at an open mic where good players were given a beer, and invited him to meet the blues legend. “It was a two-beer night, I was playing really well,” Gomes said. “This guy came up to me and said, ‘Who’s your favorite guitar player?’ I could have said Jeff Beck or Jimi Hendrix, but I just said, ‘Oh, that’s easy, B.B. King.’ He said, ‘I thought so. I’m his bus driver.’”

Given the locale, Gomes was a bit skeptical, but he went to the show and found four front-row tickets waiting for him and his friends. He was prepared to meet his idol after. “I made business cards; I wore dress pants and dress shoes. It was like I was going to meet the Pope,” he said. King would become a lifelong mentor. “He was so gracious with his time, such a gentleman, so humble.”

At the time, Gomes was attending the University of Toronto, completing a master’s thesis on the racial evolution of blues music that was later published as “The Black and White of Blues,” but the next day he quit school, telling his parents that he wanted to be a professional musician.

He discovered music via Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, but songs like “Train Kept A Rolling,” “Whole Lotta Love” and “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” only made him more interested in the music that informed those classic rockers.

“I started to go back to Stevie Ray Vaughan, then to B.B. King, then Muddy Waters,” he said, adding that this experience was leading him to where he’d end up eventually, straddling both genres.

“In some ways, I felt like if I listened to blues, I was only getting half the picture. If I listened to rock, I got the other half,” he said. “Both these musics coexist and have a shared DNA, but oftentimes there’s a strict line dividing them. Maybe that was based on marketing to a certain race initially. To me they’re just two sides of the same coin.”

That’s one reason why Gomes was drawn to Rat Pak, which is based in New Hampshire.

“The president of the label heard our stuff and said, ‘Hey, I know this is blues, and you’ve been marketed [that way], but I really feel that there’s a wider audience here in rock. How would you feel about that?’ I was like, ‘Throw me in, coach, let’s go!”

From his 1997 debut, Primary Colors, to High Voltage Blues, which spent 58 weeks on the Billboard charts over 2022 and 2023, Gomes has successfully blurred the lines between traditional and contemporary blues and rock, purists be damned.

“What I’ve come to realize is that what you may perceive as a liability is actually your superpower, and the more I focused on being who I was and less interested in fitting in … it resonated true to people and to our audience,” he said. “It’s been an interesting journey, and by doing this we’ve created our own lane — and it’s an open road, which is a lot of fun.”

Anthony Gomes
When: Friday, Sept. 6, 8 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $39 at tupelomusichall.com

Featured photo: Bees Deluxe. Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 24/09/05

Local music news & events

• Memorial: Reflecting on the loss of his best friend and drummer to cancer in 2021, Jeffrey Foucault recorded his latest, The Universal Fire, live in his living room. “The album is kind of a working wake … as well as a meditation on the nature of beauty, artifact and loss,” according to a press release. Foucault and Billy Conway toured together for the better part of a decade. Thursday, Sept. 5, 7 p.m., Word Barn Meadow, 66 Newfields Road Exeter, $30 at thewordbarn.com.

• Recreator: From an early age, Shaun Hague was a guitarist to watch; his Journeyman: A Tribute to Eric Clapton is proof that the excitement was warranted. Hague approximates Clapton’s skill and style, and even looks a bit like him. It’s the licks that linger, however, as the guitar slinger tears through hits like “Layla,” “Cocaine,” “Forever Man” and “White Room” with authority. Friday, Sept. 6, 7:30 p.m., BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord, $35 and up at ccanh.com.

• Believable: Back in 2015, U2 tribute act Unforgettable Fire received the ultimate tribute, when guitarist The Edge and bass player Adam Clayton joined them onstage at a club in New York City. The group has been at it for almost 30 years, with a show that digs deep into U2’s catalog, even playing songs made before the band’s first album, Boy, was released in 1981. Saturday, Sept. 7, 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $40 at tupelomusichall.com.

