The Hippo: July 27, 2017

FEATURED FOOD - * COVER STORIES *

Varied Vanilla

Different Approaches to the Classic Flavor

Written By Angie Sykeny (asykeny@hippopress.com)

Images: Stock Photo

 

 

It’s often considered the most basic flavor, but there’s more to vanilla ice cream than you might think. Between the different methods of making it, combinations of ingredients and types of vanilla used, vanilla ice cream at one shop may taste very different from vanilla ice cream at another.

“Most people consider vanilla very boring, but sometimes it can be the best choice on the menu,” said Roni Vetter, owner and ice cream maker at Jake’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream and Bakery in Nashua.

Vetter says there are two main styles of vanilla ice cream: Philadelphia style and French vanilla.

Philadelphia style vanilla ice cream is made with cream, milk, sugar and vanilla extract or vanilla sugar.

“It creates that good, basic flavor,” Vetter said. “Most kids like it, it’s great for scoop shops that are using it for things like frappes and sundaes, and it’s great for people who have an egg allergy, because there are no eggs in it.”

French vanilla ice cream contains an egg or egg product base, which is cooked custard-style with the milk, cream, sugar and vanilla extract, sugar or beans.

“Some people swear by the French vanilla,” Vetter said. “They’re convinced that it’s a better ice cream because the egg gives it that yellowish or off-white color, and it makes it a little richer with that heavier texture. There’s a little more fat coating to the mouthfeel of it.”

Once the beans get hot enough to release the vanilla flavor, they’re scraped out of the pot, but often leave the tiny black specks in what’s known as vanilla bean ice cream.

Rick Wolstencroft, ice cream maker at Blake’s Creamery in Manchester, said Philadelphia style vanilla ice cream can also be made into a vanilla bean ice cream simply by sprinkling in ground up vanilla bean casings.

“It changes the texture and it enhances the appearance,” he said, “and it does add some flavor. You actually get some of the flavor from the bean itself.”
Rich Peyser, manager at Annabelle’s Natural Ice Cream in Portsmouth, said the amount of air in the ice cream also plays a part in the texture.

“The more air, the lighter and fluffier the ice cream,” he said. “The egg yolk [in French vanilla] already makes it a little richer and denser, and our ice cream is made with only 40 percent air, so you can’t just lick it; you literally have to chew it.”

A vanilla ice cream can taste different depending on the type of vanilla used. The three most widely used types, Vetter said, are Mexican, Tahitian and Madagascar vanilla.

Mexican vanilla tends to be lighter and sweeter, while Tahitian vanilla has a deeper richness and roasted flavor and Madagascar has a bit of acidity similar to chocolate.

When it comes to vanilla, much of the flavor actually comes from its aroma.

“It sounds weird, but the smell has a lot to do with the flavors that you taste,”

Vetter said, “and the aromas [of the different types of vanilla] are each very different.”

Another factor that can change the taste of a vanilla ice cream is the ratio of ingredients. Each ice cream maker uses a particular ratio to achieve their desired flavor and texture. Too much of any one ingredient can ruin the ice cream. For example, high amounts of cream can result in too much fat content, making the ice cream taste like “frozen butter,” Vetter said. High amounts of sugar can detract from the natural flavor of the vanilla.

“You want to be able to actually taste the product — the milk and cream and type of vanilla that’s in it,” she said. “If there’s too much sugar, the sugar is all you can taste.”

Delicious as it may be, ice cream with candy pieces, chunks of cookie or brownie or other add-ins can make it difficult to truly taste the ice cream itself. If you’re an ice cream lover and really want to gauge the quality of a homemade ice cream, a simple sweet cream or vanilla flavor is the best flavor to order.

“I say, always taste the place’s vanilla ice cream first, because it’s the base of so many other flavors, and if it has a really good vanilla, then you know the rest of the flavors will be good too,” Peyser said.
Its simplicity also makes it an ideal accompaniment for birthday cake, fruit pies and other desserts.

“Because it’s so neutral and crisp and refreshing, it enhances the flavors of so many desserts,” Wolstencroft said. “You wouldn’t put a chocolate ice cream on apple pie.”

 

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Beyond Plain or Sugar

Creative Cones Can Jazz Up your Ice Cream

Written By Ryan Lessard (news@hippopress.com)

Images: Courtesy Photo

 

 

Plain wafer and sugar cones are the go-tos for anyone who wants to enjoy their ice cream without a spoon, but for a special treat, waffle cones — especially homemade — can’t be beat.

 

Made by Hand

Hayward’s Ice Cream in Nashua makes its own waffle cones by hand right in the shop.

They’re bigger than regular cones, of course, but Hayward’s Manager John Bourgeois said they also smell better and have a better crunchy consistency.

Regular cones are made like wafers, fluffy and soft, while sugar cones are thin but hard and darker in color. Waffle cones, when made right, tend to straddle the line between too hard and too soft, and Bourgeois said their fresh-cooked aroma is a strong draw for customers.

They make about 400 to 500 waffle cones each day at Hayward’s, Bourgeois estimates, and they make about 30 to 40 waffle bowls as well.

Jordan’s Ice Creamery in Belmont and Laconia also makes its own waffle cones, and has started offering a new option as well: doughnut cones.

“It’s a cinnamon and sugar doughnut that is crafted as a cone,” Jordan’s Manager Alyssa Best said. “I think the doughnut cone is really kind of outside-the-box.”

She said both locations receive a fresh delivery of doughnut cones that are sold only on Sundays.

They’re made by Goody Good Donuts in Laconia.

