Tag: 250918

In the kitchen with Danielle Calkins

Danielle Calkins, co-owner of Pat’s Apple Crisp and Cider Donuts (patsapplecrisp.com), grew up in her family’s business, selling apple crisp at fairs around New Hampshire.

“My dad and my mother started this business back in 1984,” she said. We’ve been in business over 40 years. The cider doughnuts have been part of the operation for about 18 years out of those 40. My father passed away in 2010, and my brother and I took over the business. We decided to expand into a food truck mobile business, in addition to working the Hopkinton and Deerfield fairs. There aren’t a lot of cider doughnut enterprises out there that are mobile and can go on the road like we do. We do a lot of employee-recognition events for companies, and customer appreciation events. We do a lot of weddings in the fall. There are pictures of me as a toddler at the Deerfield Fair outside of our original building. At 5 years old I was asking people for tips at the window and it’s really like it’s created a work ethic for me. It definitely carried me through and just being a successful career person for much of my adult life.”

What is the most important piece of equipment you take on the road with you?

Absolutely, our doughnut machine. There’s no way we could make doughnuts on site without it.

What would you have for your last meal?

Honestly, probably my Aunt Cheryl’s macaroni and cheese with tomatoes. Everything is from scratch. It’s the ultimate comfort food. As a child, at the Fair, if it was a cold night and you had that, it was just the best! And, of course, I’d follow it up with an apple crisp.

What restaurants do you like to eat at?

The restaurant scene in Manchester is so good! Firefly Bistro and Bar is my husband’s and my favorite date night spot. I usually get the seared scallops. They usually have a special one but then they have the regular menu one. It’s the regular menu one that I love, with the roasted garlic sauce and the wilted spinach.

Between your apple crisp and the cider doughnuts, which is your favorite?

Honestly, the apple crisp. The doughnuts are more popular, but the apple crisp has the Hershey’s French Vanilla Ice Cream, and when it melts a little bit into the crisp, there’s nothing like it.

What kind of apples do you use in your apple crisp?

McIntosh. We get all our apples from Meadow Ledge Orchard [in Loudon]. … I just think that everything aligns perfectly for Deerfield Fair Weekend. The apples are at their peak, just before October hits. And they have that extra little bit of tart, but still sweet. If it’s about 50 degrees out, everything is perfect, apple crisp-wise.

Skin-on or skin-off?

Skin-off.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

Have you seen any new food trends in fair food?

Fair food is very traditional stuff. Honestly, it has surprised me that there hasn’t been more innovative cooking going on at the fairs because there is such a space for that with food trucks. There are many, many fried doughs, french fries, ice cream, blooming onions — a lot of those foods have seen their heyday and it surprises me that there isn’t more creative culinary coming out of the food trucks at the fairs.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I make a really good chimichurri. I use a lot of fresh herbs. So parsley, cilantro, fresno peppers, red wine vinegar, olive oil, lots of lime juice, salt, pepper, garlic. And then I usually put it over grilled chicken with limes and avocado on the side with some cilantro lime rice. You just let that sit for like five or six hours, and it’s perfect. That resting is key; it makes it blossom.

Pat’s
Pat’s Apple Crisp and Cider Donuts will be at the Deerfield Fair Sept. 25 through Sept. 28. Visit patsapplecrisp.com.

Featured Image: Danielle Calkins. Courtesy photo.

French fry alley

New Manch spot brings diner food and walk-up fries

Cat Alley, just off Elm Street in downtown Manchester, is one of the city’s most fascinating landmarks. Its north wall is covered with multi-colored cat-themed murals created by dozens of area artists. Now the south wall has an attraction of its own: a walk-up french fry window.

The StatesMan City Diner is the newest addition to Manchester’s downtown restaurant scene. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it serves traditional diner dishes, as well as seafood and cocktails. And, of course, french fries.

Diner owner Dionysus Lemos clarified that while the StatesMan is open all the time, the french fry window does close briefly each day.

“Our typical days will run from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m.,” he said. “The hours are limited, but not by much.”

According to Lemos, the StatesMan honors diner tradition with a full breakfast menu but has expanded the menu to include a wide variety of other types of food.

“We call the concept ‘Citizens For Good Taste,’” he said. “We have shareable [dishes], we have items on ice, which includes our mimosa bar. We have a pastry section. We have a smoothie section, a barista section, and our cocktails. Additionally, on the brunch side of things, we have organic burgers, steaks, tacos and signature sandwiches. We have a section called the Greek Corner, and we’ll have some Greek items — spanakopita, pastitsio, dolmades — some nice offerings.”

Lemos said that he and his head chef, Alex Medina, put a lot of attention to an area that many diners typically overlook: salads and seafood.

