Tag: 250327

The juice of the week

Small batch drinks at an evolving shop

If it lasts long enough, every business evolves and goes through changes. For Audrey Bowden, that has meant going in some unexpected directions.

“About 15 years ago,” Bowden said, “we started a massage therapy business. It’s been traditionally what we do from its conception. Rally and Revive is the name of our massage therapy business. We offer body work and skincare and [foot care]. We offer foot soaks for people who suffer from arthritis or anything going on in their feet that make it difficult for them.” This has included neuropathy and related conditions.

Eventually, Bowden said, this led, somewhat unexpectedly, to opening a juice bar. “The concept behind Come Into Fruition was the goal to marry together internal wellness with external wellness and bring really healthy options to the city. This part of Elm Street [to the north of Manchester’s city center] seems to be a little bit isolated and forgotten in comparison to [the area around] City Hall. If you look around you will find tons of residents but you won’t necessarily find coffee shops or restaurants, so I really wanted to just offer good, nourishing things to people.”

This led to expanding the massage and skincare business to include a juice bar that serves fresh-squeezed juices, coffee drinks and smoothies. Bowden called that part of the business Come Into Fruition. This allowed her to help advocate for healthy lifestyles for her wellness customers and guests from off the street.

“Pretty much everything is as close to organic as we can get,” she said. “A lot of the times when I find juice … it’s filled with bananas. It’s pasteurized. I’m actually in love with all of our juices.”

She pointed to her Red Juice as an example.

“That’s beets, raspberries, strawberries and apples,” she said. “Sometimes we add pomegranate to it as well, just to give it a little bit more tartness and balance out that earthy flavor from the beets. Seasonally — and this is kind of a secret — but seasonally, if we have rhubarb, we’ll add that, too.”

Eventually, though, Bowden had to rethink the juice bar’s business model. Too few customers were coming through the door to support the juice-and-smoothie end of the business.

“We just never really got super busy,” she said. “So we went ‘private’ and now we just offer juices and smoothies to our clients and anybody who happens to come in off the street and catch us when we’re here. We scaled back and we make one or two juice flavors a week and we try to rotate it. Last week we made red juice, and so next week we’ll probably make green juice. But we try to rotate whatever we have on hand and just keep things simple.”

Interestingly, by focusing on just a few items each week, Bowden has found that the quality of each menu item has remained consistently high.

“I think it all started with one of our smoothies,” Bowden said, “which is the Revival, and that one has a really cool flavor profile. That’s got, among other things, pineapple, blueberries, spinach and fresh ginger. We make our sauces and so our vanilla pods have been steeping for quite some time. You can see that right here. So that’s aging. We make our own caramel sauce using organic cream and organic sugar. And it’s just, I mean it’s fun. The creativity aspect of it is really fun.”

“We’re focusing,” Bowden said, “and it’s nice that we’re able to offer things to people that are small batch. It’s not mass-manufactured. And it’s OK if we don’t make it the same every time, if something’s not in season. Like for our orange juice, the peaches are not always in season. Sometimes we have to omit them. Sometimes we switch it out for mango. But it always tastes good. It’s always good because it’s always fresh and it’s always small-batch.”

Come Into Fruition
To find out what hours Come Into Fruition is open, contact Rally and Revive (1358 Elm St, Manchester, 622-5380, rallyandrevive.com).

Featured photo: Revival Smoothie. Photo by John Fladd.

A little sweet, a little more spice

A look at the chai latte

Emmett Soldati is very thoughtful about chai lattes.

“It’s spiced, flaky, typically pretty strong and then with some kind of either foamed or steamed milk if it’s hot or milk if it’s over ice, and sometimes a little sweet,” said Soldati, owner of Totally Tea + Coffee in Concord and Dover.

“We have a tagline at the cafe that says ‘Everyone’s a Little Chai-Curious,’” he said. “We sell several different chai blends. But, for our cafe bar, we have a specific blend we make with black tea, cinnamon, clove, cardamom, star anise and black pepper; we use that to make a concentrated tea base. And then with that base we can make hot or iced chais, which allows us to control pretty much every aspect of it. We can control how sweet it is. We usually put a pump or two of brown sugar syrup in it. We can control what milk goes in it, whether it’s a non-dairy oat milk or just a regular cow’s milk. And that allows us to control the flavor and make sure that it’s a nice strong sort of deep amber brown chai latte.”

The color of Soldati’s chai lattes is important to him.

“There’s only a handful of chai companies that sell packaged chai to restaurants and cafes and they tend to be fairly diluted and sugary so by the time you add in milk it basically just looks like tinted milk. To me it’s really important that it’s a nice deep amber and then of course you get a dusting of cinnamon on top,” he said.