Craig Parent, the owner of Goody Goods, said he and Jordan’s owner Craig Jordan teamed up to create the cones after hearing that people had seen the doughnut cones online. Jordan approached Parent and asked him if it was possible, and, after about a month and a half of experimenting — what Parent terms research and development — he figured out a way to do it.
He started making them a little over a year ago and makes about 50 to 60 cones, exclusively for Jordan’s for now, for each weekend delivery.

 

The Art of the Cone

Making waffle cones and doughnut cones is a delicate process, and getting it just right can prove difficult.

Bourgeois said waffle cones, like waffles, start with the batter. “We make our batter and we have four waffle cone machines that we crank up every day, every morning,” Bourgeois said. “It will come out as a flat sheet with the waffle imprint in it.”

They roll these sheets up on waffle cone rollers while they’re still hot and pliable and place them on a cooling rack.

To get it right, one has to strike the right balance with the batter, the temperature on the waffle iron and the timing for shaping them.

Firstly, Bourgeois said, it’s important not to put too much water or too little in the batter mix (which includes sugar, wheat, cake flour, dried egg and soybean). Otherwise, the color and consistency won’t be right.

If it comes out too light it will be too chewy, and if it comes out too dark it will likely be too brittle.

“You don’t want it looking burnt and you don’t want an albino cone,” Bourgeois said. “We try to go right in between that, where it’s a nice crunch.”

They cook it at just the right temperature for about a minute and pull the sheets off to be rolled into cones.

As for how doughnut cones are made, Parent keeps many of the details close to the chest.

“I just don’t want to give it out too much, myself, because as far as I know I’m the only one who makes them [in New Hampshire],” Parent said.

The basic process involves baking yeast dough wrapped around a cylinder with sugar and cinnamon poured on the outside.

The end result is a sort of spiral of dough roughly in the shape of a cone. Parent said it takes about two to two and a half hours to make a batch of cones.

“They’re kind of crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside,” Parent said. “They hold the ice cream well.”

 

Getting Fancy

While many local ice cream shops don’t make their own waffle cones, they often order plain waffle cones in bulk and fancy them up with their own ingredients. Granite State Candy Shoppe in Concord and Manchester, for example, adds a twist to cones by dipping the tops in melted chocolate and adding sprinkles, walnuts or other things like their own toffee, roasted nuts or toasted coconut.

Manager Tal Smith at Granite State Candy said they call it “fancy dipping.”

“We only do it with the waffle cones just because they interact with the chocolate a little bit better,” Smith said. “We have a chocolate-dipped M&M cone that’s really fun.”

 

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Local Licks

Where to Grab a Cool Treat

Written By Ryan Lessard (news@hippopress.com)

Images: Stock Photo

 

 

Here are some locally-owned independent ice cream shops. See what they have on their menus, including one cool flavor you might want to try. If your favorite local non-chain shop isn’t on here, let us know at food@hippopress.com.

• Annabelle’s Natural Ice Cream (49 Ceres St., Portsmouth, 436-3400, annabellesicecream.com) features more than a dozen original flavors of homemade ice cream using whole and skim milk, cane sugar, egg yolks and 16 percent butter fat. Annabelle’s is also served at The Beach Hut (1191 Ocean Boulevard, Rye, 294-0005, beachhutrye.com).
Try this flavor: New Hampshire’s Rocky Coast: Swiss chocolate ice cream with pecans, walnuts, chocolate-covered almonds and chocolate chunks in a light marshmallow swirl.

• Arnie’s Place (164 Loudon Road, Concord, 228-3225, arniesplace.com) opened in the summer of 1992 after operating formerly as a Friendly’s and then as a Dairy Queen. You’ll find dozens of flavors of homemade ice cream, as well as soft-serve options and homemade ice cream sundaes.
Try this flavor: Dinosaur Crunch: Vanilla ice cream tinted blue with swirls of fudge and chocolate crunch candies.

• Axel’s Food and Ice Cream (608 Daniel Webster Highway, Merrimack, 429-2229, axelsfoodandicecream.com) offers both premium hard and soft-serve ice cream flavors, with several options for toppings and housemade sundaes.
Try this flavor: Maine Black Bear: Red raspberry ice cream with dark chocolate raspberry truffles.

• Ballard’s Ice Cream, Sandwiches & More (7 Broadway, Concord, 225-5666, ballardsicecream.com) offers 53 different flavors of ice cream, as well as a variety of soy, no-sugar-added, soft-serve, sherbet and sorbet options.
Try this flavor: Midnight Caramel River: Golden vanilla and dark chocolate ice cream with swirls of caramel.

• The Beach Plum (24 Route 125, Epping, 679-3200; 17 Ocean Boulevard, North Hampton, 964-7451; Route 1, Portsmouth, 433-3339) has more than a dozen premium ice cream flavors both hard and soft-serve, and several low-fat and specialty sundae options.
Try this flavor: Chocolate Walnut Fudge: Chocolate ice cream with walnuts and swirls of fudge.

• Beech Hill Farm & Ice Cream Barn (107 Beech Hill Road, Hopkinton, 223-0828, beechhillfarm.com) offers more than 75 different flavors of of ice cream made by Blake’s Creamery and Gifford’s Ice Cream Stand in Maine.
Try this flavor: Jazzberry Java: Espresso ice cream with a raspberry swirl and chocolate-covered coffee beans.

• Beyond Vanilla Ice Cream (16 Main St., Hampstead, 329-5800, facebook.com/beyondvanillaicecream) opened in 2016 as a shop making dozens of its own creative homemade ice cream flavors.
Try this flavor: Speculoos: Cookie butter ice cream swirled with a brown cinnamon spiced sugar.

