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Food: A Year of Food News
FEATURED FOOD
A Year of Food News
Trends, Tastings & More From 2016
Written By Ryan Lessard (news@hippopress.com)
Images: Courtesy Photo
New Hampshire has seen some interesting new food trends over the past year. Some were short-lived (remember Pokemon Go bar crawls?), but others like canned beer and food truck festivals seem like they’re here to stay. Here’s a look at some of the trends that helped shape New Hampshire’s food scene in 2016, plus some highlights from the local restaurant world and beverage industry.
What’s New for Food
One continuing trend this year was food trucks and food truck festivals.
The city of Nashua had its first annual Nashua Food Truck Festival in October.
The festival’s organizer, Michael Aquino, said he believes people are attracted to the specialty food experience that food trucks offer that isn’t always available at regular restaurants.
“I think we’re going to start to see it more,” he told the Hippo in October. “I know some local people looking to get into the food truck scene, and hopefully [the festival] paves the way for more of that kind of thing around here.”
In October, the New Hampshire Food Truck Festival returned for its third year at Redhook Brewery in Portsmouth and featured more than 20 food trucks. There were all kinds of food offered, including tacos, barbecue, sandwiches, ethnic dishes and sweet treats.
Janet Prensky, spokesperson for Food Truck Festivals of America, said food trucks have been on a steady upswing.
“Back in the day, there was a stigma around food truck foods because they weren’t the gourmet products that they are today,” she said. “Now it’s popular, and I think when we started we weren’t sure if it was a trend or just a fad, but we realize now that it’s a trend that’s here to stay.”
The local food scene also saw the rise of new subscription services like Spiced Up (spicedup.rocks), which delivers a monthly box of hand-selected spices; Local Baskit (localbaskit.com), which delivers meal kits with fresh, pre-measured local ingredients; and Calcutta Curry (calcuttacurry.com), which offers weekly delivery of healthy, home-style Indian meals. All Real Meal (allrealmeal.com), a subscription that delivers gluten-free, paleo and vegan meals, has been around for a few years but took a big step forward when it made its cauliflower-based pizza crust, One Crust, its first product to be available on the national market.
Local Baskit founder Beth Richards told the Hippo in June that meal delivery subscriptions have been trending nationally for several years but there was a need for more local services to provide fresher foods and faster, more flexible delivery.
“The concept is taking the food industry by storm,” she said. “It gives the person who wants to support local farms that convenience of not having to think about what to make for dinner.”
Restaurant Recap
Many restaurants opened additional locations or announced plans for additional locations to come in 2017. Manchester gourmet macaroni and cheese restaurant Mr. Mac’s (497 Hooksett Road, mr-macs.com) announced its plans to franchise and open as many as three new locations in southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts within the next several years, one of which already opened this year in Portsmouth (2600 Lafayette Road). Others include Giorgio’s Ristorante, which opened a third location in Manchester (270 Granite St., 232-3323, giorgios.com) to join its locations in Merrimack and Milford; and Pasquale’s in Candia, which opened a new sister eatery, Pasquale’s Restaurant, in Londonderry (87 Nashua Road, 587-0028, pasqualeristorantenh.com).
The Queen City welcomed a number of new restaurants including the third restaurant from Tidewater Catering Group, Unity Cafe (3 Sundial Ave., Manchester, 782-7325, unitycafe.com), new American fusion restaurant Gale Motor Co. Eatery (36 Lowell St., Manchester, 232-7059, galemotoreatery.com); and The Birch on Elm (931 Elm St., Manchester, 782-5365, facebook.com/thebirchonelm), which focuses on hand-crafted cocktails and globally inspired cuisine.
Manchester also said farewell to UnWine’d Key West Cafe & Grille on Second Street and Elm Street eateries Queen’s Pub and Grille, Funktion Spirits & Spoonfuls and Finesse Pastries (which moved to Boston). Cajun restaurant N’awlins Grille closed its Elm Street doors but announced plans to reopen in downtown Nashua.
Some notable new spaces opened, like A&E Coffee & Tea’s Sunporch Bistro (135 Route 101A, Amherst, 578-3338; find them on Facebook), which offers specialty coffees and teas as well as an expanded food menu and a focus on sit-down service. The Grand at Bedford Village Inn (2 Olde Bedford Way, Bedford, 472-2001, bedfordvillageinn.com) unveiled its new Lobby Bar in June, a relaxed space with a menu of creative small plates like duck corn dogs and truffle popcorn. “[We wanted] to create a different kind of experience for people … [and] to set a distinction for the Lobby Bar in terms of the culinary side of things,” BVI President Jack Carnevale told the Hippo in August. “It’s not a place to have a sit-down meal with one course after another. It’s more of a fun menu. It’s fun to go through the selections and put things together and experience different tastes.”
Beverage Highlights
In 2016, the New Hampshire Liquor Commission opened new Liquor & Wine Outlets in Epping, Plymouth, Pembroke, New Hampton, Londonderry and Seabrook, as well as a flagship store in Nashua, which is the largest liquor store in northern New England, according to a press release from the NHLC.
There was good news for beer and wine vendors when new legislation effective as of August allowed those participating in farmers markets to provide samples of their products.
New Hampshire’s brewery scene saw all kinds of growth, including new brewery openings like Pipe Dream Brewing (49 Harvey Road, Londonderry, facebook.com/pipedreambrewing), Lithermans Limited Brewery (126 B Hall St., Concord, lithermans.beer), Millyard Brewery (25 E. Otterson St., Nashua, millyardbrewery.com) and others.
