Tag: 241128

Winner’s circle

Original songwriters at BNH Stage

By Michael Witthaus
[email protected]

An eight-week competition at Patrick’s Pub in Gilford sponsored by NH Music Collective culminates with performances from the winners and semi-finalists at the BNH Stage in downtown Concord on Dec. 1.

Singer-songwriter Ian Archibold took top honors in the final round on Nov. 18 and will headline the show. Second-place winner Ian Galipeau will perform ahead of Archibold, and Temple Mountain — the nom de tune of singer, guitarist and songwriter Eric Impallomeni — rounds out the bill-topping trio.

The rest of the performers are an eclectic bunch. Adrienne Mack-Davis offers hip-hop and R&B, Arthur Terembula has a rustic sound that’s somewhere between Tom Waits and a Smithsonian field recording, while Brendan Cleary, Willy Chase and Jason Oberstein sit comfortably in the folk, singer-songwriter genre.

The show is an excellent way for fans of original music to broaden their horizons. Take, for example, Ian Galipeau’s song “The Little Things.” A worthy counterpart to Jason Isbell’s “If We Were Vampires,” it distills a lifetime of love, marriage, parenthood and death with breathtaking precision. He’ll likely play that along with material from his 2022 album Like We Were Never Here At All and his most recent single, “Floorboard,” another storytelling gem.

Archibold released an EP, Parallel, in 2016, and cites influences ranging from The Beatles to Bruno Mars and Coldplay. His song “Valley of Uncertainty” is a good example of how he joins those disparate threads to craft a singular sound. He hails from Panama but has performed around the New England region for a while.

A well-traveled Long Island native, Temple Mountain blends deft finger-picking guitar with atmospheric vocalizing that recalls Elliot Smith, a singer-songwriter he cites as an influence. Lyrically idiosyncratic, with a bio stating that he has “a psychology background,” his songs charmingly probe the human experience.

NHMC is riding a successful wave of late. The idea for its monthly Sunday Sessions is to book a local performer in the BNH Stage’s intimate Cantin Room, then move into the main theater when ticket sales hit a certain level. This month, Charlie Chronopoulos sold out the big space, and a few months earlier, singer/songwriter Taylor Hughes came within a few dozen seats of doing the same.

“So far, we’ve had three shows go to the big stage,” NHMC principal John McArthur said by phone recently. “We book a lot of bar gigs … breweries and wineries, stuff like that, where they’re doing mostly cover songs. But this opportunity to perform original music in front of a listening audience, this is what I live for.”

The third annual singer/songwriter contest at Patrick’s attracted entries from as far away as Rhode Island. “This is how starved indie artists are,” McArthur said. “People that in past years would have gotten in didn’t. We’re trying to build a community of songwriters and indie singing, and it’s starting to work.”
Brad Myrick, who founded the musician-friendly organization, agreed with his partner McArthur.

“I love that we can tie one thing that we’re doing to support songwriters and original music and segue that into a proper theater show promoted well and in a city like Concord that has some movement,” he said. “These are the kinds of things that I didn’t have the ability to do five or 10 years ago … that we’ve grown to where we can do that feels really good.”

It’s a two-way street for artists and NHMC, which books a wide range of area venues, Myrick continued.

“John set up the open mic as a way to have a forum to hear some new people and invite some folks,” he said. “It’s opened up some new performers for us, and it works great for them. They come up here and get new fans. It’s building something. I want people to say there’s a scene in New Hampshire. I want that to be felt and be real.”

NHMC Sunday Sessions: Songwriter Showcase
When: Sunday, Dec. 1, 6 p.m.
Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $18.75 at ccanh.com

Featured photo: First, second and third place winners of the Patrick’s Pub Songwriter Competition. Pictured L to R: Ian Archibold, Ian Galipeau, Temple Mountain. Courtesy photos..

The Music Roundup 24/11/28

Local music news & events

• Holiday junk: Throwing open the doors of its theater for Thanksgiving, Recycled Percussion performs its new LOVEalicious show. Band leader Justin Spencer recently completed the grueling World Marathon Challenge, seven races in seven days across seven continents. He’s thankful for that, and for the recent opening of a permanent Chaos & Kindness store in the Mall of New Hampshire. Thursday, Nov. 28, 6 p.m., CAKE Theatre, 12 Veterans Square, Laconia, $49 and up at tix.com.