• Friendly: Hip-hop pals and collaborators A-F-R-O & 60 East perform at a regular Rap Night, with a set drawing from last year’s EP At the Sideshow. A-F-R-O, or All Flows Reach Out, has a solo effort, Afrodeezeak, dropping next week. The event also includes New England rapper Ben Shorr, and is hosted by eyenine and Shawn Caliber, with DJ Myth on the turntables and a freestyle open mic. Sunday, Sept. 8, 9 p.m., Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester, $10 at the door, 21+.

• Traveler: A rising singer-songwriter is the guest at the latest Loft Living Room Session. The intimate evening of music spotlights Eli Lev. His expansive Four Directions project, completed in 2021, was inspired by his time as a teacher on the Navajo Nation and the indigenous traditions he encountered.” Wednesday, Sept. 11, 7 p.m., Hermit Woods Winery, 72 Main St., Meredith, $12 at hermitwoods.com.

The Cliffs, by J. Courtney Sullivan

The Cliffs, by J. Courtney Sullivan (Knopf, 369 pages)

When her ne’er-do-well mother dies, Jane Flanagan’s only inheritance is a dog named Walter, “an orange powder puff of a thing” that Jane was convinced her mother loved more than her daughters. She knew her mother had nothing of value to pass on, but “Walter was so much worse than nothing.”

Even in death, her mother caused Jane trouble.

In life, her mother’s drinking and other poor choices led the teenage Jane to hide out at an abandoned house, pale purple and creepy, that sat on a cliff overlooking the ocean in Maine. The home had been built in 1846 and it had the vibe of houses abandoned in zombie movies — dusty furniture, random toys, a collapsed railing, food expired decades ago that animals had gotten into. Still, Jane felt drawn to the house and didn’t feel she was breaking any laws by going into it to sit quietly or read: “It felt like honoring whatever came before.”

That’s how we meet Jane in The Cliffs, the sixth novel of acclaimed Massachusetts author J. Courtney Sullivan. A smart and conscientious young woman, Jane soon leaves the dumpster fire that is her family home, earns multiple degrees, travels and gets a great job and boyfriend. The purple house recedes in her mind.

Meanwhile, the house beckons another woman, Genevieve, who is the polar opposite of Jane. Married, moneyed and entitled, Genevieve convinces her husband to buy the house and to entrust her with its renovation as a vacation house for the family of three. Unlike Jane, she is not respectful of the home’s history; when a contractor she hired to install an infinity pool overlooking the ocean discovers a small cemetery, she has no qualms about disturbing the dead.

Not long afterward, Genevieve is shaken when she walks into her young son’s room and finds him conversing with a girl that he claims to see, but she can’t. And we’re off and running with what at first appears to be a classic New England ghost story. Only it’s not.

While there are ghosts in The Cliffs, and a psychic named Clementine who claims to connect Jane with her mother and grandmother, the sprawling story is primarily about human beings who are alive, or once were, and their legacies. Rich in history, it also delves into the lives of indigenous people who named the (fictional) town Awadapquit, and the ethical issues of living on their land. (“What does it mean to acknowledge that this land had been stolen, when no one had any intention of giving it back?” Sullivan writes.)

These are side stories that are so expertly woven into the narrative that they never feel preachy or pretentious.

As the story progresses, Jane returns to her hometown to help clean out her mother’s house, and also to escape fallout from an alcohol-induced humiliation that is also threatening her job and her marriage. Meanwhile, Jane’s friend Allison’s mother, who was a mother surrogate for Jane when she was in high school, is slipping into dementia, and Allison connects Jane with Genevieve, who wants someone to research previous owners of the house.

There’s more than one mystery here: In addition to the spirit that Genevieve’s son thinks he sees, Jane had been told by a psychic that she needed to get a message from a girl identified only by the initial “D” to her mother, assuring her that she is at peace.

Jane, who has a Ph.D. in American history, hadn’t wanted to meet with this medium at all — the visit was a gift, and she is highly skeptical of psychics in general, and bewildered as to why some random child would be connected in any way to her family.

“And by the way, why is it that dead people always come back to tell their loved ones, ‘I’m at peace.’? Why is it never, ‘This absolutely sucks, get me out of here,?’ Jane tells Allison when recounting the visit.

