New Hampshire Magazine February 2018

N E W H A M P S H I R E M AG A Z I N E FEB RUARY 2 01 8

Exclusive interview on the eve of his NH performance

PICTURESQUE WASHINGTON

One of our most beautiful towns has stories to tell

Page 68

Page 58

pets to the

magazine

THERAPY ANIMALS

rescue

WINTER LOGGING O U R WA S H I N G TO N

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Therapy animals use their superpowers (mostly big eyes and unconditional love) to help their human pals. Page 42

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Love The Sweetest Sentiment of All

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© 2018 McLean Communications, Inc. New Hampshire Magazine® is published by McLean Communications, Inc., 150 Dow St., Manchester, NH 03101, (603) 624-1442. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any mistakes in advertisements or editorial. Statements/opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect or represent those of this publication or its officers. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, McLean Communications, Inc.: New Hampshire Magazine disclaims all responsibility for omissions and errors. New Hampshire Magazine is published monthly.

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nhmagazine.com | February 2018

Contents 42 First Things 6 Editor’s Note 8 Contributors Page 10 Feedback

Features

40 In Their Own Words Catching up with boothatted pony advocate Vermin Supreme. photo by Chris Saunders

from left: courtesy photo, photo by joe klementovich and photo by kendall j. bush

42 Pets to the Rescue

50

58

603 Navigator

603 Informer

603 Living

12 THE ART OF CHOCOLATE

30 First Person

68 OUR OWN SETH MEYERS

photo by Janine Parziale

14 Top Events WINE AND CHOCOLATE

by Rick Broussard

BIRD’S-EYE VIEW

by Eric Masterson

71 Calendar

36 Artisan

by Emily Heidt

16 Our Town LINCOLN

by Barbara Radcliffe Rogers

WHAT TO DO THIS MONTH

20 Food & Drink

edited by Emily Heidt

Some animals are more than pets — they can comfort, teach and assist their humans in a number of ways.

And, in the case of our cover dog Lilly, can even save a life.

by Tiffanie Wen

50 Preserving Old Ways Rick Alger is keeping the North Country tradition of winter logging — by horse, not machine — alive.

by Erik Eisele photos by Joe Klementovich

58 Washington New Hampshire Washington is one of New Hampshire’s most overlooked towns, and it also happens to be one of the most picturesque.

by Anders Morley photos by Kendal J. Bush

February 2018

74 Seniority CASA NH VOLUNTEERS

by Lynne Snierson

76 Health THE HEART-BRAIN CONNECTION

by Karen A. Jamrog

ISLINGTON STREET IN PORTSMOUTH’S WEST END

by Susan Laughlin

25 Small Bites FOOD NEWS & EVENTS

79 Home LIGHTING

KRISTIN KENNEDY

by Susan Laughlin

by Amy Mitchell

37 What Do You Know

83 Local Dish

A TALE OF TWO PILLARS

POP TARTS

by Susan Laughlin

by Marshall Hudson

by Jessica dePontbriand

26 Retail

38 Politics

84 Dine Out

VALENTINES FOR PETS

by Emily Heidt

28 Outsider WINTER ZIP LINES

by Kristen Battles

#METOO AND THE MIDTERMS

GOOD EATS

by James Pindell

edited by Susan Laughlin

39 Blips

88 Ayuh

NH IN THE NEWS

by Casey McDermott

ON THE COVER Lilly once saved her human’s life. Read more about Lilly and how the cover came to be in “Pets to the Rescue” on page 42. Photo by Kaylee Greer of Dog Breath Photography

ON HOLD FOR ETERNITY

by Jack Kenney Volume 32, Number 2 ISSN 1560-4949

nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Kindred Spirits There was a death in my family just as the year was turning and it was an emotional time on every level, but through all the stress and grief, one member of our clan kept her composure. mpshire.org a h w e n c in girls

705

(603) 606-1

l, summer, After schoo s ch program and outrea re than serving mo in New 2,000 girls each year.

Hampshire

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nhmagazine.com | February 2018

Y

una is a 4-year-old American bulldog/boxer blend who joined the family by surprise when my son returned home after some years of college and life in West Virginia. She is a bundle of energy, curiosity and muscle. Fortunately, she’s also a devoted friend to just about everyone except squirrels and the occasional dog walker who, for reasons known only to her, poses an existential threat to our home requiring a few loud minutes of cautionary barking.

“Grandpa,” as we called him ­— though he was my father-in-law — spent the last two years in the final stages of life, still fit for an old guy, but with only that kaleidoscopic memory and sporadic communication that is left when the brain suffers from strokes and dementia.

As his path (often unsettling) through the healthcare system progressed into residential settings, we were pleased to learn that many of these were dog-welcoming environments. So, whenever possible, my son and Yuna would visit to share meals or just hang out and watch TV while Grandpa snoozed.

This pattern continued into the hospice facility at Concord Hospital, where Yuna would take her post on her own bed or sometimes climb in next to Grandpa. He didn’t seem to mind. She was easily on her very best behavior, self-tuning her energy level to fit the situation and abandoning her usual tactics of begging and angling when human food was being consumed (mere inches away!).

Although Grandpa and Grandma had not kept dogs for decades, the bedside bonding was strong and the pairing seemed right.

Grandpa had lived his life boldly, first as a warrior — a West Point graduate who served two tours of duty in Vietnam — then as an athlete, hunter and outdoorsman. Adventure was in his blood and it coursed through the heart of

Yuna. It seemed clear she knew why she was there: to guard, to comfort, to witness the last days of this fellow runner, this kindred spirit.

While working on this issue, with its focus on the animals who “rescue” us from toil and loneliness or bring comfort in our human afflictions, I’ve had time to reflect on the nature of these bonds. While just about any furry, feathery or even scaly animal can bring comfort and connection to a human in need, there does seem to be a more essential bond between humans and dogs (cat lovers, sharpen your pencils and tell me I’m wrong).

One other species that, while much less house-friendly, seems to have a similar power to draw us out of ourselves into a partnership with the natural world is the horse.

This makes sense. Both dogs and horses have been more than companions through the course of human history, serving in wilderness, wars and danger zones; shaping civilization and in many ways evolving alongside us as we grope towards a better world. So, even if you don’t care for dogs or horses, their ancestors and yours relied on one another in matters of life and death. Like the odd, distant relatives you only see at funerals, they are your kin.