• Pirate party: Fronted by a jaunty guitar player in a long jacket and trifold hat, Jonee Earthquake Band kicks off a free Black Friday show in downtown Manchester, with Lobotomobile, Dirty Walter & the Smelltones and Ragz to Stitchez. In the spirit of the day, the event includes some doorbuster deals. On Saturday the punk pirate band plays Christmas songs at the Nashua Holiday Stroll. Friday, Nov. 29, 9 p.m., Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester, joneeearthquake.com.

• Psycho chickens: Led by a loquacious singer who’s also written a couple of books, The Fools have a documentary in the works. The Ipswich, Mass., rockers have been recording recent shows for a live album that’s in the works, so a return to a favorite New Hampshire haunt should be fun. Saturday, Nov. 30, 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $37 at tupelohall.com.

• Irish Christmas: An eclectic Christmas concert set in Central Park; Fairytale of New York is the latest effort from the company behind Seven Drunken Nights – The Story of The Dubliners. The show mixes classics like “O Holy Night” and “White Christmas” with Irish sing-alongs and pop holiday tunes such as “Step Into Christmas,” along with Riverdance-style step dancing. Sunday, Dec. 1, 7 p.m., Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua, $39 and up at etix.com.

• Roots standards: Gillian Welch & David Rawlings are leading purveyors of Americana. The couple are currently touring their seventh studio album, Woodland, a record born from a 2020 tornado. Monday, Dec. 2, 7:30 p.m., Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord, $71.25 and up at ccanh.com.

Wicked (PG)

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande make for a winning pair in the thoroughly charming Wicked.

As you probably know from the book, the play, the cast album, etc., Wicked offers the backstory of The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West, here called Elphaba (Erivo), the role first played on Broadway by Idina Menzel. After a rough childhood due to her green skin and her father and the townspeople’s horrible treatment of her, a grown Elphaba finds slightly more acceptance at Shiz University, a Hogwarts-y school where her sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) has enrolled. Their father tells Elphaba to stay to take care of Nessarose, who uses a wheelchair and is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, she tries unsuccessfully to tell people. Elphaba soon finds her own spot there when Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) spots Elphaba’s extraordinary magic abilities. Galinda (Grande), the pink-wardrobe-wearing blonde who was originated by Kristin Chenoweth, accidentally agrees to be Elphaba’s roommate in an attempt to suck up to Morrible. Galinda’s grand ambition is to become a sorceress — and to marry Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), a super handsome party boy who transfers to Shiz. Elphaba’s plan is to become skilled enough at magic to meet and work with the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum). She wants to be cheered not feared by her fellow Ozians and if he maybe wants to make her not-green, that would be OK too.

Beneath all these hopes and dreams is a darker political undercurrent. Once upon a time, Oz used to be a place where humans and animals, who could talk, worked and lived side by side. But now there are only two animal professors left at Shiz and Elphaba overhears a kind of animal resistance meeting where they discuss animals who have disappeared and other well-known animal orators who have lost their ability to speak.

That aspect to the story and a later scene where some animals undergo a transformation packs a surprisingly emotional (and dark) punch and maybe makes the movie scarier than your standard PG movie. Odd to say about talking animals but it grounded all the magic and the pink fluff of Galinda in something unexpectedly real. This is fairy tale land, but not a perfect sugary one, which makes for a more nuanced story.

But that is probably not why we’re all here. The movie does right by the music — sure, Grande can feel a little “doing a Kristin Chenoweth” at times, but she creates a fully formed character who can match the heft her songs require. Erivo is likewise absolutely great. If there’s any knock (not really) on her performance, it’s that she is so absolutely stunning at all times that the “ew, she’s green!” stuff is a hard sell. Her “Defying Gravity” is chills-inducing and she is equally at ease with both the intensity and comedy elements of her character. The look of the movie is a delight — a fantastical explosion of color and production design that manages to make Oz look, mostly, like a physical setting rather than just images on a green screen. The costumes are also quite lovely, with wit and thoughtfulness about what they’re trying to convey about the characters. You know, a fun movie that is a joy to watch on a big screen — what a nice holiday treat! B+

Rated PG for some scary action, thematic material and brief suggestive material, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Jon M. Chu with a screenplay by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, Wicked is two hours and 40 minutes long (worth it for the fun Menzel and Chenoweth cameo) and distributed in theaters (which ask you to please not sing, like, there was a sign and everything; a singalong version will be released on Dec. 25) by Universal Studios.