There were new opportunities for beer enthusiasts to engage with the local brewery scene, like the New Hampshire Beer Club (nhmagazine.com/nh-beer-club), a monthly gathering at New England’s Tap House Grille in Hooksett where members can meet brewers, sample beer and enjoy food and beer pairings. There’s also the recently opened Flight Center (97 Main St., Nashua, flightcenterbc.com) a craft beer cafe with 48 local brews on tap, an accompanying bottle shop and special events like tastings, beer dinners and promotional nights with brewers. In June, Anheuser-Busch Brewery and Tour Center (221 Daniel Webster Highway, Merrimack, 595-1202) opened a social space of its own called The Biergarten, which features 14 beers on tap, a light food menu and an outdoor patio with fire pits.
What’s New for Beer & Wine
One of the growing trends in beer this year was cans. Since investing in a canning line late last year, White Birch Brewing in Hooksett spent much of 2016 transitioning from bottles to cans. Kelsen Brewing in Derry has also been working toward making more beers available in cans, and Stark Brewing Co. in Manchester launched a new line of cans this past fall.
Scott Thornton, founder of Great Rhythm Brewing Co. in Portsmouth, talked with the Hippo in August about why he decided to offer beer exclusively in cans.
“From our perspective, cans are a really good package for beer. It acts like a mini keg, keeps out the light and oxygen and keeps the beer the freshest-tasting,” he said. “And for hiking or concerts at outdoor venues, places that don’t allow glass typically allow cans. … We’d hate for people to be limited because [our beer] can’t travel where they want to go.”
Also popular this year were workshops and classes pairing beer and wine tastings with yoga. There’s the monthly Bend & Brew at Pipe Dream Brewing in Londonderry, the weekly Yoga at Throwback at Throwback Brewery in North Hampton, and sporadic Yoga in the Vineyard workshops at LaBelle Winery in Amherst, along with many other one-time workshops hosted by various venues throughout the year.
Michelle Fabbrini, owner of Zin-Zen Yoga in Bedford, talked with the Hippo in March about her studio’s weekly Yoga+Wine classes and about beginning a partnership with 603 Brewery of Londonderry to host periodic Asanas and Ales classes.
“Both yoga and craft breweries are trending and growing businesses, so I think it’s a cool aspect to merge the two,” she said. “In addition to the physical practice [of yoga], it helps you unwind and find a place of more peace and relaxation.”
A Year In the Kitchen
This year’s In the Kitchen Q&A series featured a variety of food personalities including chefs, bakers, coffee roasters, chocolatiers and more. A commonly asked question was, “What’s the biggest local food trend right now?,” to which the most popular answer was gluten-free cuisine. Many chefs said they currently have or are creating more gluten-free menu options in response to the demand. The paleo diet and local and organic ingredients were also top answers.
“Without a doubt, [the biggest food trend] is the healthy eating, gluten-free, clean eating, that whole thing,” said Debbi McLain, owner of Extra Touch Gourmet Cafe in Bedford, in August. “Most of my customers are very educated and aware about what they put in their body. People are definitely starting to look at ingredients more and want to know what’s in their food.”
In the Kitchen participants were also asked to name their favorite item on their menus. Memorable responses included the macaroni and cheese waffle at The Little Creperie in Concord (co-owner Christina Hoppe), the maple birdy burger from Generals Sports Bar & Grille in Weare, topped with bacon, a fried egg and maple chipotle barbecue sauce (head chef Stephen Goodwin); and the Mayan-style drinking chocolate at Dancing Lion Chocolate (owner and master chocolatier Richard Tango-Lowy).
News: On The Positive Side
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On The Positive Side
15 Good Things That Happened In 2016
Written By Ryan Lessard (news@hippopress.com)
Images: Stock Photo
At the Capital
Concord’s Main Street project finally concluded with its more pedestrian-friendly redesign. That means less difficulty driving through downtown and getting redirected by construction detours, and in the long term it means getting to enjoy a more aesthetically pleasing and walkable capital.
At the Pump
The average price of gasoline in New Hampshire saw an eight-year low in February when it fell to $1.68 per gallon, according to GasBuddy.com. And while it’s risen somewhat since then, it’s seemed to have plateaued around $2.25 over the last few months of the year, give or take. Throughout the whole year, the prices in New Hampshire have remained, on average, lower than the national average and the average prices in any other New England state.
It may seem like everything is more expensive these days, but it’s important to remember how cheap gas was at the pump this year.
In the Woods
Conservation officers with New Hampshire Fish and Game say the bobcat population is continuing to rebound. This has been attributed to a hunting ban in 1989 as well as forest regrowth and an effort to bring back wild turkeys. There are now an estimated 1,400 bobcats in the state, according to UNH researchers.
The success of the wild turkeys began with a project in the 1970s to swap fishers from our state for 26 turkeys from other states. We now have an estimated 40,000 turkeys roaming our state, and bobcats reportedly like to eat them as much as we do. Turkeys were wiped out in the state back during colonial times by both Europeans and Native Americans.
While it’s American tradition to pardon a turkey every year, there is another bird that is more patriotic than them all: the bald eagle. In the late 1980s, the state had only one breeding pair. Now, there are about 90 individual eagles and New Hampshire Audubon biologists say all signs point to continued population growth.
Another great thing that happened in the woods this year was the outstanding fall foliage. We northerners may take it for granted most years, but it’s hard not to give the trees a round of applause for that show — encore.
At the Workshop
The startup and high-tech scene is blossoming in southern New Hampshire. For evidence of this, one need only look at new spaces for tinkerers and entrepreneurs that have cropped up over the year.
Manchester got its own makerspace for the first time in May and it’s already up to 40 members with money in the bank, corporate sponsors and local artists getting involved as well, according to Steve Korzyniowski with the Manchester Makerspace. It’s at 36 Old Granite St.
In Nashua, the makerspace MakeIt Labs has expanded with its move down the street to 25 Crown St. It went from a 6,000-square-foot space to a 16,000-square foot space.
Director Adam Shrey said they officially opened the new space in March and they’ve since doubled their membership to about 175. Shrey said they now have about three-quarters of the 10 or so private working spaces occupied. MakeIt Labs is finishing its second year of fundraising so it can expand even further into the second floor of their building for co-working space needed for budding businesses.