This perhaps explains the promise of a new animal therapy program: the Human-Horse Initiative (see page 49). It’s fostered by Teresa Paradis from Live and Let Live Farm and former Navy SEAL, now-psychotherapist Dave Ferruolo. They plan to pair up abused and neglected horses with military veterans, often suffering from PTSD and feeling similarly discarded by the country they served. They hope to prove that the truest kindred spirit is one who stands watch in both good times and bad.

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Contributors Tiffanie Wen is an award-winning writer, journalist and columnist for the BBC whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Daily Beast, Guernica and others. She penned this month’s cover story “Pets to the Rescue” while taking breaks to pet her dog Benny, who has lived with her in Kenya and Israel, but prefers the snowy winters of New England. She currently splits her time between California and West Lebanon, New Hampshire, where she lives with her husband Roy. When she’s not writing, she’s traveling the world and looking for her next story. You can connect with her on Twitter at twitter. com/tiffaniewen.

About |

for February 2018

Internationally recognized pet photographer Kaylee Greer of Dog Breath Photography took the cover photo. See more at dogbreathphoto.com.

Frequent contributor Kendal J. Bush took the photos for “Washington, New Hampshire.” See more of her work at kendaljbush.com.

“Preserving Old Ways” writer Erik Eisele is a writer, outdoor athlete and international travel guide based in North Conway and Portland, Maine.

“Preserving Old Ways” photographer Joe Klementovich specializes in environmental photography. Visit klementovichphoto.com for more.

Anders Morley, who wrote the feature story “Washington, New Hampshire,” is a freelance writer and translator from New Hampshire.

“First Person” writer Eric Masterson is a land specialist for the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock.

Behind The Scenes at New Hampshire Magazine Let’s Hear It for CASA NH Want to participate in a marathon? You don’t have to move (much), it takes place indoors, and you can even enjoy food and drink while it all goes down. It’s the second On Tap for CASA New Hampshire barstool “marathon,” happening on March 24 at New England’s Tap House Grille in Hooksett. New Hampshire Magazine and McLean Communications are proud media sponsors, and the McLean and Friends team will once again be raising money for this worthy cause. Now is the time to sign up your team at casanh.org/ ontap. The rules are easy — a member of your team must occupy a barstool at all times from 12 p.m.-12 a.m. The minimum amount you must raise is $1,000, though we encourage you to aim for more. To keep everyone entertained, the event also includes team competitions, games, trivia, music and more. CASA New Hampshire gives voice to the abused and neglected children who end up in the complex court system. Volunteer advocates are trained to help these kids navigate what can be a very confusing and painful time, while speaking up for their best interests. On February 10, New Hampshire’s own Seth Meyers is giving two rare stand-up performances to benefit CASA and the Granite State Children’s Alliance. The shows are at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord. See Editor Rick Broussard’s interview with Meyers on page 68 and learn more about CASA volunteers in “Seniority” on page 74.

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Vote now!

The ballot — for food and drink PLUS shops, services and entertainment — is open from January 16 to March 16. Vote for your favorites in all categories now!

Voting takes place online only.

Visit bestofnh.com to cast your vote.

TO BENEFIT

Save the date for the annual Best of NH Party!

June 14 at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium.

Visit bestofnh.com for details.

SPONSORED BY

CR Helicopters Inc

Send letters to Editor Rick Broussard, New Hampshire Magazine, 150 Dow St. Manchester, NH 03101 or email him at editor@nhmagazine.com.

Feedback

emails, snail mail, facebook, tweets

nhmagazine.com, facebook.com/NHMagazine & @nhmagazine

Wrong Cover Model?

That certainly is a spirited cover of Justin Spencer on your December issue, but the real hottie is on page 63, his cousin Ryan Vezina. Both are awesome.

The Galore Family Lowell, Massachusetts

Editor’s note: Justin Spencer and Ryan Vezina led this year’s “It List” for their charitable efforts via their show “Chaos and Kindness.” The cover photo was taken by frequent contributor Kendal J. Bush. We’re glad you like the photo’s energy — makes cleaning up all that confetti worth it. We’re not sure that we’re qualified to judge hotness, but we do agree that they’re both awesome.

Thanks for the Mention I wanted to take an overdue moment to write with our many thanks. It was an honor to be included in the top new restaurants in New Hampshire [“Best New Restaurants,” November 2017]. The issue looked beautiful, and we’ve had many guests comment on the article. Thank you for recognizing our hard work and success here at Thompson House Eatery. We’ve had a wonderful first year and are looking forward to all that lies ahead.

Please come back and see us soon!

Kate M. Fournier Owner

finally have a vehicle to provide for me and my children and have some independence.” If you’re interested in joining us in our Wheels to Work mission, please consider donating your unneeded vehicle to Good News Garage and help to change a life. For more information, visit goodnewsgarage.org.

Susan Swain Regional Marketing Director

Editor’s note: Visit nhmagazine.com to read more about our “Good Cause of the Month” series. If you’d like to suggest a local nonprofit, email Emily Heidt at eheidt@ nhmagazine.com for consideration.

Can’t Get There From Here Relatively new subscriber here writing to urge you to correct an error in this month’s issue. In your article on the Colby Hill Inn, you mention that they serve Jewell Towne wines from Hampton [“Our Town,” January 2018]. As a resident of Hampton, I can tell you that I’d be thrilled if the vineyard were here, but it’s in South Hampton, which is nowhere near Hampton, something I learned when I went yard sale hunting shortly after moving here. I noted that North Hampton was right next door, and Hampton Falls just a hop, skip and a jump, but South Hampton is clear down by Amesbury — well worth the drive for wine, not so much for a yard sale.

Lisa McNerney Hampton

Doing Good On behalf of the Good News Garage family, I’d like to say thank you to NH Magazine for featuring us in their January “Good Cause of the Month” [posted online only at nhmagazine.com]. Good News Garage is proud of the work we do transporting New Hampshire folks toward self-sufficiency with refurbished donated cars, vans and trucks. Every year, we help hundreds of neighbors in need commute to work, care for their children, further their education, access affordable housing and participate in their communities — folks like Deanna who received a 2008 Mazda 5. She writes: “I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for donating your car. I have been waiting to get my own vehicle for a long time and have three children so it has been difficult for me.