• The Big 1 (185 Concord St., Nashua, thebig1icecream.com) has been family-owned and -operated for 44 years and serves ice cream produced by Richardson’s in Middleton, Mass.
Try this flavor: Nor’easters: A blend of vanilla, chocolate or twist soft-serve ice cream with a mix of your choice of different toppings, including M&Ms, Oreos, raspberry truffles, peanut butter cups, brownie bits, chocolate-covered pretzels and more.

• Blake’s Restaurant & Ice Cream (353 S. Main St., Manchester, 669-0220; 53 Hooksett Road, Manchester, 627-1110, blakesicecream.com) produces more than 80 different flavors of premium ice cream. It’s also available at Beech Hill Farm and Ice Cream Barn (107 Beech Hill Road, Hopkinton, 223-0828, beechhillfarm.com), Chucksters (9 Bailey Road, Chichester, 798-3555, chuckstersnh.com), Countrybrook Farms Creamery (175 Lowell Road, Hudson, 886-5200, countrybrookfarms.com) and Devriendt Farm Stand (178 S. Mast St., Goffstown, 497-2793, devriendtfarm.com).
Try this flavor: Happy Trails Mix: Vanilla ice cream with a caramel sea salt swirl and a mix of raisins, peanuts, cashews, almonds and M&Ms.

• Bre’s Ice Creamery (259 E. Main St., East Hampstead, 974-2708, bresicecreamery.com) offers dozens of homemade traditional ice cream flavors, toppings and specialty flavors.
Try this flavor: Campfire S’mores: Toasted marshmallow-flavored ice cream with a graham cracker swirl and chocolate chunks.

• The Brick House Drive-In Restaurant (1391 Hooksett Road, Hooksett, 622-8091, bhrestaurant.net) offers 28 different flavors of Gifford’s hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream.
Try this flavor: Southern Peach: Peach-based ice cream with peach chunks.

• Center Scoop (17 Chester St., Chester, 887-4544, find them on Facebook) has a wide variety of ice creams, slush, beverages and more, offering different seasonal flavors throughout the year.
Try this flavor: Caramel Cashew Crunch: Vanilla ice cream with a swirl of caramel and cashews.

• Chuckster’s Family Fun Park (9 Bailey Road, Chichester, 798-3555, chuckstersnh.com) offers 36 flavors of Blake’s Creamery ice cream.
Try this flavor: Bear Claw: Dark chocolate ice cream filled with chocolate-coated cashews and swirled with a thick golden caramel.

• Clam Haven Restaurant (94 Rockingham Road, Derry, 434-4679, clamhaven.com)
Try this flavor: Blueberry Oat Crumble: Vanilla ice cream with blueberries, oats and a cinnamon swirl.

• Cowlicks Dairy Bar (4 Dover Point Road, Dover, 742-1230, cowlicksdairybar.com) offers dozens of original flavors of hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream, sorbet, sherbet, frozen yogurt and more.
Try this flavor: I Scream 4 Cake: Cake batter ice cream with yellow cake pieces, rainbow sprinkles and a blue frosting swirl.

• Countrybrook Farms (175 Lowell Road, Hudson, 886-5200, countrybrookfarms.com) serves dozens of flavors of Blake’s Creamery ice cream.
Try this flavor: Pistachio: Pistachio-flavored ice cream with pistachio pieces.

• Cremeland Drive-In (250 Valley St., Manchester, 669-4430, find them on Facebook) offers dozens of homemade hard-serve and soft-serve ice creams, and also carries frozen yogurt and sherbet made by Blake’s Restaurant & Ice Cream in Manchester.
Try this flavor: Strawberry Heath Bar: Strawberry ice cream with a swirl of fudge and Heath candy bar pieces.

• Devriendt Farm Stand and Ice Cream Shoppe (178 S. Mast St., Goffstown, 497-2793, devriendtfarm.com)
Try this flavor: Mullet Sundae: Peanut butter fudge ice cream with hot fudge, whipped cream and chunks of Reese’s peanut butter cups.

• Dipsy Doodle Dairy Bar (143 Park St., Northfield, 286-2100, dipsydoodle.com) offers more than a dozen hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream options, as well as several specialty seasonal flavors at any given time of the year.
Try this flavor: Fly Fishing Fudge: Vanilla ice cream with M&M’s, cookie dough bites, chocolate pieces and a fudge swirl.

• Findeisen’s Ice Cream (297 Derry Road, Hudson, 886-9422; 125 S. Broadway, Salem, 898-5411, find them on Facebook) offers more than 40 flavors of ice cream, yogurt, slush, frappes and more.
Try this flavor: Totally Turtle: Vanilla ice cream with a swirl of caramel and cashews.

• Frekeys Dairy Freeze (97 Suncook Valley Road, Chichester, 798-5443, find them on Facebook) offers more than 30 different flavors of Gifford’s hard-serve and soft-serve ice creams, in addition to sorbet, sherbet and frozen yogurt.
Try this flavor: Apple Pie: Apple ice cream with a swirl of apple pie filling and flaky pie crust pieces.

• Funway Park Country Ice Cream (454 Charles Bancroft Highway, Litchfield, 424- 2292, melsfunwaypark.com) has more than 30 different flavors of Gifford’s Ice Cream.
Try this flavor: Peanut Butter Pie: Vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cups and a peanut butter ripple.

• Goldenrod Restaurant Drive-In (1681 Candia Road, Manchester, 623-9469, goldenrodrestaurant.com) offers 36 flavors of homemade hard-serve and soft-serve ice creams.
Try this flavor: Butter Crunch: Butter and maple-flavored ice cream mixed with butter crunch pieces.