Speaking of business, Nashua also got a new startup incubator in the same vein as Manchester’s Alpha Loft. The new incubator is called nashuaHUB. Nashua native and Silicon Valley executive Brendan Keegan made a career out of turning around troubled businesses and now he’s using his expertise to help local small businesses, according to partner Amanda Rogers. He co-founded nashuaHUB in May at 4 Water St. with the CEO of local manufacturing firm RAPID.
In the Rankings
The state’s businesses have a lot to be thankful for, since they have the honor of operating in the most business-friendly state in the nation, according to CNBC’s annual competitiveness ranking. New Hampshire was also ranked No. 4 in the quality of life category of the same ranking.
According to WalletHub, New Hampshire was the 11th “happiest” state in the nation and the happiest of all New England states. That was determined by scoring a combination of physical and emotional well-being, work environment and community and environment.
An analysis of federal data by the Washington Post found that New Hampshire had the lowest rates of gun homicides in the country.
WalletHub also ranked New Hampshire the third safest state after Vermont and Massachusetts. New Hampshire scored highest in New England and fourth overall in the financial safety subcategory.
Which makes sense, because a separate ranking by WalletHub found that the state has the highest financial literacy in the whole country. In the subcategories of that study, New Hampshire came in first for financial planning and daily habits and had the second-lowest borrowing rates from non-banks. The state also made it to the list of top five states that don’t stash money in their homes and have the most sustainable spending habits. How’s that for yankee frugality?
New Hampshirites have good gums. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state has the second lowest rates of periodontal disease, which can range from minor inflammation to severe diseases that result in the loss of teeth. Only Utah had better gums.
Arts: Creative Scene
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Creative Scene
Looking At Arts & Culture in 2016
Written By Kelly Sennott (ksennott@hippopress.com)
Images: Stock Photo
New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Director Ginnie Lupi saw two major themes in New Hampshire’s 2016 creative scene. One was community-centric art.
“A lot of what occurred this year really focused on community. Several makerspaces opened up,” Lupi said via phone, mentioning the Manchester Makerspace and Claremont MakerSpace. “A few towns celebrated their 250th anniversary and had community projects to create murals or mosaics — and these projects also involved a great deal of community participation.”
She also noticed many artists and organizations utilized art to tackle social or political issues, from the opioid crisis and climate change to immigration and discrimination, which were played out in many of the 2016 art scene’s defining moments. Here are some highlights.
New Leadership
The New Hampshire arts community mourned the loss of New Hampshire Department of Cultural Resources Commissioner Van McLeod, who died this summer. State Librarian Michael York stepped in to serve as acting commissioner.
“There’s been a lot of incredible outpouring of love and admiration — he was one in a million, for sure,” Lupi said.
Currier Museum of Art Director Susan Strickler stepped down after 20 years, and Alan Chong took her place this fall. Symphony New Hampshire’s Executive Director Eric Valliere also stepped down and was replaced by Marc Thayer, and so did Red River Theatres Executive Director Shelly Hudson, who will be replaced by Angie Lane.
Political & Social Issues
The election scene made its way into many art shows.
One was artist Joseph Wardwell’s “Soon I Will Be President” at Southern New Hampshire University’s McIninch Art Gallery, and another was the Merrimack Repertory Theatre’s play 45 Plays for 45 Presidents by Andy Bayiates, Sean Benjamin, Genevra Gallo-Bayiates, Chloe Johnston and Karen Weinberg. The Milford Area Players presented the play Frost/Nixon, about Richard Nixon’s interview with David Frost, and in Portsmouth, Catherine Stewart wrote and directed a play at the West End Studio Theatre called She Will Lead: Women in Politics. This fall, the New Hampshire Master Chorale held a program celebrating women, “Eve, Absinthe, Alice,” in part to commemorate how far women have come this year in politics.
Many social issues were also explored in art this year.
One was trans rights, which was played out in an art show organized by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire and Rights & Democracy, “This is What Trans Feels Like.” It was at Studio 550 this summer and visits the Wrong Brain Art Collective in Dover this winter. McGowan Fine Art hosted “Trans Pose,” featuring artwork by trans artist and NHIA grad Catherine Graffam, and Andy’s Summer Playhouse hosted professional artists Alex Gino and Jess M. Barbagallo, who adapted Gino’s book about a transgender fourth-grader, George, to the stage.
Another was immigration, evident in Currier Museum of Art’s “Our City: Manchester through Children’s Eyes,” featuring portraits and profiles of new Americans from Manchester’s Inti Academy.
Moves & Expansions
The year 2016 saw lots of shuffling around for many arts organizations.
Earlier this year, the Majestic Theatre purchased the Ted Herbert Music School, and this winter it moves from the Bell building to a new location at 880 Page St. in Manchester. The artists in Nashua’s Picker Building moved to a new home at 3 Pine St., Nashua, and the Seacoast Artist Association took up residence at 130 Water St., Exeter. Farther north, the Place Studio and Gallery moved to the Concord Community Arts Center.
Some venues underwent major expansions in terms of space or offerings; the Andres Institute of Art in Brookline acquired the Big Bear Lodge at 106 Route 13, Brookline, and Nashua-based Positive Street Art opened a new pop-up gallery at 175 Main St., Nashua.
The Seacoast Repertory Theatre found some stability at 125 Bow St., entering a long-term renewable lease with the Bow Street Theatre Trust, and the New Hampshire Theatre Project became the sole tenant of the West End Studio Theatre in Portsmouth.
In Concord, the New Hampshire Film and Television Office became a “full-blown” division in the New Hampshire Department of Cultural Resources, “Which speaks to the recognition of the importance of that industry in New Hampshire,” Lupi said.
New Organizations & Big Events
Start-ups in 2016 include the Hatbox Theatre in Concord; the Scriven Arts Colony in Gilmanton; and the Manchester Makerspace and D.M. Penny Press, a makerspace and open printmaking studio, respectively, in the Queen City.