Thanks to you and Good News Garage, I 10

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Editor’s note: We’re grateful that we get to work with many wonderful writers, photographers and illustrators. Faye Rogers recently collaborated with us for the first issue of 2018, and it’s always nice to see that the artists are sometimes just as excited with the results as we are. We love seeing how anyone interacts with the magazine — follow us on Instagram (@nhmagazine) and share your photos of how and where you enjoy New Hampshire Magazine and we might publish them here.

What is Craftsmanship ?

SM

To be crafted is to meet exacting standards.

It’s the human touch that combines art and science to create something unique.

We tend to think about craftsmanship in terms of physical things: fine wine, classic cars, custom furniture and iconic structures.

Spot four newts like the one above (but much smaller) hidden on ads in this issue, tell us where you found them and you might win a great gift from a local artisan or company. To enter our drawing for Spot the Newt, send answers plus your name and mailing address to:

But what about the underwriting of insurance to craft protection for your unique and valuable things? And the service behind that coverage when you need it most — like claims and loss prevention?

For your business.

Your employees.

Your home.

The people you love.

Spot the Newt

Things that need a particular kind of protection and service.

c/o New Hampshire Magazine 150 Dow St., Manchester, NH 03101 Email them to newt@nhmagazine.com or fax them to (603) 624-1310.

Last month’s “Spot the Newt” winner is Clara Mattheson of Stratham.

January issue newts were on pages 4, 18, 84 and 91.

The kind Chubb provides.

SM

Not just coverage. Craftsmanship.

Not just insured.

SM

Chubb. Insured. chubb.com Cross Insurance 1100 Elm Street Manchester, NH 03101 Tel. (603) 669-3218

©2017 Chubb. Coverages underwritten by one or more subsidiary companies. Not all coverages available in all jurisdictions. Chubb®, its logo, Not just coverage. Craftsmanship.SM and Chubb. Insured.SM are protected trademarks of Chubb.

NEED A GOOD REASON FOR SPOTTING THE NEWT?

This month’s lucky Newt Spotter will receive a $100 gift certificate toward a helicopter tour with White Mountains Helicopter.

Operating year-round, their scenic helicopter flights are the ultimate White Mountains experience. They can be found at flywm. com, and are a member of NH Made (nhmade.com), the state’s official booster of locally made products.

nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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603 Navigator “One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”

— Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist”

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Photo by Janine Parziale

Events 14 Our Town 16 Food & Drink 20 Small Bites 25 Retail 26 Outsider 28

Outside the Box Valentine’s Day is the holiday of chocolate, but this year consider forgoing the usual heart-shaped box for some of the gorgeous and delicious creations crafted by Richard Tango-Lowy (that’s him holding cacao pods in Puerto Rico). At Dancing Lion Chocolate on Elm Street in Manchester, Master Chocolatier Tango-Lowy uses all sorts of unusual shapes, flavors and brilliant colors to make unique bonbons such as the Chocolate Mask bonbon pictured here. Other flavors include Thai basil truffles, tea truffles with Golden Monkey black tea in Creos Peruvian dark milk chocolate, Buddha’s hand citron and many other exotic ingredients. You can also stop in at the café for drinking chocolate, tea, house-made croissants, coffee, pastries or a light bite. Visit the website for more information or to sign up for a class to try your hand at making sweet treats.

917 Elm St., dancinglion.us

photo by kristin boudreau

photo by donna mclintock

Unusual chocolates to surprise your sweetheart

The Mayan drinking chocolate at Dancing Lion is rich and creamy and comes with or without chili. nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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EVENTS

February | Picks

photo courtesy of wentworth by the sea hotel

Wine and chocolate events

A Match Made in Heaven

Wentworth by the Sea Hotel and Spa hosts an entire month of wine events.

Wine and chocolate may be the biggest Valentine’s Day cliché, but still we love and embrace it. These chocolate and wine events are perfect for lovers — or for singletons looking to celebrate their love of fudge and pinot noir.

1/26-2/25, New Castle

One of the Granite State’s favorite winter spectacles is back for its 12th year at the Wentworth by the Sea. This year will bring together the best of the Wentworth’s culinary team and premium wines from around the globe. From the multicourse Grand Vintner’s Dinners and oysters to the Big Tasting in the Grand Ballroom and the popular Bubbles and Jazz brunches, this monthlong festival won’t disappoint. winterwinefestival.com

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Van Otis Chocolate 101 and Wine Tasting

Thursdays through 3/29, Manchester

Calling all chocolate lovers — have you ever wanted to see what goes on “behind closed doors” at your local chocolate shop? Well, here’s your chance. Not only can you take a peek at how Van Otis makes their chocolate, but you can try your hand at making chocolate bark. Learn about chocolate and tempering, and then choose from a variety of ingredients for making your own chocolate bark creation.

Treats from a past Chocolate Festival

photo by b. sisson

Winter Wine Festival

You will also have a chance to sample wine and learn about pairing the right wine with chocolate. Take your finished bark home to share with family or significant other, or just keep it for yourself. vanotischocolates.com

603 NAVIGATOR

EVENTS

this fun night out at WineNot Boutique. This class will feature the king of Napa Valley, cabernet sauvignon. Taste and learn the differences in cabs that come from various regions of the famous valley. You can also sample varieties of fine cheese, salami and gourmet chocolate. winenotboutique.com photo courtesy of van otis chocolates

Chocolate Festival 2/25, White Mountains

Chocolate 101 at Van Otis Chocolates

Valentine’s Day Wine Dinner 2/10, Lee

Treat your sweetheart to a night of wine and good eats courtesy of Flag Hill Winery. Their talented chef will serve you a romantic dinner that features stuffed wild Cornish hen with lemon Parmesan asparagus and creamy herb polenta (gluten-free).