Gladiator II (R)

Gladiator II Maximus-es so hard, even though the character died in the now-24-year-old original film, that I’m hoping Russell Crowe got royalties.

The movie is set some 16 or so years after the action of the first movie, with Rome still being a corrupt empire and Connie Nielsen, who is now 59 years old in real life, still looking fabulous. We meet simple non-Roman guy Hanno (Paul Mescal) and his wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen), who are just two crazy kids in love, doing chores, but then having to suit up in armor when the “suit up” horn sounds. It seems the Roman navy is nearly at the walls of their city in Numidia. The Romans, led by general Acacius (Pedro Pascal), attack. Arishat is a good archer but Acacius himself calls for her to be killed when she kills one of the Roman soldiers fighting next to him, thus Making It Personal for Hanno, who wants not just revenge against the whole Roman army, which quickly defeats the city, but specific revenge against Acacius.

Hanno is enslaved and sold to Macrinus (Denzel Washington), who sees the spark of a promising gladiator in him. He brings Hanno into his training school, promising him that if he is successful, Macrinus will see that Hanno gets a chance to kill Acacius.

Meanwhile, Acacius returns to Rome and the very petulant club kids who are the twin Emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). They tell him to buckle up for their big plans to conquer India and Persia. When Acacius gets home, he sighs to his wife that these doofuses are the worst (paraphrasing). Surprise! — his wife is Lucilla (Nielsen), sister to Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus in the first movie, who is still trying to be the adult in the room for addled emperors and regain the “dream of Rome.” Never once will you think to yourself “hey, what became of Lucilla’s kid from the first movie” because the movie makes it instantly pretty clear what became of him and retcons some extra action for his character that felt very The Rise of Skywalker (not complimentary).

Lucilla and her dumb plans (has she been playing the long game for 16 years through how many emperors?) and Acacius and the various senators (including one played by Derek Jacobi, the other one of the I think only two actors to return from the first movie) and even Hanno and his revenge are all very small potatoes compared to the big, velvet-covered ham-ery of Denzel Washington. His character is all-singing, all-dancing robes and jewelry awesomeness. At first he’s presented as just another guy on the come-up, trying to take money from the elite of Rome. But then we find out that he has — successfully, way more so than Lucilla — been playing a much longer, somewhat lunatic game. And Washington is eating all of this up with absolute relish, having a total blast whether he’s trying to sell Hanno on the benefits of the gladiator career path or waving around a severed head in front of a horrified senate. Washington doing his Denzel Washington laugh while shmoozing the movers and shakers — chef’s kiss. The movie when he’s not around: a bunch of “thinking about the Roman Empire” mush that doesn’t even keep its logic together with itself, much less actual Roman history. To be clear, I am not looking for accuracy with the timeline here, but I am looking for characters’ motivations to make sense from scene to scene. It’s like in this two-and-a-half-hour meander around the greater Rome metropolitan area the movie itself forgets who is on whose side and why. And through it all, characters — from the gladiators in the coliseum green rooms to Lucilla’s whole personal drama — will not shut up about the long dead Maximus, which helps (along with some lackluster battles and general “I’ve got your echoes in eternity” retreading of story details) to make everything feel like a flatter, duller copy of the first movie. A for Washington, C for everything else, so, like B-?

Rated R for strong bloody violence including one very silly laugh-out-loud moment during the end, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Ridley Scott with a screenplay by David Scarpa, Gladiator II is two hours and 30 minutes long and is distributed by Paramount Pictures

Every Valley, by Charles King

Every Valley, by Charles King (Doubleday, 277 pages)

George Frideric Handel was not the only inspired composer to emerge during the period of time known as the Enlightenment; Bach, Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart were also products of 17th- and 18th-century Europe.

But beloved as all of these composers are, it is Handel who reigns throughout the Christmas season, thanks to his preeminent work Messiah.