The state’s literary community went Shakespeare-crazy this spring, with many Shakespeare-related events to honor the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Highlights included the Currier Museum of Art’s display of Shakespeare’s First Folio and the Seven Stages Shakespeare Company’s marathon reading of the bard’s history plays at Throwback Brewery.
Symphony New Hampshire Music Director Jonathan McPhee pulled off the enormous feat of editing and conducting an abridged version of Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” in two concerts made up of musicians from Symphony New Hampshire and the Lexington Symphony.
Public Art
Local towns have caught on to the public art craze; both Nashua and Manchester saw pianos installed outside in their respective downtowns for public use, and both saw new visual art added to downtown landscapes.
In Manchester, James Chase created a mural at the Manchester Makerspace, and many other artists decorated traffic signal boxes as part of the city’s “Outside the Box” program. In Nashua, the city’s annual sculpture symposium brought new art to downtown, as did Totem Poems, a downtown display of poetry by local middle-schoolers, and Positive Street Art, whose latest mural contains images from Hollywood screen favorites like It’s a Wonderful Life, The Blob and The Three Stooges. In Concord, the biggest public art addition was a mural painted by local high schoolers honoring Haley Rae Martin, who died of an overdose in 2012.
Birthdays & Important Moments
The Riverbend Youth Company presented its 100th production in November, West Side Story, at the Amato Center for the Performing Arts in Milford, and both the Manchester Artist Association and Exeter Fine Crafts turned 50 in 2016.
Many New Hampshire artists saw big moments in 2016. One was Hollis teen Caroline Burns, a finalist on The Voice who earned the role of Brooklyn in the national tour of Brooklyn: The Musical. Manchester furniture maker Vivian Beer won Ellen’s Design Challenge, a furniture-designing competition headed by TV personality Ellen DeGeneres, and Peterborough author Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Music: Goodbye 2016
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Goodbye 2016
Looking Back At The Musical Year
Written By Michael Witthaus (music@hippopress.com)
Images: Stock Photo
Here in New Hampshire, 2016 began the way every fourth year commences, with a fleet of media trucks roaming the state. On Primary Eve, they swarmed around the Radisson Hotel in downtown Manchester. Nearby at the Shaskeen Pub, James Adomian and Anthony Atamanuik engaged in what seemed at the time a hilarious flight of fancy, playing a mock debate between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump for a night full of laughs.
Turns out that it was only half a fantasy — in four years, who knows?
News about venues popped up throughout the year, beginning with ambitious plans to transform Manchester’s dilapidated Rex Theatre into Old Sol Music Hall, a multipurpose performance hall with a focus on live music and social activism. Now projected to open in 2018, the effort holds its next fundraiser on Jan. 21 at the Shaskeen Pub, a double bill featuring Pat & the Hats and Sarah & the Wild Versatile.
Finding it had outgrown an intimate space in Londonderry, the venerable Tupelo Music Hall announced it was moving across Interstate 93 and doubling capacity. The first date in its new Derry home is sold out already and features rock legend Peter Frampton. Although it will be easier to score tickets to popular shows, Tupelo owner Scott Hayward decided to retire the venue’s bring-your-own-bottle policy. Don’t fret; an expanded food menu and liquor sales should make the move easier to digest.
Other changes were incremental. Jewel Nightclub in downtown Manchester became Jewel Music Venue, shifting to a wider-ranging entertainment palette. Some great talent has passed through, including Session Americana, Zach Deputy and a local showcase with Mindset X and A Simple Complex.
The state’s biggest venue changed names, officially becoming SNHU Arena in Manchester on Sept. 1 and serving up three big country concerts in a row: Eric Church, Carrie Underwood and Blake Shelton.
Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford celebrated its 20th anniversary with a bevy of big-name acts, added an elaborate delay sound system, hired Coachella’s food service company and began offering overnight camping.
Local and regional artists continued to record and release good music. Brooks Young Band made the five-song EP What The Night Knows with producer Brian Coombes at Rocking Horse Studio, and Young had a cameo in the new Ghostbusters movie. Scene fixture Justin Cohn released his first album of originals, and troubadour Tristan Omand put out another solid collection of songs, The Lesser Known Tristan Omand.
Cold Engines’ Better Off Dead was one of the year’s best, as was Sully Erna’s second solo CD, Hometown Life. The Godsmack singer hails from Lawrence, Mass., but with ex-Mama Kicks bandmates Chris Lester, Lisa Guyer and Dave Stefenalli and Seacoast guitarist Tim Theriault in the studio with Erna, it felt like a New Hampshire album.
Memorable shows of 2016 included an incendiary double bill with Jason Isbell and Frank Turner at Bank of NH Pavilion, two-night stands at the same venue from Florida Georgia Line and Dave Matthews Band, and a smoking triple bill with Tedeschi Trucks Band, Los Lobos and the North Mississippi All-Stars. Superstars Don Henley and Rod Stewart played first-ever shows at the Lakes Region shed, and breakout act Twenty One Pilots sold out.
A mild summer was good news for outdoor events like the Prescott Park concerts series, which offered up a smorgasbord of Americana talent including Sara Watkins, Lucinda Williams, James McMurtry and Dawes. The NH Country Music Festival marked its second year with a sold-out sunny day show headlined by The Cadillac Three. In Manchester, Lee Brice inaugurated the first Live Free Country Music Festival at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium.
Beyond our borders, it was a year of loss; David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Prince, Phife Dawg, Leonard Cohen and too many more left the stage. More than a few fans are happy and relieved to see 2016 end. Happy new year!