The four-course meal will be complete with wine or cocktail pairings. flaghill.com

Napa Valley Wine Class 2/22, Nashua

Whether you are a wine connoisseur or don’t know a moscato from a pinot grigio, wine lovers of all levels will benefit from

This tour-de-chocolate is the best fest of the year for lovers of chocolate and the White Mountains. Area inns and eateries will open their doors and offer up chocolate goodies, including chocolate-dipped strawberries, chocolate fountains and brownie sundaes. You’re welcome to drive or take advantage of the complimentary festival shuttle, but the real fun comes from hitting the trails. The fest is a fundraiser for the Mt. Washington Valley Ski Touring & Snowshoe Foundation, so tour stops are conveniently located along 45 kilometers of cross-country paths. Strap on your snowshoes or skis and enjoy this delectable event known as “The Sweetest Day on the Trails.” mwvskitouring.org

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1. Winter Wine Festival, New Castle 2. Chocolate 101, Manchester 3. Valentine’s Day Wine Dinner, Lee 4. Napa Valley Wine Class, Nashua 5. Chocolate Festival, Various inns and restaurants in the White Mountains

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OUR TOWN

photo by stillman rogers

603 NAVIGATOR

Winter Playground

Lincoln transformed into a resort town

BY BARBARA RADCLIFFE ROGERS

I

n my lifetime, Lincoln has been two completely different towns. When I was a kid, Lincoln meant timber.

It was part of a world immortalized in books such as “Spiked Boots” and “Tall Trees, Tough Men,” a town where logs were brought to be worked in the mills that lined the East Branch River and shipped off to the cities — first as lumber and later as paper — on cars of the Boston & Maine Railroad’s Pemigewasset Valley Branch.

Today, a new resort hotel stands alongside the river where the lumber mills were, and cars of the Hobo Railroad, full of kids and their parents and grandparents, travel the B&M railroad tracks. An open timber car brings skiers from the parking lot to the base lodge at Loon Mountain Resort.

Lincoln began as a “company town” built

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and owned by James E. Henry, who also built the East Branch and Lincoln Railroad to haul logs down from staging areas in the forests above. It began in the early 1890s, carved out of the forest alongside the East Branch, which provided water for power and later to work the abundant spruce into pulp for paper. The mill, houses, shops and railroad formed an industrial town that was once described as “Pullman, New Hampshire,” which turned out tons of paper daily.

In 1922 the mill set a production record of 104.74 tons of paper in one day. Lincoln continued as an industrial town for nearly a century, into the 1970s.

The East Branch & Lincoln Railroad was the largest logging railroad in New England, built at a time when only steam locomotives were powerful enough to haul heavy loads

Loon Mountain Resort’s ski train shuttle

of timber that distance over such challenging terrain. The last train hauled its load of logs down the mountainside in 1948, but the paper mills carried on until 1980, when closure of the Boston & Maine Pemi Branch sealed their fate.

The transition from a company town to a resort town didn’t happen overnight.

There was tourism in Lincoln even when the logging operations were in full swing.

Excursion runs, called “Blueberry Specials,” replaced the log hauling on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, when the East Branch & Lincoln Railroad carried guests from the Lincoln Hotel, along with other White Mountain tourists and locals, up to cut-over areas on the mountainside, where wild blueberries were one of the first plants to thrive after clear-cutting. Old coal cars were fitted

603 NAVIGATOR

OUR TOWN

tor for Lincoln’s Parker-Young Company. An avid outdoorsman, Adams saw the potential for a ski area on the more than 100 square miles of wilderness area that the new road would open up. He envisioned ski trails on the sheltered, northeast-facing slope of Loon Mountain, and brought in former Olympic skier Sel Hannah to consult. The verdict was that it would be a good mountain for inter-

mediate skiers, and its location close to the planned interstate highway would position it well in the market.

The rest is, as they say, history. Loon Mountain opened in December of 1966, and has continued to grow, recently adding an entirely new set of trails to challenge experienced skiers, for a total of 61 trails, with eight tree-skiing areas, six terrain

photos by stillman rogers

with benches and awnings, and along with berry picking, the passengers were treated to a hearty lumberjack meal at a logging camp.

But the real transition came as the mills declined and construction began on the Kancamagus Highway between Lincoln and Conway in the early 1960s. Enter Sherman Adams, former governor of New Hampshire and also a former lumber operations direc-

The Hobo Railroad keeps the past alive with scenic rides in the White Mountains.

MARKETPLACE

Experience Our Winter Wonderland Explore the 11 Unique Shops and Five Distinctive Restaurants of Mill Falls Marketplace located in Meredith, NH. Simon Pearce

Shops open daily at 10 a.m. • Routes 3 & 25. • Meredith, NH • millfalls.com

Vera Bradley

nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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603 NAVIGATOR

OUR TOWN

Above: Not a skier? Try tubing at Loon Mountain instead.

hotel right at the base of the gondola, the Black Diamond Pub offers a localvore menu that includes a long list of local suppliers and breweries. In the center of town, Gypsy Café is eclectic both in its décor and its food, which is inspired by Peru, Tunisia, Thailand and Argentina. Hidden just off the main road is one of the original locations of The Common Man, known for its warm atmosphere and new takes on old favs, such as chicken coated in a crispy blend of Parmesan and cornmeal, served with polenta and a ragù of roasted vegetables. The place in Lincoln that stops us every time, though, is Half Baked & Fully Brewed, a bakery and coffee shop with what may be the world’s best brownies, made from Ghirardelli chocolate. NH

Learn more Hobo Railroad (603) 745-2135 hoborr.com Loon Mountain (603) 745-8111 loonmtn.com Jean’s Playhouse (603) 745-2141 jeansplayhouse.com

parks, a superpipe and a halfpipe.

Off the slopes, there are snowshoe and cross-country trails, skating, tubing and a winter zipline.

With the success of the ski area, lodgings and restaurants began to sprout in Lincoln, making it an attractive year-round destination. In the mid-1980s, soon after the Millfront Marketplace was built, a local group turned the former paper mill into the Papermill Theatre and produced four plays.

It’s now called Jean’s Playhouse, which stages events all year long in a new state-ofthe-art building that replaced the old mill.

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The town center, where restaurants, lodgings and other businesses line Route 112, is close to the ski area, which has become a four-season sports and recreation destination. The gondola that carries skiers in the winter takes summer guests to the top for views and to explore the tumble of giant glacial boulders that form a natural funhouse of tunnels and caves. A restaurant at the top serves Caribbean-themed lunch specialties, and elsewhere at the resort guests can zipline over the river or climb in the Aerial Forest Adventure Park.

Inside The Mountain Club on Loon, the

The Mountain Club on Loon and the Black Diamond Pub (800) 229-7829 mtnclub.com Gypsy Café (603) 745-4395 gypsycaferestaurant.com The Common Man (603) 745-3463 thecman.com Half Baked & Fully Brewed (603) 745-8811 Facebook Ice Castles icecastles.com/lincoln

photo by stillman rogers; ice castle photo by a.j. mellor

Left: Another winter attraction in Lincoln is the annual ice castle. This manmade ice structure is located at the Hobo Railroad.