• Golick’s Dairy Bar (683 Calef Highway, Barrington, 664-9633; 17 Sawyer Ave., Rochester, 330-3244, golicksdairybar.com) was originally known as the Princess Dairy, serving a few soft-serve flavors. Today, it has expanded to include more than 75 flavors and several specialty options like non-dairy, sugar-free and more.
Try this flavor: Black Magic Cheesecake: Mocha cream cheese cheesecake ice cream swirled with chocolate cookie crumbs.

• Granite State Candy Shoppe (832 Elm St., Manchester, 218-3885; 13 Warren St., Concord, 225-2591, granitestatecandyshoppe.com) has dozens of ice cream flavors and specialty sundae options.
Try this flavor: Chocolate Scooby-Doo: Chocolate ice cream swirled with peanut butter sauce.

• Greaney’s Farm Stand (417 John Stark Highway, Weare, 529-1111, find them on Facebook) has more than two dozens of flavors of hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream.
Try this flavor: Chocolate Moose Tracks: Chocolate ice cream with a swirl of fudge and chocolate peanut butter cups.

• Hayward’s Homemade Ice Cream (7 Daniel Webster Highway, Nashua, 888-4663; 383 Elm St., Milford, 672-8383, haywardsicecream.com) has offered dozens of flavors of homemade hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream, sorbet, frozen yogurt, sundaes and more since 1940.
Try this flavor: Polar Cave: Vanilla ice cream with a fudge swirl and chocolate caramel cups.

• The Haven Restaurant (272 Calef Highway, Epping, 679-1427, havenfood.com) has more than 20 different flavors from Gifford’s and Richardson’s Ice Cream.
Try this flavor: Cookie Batter Collision: Golden vanilla ice cream with fudge chips and chocolate fudge swirl.

• Hawksie’s Ice Cream Fac-torri (146 Main St., Salem, 890-0471, find them on Facebook) has more than 100 different flavors of hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream, including 80 from Richardson’s.
Try this flavor: Graham Central Station: Graham cracker ice cream with a graham cracker swirl and chocolate-dipped honeycomb pieces.

• Ilsley’s Ice Cream (33 S. Sugar Hill Road, Weare, 529-6455, find them on Facebook) offers more than a dozen homemade traditional and specialty ice cream flavors.
Try this flavor: Grasshopper Pie: Mint ice cream with Oreo cookie chunks and a fudge swirl.

• The Inside Scoop (260 Wallace Road, Bedford, 471-7009, theinsidescoopnh.com) serves Richardson’s Ice Cream and offers several traditional and specialty seasonal flavors.
Try this flavor: Bedford Blast: Your choice of ice cream mixed with two toppings, which include hot fudge, marshmallows, Reese’s peanut butter cups, M&Ms, strawberries, gummy bears and more.

• Izzy’s Frozen Yogurt & Ice Cream (33 Bow St., Portsmouth, 431-1053, izzysfrozenyogurtandicecreamnh.com) has been in business for more than 20 years and offers dozens of flavors of homemade hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream and frozen yogurt.
Try this flavor: Death by Chocolate: Dark chocolate ice cream with a milk chocolate swirl, chocolate chips and chocolate fudge brownies.

• Jake’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream & Bakery (594-2424, jakesoldfashionedicecream.com) is based in Nashua and has products available in several locations in the Granite State, including Amherst, Bedford, Concord, Goffstown, Raymond and others.
Try this flavor: Caramel Assault: Caramel ice cream with dark chocolate and salted caramel swirls.

• Jay Gee’s Ice Cream (327 S. Broadway, Salem, 458-1167, jaygees.com) has more than 60 homemade hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream flavors.
Try this flavor: Rocky Road: Chocolate ice cream with nuts and marshmallows.

• Johnson’s Seafood & Steak (1334 First New Hampshire Turnpike, Northwood, 942-7300, eatatjohnsons.com) serves more than a dozen flavors of ice cream, frozen yogurt, sorbet and sherbert.
Try this flavor: Muddy Boots: Vanilla ice cream with a caramel ripple and brownie bits.

• Jordan’s Ice Creamery (894 Laconia Road, Belmont, 267-1900; 593 Endicott St. North, Laconia, 366-5900, Find them on Facebook) makes more than 350 flavors of specialty ice cream between the two locations.
Try this flavor: Uncomfortable Amount of Chocolate: Chocolate ice cream with chocolate fudge brownies, peanut butter cups and a chocolate cookie swirl.

• Kimball Farm (158 Turnpike Road, Jaffrey, 532-5765, kimballfarm.com) has been offering more than 50 flavors of homemade ice cream since 1939. In addition to its regular flavors, several seasonal flavors are offered at several varying times of the year, as well as sorbet, sherbet, frozen yogurt and sugar-free options.
Try this flavor: Peanut Butter Butterfinger: Peanut butter ice cream mixed with Butterfinger candy bar pieces.

• King Kone (336 Daniel Webster Highway, Merrimack, 420-8312, find them on Facebook) has dozens of different flavors of soft-serve ice cream that are rotated out consistently on a weekly basis. There is the traditional vanilla, chocolate and twist, but other options include strawberry, cake batter, peanut butter, lemon and more in soft-serve form.
Try this flavor: Reese’s Twist: A blend of peanut butter- and chocolate-flavored soft-serve ice creams.

• Lago’s Ice Cream (71 Lafayette Road, Rye, 964-9880, lagosicecream.com) has more than 30 flavors of traditional and specialty hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream, as well as frozen yogurt, sherbet, no-sugar-added options and more.
Try this flavor: Salty Sailor: Salted caramel ice cream with chocolate-covered pretzels.

• Lang’s Ice Cream (510 Pembroke St., Pembroke, 225-7483, find them on Facebook) has more than a dozen traditional flavors of hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream.
Try this flavor: Walnut Fudge: Dark chocolate ice cream with a blend of walnuts.