Film: 2016 - The Sequel To The Reboot
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2016 - The Sequel To The Reboot
The Good & Bad of This Year of Sequels, Remakes & Surprising Originals
Written By Amy Diaz (adiaz@hippopress.com)
Images: Courtesy/Stock Photo
I feel like we’re going to remember this year for the bad things — Batman v Superman, the Independence Day follow-up, Nine Lives (which I think will eventually, if not already, be known solely as “that Kevin Spacey cat movie”).
But 2016 had some bright spots — and I don’t just mean in some artsy category with movies full of subtitles. There were some great big-budget movies, some pretty solid examples of sequels and some good all-ages (or at least most-ages) fare.
Here, with the usual caveats about stuff not yet released in a theater near us in enough time for inclusion (specifically, La La Land, Jackie, Lion and Fences, which are in area theaters now, as well as your Live By Night, Hidden Figures and Gold, movies that will filter to us in coming weeks), are some of the movies worth remembering from 2016 plus a few you might want to remember to ignore.
• Great movies I probably won’t watch again: Both Manchester by the Sea, a movie about a broken man suddenly responsible for his orphaned teenage nephew, and Moonlight, a movie following a young man at three different points in his life, are on a lot of critics’ top 10 lists and I heartily agree. These are both excellent movies. Both excellent but super sad and occasionally gut-wrenching movies. I strongly recommend you see them but I doubt I’ll be able to sit through their heartache again.
• Somewhat above-average movies I’ll definitely watch again: While the above movies will probably rack up the Oscar nominations, I doubt there will be a lot of award-season talk about The Magnificent Seven (the awesome Denzel Washington-as-a-gunslinger remake), Ghostbusters (the all-lady remake that I feel was aimed squarely at my Gen-X gal demographic), Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (The Lonely Island guys do a Spinal Tap-style popumentary) and Keanu (everything great about the comedy team of Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele). But I’ll still rewatch all of these movies, the latter three of which were satisfying comedies and the first of which was a totally fun cowboy movie. I would also throw Bad Moms (the Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Bell and Christina Applegate comedy) in there, which I liked just a little less than the aforementioned movies but which I feel has the potential to grow on me.
• Seriously good movies: I recognize, however, that some people have standards. Those people, in addition to seeing Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea, should check out Arrival (the Amy Adams sci-fi which does some fun things with language and with storytelling), Hell or High Water (a modern blend of gunslinger and cops-and-robbers story that features great performances by Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine), Eye in the Sky (a most grown-up and thoughtful but still wonderfully suspenseful and tense movie about drone warfare starring Helen Mirren and the late Alan Rickman) and The Shallows (a solid thriller that pits Blake Lively against a shark). These movies boast great performances, smart stories and all-around top-notch movie-making, yes even the movie with the shark.
• Hilariously good movies: The Nice Guys is also a movie for grown-ups, but a hilarious buddy-detective movie featuring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. Lost in the crush of bigger, louder movies at the beginning of the summer, it’s worth going back to, as are occasionally cringe-inducing comedies Hello, My Name is Doris (featuring Sally Field as a woman who comes out of her shell very late in life) and The Edge of Seventeen (with Hailee Steinfeld as a girl at the very beginning of maturity trying to break out of her shell of reflexive defensiveness).
• Not good or not for me?: Not everything is for everybody. Nothing exemplifies that more to me than Sausage Party, a very R-rated cartoon about sentient supermarket foods, and Me Before You, a weepy love story. I intellectually understood where the jokes were in Sausage Party but I didn’t find any of them funny. Me Before You seemed very pretty to look at but left me basically unmoved. Were these movies good? Bad? I have no idea.
• Everything doesn’t need a reboot: “Remember that thing from before? Let’s do it again!” often felt like the ruling principle of this year. And while I genuinely enjoyed some of these (see Ghostbusters), the pile of wigs and sandals that was Ben-Hur and the pile of unconvincing animal CGI and Christoph Waltz mugging that was The Legend of Tarzan are two examples of why a reboot isn’t an automatic sure thing.
• If you don’t have sequel nice to say...: Ah, but why just pick on the reboots? There was what felt like an absolute onslaught of sucky, unnecessary sequels and universe-extensions this year. There were the “long-awaited” Bridget Jones Baby, Blair Witch 2, Mechanic: Resurrection, Independence Day: Resurgence, Bad Santa 2 and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. There were exhausting continuing stories Inferno (a Robert Langdon mystery), Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Now You See Me 2, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Ice Age: Collision Course, Allegiant and X-Men: Apocalypse. And then there was Harry Potter-verse extension Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which is billed as the first chapter in what already feels like a trying five-movie saga.
• On the other hand, there’s no universe like a cinematic universe: You can’t blame the existence of sequels, though, for the problems of the above-mentioned movies. Finding Dory, the decade-plus follow-up to Finding Nemo, proves that you can go back to a long-ago movie and find a charming new story to tell. Star Trek Beyond shows that a series doesn’t have to grow stale but can use its characters to inject life into its stories. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Cloverfield Lane (a horror movie) show that you can expand a universe to tell stories that fit with the original while also being self-contained adventures. Captain America: Civil War proved that even a mature superhero series can find stakes beyond an all-powerful entity that wants to take over the world. And Deadpool, which is sort of a sequel and a bit of a reboot and kind of a universe expansion all rolled into one, shows that just because something is “a superhero movie” doesn’t mean you can’t find a way to have fun with the form.
• Proud to be an American: Who doesn’t love to root for a hero? Sully isn’t necessarily a great artistic achievement but it is a movie I watched with great relief — a good man (Tom Hanks, of course) does a brave thing and everybody lives. Between that and the reassuring competency of the crew, the movie feels like the equivalent of a hug and an older, wiser person telling you everything in the world will be alright in the end. I realize that Southside With You won’t have everybody wanting to wave their flag and shout “USA” but there is something so sweet and endearing about this movie offering its take on the first date of a geeky but confident young Barack Obama and the no-nonsense yet thoughtful Michelle Robinson. Does anybody really talk that nerdily about doing good in the world while trying to impress a potential romantic partner?