You can visit during the day, but at night the ice is lit up by colorful lights.

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603 NAVIGATOR

FOOD & DRINK

West End Eats

One up-and-coming Portsmouth street has it all

BY SUSAN LAUGHLIN

Y

ou have to admit that Islington Street in Portsmouth is not terribly pretty. There have been plans for the last 20 years to change all that and make the milelong corridor an inviting, art-filled, walkable live/work/play area. 2018 will be the year that bricked sidewalks, better signage, attractive period lighting and bumpouts to “calm” the traffic will be added, starting on the most westerly end this coming spring. But the real infrastructure is already there — great restaurants.

On a recent wintry day, I traveled the chaotic street, a narrow artery that leads to downtown Portsmouth, looking for the

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dining jewels. The whole crown may not be complete yet, but I found some real gems.

Islington Street is really mixed usage with residential, plumbing shops, gas stations, a tangle of utility lines and a general dreariness on a gray winter day, until you step inside one of the vital eating establishments.

You can almost feel the healthy heartbeat of a thriving life force.

My first stop was Café Espresso in the 800 Islington Mall. Nothing historic about this 1960s-era development, but the spot was inviting enough with cheery yellow walls, a responsive waitstaff and a bakery case filled with puffy homemade muffins. I

enjoyed the Blackstone Benedict with a nice lemony hollandaise and crispy bacon. You can tell the locals loved the place — they’ve been coming back again and again for the last 18 years for their Belgian waffles, buttermilk pancakes, great home fries and easy parking. Breakfast is available through lunch hours until 4 p.m.

Across the street is the historic Button Factory complex. Before WWI, it was the world’s largest producer of shoe buttons.

After the war, they produced mattress buttons and plastic apparel buttons, adding more buildings until it was a large complex.

In 1986 the original three-story building was sold and became a home for artists of all types. Another part of the complex is home to several restaurants and shops.

Stopping for a quick latte, I enjoyed the aroma of Port City Coffee Roasters. The shop is small and offers basic sandwiches and freshly roasted beans ground to your specifications. My Indonesian selection “aroma-fied” my car for the rest of the day.

Walking back around to the front of the complex, you’ll find STREET’za, an enterprise opened last summer by Josh Lanahan and Michelle Lozuaway, owners of STREET. The menu is relatively simple, offering wings, a few salads and pizza. But this is not ordinary pizza. They have taken the worldly street food concept and applied it to America’s favorite comfort food. Ah, the ‘za.

The Korean cheesesteak comes with kimchi and Korean BBQ beef, the Greek pizza has lamb, feta and mint, and the garlic-laced white sauce pie comes topped with fennel and sausage. They offer both gluten-free cauliflower and vegan gluten-free crusts, but the New York style is just the right balance of chew and crisp. At lunchtime I was able to purchase just a slice, but regretted that I

photos by susan laughlin

Pictured at left is STREET and above is pizza from their new STREET’za location.

603 NAVIGATOR

photo by susan laughlin

FOOD & DRINK

didn’t have a whole pie to take home. The cavernous space has been dressed up with a lot of fun elements — antiques, bench seating (be careful not to sit on the end) and murals done by an employee. Craziness seems to be encouraged. Misspellings on the menu aren’t changed, they are embraced, says a server. The offbeat atmosphere is summed up on the creative T-shirts that proclaim “Chew with your mind open.”

Part of the ‘za space will be a marketplace for international foods, but in back, kind of hidden, is b.Bar, which opens at 4 p.m. I promised to return.

From the West End, I headed back to the east end of Islington Street. This is where Caffe Kilim found a home after they left their Daniel Street location in 2006 due to high rent. Ahmet Yazgan, son of the owners, is now holding down the family business.

“We introduced Portsmouth to espresso and all the high-end coffee terminology 25 years ago,” he says. According to a poster in the café, the world’s first coffee house opened in Turkey around 1475, so they must know their beans. The adjoining market and seating space is warmed by the design of hundreds of Turkish rugs. Find here a selec-

The whole crown may not be complete yet, but I found some real gems.

Find the famous Nikki’s bánh mì sandwich at Darleen’s Subs & Pizza Shoppe.

tion of imported goods, including Turkish delight, pomegranate molasses, Turkish apricots and spiced pistachios.

Looking for a more serious libation, I headed to Liars Bench Beer Company in the original Washburn Plumbing space. The old signage is now hanging over the kitchen area of this rustic, but cool small brewpub

with a funky bar in front and the brew tanks in back. The draft list is small, with only about six offerings at a time, but they are diverse. From a saison to a smoky porter to their newest IPA Young Upstart, the latter being my favorite. I wasn’t expecting much on the menu, but was surprised to find their sausages were made at Moxy, recently heralded by Forbes as one of the 10 best restaurants in the world (yes, the world).

The reviewer loved the take on the New England boiled dinner with its house-corned beef. Portsmouth is a small world. One of the brewers and owners of Liars Bench, Dagan Migirditch, previously bartended at

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21

603 NAVIGATOR The Franklin Oyster House, a sister restaurant to Moxy.

Switching gears again, I headed to The Kitchen, an interesting deli offering tasty sandwiches, creative salads and juicy burgers. You can take your choices to go or sit at the tables or the bar to enjoy a beer, wine and house-marinated vodkas.

There is a lot to like here. I tried their take on poutine made with their signature “spudsters,” deep-fried mashed potatoes. In this case, they added a flavorful turkey gravy and topped it with a soft-boiled egg. It was a bit strange looking, but tasted wonderful. The menu speaks the language of love. Not all the burgers are beef. A customer favorite is the Krabby Patty with a hearty crab cake, roasted red pepper mayo and pickled red onions. There’s a duck burger too, with an Asian fennel slaw and a lamb burger with crumbled pistachios. Lunch needn’t

be boring, especially here.

I headed up to White Heron Tea just before they closed at 7 p.m. The store is very inviting with a nice selection of housemade foods on the blackboard.

Portsmouth restaurateur Jay McSharry says of his partner Jonathan Blakeslee, “He is a tea savant. He travels to Japan on a regular basis and was originally stationed there.” Indeed, the tea assortment is just plain dazzling, packaged in colorcoordinated tins and backed up with a variety of retail accouterments, perfect for gift-giving.