“We have salads,” he said, “very unique, upscale salads. We have Cobb salads, we have seafood salads, with a little touch of scallops and shrimp. Everything’s fresh, everything comes out of Maine. Nothing’s frozen. We have lobster on the menu. We have a special combination of lobster — one and a quarter pounds and one and three quarter pounds with a sirloin steak. We have straight lobster. We’ve got a combination of lobster and steamers and corn on the cob, in addition to the whole and cross-sectioned [lobsters].”

The StatesMan’s menu is centered around a philosophy of high quality and modest prices, Lemos said.

“I’ve been in the restaurant business throughout the years, and for me it’s all about community, quality and affordability. And those three components have never failed me in my approach to doing business. We’re going to focus on the quality of the food, and we’re making sure that everything hinges on affordability. Everything is predicated on having an open door concept here where everybody can find something that they like and a portion that they find reasonable. Our menu is based on Junior StatesMan and StatesMan — every item, so [a customer] can have a touch of anything at a smaller portion, and a reasonable price.”

He used pasta as an example.

“We have a section called Pastabilities,” he said. “We have two offerings of linguine, spaghetti, ravioli, tortellini. So if you order ravioli, you can have a lobster ravioli or a cheese ravioli, with two offerings per category.”

“We’re keeping things affordable,” Lemos said. “We’re trying to create and maintain the integrity of an affordable environment. After all, we have ‘Diner’ in our name.”

StatesMan City Diner
Where: 836 Elm St., Manchester, 932-2751
Hours: Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The walk-up french fry window in Cat Alley is open from 11 a.m. each day, until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and until 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday.

Featured photo: The french fry window. Photo by John Fladd.

Stories and scotch

Get the flavor of the Highland Games

One of the highlights of this year’s Highland Games will be an attempt to set a new world record for the most bagpipers playing in one venue, which is exciting and splashy, but according to Joshua Auger, one of the Scottish festival’s organizers, some of the really exciting events will involve tasting a range of beers, ales and whiskeys throughout the weekend in venues in and around the Loon Mountain Resort in Lincoln.

The Games, he said, give area breweries an opportunity to express their Scottish side and earn bragging rights.

“We work with eight New Hampshire breweries,” he said. “And we partner with them and ask them to develop a scotch ale that they would like to represent the New Hampshire Highlands. Then we invite patrons of the games to come in and sample all eight of the scotch ales. These are typically smoky, darker ales, brown ales. We invite these people in and they vote for which one that they think is the best. At the end of the weekend, that is our official Scotch Ale for that year.”

Another event will pair Scottish beer and ales with food.

“We host a Brews and Bites event in partnership with the Woodstock Inn Brewery,” Auger said. “It’s for people that are less inclined to go to a concert, who want to just sit down and have a nice evening. We serve four different beers from the Woodstock Station paired with four of their foods. And each one is designed to complement the beer that it’s associated with.” Each course, he said, will be a traditional Scottish dish or inspired by Scottish ingredients.

Auger said there will be whiskey-centered activities for a range of scotch enthusiasts, even the most serious.

“At the mountain itself,” he said, “we actually have scotch tastings where we bring in experts from Laphroaig [a well-respected Scottish distiller]. They will come in and teach our attendees [about] different scotches as part of a seminar. So you’ll go into a classroom and learn how to smell it, how to add a few drops of water to your scotch to open up the flavors, how to correctly drink it, what foods it pairs well with, the differences in the casks that they age it in. They’ll go through all of that. So you can actually take master classes at our games with whiskey experts who are willing to sit down and talk to you about how to drink scotch appropriately, how to drink it correctly, and how to appreciate it. It’s an educational thing. It’s a rare opportunity for a lot of people that would like to learn about something like this. There aren’t a lot of places you can go to actually take a class to appreciate this. For wine you can go to vineyards. We’ve got a few here in the state. But scotch, no.”

Other whiskey events will be less serious. “We’ve also got Spirits on the Mountain,” Auger said. “We hire a professional Scottish storyteller to come over and tell stories, ghost stories on the mountain by a bonfire. And then we pair each story with a scotch from the region of that story. And I just think that’s one of the coolest little things that people don’t know about. It’s just a really neat thing that we do.”

Other spirit-themed events will include a Whisky & Spirits Tasting tent, where Games attendees can sample and compare a variety of scotch whiskies, and mixology classes, where they can learn to build cocktails around scotch.

Ultimately, Auger said, each event at the Highland Games is presented in the hope that attendees will discover a little bit of Scotland in themselves.

“The Highland Games,” he said, “while they’re Scottish, they’re not exclusively Scottish. We’re a New Hampshire event. We’ve been here for 50 years. We don’t care what ethnicity you are or where you come from. It doesn’t matter. As an example, we’ve got some Native Americans who come to the games. We’ve got a chief from Maine, the Mi’kmaq chief; supposedly [a Scot named] Henry Sinclair married into their tribe in [the 1300s].”