As in every human life, there is so much pain that the characters don’t see, much of it caused by each other.

“Human beings did so much damage to one another just by being alive. To the people they loved most, and to the ones they knew so little about that they could convince themselves they weren’t even people,” Sullivan writes.

We also all have ghosts, real or not, in the sticky shadows of people who have passed and left their mark on us. The Cliffs is a study of family that is deeply affecting, even if you don’t care much for the learning about spirits, like why children are receptive to ghosts (it’s said that they see parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that older people can’t) and what happens at a real-life “spiritualist camp meeting” in Maine (renamed Camp Mira in The Cliffs, but which is actually called Camp Etna).

(Unrelated to spirits, but New Hampshire also has a couple of cameos in here — Jane sneaks across state lines to buy alcohol, and a pivotal event happens while one character is on a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough.)

Lots of dubious writers come to be “New York Times best-selling authors” through marketing campaigns and purchasing gimmicks. The Cliffs is fresh evidence that Sullivan is one by virtue of talent. It is an engrossing and deeply New England novel, with characters that will burrow into your heart. A

Album Reviews 24/09/05

George Strait, Cowboys And Dreamers (MCA Nashville Records)

At 72, Strait has been around a billion years, having been instrumental in pioneering “neotraditional country” music in the ’80s, a style that emphasizes what the instruments are doing, an approach that was a reaction to the blandness that had overcome country music after the urban cowboy fad. In that, you could call it an OG resurgence I suppose, being that artists like Strait, Toby Keith and Reba McEntire tend to dress in midcentury fashions and sing in a more traditional country style. Strait’s new LP doesn’t deviate from the neotraditional formula, but you’ll hear things you probably weren’t expecting, such as on opener “Three Drinks Behind,” in which his radio-announcer-style baritone warbles its obvious sentiments over mildly edgy guitar strumming and mandolin lines that fit like a glove. “The Little Things” is a mawkish love ballad, buoyed by (spoiler alert) dobro as Strait’s voice explores croaky mode. “MIA Down In MIA” is a curveball that’s obviously an amalgam of Jimmy Buffett’s lifetime catalog. Friendly, authentic stuff here. A+

Yes, Drama (MCA Nashville Records)

Continuing my quixotic efforts to educate Zoomer normies about classic arena-rock bands: The first thing to understand about Yes is that most people never really understood their trippy approach in the first place. I was at their Deep Purple-headlined show in Gilford a couple weeks ago and was psyched to see Yes opening their set with “Machine Messiah,” the opening tune from this album, which I’ve always liked even though original singer Jon Anderson was gone, replaced by Trevor Rabin, whose faux-soprano sounds exactly like Anderson’s. Like any prog-rock album, this one is musically complicated, but the math and the riffing are a lot more user-friendly than that of their earlier ones, serving as a very listenable (often hard-rock influenced) precursor to the commercial stuff they tabled in 90125 (whose big hit was “Owner Of A Lonely Heart”). Prior to this LP, Going For The One was a great one too, but Drama found the fellas in a less fluffy mood, perhaps even looking over their shoulders at Rush, who were doing the same kind of thing at the time. “Roundabout” isn’t the only thing this band ever accomplished, is what I’m getting at here, and this one is criminally overlooked. A+

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Sept. 6 will see the next Friday-load of CD releases from burnt-out rock stars, twerking bubblegum divas and assorted swindlers, so, all you pumpkin spice people, let’s just do this “oh no, it’s gonna be freezing in New England any minute now” thing, because I can hardly wait! Yay, I guess we can start with a few off-the-cuff riffs on Pink Floyd, a band that never really appealed to me aside from a select few random songs (“Sheep” and maybe “Run Like Hell,” as I’ve said before), because look at this, guys, it’s their guitar dude, David Gilmour, with a new album, Luck And Strange! I figured it’d be best if I spun the track “Between Two Points,” since Gilmour’s daughter Romany handles the singing on it, but wait a minute, I’ll not indulge you nepo-baby haters in this case, because I don’t mind her breathy soprano at all. She sounds a lot like famous British trance singer Justine Suissa; in fact she’s a dead ringer. As for the tune’s music, it’s a slow Pink Floyd-ish snoozer, with Gilmour in lazy-strummy mode, in line with most of the stuff he did with Floyd back in the olden days. It’s fine really.