Why not get a tea strainer that looks like a rubber ducky?

I couldn’t leave the street without trying out Nikki’s bánh mì offered out of Darleen’s Subs.

It is a strange menu board that’s half Vietnam specialties and half typical sub shop fare. The customer ahead of me claimed they had the best meatball sub ever, but I looked east for the bánh mì.

Caffe Kilim (here and on the opposite page) houses a market selling imported goods.

Award Reception

Please Join Us.

New Hampshire Magazine, in partnership with the New Hampshire Nurses Association, honor the unsung heroes of the state’s medical community.

Finalists will be featured in the May 2018 issue of New Hampshire Magazine.

Excellence in Nursing categories: • Ambulatory Care Nursing

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• Advanced Practice Registered Nurse

Tuesday, May 22, 2018 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Radisson Hotel 700 Elm Street, Manchester, NH

Dinner • Cocktails • Live Entertainment To order tickets, visit: NHMagazine.com/ NursingAwards

photo by susan laughlin

FOOD & DRINK

Presented by

SAVE THE DATE! photo by susan laughlin

Join us as we step back into the bright lights and dark nights of the roaring ’20s, at the most talked about event of the season — the BOB Awards party! Celebrate the best businesses in the state, while enjoying a spirited cocktail and meeting business leaders from across New Hampshire.

Costumes are encouraged, but not required. There will also be a chance to win prizes and raise money for Families in Transition.

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT BOBAWARDSNH.COM

THURSDAY, March 8 • 5–8 P.M. It was presented nicely on a tasty toasted bun and flourished with fresh cilantro. Nikki offers about five versions, with one layered with liver pâté.

Finally, it was time to head back to STREET’za and into b.Bar, tucked within, but behind the ‘za space. The small bar is a wonder in décor. Large paintings of female nudes were done by an employee, the animal skins covering tabletops are reportedly from the owners’ barn, while the bottom half of the bar holds a mural in pieced leather. Light sources are interesting too,

Grappone Conference Center • Concord, NH

SPONSORS:

“If Kittery Foreside is Portsmouth’s Brooklyn, then this improved West End of Portsmouth will be its Queens.” with Edison bulbs sticking out of former Edison phonograph horns — hope he would be happy about that. Patrons appeared to be delighted with the cozy and inventive space.

I ordered a gin drink with Cocchi Rosa, lemon juice and dried rose petals that was nicely balanced. For now the menu is limited to SREET’za offerings of pizza, salads and wings. The Korean sticky wings are a standout. No worry, it’s all good.

Leaving for home, I took a last peek into STREET. The place was hopping. The eclec-

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603 NAVIGATOR

FOOD & DRINK

Liars Bench Beer Company pictured on this page is located in the old Washburn Plumbing building. In addition to their own craft beer, they also serve a small menu featuring sausages made by Moxy, which is located in downtown Portsmouth.

Islington Street from East to West

Caffe Kilim and Market 163 Islington St. Facebook

The Kitchen Eatery & Catering 171 Islington St. thekitchennh.com Lexie’s Joint 212 Islington St. Popular juicy burgers with creative toppings.

Also located in Exeter. peaceloveburgers.com Liars Bench Beer Company 459 Islington St. liarsbenchbeer.com

tic décor just made it a fun place to be.

The future of Islington Street is pretty bright. Its eastern gateway is at Congress Street, right after Jumpin’ Jays. A mile later it ends with access to Route 33 and a fast way out of town. The lower rents are drawing in more restaurateurs. Lexie’s Joint may be moving to the 1950s-style Getty Station next door, making it a very retro space. In the 800 block, the old Frank Jones Brewery space is being converted to 42 residential units, and Cornerstone Pizza from Ogunquit, Maine, featuring artisanal pizza and craft beer, will open soon. Brendan Vesey of Joinery in Newmarket will be taking a space for a cocktail bar as well. A little farther up the street, Loaded Question Brewery is under construction.

I asked McSharry, a large stakeholder in the area, what he thought of all this. “It will be very exciting when it is done, but the 24

nhmagazine.com | February 2018

White Heron Tea & Coffee 601 Islington St. whiteherontea.com Darleen’s Sub & Pizza 697 Islington St. nikkisbanhmi.com Café Espresso 738 Islington St. cafe-espresso.com

process will be painful with road construction all year. This preliminary stuff will not be pretty,” he says. “If Kittery Foreside is Portsmouth’s Brooklyn, then this improved West End of Portsmouth will be its Queens,” he jokes.

All hail the new Queen after she shakes her drab garb and stands up with all her jewels in a place and not one Starbucks in sight. But, please, bear with the dust until the end of 2018. NH

Port City Coffee Roasters 801 Islington St. portcitycoffee.com STREET, STREET’za and b.Bar 801 Islington St. streetfood360.com Ohana Kitchen 800 Islington St. Former owner of Radi-

ci, Jay Krecklow and his wife Stacy, recently opened a Hawaiianinspired café featuring poke bowls and sushi burritos. ohana.kitchen Loaded Question Brewing Company 909 Islington St. Under construction Great Rhythm Brewing 105 Bartlett St. off Islington Street on Mill Pond New taproom featuring their exciting IPAs greatrhythmbrewing. com

Arts

Portsmouth Music & Arts Center 973 Islington St. Community Music School pmaconline.org West End Studio 959 Islington St. Home to Act One and the NH Theatre Project actonenh.org

Newer Retail Hart & Home 909 Islington St. Selling new and consignment furniture and home décor Facebook

Making Faces 100 South Albany St. Cosmetics store formerly on Bow Street makingfacesweddings.com

SMALL BITES

Small Bites

603 NAVIGATOR

Food news and events from around the state by Susan Laughlin

photos by susan laughlin

The Sweet Words of Love

Event of the Month

Eschew a box of chocolates for your loved one and present an array of perky sugar cookies spelling out your love. Baker Tanya Fox of New Boston has been baking all her life, but three years ago she decided to get serious. After viewing endless YouTube videos on cookie decorating, she found that she had a great touch with royal icing. In season, she can be found at the New Boston farmers market, but for now she’s happy to bake to order. $2 and up per cookie. Small hearts are three for $2. Shipping is extra. thefrostedcookie.com

Chocolate-Cherry Cherub

Enjoy a hint of chocolate for Valentine’s Day with tequila and soda, much like a refreshing paloma. Here we substitute Patrón XO Cafe Cocoa for a white tequila and add a cherry soda instead of Squirt.