50th Annual NH Highland Games & Festival
When: Friday, Sept. 19, through Sunday, Sept. 21,
Where: Loon Mountain Resort, 60 Loon Mountain Road, Lincoln, 745-8111, loonmtn.com
More: nhscot.org

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 25/09/18

News from the local food scene

• A different look at Irish spirits: NH Liquor & Wine Outlet, Store 50 (Willow Spring Plaza, 294 DW Highway, Nashua, 888-0271, liquorandwineoutlets.com) will host Ireland Beyond Whiskey, Friday, Sept. 19, beginning at 7 p.m. This tasting event will feature Irish spirits other than its celebrated whiskeys. Two of the spirits will be Two Shores Irish Rum and Blood Monkey Irish Gin. Whether you’re a gin enthusiast, a rum lover or simply curious, this will be an enlightening evening of tasting. Tickets are $14.64 through eventbrite.com.

• Pie: The Great New Hampshire Pie Festival will take place Saturday, Sept. 20, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the New Hampshire Farm Museum (1305 White Mountain Highway, Milton, 652-7840, nhfarmmuseum.org). Judges will sample pies and award prizes in a variety of categories. The public is also invited to sample pies from local bakeries and vote for the people’s choice for best professional baker. Visit nhfarmmuseum.org/event/great-nh-pie-festival.

• Sunshine Supper: Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, 836-6600, bookerymht.com) will host the first of a series of Sunshine Suppers on Saturday, Sept.20, at 7 p.m. This dinner is described as “a radiant evening of seasonal, story-driven dishes inspired by light, warmth, and the joy of gathering.” Tickets are $81.88 through Eventbrite.com. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Sweet Pea Project (sweetpeaproject.org). Visit bookerymht.com/our-events.

• A spirited evening: Tickets are on sale now for the annual Distiller’s Showcase of Premium Spirits on Thursday, Nov. 6, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the DoubleTree by Hilton Manchester Downtown, according to distillersshowcase.com. General admission tickets cost $65 through Sept. 30, afterwhich they will cost $75. Connoisseur tickets, offering an entry time for 5 p.m, cost $80 until Sept. 30 and $90 after that.

Kiddie Pool 25/09/18

Family fun for whenever

Space and beyond

The McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord will hold its annual AerospaceFest Saturday, Sept. 20, 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Entry to the event is free, with a $5 per person suggested donation, according to the center’s website, starhop.com. The fest celebrates all things related to space, aviation, Earth science and more, with STEM organizations from around New England presenting demonstrations and activities inside and outside of the Discovery Center, the website said. The event will feature keynote speaker Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, a retired astronaut; new planetarium show Asteroid: Mission Extreme; on-site food trucks and more, the website said.

Wings and wheels

Nashua Airport’s Wheels & Wings “A Touch a Truck Event” will take place Saturday, Sept. 20, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with cars, trucks and planes to see and explore, according to the city’s SummerFun brochure at nashuanh.gov. The event will feature a horns-free hour from 1 to 2 p.m. and collect nonperishable food for End 68 Hours of Hunger, the brochure said. The airport is at 79 Perimeter Road in Nashua; see nashuaairport.com.

Family fun

The 5th Annual Family Fun Day hosted by the Friends of Benson Park will take place Saturday, Sept. 20, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Benson Park, 19 Kimball Hill Road in Hudson. The day will feature music, magic, a petting zoo, a visit with the Old Woman in the Shoe, games, raffles and ice cream for sale, according to friendsofbensonpark.org/ family-fun-day-2025.

For the younger kids

Toddlerfest, the annual celebration of younger kids at the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire in Dover, will run Friday, Sept. 19, through Friday, Oct. 3. The museum is open Wednesdays through Saturdays 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m., and Tuesdays and Sundays 9 a.m. to noon. The event is part of regular admission; see childrens-museum.org.

Treasure Hunt 25/09/18

Dear Donna,

I found this man’s ring in a box that belonged to my sister. I don’t believe it was hers. Possibly something she picked up along the way. It’s marked 14 KT inside. It also has a tiny diamond. Donna, can you give me any information on the value and where to go?

Shawn

Dear Shawn,

First, if the ring has no sentimental value, then I think it should be easy to sell.

Shawn, I think I would first bring it to a jeweler in your area to see what the value of the weight in gold is. I would then bring it to another to compare information.You need to feel comfortable with who you sell it to. I think the value will be in the gold, unless the maker is marked inside, which could make the ring more valuable. A jeweler will know that. The diamond chip is really of no significance to the value at this point.

It should be somewhere in the range of $200+ for scrap. Gold is high right now. This all depends on the weight of the ring.

Shawn, I hope this is helpful and you have good luck selling it. If you need a referral just reach out.

Thanks for sharing.

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