• OK, very funny, I really don’t have any time for a good punking, what with trying to sell my new book, talk to my Twitter followers and respond to Friend-Of-The-Hippo Dan Szczesny’s enthusiastic Facebook personal messages about Korean all-girl speed-metal bands. But sure, for the sake of somesuch, let’s say you’re serious, that none other than observably untalented nepo-baby Paris Hilton is actually “releasing a new album called Infinite Icon” tomorrow and I have to talk about it. Now fess up, are you just telling me this to upset me, because it won’t work; I’m permanently upset enough over many things in this world these days, so my listening to this hyper-privileged dunce sing some (off-key) nonsense about her latest bad-choice boyfriend over some microwaved Kylie Minogue beat from 1993 or whatever she’s doing these days isn’t going to strain the camel’s back, who on Earth cares? I have to admit, I’d actually much prefer talking about Babymetal so that at least someone would be happy, but I’ve put it off long enough, let me go have a listen to “I’m Free,” because I have to. Oh how cute, it’s pure Ariana Grande ripoff-ism, beach-chill with not much going on other than ringtone-ready romance, but you want to know the worst part, of course you do, she sings through Auto-Tune through the whole stupid thing, and no, I’m not kidding. Rina Sawayama is the feat. guest, delivering a phoned-in vocal that’s nowhere near her best work, but at least everyone is happy, here in nepo land, can we move on from this please.

• Here we go again, another ’80s new wave band resurfacing from out of nowhere to have a go at the last few drops of glory that can be shlurped from the Gen X resurgence. I speak of course of British post-punkers The The, which is still singer/songwriter/sole-constant Matt Johnson’s baby; Ensoulment is this band’s first proper studio album in, holy cats, 24 years! “Cognitive Dissident” is the feature single, and it’s a pretty good one, combining INXS swagger with Ennio Morricone spaghetti sauce, it’s actually very cool. The closest the band’s new tour will come to you reader folks will be the Orpheum Theatre in Boston on Oct. 19.

• We’ll wrap up the week with Madrid, Spain-based indie band Hinds, whose new full-length, Viva Hinds, will feature three or four songs sung in Spanish! Several tunes have already made the rounds, including “Boom Boom Back,” which features a contribution from Beck; it’s a riot grrrl-flavored thing that’s like The Waitresses recycling a beat from Red Hot Chili Peppers, it is fine.

Hooked on flavor

Hampton Beach Seafood Festival celebrates 35 years

Lobster rolls, clam chowders, crab cakes, fish tacos and so much more — you name it, and you’ll likely find it at the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival. The end-of-summer Seacoast tradition is back for a milestone 35th year, returning to the shores of Ocean Boulevard on Hampton Beach for three days from Friday, Sept. 6, through Sunday, Sept. 8.

“We will see approximately 80,000 people come through over the course of the weekend, but that can be [as high as] 100,000 if the weather is beautiful,” said Colleen Westcott, Director of Events and Marketing for the Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce and Chair of the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival Committee. “We have people that are coming year after year and bringing their friends, and so we’ve been seeing the numbers just keep increasing.”

Westcott said the festival was started in 1989 by a group of business owners on the beach who were looking to extend the summer season. It was originally in the town’s 50-acre state park before moving to Ocean Boulevard, and has continued to grow in scale and popularity ever since. Today, the entire stretch of road is closed to traffic during all three days, transforming into a pedestrian mall for festival-goers to roam freely and peruse the event’s many offerings, from the food and beer tents to the dozens of crafters and local live entertainment acts on two stages.

Attendees can expect many favorites including The Old Salt Restaurant in Hampton to Brown’s Lobster Pound in Seabrook and Rye Harbor Lobster Pound. Each will typically offer a smorgasbord of options ranging from menu staples to items created with the festival’s seafood theme in mind, like the 10-inch crab rangoon-inspired pizza from Deadproof Pizza Co. and the lobster empanadas from The Purple Urchin in Hampton.