• Lix Ice Cream Parlor (95 River Road, Hudson, 883-9300; 55 Charles Bancroft Highway, Litchfield, 438-4797, find them on Facebook) offers more than 50 flavors of ice cream, frappes, milkshakes, sundaes and more, and is known for its banana splits and delivering to parts of Hudson, Nashua, and Tyngsboro and North Chelmsford, Mass.
Try this flavor: German Chocolate Cake: Chocolate coconut ice cream with brownies and a caramel swirl.

• Mack’s Apples (230 Mammoth Road, Londonderry, 434-7619, macksapples.com) is an eighth-generation farm run by the Mack family that serves Richardson’s Ice Cream at its ice cream stand.
Try this flavor: Crunch-a-Saurus: Blue vanilla ice cream with pieces of Nestle Crunch bars.

• Memories Ice Cream (95 Exeter Road, Kingston, 642-3737, memoriesicecream.com) is a wholesale and retail ice cream shop that offers more than 35 different flavors of premium hard-serve and soft-serve ice creams, as well as frozen yogurt, sorbet and sherbet.
Try this flavor: Coffee Cookies and Cream: Coffee ice cream mixed with cookies and cream pieces.

• Moo’s Place Homemade Ice Cream (27 Crystal Ave., Derry, 425-0100; 15 Ermer Road, Salem, 898-0199, moosplace.com) has more than a dozen flavors of hard-serve and soft-serve ice creams, as well as various sundae, frozen yogurt and slush options.
Try this flavor: Strawberry Shortcake a la Moo: One scoop of your choice of ice cream, fresh bisquit, strawberries, whipped cream, walnuts and a cherry.

• Peach Tree Farms (88 Brady Ave., Salem, 893-7119, find them on Facebook) has more than 30 different flavors of Richardson’s Ice Cream.
Try this flavor: Coffee Oreo: Coffee flavored ice cream with Oreo cookie pieces swirled in.

• Pete’s Scoop (187 Rockingham Road, Derry, 434-6366, petesscoop.com) has more than 60 flavors of hard-serve ice cream, 95 percent fat-free yogurt, fresh smoothies and more.
Try this flavor: Frozen Pudding: Rum-based ice cream with raisins, pineapples, maraschino cherries, apples and peaches.

• The Puritan Backroom Restaurant (245 Hooksett Road, Manchester, 669-6890, puritanbackroom.com) has more than 30 traditional and specialty homemade ice creams offered in three sizes, as well as options to upgrade your selection to a sundae or a banana split.
Try this flavor: Cherry Seinfeld: Black cherry ice cream with black cherries and chocolate chips.

• Richardson’s Farm (170 Water St., Boscawen, 796-2788, richardsonsfarmnh.com) makes its own super-premium ice cream in a variety of traditional and specialty flavors.
Try this flavor: Butter Rum Toffee: Butter rum-flavored ice cream with butter toffee pieces.

• Sanctuary Dairy Farm Ice Cream (209 Route 103, Sunapee, icecreamkidbeck.com) is owned by 10th-generation dairy farmers and offers a wide variety of original hard-serve, soft-serve, dairy-free, sugar-free and low-fat ice cream options.
Try this flavor: Caramel Cashew Chocolate Chip: Caramel-flavored ice cream with chunks of Belcolade chocolate and roasted cashew pieces.

• Stillwells Ice Cream (160 Plaistow Road, Plaistow; NH-27, Raymond, 382-5655, Find them on Facebook)
Try this flavor: Blueberry Pie: Vanilla ice cream with a blueberry swirl.

• Twin Lanterns Dairy Bar (239 Amesbury Road, Kensington, 394-7021, find them on Facebook) offers dozens of flavors of traditional and specialty hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream.
Try this flavor: Cookie Monster: Vanilla ice cream tinted blue with chocolate chip cookie pieces and chocolate chips.

• The Velvet Moose Ice Cream Shoppe (25 E. Main St., Warner, 456-2511, find them on Facebook) has 32 flavors of ice cream and also offers frappes, sundaes, banana splits and more.
Try this flavor: Whoopie Pie: Vanilla ice cream with chunks of homemade whoopie pie broken into it.

FEATURED NEWS

Working for Medicaid

How a New Work Requirement Might Affect Recipients

Written By Ryan Lessard (news@hippopress.com)

Images: Courtesy Photo

 

 

If a work requirement proposal is approved by the federal government, thousands of Granite Staters could find it harder to keep their Medicaid health insurance.

An amendment to the state budget trailer bill, HB 517, included a work requirement attached to expanded Medicaid. Now that the budget has been signed into law, the state must receive a waiver from the federal government to allow such a requirement to be enforced.

Researchers say if such a plan is approved and implemented, it could impact about 30 percent of Medicaid recipients and it would disproportionately affect vulnerable communities.

“We found, like in much of the existing research, about three in 10 Medicaid recipients might be affected by a work requirement and we found that that share is actually similar across rural and urban places,” said Jessica Carson, a researcher at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.

The research looks at Medicaid recipients nationwide.

Currently, there are about 52,300 adults enrolled in the expanded Medicaid program, according to Phil Sletten, policy analyst at the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute. If 30 percent of those are affected, that would mean more than 15,600 people could be forced to work more or lose their coverage.

“We’re talking about folks who work some of the year. They either worked part of the year, not 52 weeks straight, or they worked fewer than 20 hours [per week] year-round,” Carson said.
The rules proposed for New Hampshire would require recipients to work a minimum of 20 hours a week each week in the first year, 25 hours in the second year and 30 hours by the third.