It’s widely known that Handel composed the music in just 24 days, but there’s much more to the story than that. It took a village, as it were, to create Messiah as we know it today. In Every Valley, Georgetown University professor Charles King examines the players in this story and weaves their stories together, against a cultural backdrop that is not so different from ours as we might think.

“The Enlightenment as most people actually experienced it had fewer wigs and masked balls than we might imagine today, and far more pain and muddling through,” King writes, as he lays out the cultural and economic landscape of the time.

“Politicians and critics traded barbs via pamphlets and cartoons in much the same way that social media works now. Insurrections, riots, and rebellions regularly shook the governing establishment.” Wars fomented, and slavery flourished.

Meanwhile, an eccentric, wealthy bachelor named Charles Jennens — “so afraid of the cold that he lay under six blankets in winter and four in summer” — became enamored of the idea that the prophecies and promises of the Hebrew scriptures, coupled with their fulfillment in the New Testament, offered hope for the challenging age and could best be conveyed in a musical performance. He began work on what he called a “Scripture Collection” with the thought that he might engage a past-his-prime composer to set the verses to music.

“At the heart of [Jennens’] work was not so much a statement of faith as a test of will — an affirmation of something Jennens himself had always found hard to believe in,” King writes. “It was the staggering possibility that the world might turn out all right.”

King became interested in the full story of Messiah after listening to a 1927 performance recorded in England that brought both him and his wife to tears. He learned that Handel was a celebrated musician even as a young man (in his 20s, his reputation was already such that one person would make the sign of the cross ironically when his name was mentioned). But by the time he was recruited to write this oratorio, Handel was nearing the age of 60, physically ailing and suspected to be past his prime professionally.

King takes us from the early days of Handel’s professional life, from “Rinaldo” and “Water Music,” to the composer’s association with members of the royal family and notables like Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. And because King is writing the definitive book on Messiah’s creation, his narrative frequently devolves into side stories of secondary characters, such as the salacious personal life of Susannah Cibber, the woman who would perform the alto solos at Messiah’s premiere and experience a sort of salvation through her association with the work.

These stories, while interesting enough, at times feel a bit like an unwelcome interruption into the most compelling one: the intersection of the lives of Jennens and Handel, men who seem to have needed each other like Woodward needed Bernstein.

Jennens was the epitome of what Americans call “the elite” — he “apparently had no ambition other than to lead the life of a gentleman” and seemed to have been something of a hot-house flower. But he filled his home with books, music and art, creating “a private sanctuary filled with evidence of what the world could be, rather than reminders of what it usually was.” And he had a special affinity for Handel, whom he called “the Prodigious,” and collected all his music with the zeal of your typical American Swiftie.

Meanwhile, an aging Handel was suffering from competition and losing patrons. While an extraordinarily gifted musician and composer, he had, throughout his career, relied on others for “words and stories [he] might render into song.” When he set out to put to music the scripture collection that Jennens had named Messiah, he completed the work in a little over three weeks, but it may or may not have been as divinely inspired as we have been led to believe.

According to King, a statement that has been attributed to Handel about the creation of the “Hallelujah Chorus” — “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God himself” — is dubiously sourced a century later. (He also throws water on the oft-told story of how audiences came to stand during the Chorus.)

Jennens was not present when Messiah debuted before an audience of about 700 in Dublin, with the proceeds of the night going to a local hospital and infirmary and to pay off the debts of “incarcerated paupers.” It was better-received by the audience, one of whom called it “a species of musick different from any other,” than by the man who had first imagined it, and Jennens later demanded changes, and for a while didn’t want to be associated with it. (He wrote to a confidante, “His Messiah has disappointed me.”)

It’s just as well, as popular history has largely forgotten Jennen’s role, while time has elevated Messiah and its composer to mythic proportions. The original work, which took up both sides of 130 pages, still exists in a vault at the British Library and can be viewed online (and in photographs in this book), ink blots and all.

As for the story of its creation, it’s hard to see how anyone could craft a history more comprehensive than what King has produced in Every Valley although it’s not for the casual reader or the seasonal Messiah enthusiast who lacks an attendant desire to delve into the history of the age. It’s a serious and scholarly work that keeps its distance from the religious ecstasy that its subject inspires, and insists on schooling the readers on European history, whether they’re interested or not.