• Movies for kids: Pixar (the people behind Finding Dory) has some competition this year when it comes to top-shelf animation. The excellent Moana (from Disney) is good and good for you with its standout music and its believe-in-yourself message. Kubo and the Two Strings used origami to influence its visual style and tells a swashbuckling adventure story. Zootopia, also from Disney, uses animals to tell a story about stereotypes and prejudice and somehow it works. The Jungle Book is, I guess, live action. While the only live thing in it is the boy who plays Mowgli, the movie looks so awe-inspiringly real that you may find yourself wondering, for example, how they got jaguars to do that. Back in the animation department, I’ll give an honorable mention to Trolls and Sing, both OK movies but with very fun jukebox soundtracks.
• Lousy movies for kids: If the above movies make entertaining kids with smart animated stories look easy, watch The Secret Life of Pets and Storks so you can see how difficult it can be.
• Moving pictures: Are Allied and The Light Between Oceans good movies? On balance, probably not. But both are beautiful. Allied, with its tale of World War II-era spies in love (starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard), features a dream wardrobe of period evening gowns and well-tailored blouses. The Light Between Oceans, with the story of a lighthouse keeper and his wife and the lengths they go to to have a child, will dazzle you with its cinematography.
• Good performances in an otherwise meh movie: Emily Blunt does some standout acting in the otherwise Lifetime movie-like thriller The Girl on the Train. As a heartbroken woman drowning herself in alcohol, Blunt does some really good work that nobody will remember because it was in such an at-times borderline hysterical soapy movie.
• Good story in an otherwise meh movie: Both Hacksaw Ridge (about a medic who refused to carry a gun but still wanted to see combat in World War II) and Free State of Jones (about a Confederate soldier who organizes resistance to the Confederacy) have at their hearts interesting historical stories but needed more work to get that tale to the big screen.
• No redeeming qualities: And now we get to the bottom. Don’t bother with Collateral Beauty, the emotional fakery with the good cast that is out now and billing itself as a feel-good movie. Or with Bad Santa 2, the laugh-free completely unnecessary sequel. Or with Nine Lives, the absolute pit of late-summer movies that featured a cat as the central character but didn’t even have any cat-fun with the concept.
• Most fun I had at the theater this year: Instead of picking the “best” movie, I’d rather talk about the movies that left me the most excited about movies themselves.
Honorable Mention: Deadpool. Ask me in five years how this movie holds up and I might be so sick of fourth-wall-breaking, foul-mouthed R-rated superhero movies that I hate Deadpool and all it stands for. But as a breakaway from the familiar format and an example of how you can do something different with the genre, I’ve got to give the movie its due. It doesn’t hurt that it’s the rare roller coaster ride of a movie that’s worth the ticket price.
Runner Up: Arrival. I almost didn’t know what to make of this movie while I watched it, it had such a strange, chilly quality. But by the end I was completely hooked on this world and completely awed by Amy Adams’ performance and by the way the movie had her tell the story. She does some standout acting that works both as you’re watching it and later when you know the whole story. And Arrival is a fun sci-fi movie that tells a really thoughtful version of the “first alien contact” story.
Absolute Most Fun: Moana. I know, it’s a kids’ movie, and a Disney princess movie at that. But Moana made me feel hopeful and optimistic about the world we live in and excited for the day when my daughter will be old enough to sit through more than 20 minutes of it (some younger viewers may be scared by some of the scenes of ocean peril, as I learned). It also features beautiful visuals of the jewel-toned Pacific islands and songs (written with Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame) that I am still humming to myself. It tells a smart story, full of adventure that is both good in the role-model sense and a good time for the family at the theater.
Pop: For The Kids
FEATURED POP
For The Kids
Kids Coop Theatre Turns 20
Written By Kelly Sennott (ksennott@hippopress.com)
Images: Courtesy/Stock Photo
Twenty years ago, seven theater moms created the Kids Coop Theatre in Derry in response to the lack of local onstage opportunities for their kids.
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As Good As Noon
As Good As Noon
Celebrate NYE Early With These Family-Friendly Events
Written By Matt Ingersol (listings@hippopress.com)
Images: Courtesy Photo
If you’re excited about ringing in 2017 but not sure you can make it to midnight, there are plenty of family-friendly events going on during the day in the Granite State to celebrate before the sun goes down.
One of them is the annual Noon Year’s Eve at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, which is happening on Saturday, Dec. 31, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event features food, face-painting, music, dancing and even some magic tricks before culminating with a special “balloon drop” welcoming the new year a few hours early.
“The museum is pretty much taken over by kids and their parents, so that’s always fun for us,” said Steve Konick, director of PR and marketing at Currier, adding that the museum will be closed to the public for the duration of Noon Year’s Eve. “This is our fifth year doing it, and every year the population gets bigger and bigger.”
In fact, the event has become one of the largest family-friendly New Year’s Eve events in northern New England, according to Konick. Around 500 tickets are expected to be sold for this year’s event.
“Five hundred has become a sort of sweet spot in terms of number, because it allows a better chance for more kids to get to the grand finale, and also for fewer lines to get into different activities,” he said.
The museum will provide opportunities to make your own noisemakers, as well as a photo booth area where you can make your own hats, Konick said. Other activities will include a set of three separate half-hour-long magic shows by Boston-based magician David Hall alternating with performances by John Chouinard of the Ted Herbert Music School.
At 2 p.m., the party will gather in the Winter Garden Cafe for the main event: the balloon drop and bubble wrap stomp.
“[The cafe] gets transformed into a room with giant sheets of bubble wrap taped down to the floor, and we do a big countdown and all the kids just stream down and stomp down on the bubble wrap as the balloons drop, like fireworks,” Konick said.
Tickets to Noon Year’s Eve will be available at currier.org until the night before, Konick said. The museum will reopen to the public on Jan. 2.