2 ounces Patrón Cafe Cocoa 1 ounce Luxardo cherry liqueur 2 ounces cherry soda (Crush Cherry is available at Walmart) Several dashes Fee Brothers Cherry Bitters 1 ounce fresh lemon juice Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with fresh cherries or maraschino cherries.

Shell-Shocked: An Oyster and Wine Celebration

Enjoy sommelier selections of blanc Vermentino, Gavi or sauvignon ry eve gly with oysters served seemin iway possible, from oysters cas the on raw to r elle no and Rockerf led. gril or sted half shell, fried, roa are Spinney Creek Shellfish’s oysters cold in their prime, fresh from the ing in pair the y Enjo ter. water of win ed serv is ing SALT’s lounge. Everyth you t à la carte. You choose wha ize want and how much to custom st. No your own oyster and wine fea ary. ess nec ets reservations or tick vast This event is just one part of the s Winter Wine Festival, which run ant through February 25 at the eleg tle.

Cas New in Sea Wentworth by the . p.m 5-10 Friday, February 16 from winterwinefestival.com nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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RETAIL

photo by emily heidt

603 NAVIGATOR

Assorted baked goods from Four Your Paws Only ($1.99-$2.49)

Pet Valentines

Gifts for your four-legged loved ones

Wiggle and Thump Martingale collars (start at $18)

BY EMILY HEIDT

You have sweets for your sweetie and a little something for yourself, but aren’t you forgetting someone? While we are treating ourselves this Valentine’s Day, consider doing the same for your favorite four-legged friend with local New Hampshire treats, from chew toys to conversation hearts to custom dog beds. Here are some gift suggestions for spoiling your valentine that will make your human friends jealous.

Get There

Four Your Paws Only North Conway fouryourpawsonly.com Woof Purr Studio Concord woofpurr.com Wiggle and Thump Nashua etsy.com/shop/wiggleandthump

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nhmagazine.com | February 2018

photos courtesy of wiggle and thump

Wiggle and Thump Custom dog bed (start at $125)

March 24 & 25,

2018

photos by emily heidt

Whittemore Center Arena, UNH Durham, NH SATURDAY 10-5

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• Over 200 Exhibitors Discover the latest products and services for your home • Seminars and Clinics Get expert advice and helpful tips on home improvement topics Four Your Paws Only Signature classic biscuits (all $1.19)

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Help Make a Difference

Above is Coleman, McLean Communications’ CMO (chief morale officer). He tested out a couple of items and gave his paw of approval. His personal favorite was the chicken pot pie signature biscuit from Four Your Paws Only. After a long day of product approving and visiting offices for pats, he deserved a rest — with a Woof Purr Studio toy (Recycled Tennis Ball Fleece Braid, $15) safely stashed nearby, presumably for later.

In May, volunteers from Building on Hope will undertake a complete remodeling of the residential facilities of the Crisis Center of Central NH in Concord. We are currently seeking financial donations as well as gifts of labor, building materials, furnishings, electronics, and other useful items for those fleeing domestic and sexual violence, stalking, child and elder abuse and neglect.

For more information, to sign up as a volunteer or to donate, visit buildingonhope.com/get-involved. www.cccnh.org nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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OUTSIDER

Fly With the Snow Ziplines aren’t just for warm weather

BY KRISTEN BATTLES

I

f you’re a seasoned adventurer, you may have already tried your hand at ziplining — perhaps at an indoor facility or during the summer and fall months at one of New Hampshire’s touring spots. But if you’re ready to take your thrill-seeking to the next level, then winter ziplining may be just the thing for you. Braving the heights in combination with braving the cold is an exhilarating experience for many people, and New Hampshire is one of the coolest (pun intended) places to try it. For those not yet familiar, a zipline (also known as a zip wire, aerial runway or aerial ropeslide) is, in its simplest form, a pulley on a cable

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situated on a slope or mountain, which uses gravity to get you from point A to point B. You don’t need to be an athlete in particular to enjoy this activity.

While all the necessary safety gear, such as helmets and harnesses, will be provided to you for your tour, you will need to come prepared for cold and unpredictable weather. Breathable, wicking layers are always best; hats, gloves, boots and a change of clothes for after your zip is not a bad idea either. If you are new to ziplining, pay close attention to instructions and heed all signs and safety precautions so that you can enjoy your snowy descent.

Where to go: Alpine Adventures

Alpine Adventures is located in Lincoln, and offers year-round zipline canopy tours for different abilities and comfort levels at Barron Mountain. They can outfit you or your group for a snowy excursion. During the winter season, they are open Friday-Monday from 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.

In an effort to appeal to a broader range of snow lovers, many ski resorts are offering more winter activities, from tubing and cross-country skiing to snowshoe tours and, yes, ziplines. The following resorts all offer zipline adventures through the winter.

Bretton Woods

The three-hour canopy tours take place on the slopes of Bretton Woods at the Mount Washington Resort. The tour zips above the trees at speeds up to 30 mph along nine different lines, two sky bridges, three

photo courtesy bretton woods

603 NAVIGATOR

OUTSIDER

NEW ENGLAND’S PREMIERE ADVENTURE DESTINATION

photo courtesy cranmore mountain

www.AlpineZipline.com 603 745 9911

SHOW YOUR rappels and 16 tree platforms. All told, you will descend 1,000 feet. They operate in most weather conditions, so long as it remains safe.

Tours begin at the Bretton Woods base lodge.

Other offerings include tubing and old-fashioned sleigh rides.

Opposite page: A rider on the canopy tour at Bretton Woods

Cranmore Mountain Resort

Alpine Adventures 41 Main St., Lincoln (603) 745-9911, alpinezipline.com

This ski mountain in North Conway features the zipline “anyone can ride”— the side-byside seated, 700-foot Soaring Eagle zipline.

Stay for some snow tubing and check out the mountain coaster and giant swing for some more wintry thrills.