 

Exceptions

Still, Sletten said there are some exceptions to the rule.

“If sufficient private sector employment in not available, then the requirement can be fulfilled with work experience. The example that’s provided in statute is refurbishing of public assisted housing,” Sletten said.

The requirement can also be met with job search assistance, job readiness assistance, vocational training or job skill training. The recipient would have to meet the same hourly requirement with these programs or a combination of these programs and hours from work.

Carson said the work requirements proposed around the country often disproportionately affect people with less education, women and racial and ethnic minorities. It can also prove difficult for people who are caring for children, parents, spouses or other family members who have disabilities.

In New Hampshire, Sletten said, there would be exemptions for caretakers if a licensed health care professional considers the care to be required and there are no other caretakers available.
Medicaid is offered to caregivers of a child under age 6.

Many expanded Medicaid recipients in New Hampshire are using the coverage to receive substance use disorder treatment, which many treatment providers and advocates say has been a game-changer.

While it’s unclear whether substance use disorder would qualify, exemptions can be granted to individuals on a case-by-case basis if a certified health professional affirms they are temporarily unable to fulfill the work requirements.

There’s also an exemption for folks enrolled in a state-certified drug court program.

The work requirements only apply to “able-bodied adults” as defined by the federal government.

 

Possible Side Effects

Carson said the new rules, if approved, would mean an additional administrative cost for the state in order to enforce a work requirement.

“Somebody has to check that. Somebody has to enforce that,” Carson said.

Caregivers with older children may need to start paying for child care.

“If someone is receiving health insurance through [expanded Medicaid] and their child changes in age from 5 to 6 and then they may not be eligible for the exemptions … that may impose some costs on them,” Sletten said.

And, more generally, creating an extra task for poorer people to perform in order to keep their insurance may be more complicated than it seems on the face of it.

“Given that low-income workers regularly face job instability, tracking and approving periods of inconsistent employment could be cumbersome,” Carson said.

If someone fails to get extra work or fill the gap with other programs like job training, they’ll lose their coverage. That, Carson said, could result in the opposite of what the expanded Medicaid program set out to do and result in less employment rather than more.

“People who are in good health are more likely to work and people who work are in better health,” Carson said.

 

Background

The work requirement was something the state GOP wanted since the legislature first created its own expanded Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act, called the New Hampshire Health Protection Program. It was included in the most recent reauthorization of the program, but the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services denied that waiver request.

“[CMS] said that these [requirements] would not improve health outcomes or coverage for low-income individuals or increase access to providers. So it wouldn’t further the objective of the Medicaid program,” Sletten said.

But that was during the Obama administration. Now, the Trump administration is widely believed to be friendlier to the idea of a work requirement.

“The legislators who forwarded this amendment and advocated for it to be in the budget, some of those legislators expressed publicly that they believed that the new administration may be more open to having work requirements in the Medicaid program than the prior administration,” Sletten said.

In the previous reauthorization bill, the continuation of the program did not hinge on the approval of the work requirements. But it does now. If CMS denies the request again by April 30, 2018, letters will be sent immediately to expanded Medicaid recipients stating the program will end by Dec. 31, 2018.

However, that is the existing sunset date for the program already. The legislature will likely revisit the program and have an opportunity to reauthorize it to extend past that date regardless of the ruling on work requirements.

FEATURED ARTS

Summer Fun

MAA Artist of the Year Keeps Busy with Art Shows and Antiquing

Written By Kelly Sennott (ksennott@hippopress.com)

Images: Courtesy Photo

 

 

When you’re named Manchester Artists Association’s Artist of the Year, you get to display a painting at E.W. Poore for an entire year. But 2017 award-winner James O’Donnell has a busy summer ahead — he likely won’t choose a piece till September.

During a recent interview at the Carol Rines Center, the Hooksett painter was hanging art for the Manchester Trolley Tour. After that, he’d head to shows in Newburyport, Mass., Portland, Maine, and then MAA’s Art in the Park Aug. 26 in Merrimack. Most free Saturdays and Sundays will be spent scouring antique shops, yard sales and flea markets with his partner for the antiques business they run.

But busy is how he prefers summer. It’s his favorite season, evident in the subjects he paints. He’d much rather keep moving during the warm months, then scoot to his upstairs painting studio in the winter.

“Somebody pointed out to me — and I never really noticed it — that almost all my paintings have some kind of water in there somewhere, or they’re near the water,” O’Donnell said. “I like seeing the way the light hits it.”

His paintings in the one-day Trolley Tour show on July 20 featured a few beach and water scenes, a rickety old boat inspired by a trip to Prince Edward Island, and Red’s Eats, an iconic Maine food shack known for its lobster rolls.

Though he always considered himself to be creative, O’Donnell didn’t begin painting seriously until retiring in 2006 at age 57, at which time he and his partner flew to Florida for the winter. On a whim, he signed up for a watercolor painting class. He became hooked instantly and has since studied at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, the Kimball Jenkins School of Art and E.W. Poore. In 2014 he joined the MAA, and he currently serves as its secretary.

O’Donnell said he loves piling his minivan with paintings and a 10-foot by 10-foot white tent and meeting other artists at art shows. Considering he only began painting full-time 10 years ago, he’s done very well; it turns out, coastal and water scenes are popular among local art shoppers.

“Sometimes, it’s like, I’ll do two paintings and then I’ll sell three. … It’s almost like I have to run to keep up,” said O’Donnell, whose favorite medium is oil. “It’s very forgiving. It doesn’t dry very fast, and you can just move it around and change it until it’s right.”

He partially credits the MAA for this success, which currently boasts about 100 members, many of whom he admires for their talent and guidance. They’ve been very giving with advice, through the organization’s monthly meetings and otherwise.