According to Soldati, one reason Totally Tea+Coffee’s chai lattes are distinctive is that they came to the development process almost backward.

“We’re basically a tea and coffee company,” he said, “but I think a lot of coffee houses and cafes lead with coffee and then their tea and chai becomes like a secondary afterthought. We started from the other way. We started as a tea company and then expanded our espresso drinks so that we can do like a dirty chai [a chai latte with a shot of espresso], but people know us because of our specific house chai blend.”

Tiana Sargent is the manager of Flight Coffee Co. in Bedford. She is proud that Flight brews its own chai concentrate.

“We [make] a really strong brew using a masala chai from Mem Tea,” Sargent said. “They’re out of Cambridge, Mass. Awesome tea company. But yeah, we make a really strong brew using that, we lightly sweeten it with sugar, and cut it with milk and serve it. You can steam it to serve it hot or you can mix it in a cup.”

“I am very proud of our chai,” Sargent said. “It’s a great balance of sweet and spicy. We don’t overly sweeten it and we go heavier on the chai so you really get the flavor, the spices, the tea. A lot of places will use a really small amount and so it gets really diluted in the milk. And a lot of places will sweeten it too much as well. So you end up with a sweet drink that’s lacking depth. So we try to not put it there. We really want the tea to be tea-forward, spice-forward, and have just the right amount of sweetness [so] that it’s great on its own but if you’re somebody who likes the flavor of chai you can add a syrup and it won’t overdo the sweetness.”

Danielle Beaudette is the owner of The Cozy Tea Cart (104A Rte 13, Brookline, 249-9111, thecozyteacart.com) and a Specialty Tea Institute, (STI) Certified Tea Specialist. She said that chai and chai lattes have been popular in India for decades, but vary from one region to another, depending on the variety of teas and spices grown in a given area.

“The South grows different ones than the North,” she explained. “So depending on where you are, you’re going to get different spices in your chai latte. Some use ginger, some do not. There’s all different spices Some use peppercorns.”

She said that the quality of a chai latte depends on the quality of the tea used.

“We are very proud of the teas that we bring into the country here,” she said. “We only use loose leaf tea, so we never want to hide the flavor of the tea. It would complement the flavor. So it really depends on the place that’s blending it, on how they blend it. If they’re using tea bag tea, [the quality of the tea] probably doesn’t matter to them,” she said.

Brit McCullouch, the Supervisor for Waterworks Cafe in Manchester, said chai lattes have become a fixture on her menu.

“They’ve become very popular,” she said. “We’ve put a twist on the one that we have. We carry an organic and gluten-free honey vanilla chai latte, and we serve that either iced or hot, but we also put a spin on it [to make] a specialty drink. We add flavors to it. So last season we did pistachio and now with spring coming we add coconut syrup to it. It’s fine on its own, but I think always putting a spin on something grabs people’s attention. It’s just a nice alternative to having coffee. It’s a black tea concentrate with the honey and spices, and you pick your milk, and it goes so well with non-dairy milks, dairy, it really is just a very versatile product.”

Roo Hasty at William & Sons Coffee Co. in Concord and Manchester pointed out that the type of milk a chai latte is made with is an important and underappreciated aspect of the enterprise.

“A lot of people who are in their 20s like it with oat milk,” she said, “because it’s creamier. Whenever I have oat milk, it just tastes way creamier. We have oat milk, we have regular [dairy milk], we have coconut milk, we have almond milk. We’ve got all the milks.”

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 25/03/27

News from the local food scene

• Maple mixology: There will be a Maple Season Hands-On Mixology Class at LaBelle Winery Amherst (345 Route 101, Amherst, 672-9898, labellewinery.com) Thursday, March 27, from 6 to 7 p.m. Learn how to make three different recipes used to craft a Maple Whiskey Sour cocktail. Enjoy a small cheese plate while you learn and receive a recipe card for each class recipe to recreate at home. Tickets are $54.25 through eventbrite.com.

• Fancy dinner: Chef Table Dinners at Flag Hill Winery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com) for April will take place at 7 p.m. on Saturdays, April 5 and April 12. They will be four-course dinners featuring a wine, spirit, or cocktail pairing with each course. Tickets are $75 each through eventbrite.com.

• Daiquiri contest: Tickets are available forThe Great Daiq-Off of 2025 at 815 Cocktails & Provisions (815 Elm St, Manchester, 782-8086, 815nh.com), to be held Thursday, April 13, from 3 to 7 p.m. The contest will be based on speed, Daiquracy, and taste. The theme will, of course, be tiki. Tickets are $20 through eventbrite.com. See the 815 website for details or to register.