Moreover, in his curious need to draw parallels to contemporary society, King at times seems to tread dangerously close to political commentary.

However, for those seeking holiday reading that is not of the Hallmark variety, Every Valley hits all the high notes. B+ —Jennifer Graham

Album Reviews 24/11/28

Blue Moods, Force and Grace (Posi-Tone Records)

American jazz trumpet legend Freddie Hubbard has been gone since 2008, and of course he’ll never be forgotten, especially not by the — let’s just say it, often snobby crowd (mostly composed of deeply obsessed jazz musicians) who can rattle off a mile-long list of his most interesting instrumental maneuvers. This is the third “Blue Moods” release — or curation, if you will — from Posi-Tone, and it aims to address that very disconnect, wherein non-standard originals by various masters are made inaccessible to new fans possessed of an ounce of curiosity about what led to our current age of anything-goes-but-only-up-to-a-point era of jazz. There’s much beauty and whiz-bang-ery here, of course, but the smoothness of the songs is the most striking aspect of the collection; in such compositions as “On The Que-Tee,” the players — a quartet led by sax player Diego Rivera, assisted by an alternating pair of pianists — seem to want to jam forever, and the listener finds themself wishing for exactly that. Sublime and wonderful, this. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

Peter Murphy & Boy George, “Let The Flowers Grow” (Metropolis Records)

Now that 2024’s culture-war-rooted election is over, it’s safe to say that this chill-electro single can be listened to with open minds from all corners, particularly since it’s such an exquisite little tune. The story here is that this highly unlikely team-up of ’80s icons (Boy George, who needs no introduction, and Peter Murphy of goth legends Bauhaus) coalesced when Murphy heard a work-in-progress demo of George’s half-finished tune, fell in love with it and finished it up in 20 minutes. It’s a melancholy but hopeful piece of chill-techno balladry with plenty of retro-’80s sound to it, lyrically dedicated to the process of coming out, a reality I experienced recently with someone close to me, someone I’d long casually surmised was gay but from whom I’d never expected to hear an admission thereof. The pair sing of a mother’s tears watering the ground so that flowers can grow, of a father facing an alternate-universe mirror image of himself for the first time. This thing isn’t just powerful, it’s supremely empowering; the video is absolutely amazing. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Nov. 29 isn’t just any Friday filled with new album releases, it is a Black Friday, the jolliest time of the year, when all the bands and record companies prepare for a relentless onslaught of random album-buying, from consumers, who have holiday gifts to buy! For people in the music-selling business, it’s that time of year that recalls the scene in the 1975 film Jaws, when all the nice townspeople gather at the town meeting to discuss why they must keep the beaches open even though there’s a humongous shark swimming around looking for human-shaped snacks; in this metaphorical context, the record companies need you people to buy albums even though most of those albums will swallow your aesthetic senses whole, in one bite, nom nom nom, leaving you butt-twerking or believing that bands like Franz Ferdinand are composed of decent musicians! Extending this ridiculous violation of literary license, you can just think of me as Quint: I’ll protect all you nice people from awful bands and DJs and nepo-baby singers named after European cities, but it’ll cost you, and you’ll need to load up my boat with fresh boxes of saltines! OK, let’s put on our rubber diving suits, hop into the totally safe aluminum shark cage, and dive into the blackness to see what we’ll find, maybe there’s something good! Uh oh, here comes a big one, it’s corporate-soundtrack-maker Bear McCreary with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2: Amazon Original Series Soundtrack, when did J.R.R. Tolkien have time to write more stories about Bilbo Baggins, I wonder. I do have Amazon Prime but haven’t watched that show, is it as good as those other Game of Thrones cartoons or whatever they are? I don’t know, but I do know that the leadoff track from this album is “Old Tom Bombadil,” and it features Rufus Wainwright, singing in his folky Bono-meets-Pete Seeger tenor, warbling Tolkien’s words verbatim from the chapters “The Old Forest” and “In the House of Tom Bombadil” from The Fellowship of the Ring. I gather that this denotes a depressing scene in the show, which, again, I have not watched, because I don’t watch sad cartoons about dragons.