“It does sometimes feel like I’m playing catch-up. I’ll never be as good as the people who started [younger],” he said. “It’s got some really talented artists.”

 

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Upcoming NH shows for O’Donnell

MAA Art in the Park: Saturday, Aug. 26, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Watson Park, 441 DW Highway, Merrimack, manchesterartists.com
2017 Art in the Park: Saturday, Sept. 2, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 3, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Ashuelot River Park, West St., Keene, monadnockareaartists.org

 

More James O’Donnell  -  jamesodonnellartist.com

FEATURED MUSIC

Graduation

Twisted Pine Moves from Berklee to Bigger Stages

Written By Michael Witthaus (mwitthaus@hippopress.com)

Images: Courtesy Photo

 

 

Jim Olsen has amazing ears; his record label, Signature Sounds, was a first home to Grammy winner Lori McKenna, Josh Ritter, Crooked Still and Lake Street Dive, among others. When he heard Twisted Pine playing at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, he sensed something special.

Most of the band was still in college, studying in the Berklee American Roots Music program, but “it was clear that they had tremendous instrumental talents and a lot of charisma,” Olsen said. He began watching them, offering guidance.

Olsen’s attention sparked a turning point for Twisted Pine, who were up to that point focused on traditional bluegrass, delivered with breathtaking precision and dexterity.

“It was about having fun and playing this music that we loved,” mandolin player Dan Bui said in a recent interview.

Knowing there was interest from a label with Signature’s cachet made them pledge to forge their own sound. This resolve accelerated when banjo player Ricky Mier departed, wanting to stick with traditional music.

“A creative evolution,” Bui said. “We were left with a four-piece and when that happened it opened up a lot more possibilities for us. ... We had more space to operate and freedom to explore this new original music and and create this new sound.”

Bui discovered the mandolin while watching Sam Bush play bluegrass on an all-star Austin City Limits that also featured Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, Vassar Clements and Bryan Sutton.  “That inspired me to grab my mandolin and dig in deeper,” he said.

When the Texas native arrived in Boston, he began meeting fellow travelers right away.

“Hanging out at the Cantab, it became an obsession for all of us,” he said. “That’s kind of what the band was at first — all of us doing our best to learn as much as we could.”

The group’s eponymous debut CD is a breakthrough effort rivaling first albums from Nickel Creek and Crooked Still, a melting pot of influences played by a band that seems to mature with every note. With fiddler Kathleen Parks, bass player Chris Sartori, guitarist Rachel Sumner and Bui, Twisted Pine is a force to be reckoned with.

“The band has grown in leaps and bounds and are ready to make a big impact on the roots music world,” Olsen said.

Given their rapid rise, it’s a bit surprising that most of the band managed to complete Berklee degree programs. Quite often, that path leads from college to a lifelong internship — otherwise known as a music career.

“I did graduate, Kathleen also graduated and Rachel didn’t complete her program but she moved on,” Bui said. Sartori attended UMass-Lowell. “We like to say we’re done with Berklee. Whether that means we graduated or not, we finished.”

One of the best songs on the new record, “21 and Rising,” was actually born in a Berklee classroom.

“Kathleen wrote that as an assignment,” Bui said. “She collaborated with Lily Lyme and recorded a demo of it ... which she brought to the band. Once we learned it, we evolved and added things, expanded, worked on rhythmic feels. It kind of turns from a standard bluegrass song into more spacey sections in the end.”

Other songs were found in myriad ways. Bui and Sumner locked themselves in a room and traded ideas to come up with “Hold On,” a swinging love song that kicks off the record.

“That was one of the first songs that became a song for our band, where we went, ‘this is pretty cool and we should keep doing this,’” Bui said.

“Hog Wild” is one of Bui’s favorites, an instrumental tune written by Parks that came alive in the studio.

“We played it live a bunch but in the studio we were trying to figure out how we wanted to capture it,” Bui said. “What happened on the record is a very spontaneous performance, and I like it for that reason.”

This process promises more great things.

“We’re still learning how to write together,” he said. “In that process we are learning from each other [and finding] the best way to get the song across.”

 

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Twisted Pine (opening for Sierra Hull)

When: Saturday, July 29, 8 p.m.
Where: 3S Artspace, 319 Vaughan St., Portsmouth
Tickets: $30 at 3sarts.org

FEATURED FILM

Film Review

Dunkirk (PG-13)

Written By Amy Diaz (adiaz@hippopress.com)

Images: Movie Screenshot

 

 

British and other Allied soldiers await evacuation from France by sea, with the German army on its way, in Dunkirk, a “you are there” approach to this moment during World War II from Christopher Nolan.

The movie follows three stories: men stuck on the beaches at Dunkirk trying to find a spot on a boat; a small civilian boat crossing the English Channel to join the naval evacuation effort, and pilots sent out as part of the limited air cover for the evacuating soldiers. The stories unfold in different timelines (explained with onscreen text) — a week with the men on the beach, a day with the boat and an hour with the pilots. We bounce between the three plots, which, at points, intersect.

At the beach, lines of scared, exhausted soldiers wait to get on a limited number of ships. We follow soldiers played by Fionn Whitehead, Aneurin Barnard and others as they look for a way onto a boat.

At sea, the owner (Mark Rylance) of a small boat, his son (Tom Glynn-Carney) and his son’s friend (Barry Keoghan) set sail for Dunkirk (Navy officers are about to requisition the boat but Rylance’s character is determined to be at the helm). Soon they find themselves fishing men out of the water and facing enemy fire from the air.