For those who aren’t seafood lovers, there are plenty of alternative options to enjoy at the festival. Ronaldo’s Ristorante of North Hampton, for instance, will have meatball subs, fried ravioli and truffle Parmesan fries, while you’ll also be able to enjoy teriyaki steak skewers from Charlie’s Tap House and pulled pork sliders with homemade sweet coleslaw from The Big Bad Food Truck. Westcott added that the desserts and sweet treats are by no means an afterthought — those options will include apple crisp ice cream sundaes from Miss Bailey’s All American Kitchen, chocolate chip and Oreo fudge cannolis from Boston Cannoli Co. and doughnuts, cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip cookies and whoopie pies from the Bearded Baking Co.

On Friday evening on the Seashell Stage, a panel of judges will select a series of “Best Of” awardees among the food vendors. New this year, there will also be a people’s choice option for festival attendees.

“Each vendor will have a QR code and people will be able to vote on their phone for who their favorite food vendor is,” Westcott said.

The crew from Wicked Bites, a television show on NESN focusing on unique food destinations across New England, will host live cooking demonstrations in the culinary tent on Saturday and Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday’s festivities will also include two cornhole tournaments on the beach from noon to 4 p.m., as well as a fireworks display at 8:30 p.m. Panorama, a Cars tribute band, will perform on the Seashell Stage leading up to the fireworks.

The festival picks right back up early Sunday morning with a 5K road race along Ocean Boulevard organized by Millennium Running. New this year will be a military and first responder parade at 1 p.m., followed by a festival favorite on the Seashell Stage at 2 p.m. — the lobster roll eating contest. Westcott said the festival committee partners with McGuirk’s Ocean View Restaurant & Lounge to supply trays upon trays of lobster rolls for the contestants.

“People eat as many lobster rolls as they can in 10 minutes,” she said. “We have some contestants who [have] returned for the last couple of years and have gotten to know the Seacoast community, so they bring in their cheering squads. It’s a lot of fun to watch them try to beat the person next to them and win the trophy for this year.”

Courtesy of First Student, free shuttle services are available from a variety of parking locations within the festival’s vicinity, including the municipal parking lot on High Street, the old Town Hall parking lot on Winnacunnet Road, the Centre School on Winnacunnet Road, the Marston School on Marston Way and — new this year — The Brook casino on New Zealand Road in Seabrook.

“We’re excited about teaming up with the Brook casino this year because it’s a really nice way for folks to expand their fun in one day,” Westcott said, “whether they come up to the Seafood Fest, enjoy it and then go back to the Brook for some fun and games, or the other way around.”

A portion of event proceeds will be donated to area nonprofits that are providing volunteers to run the gates. Westcott added that the Ted Williams Foundation will be holding a 50/50 raffle for the weekend that will benefit the New Hampshire State Police Benevolent Association.

35th annual Hampton Beach Seafood Festival
When: Friday, Sept. 6, noon to 9 p.m.; Saturday, Sept. 7, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Sunday, Sept. 8, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Where: Ocean Boulevard, Hampton Beach
Cost: $10 per person per day, or $30 per person for the entire weekend (free admission for children under 12 years old). Tickets are available online or on the day of the event. Foods are priced per item.
Visit: seafoodfestivalnh.com
Pets are not allowed into the festival. Free parking and shuttle services are available from several in-town satellite parking lots; go to seafoodfestivalnh.com/plan-your-visit for the full list.