Noon Year’s Eve
More Family-Friendly New Year’s Eve Events
• The Hampstead Public Library (9 Mary E. Clark Drive) will host a kids’ New Year’s Eve at Noon celebration that kicks off on Saturday, Dec. 31, at 11:30 a.m. The first annual event will include fun games, opportunities to make your own party hats and more before a countdown to noon begins to ring in 2017. Admission is free. Visit hampsteadlibrary.org or call 329-6411.
Birds Of A Feather
Birds Of A Feather
Christmas Bird Count Continues
Written By Matt Ingersol (listings@hippopress.com)
Images: Courtesy Photo
The Audubon Christmas Bird Count, a data-collecting activity involving the counting of hundreds of native bird species, rolls into Nashua and Hollis this week, and you can be part of the research efforts.
The counts have been going on nationally for more than 100 years and are usually held from mid-December through early January. Twenty-one organized counts have been scheduled throughout New Hampshire this year, with the Nashua-Hollis count happening throughout the day on Friday, Dec. 30.
The first Christmas Bird Counts were held back in the year 1900, when 26 were held nationwide as a hunting alternative. Jim Kegley of the New Hampshire Audubon’s Nashaway Chapter has been in charge of counting his assigned section of southeast Nashua since 1992.
“The Nashua-Hollis Bird Count has been consistently held since 1965 … but birding and bird-watching in general is becoming increasingly popular,” he said. “Because of how long I’ve been doing it, I’ve been able to witness the change in terms of data collection and data storage and one’s access to it, and [its popularity] has been expanding into more and more communities.”
Each of the 21 counts across the Granite State is open to all interested bird-watchers. Kegley said each one takes place in a designated “count circle” on a specific day, with a coordinator assigning teams of birders to count in each section of that circle. But if you happen to live within that circle, you can simply count birds that appear in your own backyard.
Each count circle is about 15 miles in diameter around a central point. Count coordinators are available to help pair less experienced and first-time counters with those more experienced and knowledgeable in identifying birds.
“Birds are predictable in terms of habit. … For the most part, they stay in a certain area, which is why [bird counting] is sort of an acceptable science,” he said. “The results may not be exactly precise, but nevertheless it’s a valuable science for data collection. … In a single day, most birds don’t travel much, so it decreases the chances that you’d be counting double.”
Kegley said almost every kind of bird is fair game to be included in your tallying, with the exception of domesticated birds like parakeets and parrots, as well as certain kinds of geese and other water fowl.
“If you’ve got something that’s unusual, like an exotic species of bird that is more known to be from another part of the country, you have to document it,” he added. “Both photographs or drawings are acceptable.”
When you have finished with your counting for the day, you can meet other birders in the Spear Room at the Beaver Brook Association’s Maple Hill Farm in Hollis at 5 p.m. for dinner, refreshments and the official tallying of everyone’s findings. A $5 fee will be collected per person to attend the dinner.
“The evening is always fun because you get to hear what kind of surprises and adventures people had during the day,” Kegley said. “You start to realize the patterns that people see, and there’s some suspense and excitement that people share about their experiences.”
The dinner is also when everyone’s results are officially gathered and entered into the Audubon database, Kegley said. Nashua-Hollis Bird Count organizer Richard Bielawski will submit them electronically so that the number of birds counted and the number of participating counters can be compared to other counts across the state. If you are unable to attend the dinner, you can simply email or text your tallies to Bielawski anytime beforehand, Kegley said.
“It’s also kind of fun to meet some of the other people that do it, because some have been doing it for so long that it’s become something of a holiday tradition for them,” he said. “There’s a real sense of community that people have.”
For more information on finding a count circle, visit nhbirdrecords.org and click on the “resources” tab. From there, contact information for each count organizer is available.
Make Moose Chilli
Make Moose Chilli
Videos Show How To Cook With Wild Game & Fresh Fish
Written By Angie Sykeny (asykeny@hippopress.com)
Images: Courtesy Photo
You can learn how to cook a variety of tasty dishes featuring wild game and fish with New Hampshire Fish and Game’s half-hour television show, New Hampshire Wildside. The show has periodic cooking segments with special host Chef Denny Corriveau, owner of Wild Cheff Enterprises, a New England resource for cooking with wild game, free-range meats and organic foods.
“A lot of people would just throw some venison steaks on the grill, but with the cooking videos you can make gourmet meals out of the meats,” said New Hampshire Fish and Game videographer Jason Philippy, who works with the show. “It doesn’t have to be bland and boring. It can be a vary tasty and delicious meal.”
There have been 16 cooking videos featured on New Hampshire Wildside over the last few years, most of which are about six minutes long. They cover recipe preparation from start to finish, as well as side dishes and any special seasonings and sauces used.
Recipes have featured various kinds of fish, turkey, pheasant, moose and bear meat, venison and more and have included dishes like chicken-fried goose breast, salmon pie, wild turkey sautee, venison flatbread pizza and moose chili.
“It takes the mystery out of how to prepare a meal with these meats,” Philippy said. “A lot of people think of game meat and they think, ‘Well, what would you do with it?’ But these recipes are not complicated and they make cooking with game meat not such a foreign experience for people.”
As far as acquiring game meat if you aren’t a hunter, Philippy recommends going to a butcher shop that specializes in game meat such as the Hungry Buffalo in Loudon, or “befriending a hunter.”
Some meats like fish and certain fowl you can also find at a regular grocery store or butcher shop.
“And you don’t have to use wild game meat either,” Philippy said. “Wild game is just [Chef Denny Corriveau’s] forte, but you could still learn from the videos and just use chicken or steak instead of game meat for the recipes.
Friendship Memoir
Friendship Memoir
Katherine Towler On The Penny Poet of Portsmouth
Written By Kelly Sennott (ksennott@hippopress.com)
Images: Courtesy Photo
Portsmouth author Katherine Towler began writing about her friend Robert Dunn — a.k.a. the Penny Poet of Portsmouth — eight months after his death in 2008.