In a dogfight with that enemy are Farrier (Tom Hardy) and Collins (Jack Lowden). They are two of a relatively small number of planes covering the ships crossing the channel and the men on the beach.
Back on the beach is Navy officer Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh), who we go to for the state of the situation: the sudden pause in the German advance is the main reason the Allies have not yet been overrun; the geography of the coast is making evacuation difficult; Churchill is just hoping to evacuate enough of the army to have something left to defend the homeland, and most of the Navy and Air Force will not be sailing/flying to the rescue because they are being held back for the battle for Britain.

Dunkirk is good at conveying the feelings men in this situation might have — the mix of endless waiting and fear. Read the history of the evacuation of Dunkirk and you get the big picture idea of the troops doing this and Churchill ordering that. Here, you see individual men and their attempts to make it through the week. Without being melodramatic, the movie gets to the high drama of the situation, even when that situation involves long stretches of guys just sitting around.

Because of the structure, the movie is also able to give us a lot of individual stories and do it very quickly. Without much backstory, we’re able to get the basics of the characters and their motivations and experiences.

The structure is not, however, a complete success. Something about the way this story is told, for me, actually sucked some of the energy out of this fraught, fascinating part of history. Perhaps because I found myself spending time on the relationships of the storylines (and their timelines) to each other, I felt, at times, impatient with stretches of the movie. The war and the Dunkirk evacuation don’t need a lot of self-conscious storytelling business. And the mix of scenes and plots here — the up-close, hear-the-breaths scenes of two guys try to sneak onto a ship and the more straightforward “Prof. Kenneth Branagh’s Expositional History Minute” scenes, for example — are occasionally clunky.

I did not love this movie the way that some reviewers I’ve read or heard apparently did (avoiding reviews has been futile for this movie; I agree with some commentators on the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast that Dunkirk might require a second viewing, both to get past the structure and the hype). I liked it, but it has flaws. But by the end of the movie, Dunkirk does tell a fairly coherent story, with a final stretch that helps to pull the movie together.

Grade: B

FEATURED POP

A Monster & A Message

New Kids' Book an Adventure in Acceptance

Written By Kelly Sennott (ksennott@hippopress.com)

Images: Courtesy Photo

 

 

Maine author and illustrator Chris Van Dusen has loved drawing since he was a kid, when his preferred subjects were aliens, robots and monsters.

So it’s fitting that his latest book, Hattie & Hudson, published in May by Candlewick Press, features a gigantic sea beast that resembles a mix between the Loch Ness Monster, an elasmosaurus (water dinosaur) and a Labrador retriever (a breed he says has “the most expressive eyes”). Some early sketches were too goofy, some too scary. But more important than the illustrations is the story behind them.

“It’s a book about not judging by appearances,” said Van Dusen, who reads the book at Gibson’s Bookstore Saturday, July 29, at 11 a.m.

Hattie & Hudson follows the unlikely friendship between a girl, Hattie, and the town’s lake monster, Hudson, who’s stirred by her singing and lured to the surface for the first time in decades. The townspeople are terrified of Hudson, so Hattie only visits in the middle of the night — until the two decide to concoct a plan in hopes of showing everyone his true, kind nature.

Van Dusen said the location was inspired by the lake he spent summers on as a kid in southwestern Maine, where his family swam, boated, water skied and snorkeled, and where he always imagined a monster lurked deep beneath the surface. He also referenced the lake near his home in Camden, Maine, to create the underwater paintings.

“I love painting underwater scenes,” he said. “Everybody thinks underwater is blue because that’s what they see when they see a lake, but if you’re snorkeling, you can see a lot of the lakes in Maine or northern New England have this olive-y green color.”

Many readers have commented the one in Hattie & Hudson resembles Lake Winnipesaukee. Others have told him the story’s message — on acceptance and sticking up for those who are different — is timely, considering the recent travel ban.

Van Dusen’s the author and illustrator of many, children’s books, including The Circus Ship and Randy Riley’s Really Big Hit; some of his best-known titles are the ones he illustrated for the Mercy Watson series with author Kate DiCamillo.

“When I write a book, my criteria is very simple. I just think to myself, is this a book I would have enjoyed when I was 6 years old? … Does it have the adventures and the characters that would have sparked my imagination?” he said. “I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night, but … I have this deep recollection of things from my childhood, and that helps when I’m writing children’s books.”

The paintings are done in gouache and rendered tightly with detail. One illustration, when the monster emerges from the water a second time, has no words at all, requiring the reader to tip the book vertically. This page used to have text, until he and his editor decided it was more dramatic without. The first draft of this book was also written in verse, like all his others.

“I tried to work in the rhyme, but it seemed forced. I finally realized it was the tone of the story. All my other books are much more humorous, and this isn’t quite as funny,” he said. “I was trying to force a whimsical rhyme on a book that really wanted to be taken more seriously.”

Hattie & Hudson is also his first picture book with a female protagonist. This is mostly due to something he heard when he first began writing — that girls will read books with boy protagonists, but boys are more reluctant to read those with girl protagonists.

“I’m not sure that’s 100 percent true, but I think there is some truth to it. When I grew up, you didn’t find boys reading Nancy Drew. They were reading The Hardy Boys,” Van Dusen said. “It did sort of scare me a little bit. I didn’t want to lose half the population [of readers].”

But during school visits, kids kept asking him, where are the girls in his books? And so finally, he created this brave little girl named Hattie. Since its release, he’s seen many young boys at signings, which he’s happy to see.

“I’m proud of this story,” he said. “I think it’s sort of an adventure with a really nice message.”

 

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Storytime with Chris Van Dusen

Where: Gibson’s Bookstore, 45 S. Main St., Concord, gibsonsbookstore.com, 224-0562
When: Saturday, July 29, at 11 a.m.
Contact: chrisvandusen.com