Participating food and drink vendors

  • Bearded Baking Co.
  • The Big Bad Food Truck
  • Boston Cannoli Co.
  • The Boston Chowda Co.
  • Brown’s Lobster Pound
  • Charlie’s Tap House
  • Clyde’s Cupcakes
  • Deadproof Pizza Co.
  • Extreme Concessions
  • Flamingos Coffee Bar
  • JR’s Seafood
  • La Spiaggia
  • Let the Dough Roll
  • Lupe’s 55 Cantina
  • Miss Bailey’s All American Kitchen
  • The Old Salt Restaurant
  • The Purple Urchin Restaurant
  • Ray’s Seafood
  • Rockingham Rolling Kitchen
  • Ronaldo’s Ristorante
  • Rudy’s Bubble Tea
  • Rye Harbor Lobster Pound
  • Seashore Seafood
  • Sweet Bottom Boys
  • Swell Oyster Co.
  • Troop 177
  • Wing-itz of Hampton

Comfort in a crust

The Pot Pie Bar takes being flaky very seriously

Like many recent food businesses, The Pot Pie Bar (132 Bedford Center Road, Bedford, 432-1927, thepotpiebar.com) got its start during the Covid-19 lockdown. Caroline Arend, owner of the Pot Pie Bar as well as Caroline’s Fine Food (132 Bedford Center Road, Bedford, 637-1615, carolinesfood.com), a well-established catering company, explained, “I found that some very loyal patrons of Caroline’s wanted to help us because we were basically shut down because we couldn’t cater. So they started purchasing meals for first responders. We found ourselves making a lot of pot pies and in fact it became just insanity. We kind of made a joke out of it and said, ‘Oh, I bet we can make anything into a pot pie.’ And we started just developing recipes. That was the birth of it, I guess. And then we opened up the pot pie bar.”

The original thought was to take orders online and ship frozen pies throughout the Northeast, but that turned out to be impractical. “Our shipping carriers were not reliable,” Arend said, “and the cost of shipping was prohibitive. I had no control over those costs because we’re a small company. So we switched gears and we sell all of our pies frozen out of our storefront.” Now customers place orders, either online or over the phone, and pick up their pies in person.

Although pot pies are a classic comfort food, Arend said a lot of work is involved to make them to her standard.

“Everything in the pies is made from scratch,” she said. “For example, for our braised short ribs [pot pie], we take the ribs, we put them in a rondeau [a short, wide pan similar to a Dutch oven], we sear them, we take them out, then we put the mirepoix [a mixture of chopped onion, celery and carrots] in, we deglaze with red wine, bring that down, and then put the bones back in, and braise it in the oven for three hours. Then we pull the meat off the bones, we reduce the braising liquid, and we mix it in with the filling. The only thing we don’t make from scratch is the puff pastry. And each pie has a different little puff pastry logo on it. So, for example, the chicken pie has a cutout of a chicken. The beef stroganoff has a cutout of a cow. The veggie [pie] is a carrot. So they’re all different.”

Arend is a classically trained chef, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), and a veteran of fine dining restaurants in the Boston area. She eventually branched off into high-end catering.

“And then I moved to New Hampshire,” she said. “I didn’t do it for a while and then I missed it.”

As of now, The Pot Pie Bar offers 14 different pies, from classic chicken or vegetable pot pies to more innovative choices such as a bratwurst, beer and cheddar pie, or a lobster pie made with whole lobster claws.

“We did a beef Wellington for the holidays,” Arend said. “It was delicious. It’s a duxelle [a French paste made from mushrooms, herbs and onions] in a thick layer on top of the beef. You have the puff pastry, then you have the duxelles, and you have the grainy mustard and the beef.” Arend said she and her team kept the beef from overcooking by just searing it before putting it in the pie. “And since it’s tenderloin, it’s not going to get too tough. It’s a center cut, muscle that’s not really exercised. It’s not like a shoulder.”

The Pot Pie Bar’s customer base has been surprising to Arend.

“I thought it was going to be primarily men because it’s like comfort food,” she said. “But it’s an older crowd. A bunch of people take them to dinner parties, which I didn’t even think of, but it makes sense. And one woman came in last week and she ordered four of them, [so she could have] people over for dinner at four different times.”

Arend has just purchased an existing restaurant in Goffstown and is hoping to move into it soon. “We’re currently looking into building out a USDA kitchen so that we can wholesale the pies,” she said.

The Pot Pie Bar
Orders for pot pies can be placed online at thepotpiebar.com or at 432-1927. Walk-in customers are welcome, but are advised to call ahead to find out what pies are in stock, as they sell out daily.

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