• Onward and whatnot, let’s dissect an actual holiday album, Christmas Vacation, from cowboy-hat singer Walker Hayes. This singing man is of course a nepo baby (drink!), the son of a rich U.S. congressperson, but I will not hold that against him, because he likes jingle bells and Santa just like normal people do. Unfortunately, the “Christmas Vacation” in this case has nothing to do with the Chevy Chase movie, it is a twangy country-Christmas joke song about how awkward it is when Grandma brings over her new boyfriend and how it’s so funny that the ashes of her first husband, your grandfather, are kept in an urn and that you have to drink your yearly holiday beer toast with his urn all alone and it’s weird. You know how it is, right?

• Yes, it’s holiday time, a special time for those of you who are so rich you just throw money out your car window. If you’re that rich and you’re also a fan of former Cream guitarist Eric Clapton, you’ll want to know about Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival 2023, a $90 box set featuring every star from Joe Bonamassa to Molly Tuttle playing random songs. Look at this, there’s H.E.R. playing a cover of Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” the least uninteresting thing on board.

• Lastly it’s famous indie rock band Wilco with Hot Sun Cool Shroud, an EP featuring six or seven tunes they left off their 2023 Cousin album. “Hot Sun” is a pretty neat mid-tempo thing, utilizing an edgy-poppy-edgy song structure. —Eric W. Saegerr

In the kitchen with Jonathan Buatti

Jonathan Buatti, owner and head baker at Bearded Baking Co. (819 Union St., Manchester, 647-7150, beardedbaking.com)

Jon started his culinary career at a family friend’s restaurant in Hampton Beach. Jon was typically a bus boy at the restaurant but volunteered to take a plated dessert shift in an attempt to switch it up. From there, he graduated from Salem High School’s Culinary Tech program, earned his associate’s degree in Baking and Culinary Arts from Southern New Hampshire University, and his bachelor’s degree in Culinary Management from SNHU. In 2019 Jon purchased the Bearded Baking Co. (formally known as Michelle’s Gourmet Pastries and Deli), where he is currently providing customers with breakfast, lunch, pastries and custom cakes. In the fall of 2020 Jon was selected to compete on Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

A super-sharp knife. I’ve learned that cooking is much safer with a sharp well-cared-for blade than not … .

What’s your must-have kitchen item?

It’s a combo of cake-decorating tools for me — a bench scraper and an offset spatula. With those two things, I can do anything. The bench scraper is brilliant because it allows me to get cakes perfectly at 90 degrees — perfectly flush with the board and level on top. And then the offset spatula allows me to pull the edges cleanly on top, so if you look at a cake head on, it looks like a square.

What would you have for your last meal?

It would have to be barbecue — ribs or brisket or something, just a good barbecued meal. It’s sweet and smoky. Barbecue, wings, barbecue chicken pizza, pulled pork, the list goes on and on.

What is your favorite local eatery?

For my wife and me, the Crown Tavern is our crown jewel. It’s our go-to spot. We had our wedding shower there and a lot of our big life events.

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

I am obsessed with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. It would be funny because he’s obviously very health-conscious, so I would see him eating a cupcake or something. It would be a wild moment.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

Our Bismarcks at the shop are awesome. Just a long-john, a yeast doughnut with raspberry jam filling, whipped cream and powdered sugar.

What’s the biggest baking trend you see in New Hampshire right now?

It’s not a thing in particular, but in the wake of Covid everybody wants things in like single servings and smaller portions — individual serving sizes of any sort. Cookies and brownies and cupcakes — anything that you can get packaged on its own is really popular. There seems to be an attitude of, ‘Oh no; I don’t want my stuff touching anyone else’s stuff.’

What’s your favorite thing to cook at home?

My wife and I like to make a Sopa Toscana, like a take on the soup at Olive Garden. It’s a kale soup with a creamy base and potatoes and all the Italian spices — oregano, basil and everything.

You can really take these in any direction by changing what you stuff them with … Try it stuffed with peanut butter and topped with some sea salt or chopped pistachios.

Once you’ve settled on your definition of done, you can pop them in the fridge or the freezer. I really like them from the freezer. They are like a Riesen texture that way, only dairy-free. The chilled dates taste like caramel.

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