• Coffee fest: Passes are on sale now for the Northeast Coffee Festival Friday, May 2, and Saturday, May 3, in Concord. Passes cost $75 (plus fees) and include acces to two days of hands on workshops, panels and discussions as well as the welcome party on Friday and the Latte Art Throwdown on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. Or, you can just check out the community market (admission is free) featuring vendors, demonstrations and live music will run 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday. See northeastcoffeefestival.com.

• Drunken cupcakes: The theme of the martini/cupcake pairing at Copper Door (15 Leavy Drive, Bedford, 488-2677, or 41 S Broadway, Salem, 458-2033, copperdoor.com) in April is cannoli. There will be a “Cannoli-tini” made with Faretti Biscotti Italian liqueur, vanilla vodka, dark creme de cacao, Bailey’s Irish Cream, and a chocolate chip rim for $14.75. It will be paired with a cannoli cupcake featuring an orange-zested vanilla cupcake, cinnamon-ricotta filling, a semi-sweet white chocolate swirl, and a mini-cannoli garnish for $11.

Kiddie Pool 25/03/27

Family fun for whenever

Lacrosse season

• Catch the Saint Anselm College Hawks men’s lacrosse team at Grappone Stadium on the Saint Anselm College campus in Manchester on Friday, March 28, at 4 p.m. when they play Assumption. See saintanselmhawks.com.

• Cheer Nashua’s Rivier University Raiders men’s and women’s lacrosse teams at games this weekend on Joanne Merrill Field at Linda Robinson Pavilion in Nashua. The men’s team will play Johnson & Wales University Providence on Saturday, March 29, at 11 a.m. The women’s team will play Colby Sawyer at 2 p.m. See rivierathletics.com.

At the ballet

• Cinderella will be performed by Ballet Misha’s professional adult dancers, apprentice company and students from Dimensions in Dance on Saturday, March 29, at 2 and 6 p.m. at the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord). Tickets cost $31.60 for adults, $21.40 for children. See balletmisha.com

• Snow White will be presented by Southern NY Youth Ballet at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St., Manchester, palacetheatre.org) on Sunday, March 30, at 1 and 4 p.m. The show is “appropriate for children and young ballerinas of all ages” with an approximately 90-minute runtime and a brief intermission, according to a Palace email. Tickets cost $24 to $29. Tickets to a pre-show tea with Snow White cost an additional $20. The tea starts 45 minutes before showtime.

• Hispanic Flamenco Ballet will come to the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord) on Tuesday, April 1, at 10 and 11 a.m. Tickets cost $19 to $33 and are available by calling 305-420-6622. See flamencoballet.com for more on the company.

Lil’ runners

• Kids in three different age divisions — ages 4 and younger, ages 5 and 6 and ages 7 and 8 — can participate in the Lil’ Leprechaun Run on Sunday, March 30, at 10:30 a.m. Participants receive a medal at the finish, according to millenniumrunning.com/shamrock, where kids can register for the 100-yard fun run. The cost to register for the Lil’ Leprechaun is $5. Kids over 8 can register for the Shamrock Shuffle, which starts at 11 a.m. and is a 2-mile run/walk on Elm Street. The cost is $10 for kids 11 and under and $20 for ages 12 to 20. Adults can register for the Shuffle for $25 each. After all that running, grab a spot on Elm Street to watch the Manchester St. Patrick Parade, which steps off at noon. See saintpatsnh.com for more on the parade.

Gardening in March

First, a few rules for pruning

Whether March came in like the proverbial lion or lamb for you, March is the time when you need to pay more attention to your houseplants. Instead of watering every Sunday, you probably need to water most things twice a week, except for cacti and a few plants that thrive in dry soil. But rosemary? It’s so easy to kill now. The sun is hotter, roots are growing, and they need more water. Don’t keep the soil soggy, but poke your fingers into the soil more often and make sure it’s not Arizona arid. A dry rosemary is a dead rosemary.

Although March is the time farmers tend to prune their fruit trees, I am waiting a bit. We still have too much snow to easily move around carrying ladders. Pruning experts will tell you that you can prune fruit trees any month of the year, something I have found to be true. But let’s go over a few rules for pruning.

Use sharp tools. A good pair of hand pruners, some loppers and a pruning saw are all you need. I don’t like bow saws — they can’t get into tight places. Know where to cut. Don’t cut branches flush with the trunk or a big branch. Each branch has a “collar” that should be left. This is the bulge where it heals. But don’t leave long stubs when you remove a branch. They will not heal properly, and look awful. Remove dead branches first.