“I spent so much time with him in the last years of his life, when he was sick,” Towler said via phone last week. “It had been a very powerful experience for me personally, and I felt I couldn’t fully understand the impact Robert had on me and my life until I wrote the story.”
It started as an essay, which grew and grew. Three months and 25 pages later, she felt unsatisfied. Towler was used to writing novels, not nonfiction, but just the same, the piece didn’t feel right.
“I felt that it had only begun to tell the story of who he was and what our friendship was like,” she said. “At that point I said, well, I think this needs to be a longer piece of writing.”
Towler met Dunn in 1991 when she moved to Portsmouth with her then fiance. Dunn, a “tiny, gaunt man” with a black trenchcoat and thick glasses, was part of the downtown landscape and could be seen daily — crossing Market Square, emerging from the post office, sitting on the stone wall by the cemetery. She assumed he was homeless.
He wasn’t — however, he didn’t own things most people consider necessities in American culture today. No phone, car, computer or TV. Downtown Portsmouth residents knew him for his poetry book collections, which he sewed together himself and sold for a penny. Rumor had it he lived on coffee and cigarettes. He was content with his small, local audience, not at all interested in fame. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, he became a local celebrity.
“He lived pretty much outside the system as most of us know it, and that enabled him to remain very focused on his writing, and his collections of poems,” Towler said. “It seemed to me that this was what mattered most about this story — the kind of life Robert lived. … He made me think quite a bit about how caught up we are in American culture in proving ourselves to others. … Many people want to be famous for the sake of being famous, and Robert rejected so much of that.”
Towler spent nine months recording her memories. Anytime she remembered a story, characteristic or conversation with Dunn, a former Portsmouth poet laureate, she wrote it down and filed it away to be re-shaped afterward. Her fiction writing background helped in bringing these tales to life, but the process was also very different.
“The time I spent with Robert at the end of his life was very intense. We had some really powerful and interesting conversations, so I tried to recreate those. In doing so, I drew very much on fiction techniques,” she said. “I found the process of writing a memoir very different from a novel because the outline of the story was given to me. What I had to do was figure out why the story mattered — why it mattered to me, and why it might matter to readers.”
Towler shaped those memories and stories into The Penny Poet of Portsmouth: A Memoir of Place, Solitude, and Friendship, published in March by Counterpoint Press. Around the same time, she partnered with Sid Hall and and Roger Martin in editing and publishing One of Us is Lost: Selected Poems of Robert Dunn, part of the Hobblebush Books Granite State Poetry Series.
Towler is pleasantly surprised at the audience her memoir has found; this past December, it made the Longreads Best of 2016: Under-Recognized Books list, as well as Entropy’s Best of 2016: Nonfiction Books list.
She’s also received a great deal of feedback from people who knew Dunn. Twenty-five people were interviewed for the story, and many felt the same way she did about him.
“I approached [the project] with some trepidation because I was writing about someone who, as I said, was a treasured figure in Portsmouth,” she said. “But people said to me over and over again, ‘I’m so happy you’re doing this because you’re keeping Robert alive.’”
As 2016 winds down, Towler is turning her attention back to short stories and fiction. She’s begun a novel but is interested in mixing up her process. She liked writing as it came to her instead of straight through, which is how she used to work.
“When you [write fiction], you can become constrained by plot, and I felt that in writing the memoir, I was freed of that. I’m interested then to see if perhaps I could go back to fiction and bring some of that freedom I experienced in nonfiction with me,” she said.
The Penny Poet of Portsmouth
For more on Katherine Towler, Robert Dunn or the book, visit katherinetowler.com
Kindred Spirits & More
Weekly Music Review: Kindred Spirits & More
Written By Eric Saeger (news@hippopress.com)
Images: Album Art
Jai Wolf, Kindred Spirits (Mom+Pop Records)
Debut EP from the new musical incarnation of Bangladesh-born Sajeeb Saha, who abandoned his No Pets Allowed project recently after seeing no usable future in doing mashups and disposable EDM/dubstep. Yes, lots of fans and artists would disagree with that, and a move to more hiphop/1980s-pop sound does seem a bit coldly calculated, but we all have to grow up sometime, and besides, this kind of sound may be more up his personal alley for all anyone knows, especially given the powerful, soaring (albeit momentarily 1980s-cheesy) intro track “This Space in My Heart is for You.” The enthusiasm is there, certainly; “Foreign Family Collective” starts off as a throwaway munchkin-voiced trap beat but gets jacked up by orchestral synth-work and all of a sudden it’s Orbital gone Bollywood. That’s a great little piece that almost gets lost in the crush of its follow-up track, the Drake-ish, nearly too-pretty boy-bander “Gravity.” This kid’s heart is on his sleeve, lucky for us.
Grade: A+
Highly Suspect, The Boy Who Died Wolf (300 Entertainment)
Unless you’re the type to actually watch the Grammys, you missed this Cape Cod (now Brooklyn) band’s unexpected (many said unwarranted) live appearance and equally surprising nominations, which didn’t seem to jibe with the master plan of the universe, unless said plan had a ’90s-grungerebirth planned for now, which seems a little too soon. But that’s the point, really: someone has to lead the march toward the inevitable ’90s-rock echozeitgeist that’s coming — you know, plaid shirts, sloppy cutoffs, maybe some hair (or lack thereof, gack). If we left things there, all we’d be talking about is a differently-abled Wolfmother, yes, but this album isn’t just a bunch of monkey-see-monkey-do Soundgarden/Nirvana songs. OK, fine, it is, but a little patience finds there are other influences stowed away here: Eminem, boy-band, modern stoner metal and even a dab of Deafheaven black-metal. Aside from that stuff, I’ll agree with my fellow critics and warn you right now that this band could be about to break really big. I mean, if The Killers did it, there’s no reason these guys shouldn’t, surely.