Don’t leave stubs, they have to heal back to branch collar. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Never remove more than about a quarter of the leaf-producing branches. Leaves are the engine that drive growth and flower and fruit production. Remove water sprouts each year or two. These start as pencil-thin shoots growing straight up, but will get big and clutter up the interior of the tree. Remove branches that are rubbing or crossing others, or are growing in toward the center of the tree. Remember: Sunlight should be able to reach every leaf. Open up the interior so this is possible.

March is also the time I start planting seeds indoors. Onion family seeds and peppers, hot and sweet, can be started now. Artichokes and cardoon I start early, but tomatoes I don’t start until around April 10. That will give them eight weeks to be ready to go outside in mid-June.

Actually, it is much easier to order onions as bare-root plants sold in bunches of 50, each a few inches long and ready to start growing in the ground in May. Johnny’s Selected Seeds and others sell them, and your local nursery may sell onions in six-packs, each cell with four to six seedlings. The main advantage to starting onions or tomatoes by seed is that you get a much wider choice in what you grow.

If you want to start plants indoors, you will need some lights. Yes, some people try a sunny window, but they generally get lanky plants leaning toward the sunshine. Kits with LED or fluorescent lights are sold at garden centers and online. I built my own, a simple A-frame wooden structure that has two plywood shelves and supports 4-foot lights. It can accommodate up to 12 flats of seedlings if I put some on the floor.

Next you need six-packs of either plastic (like the ones you get when you buy veggies or annuals at the nursery) or re-usable metal or heavy-duty plastic. In my efforts to reduce my use of single-use plastic, I have switched over to re-usable plant cells. Yes, they are more expensive, but they last forever. In any case, get bigger cells, not smaller ones. Your babies are going to grow in them for eight weeks or more and need plenty of room for roots.

You can buy seed starting mix, but if you do a lot of plants (as I do) it can get expensive. So you can mix the potting mix with good quality compost if you have it, or you can buy it. Seed starting mixes don’t have much nutrition in them, so adding compost helps. Or later, you can water with a dilute solution of liquid fertilizer, something like Neptune’s Harvest Liquid Fish and Seaweed Fertilizer.

You may wish to buy electric heat mats designed to provide consistent low-level warmth. This signals the seeds that spring is here, and gets them to sprout sooner and with better germination rates. Again, expensive, but they last forever.

Lastly, you can’t let your seeds/seedlings dry out. One way to prevent that is to buy clear plastic covers that fit over a flat of seedlings. Oh, and don’t forget to buy trays to hold your six-packs. This keeps water from getting on to your table or floor.

Lastly, in March I am reading gardening books and magazines and planning out what I want to do in my flower gardens. I recently got a preview copy of a wonderful book by my friend Jill Nooney called Bedrock: The Making of a Public Garden. Jill and her husband Bob Munger have been working on their property to develop beautiful spaces to try all sorts of plants. They bought the house in 1980 and have been working on them ever since. They turned over most of the land, gardens and Jill’s sculpture to a nonprofit to own and manage last year, but they continue to live in the old farmhouse there and work in the gardens.

Why read this book? It is relevant to anyone who wants to develop great gardens. Jill is a plant collector who has tried just about anything that will grow in a Zone 4/5 garden, and the photos illustrate many of them. The color photos are numerous and beautiful. It is full of design ideas, too. And she has an engaging writing style. I loved the book.

Spring is just around the corner. Get busy now — it will help prevent the mud season blues!

Featured photo: Metal planting cells from Gardener’s Supply. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Treasure Hunt 25/03/27

Hi, Donna.

I really enjoy your column in the Hippo. I’m reaching out for some advice about an antique bottle my husband found at a construction site. He doesn’t recall the exact location, but it was likely in Massachusetts.

Based on our research, it appears to be a hand-blown, triple-chamber liquor or apothecary bottle. It has no seams or markings, a couple of bubbles in the glass, and slightly asymmetrical tops — suggesting it was handmade. There are no cracks or chips, but the metal has oxidation. Also, one of the wires has detached from the base (although it is still there).

Do you have any insight into its value or where we might sell it? We’re downsizing and looking to find the right buyer.

Thank you in advance for your time and expertise!

Best,

Jackie from Nashua

Dear Jackie,

I have to say you have done my job. You are right: This is a liquor decanter. It’s a three-way blown glass one but there are even four-way ones out there as well. The tops would have been glass pourers and many times got lost along the way.

The ones I found out there were French and unfortunately the values were low, in the $30 range. But what a fun find for your husband. I am always amazed to find an antique still in good condition.

I hope this was helpful or a confirmation for you. To market it I would try a local antique shop in your area. Thanks again, Jackie, and good luck.

Donna

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