Loon Mountain Resort

Like Cranmore, Loon in Lincoln has expanded its winter fun activities far beyond skiing and riding. In addition to ice skating, guided snowshoe or cross-county ski tours and more, they also have a winter zipline that soars more than 700 feet across the Pemigewasset River, and then back across to the Adventure Center. NH

Above: After riding the Soaring Eagle zipline at Cranmore, try the mountain coaster for more adventure.

LOVE

Find it

Bretton Woods Omni Mount Washington Resort 99 Ski Area Rd., Bretton Woods (603) 278-4947 brettonwoods.com Cranmore Mountain Resort 1 Skimobile Rd., North Conway (603) 356-5543 cranmore.com Loon Mountain Resort 60 Loon Mountain Rd., Lincoln (603) 745-8111 loonmtn.com

Heart Necklace

by Gigi Laberge

Shop our Fine Craft Galleries Concord • Hanover • Hooksett • Littleton • Meredith Nashua • North Conway • Center Sandwich (May-Oct)

www.nhcrafts.org nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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603 Informer “Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.” ­– William Wordsworth

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Artisan 36 What Do You Know? 37 Politics 38 Blips 39

FIRST PERSON

Bird’s-eye View

A six-month journey following hawks

BY ERIC MASTERSON

During Eric Masterson’s quest to follow the broad-winged hawk migration via bicycle, he decided to try to see things from their point of view. In Houston he soared at 2,000 feet during a tandem hang gliding flight.

One could argue that when God created the world, he received design specifications from a committee of birdwatchers. Any bird that wants to move overland from North to South America must navigate a skinny land bridge that narrows to 50 miles in places.

But instead of one bird, imagine hundreds of millions all traveling south at the same time in a coordinated avian rush hour lasting for two months, and you have a candidate for the eighth natural wonder of the world.

For the most part, bird migration is hard to see, as many species fly under the cover of darkness, while others take an ocean route.

But the broad-winged hawk is an exception. It breeds across the eastern United States and north into Canada, and winters from Guatemala south to Peru and Brazil. They fly only overland and only during the day, often in large flocks called kettles, which are easily visible to the naked eye. They also follow pretty narrow flyways, or avian highways in the sky, so it is possible to camp out along the route in anticipation of their arrival, like a spectator waiting for the Tour de France to pass. nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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I was intrigued enough to take a weeklong trip in October of 2015 to Kekoldi, Costa Rica, where the migration can reach high six figures per day. It is one of the best places to see one of the greatest spectacles in the world. One week didn’t sate my fascination, and so a year later, I again left for Kekoldi, but instead of heading to Manchester airport for a six-hour plane ride, I jumped on my bike for a six-month pilgrimage following several tagged birds.

After securing a generous sabbatical from the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, I teamed up with Hawk Mountain, a 100-year-old hawk sanctuary and research organization in Pennsylvania that conducts research on a range of raptor species around the world. Since 2014, they have been researching the migration of broad-winged hawks, using satellite transmitters to monitor their journey south. Four birds were captured and outfitted with satellite transmitters in 2016, including Rosalie, a female that nested right on Hawk Mountain.

I planned to track Rosalie with my iPhone, while my wife Tricia would track me courtesy of the Spot GPS device that she insisted

FIRST PERSON

I again left for Kekoldi, but instead of heading to Manchester airport for a six-hour plane ride, I jumped on my bike for a six-month pilgrimage following several geo-tagged birds.

I take. And so, on September 5, I got out of bed, ate breakfast, jumped on my bike and headed off in pursuit of the birds. Door to door, the journey would take me six and a half months.

For the first week, I had the pleasure of a riding companion. Richard Pendleton, a

friend from Peterborough, accompanied me as far as Hawk Mountain. Part companion, part pacer, Richard was not fast enough to help me keep up with the hawks, which in the early part of their journey can travel as much as 100 miles per day.

New England’s birds follow the Appalachians southwest toward the Gulf of Mexico, and as I followed Rosalie south, I had the opportunity to visit several hawk research sites that dot the Appalachians, including Little Gap raptor banding station in Pennsylvania. It was here that I met Becca McCabe of Hawk Mountain as she removed a flat fly from the plumage of a captured hawk. Flat flies are members of a family of parasitic flies called Hippobosidae, and live their lives tucked beneath the feathers or fur of their particular host.

As we sit atop the Earth, oblivious to our annual journey around the sun, so the flat fly lives amongst the feathers of a hawk, unaware of its migration to South America each winter. I continued south from Pennsylvania, intersecting frequently with the Appalachian Trail and its band of hikers.

The digital breadcrumbs left by the

Researchers use satellite transmitters to track and research the broad-winged hawk migration.

Eric Masterson began his journey in Hancock, New Hampshire, on September 5, 2016, and finished in February, 2017 in Kekoldi, Costa Rica. The blue dots on the map are Rosalie’s path, and the red line is Masterson. The break is where he took the bus instead of the “Road of Death.”

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Masterson releases a hawk back into the wild at the Little Gap raptor banding station in Pennsylvania.

photo of eric masterson with the broad-winged hawk courtesy of hawk mountain

603 INFORMER

603 INFORMER

FIRST PERSON

My local hawkwatch in Peterborough closed out the 2016 season with 10,530 broad-winged hawks counted. By the time the snowball reached Corpus Christi, it was a monster, with 594,222 birds tallied.

nhmagazine.com | February 2018

33

603 INFORMER birds led me south through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana until I reached the Texas coast. By the time I reached Corpus Christi on November 25, Rosalie and her friends were already in South America, having passed through the town a full two months earlier. But Texas was kind to us both. The flat terrain, smooth roads and tailwind provided the perfect combination to push my 130-pound-loaded bike to average speeds in excess of 20 mph. And the towering thermals that helped propel a hang glider from Zapata to Lubbock in 2012, a world record distance of 475 miles, also helped power these soaring birds over increasingly greater distances.

In Houston, I took a tandem hang gliding flight to 2,000 feet to try to get a feel for their journey. The lower Texas coast is a significant bottleneck, where eastern, central and western flyways merge into a superflyway that spills over the border into Mexico.

My local hawkwatch in Peterborough closed out the 2016 season with 10,530 broadwinged hawks counted. By the time the snowball reached Corpus Christi, it was a monster, with 594,222 birds tallied.

I started to see other changes in the avifauna (birds of a particular region), as the influence of the Central American isthmus increased with each turn of the pedal. In the 76 days it took to reach Texas, I recorded an average of 1.7 species of birds per day for a grand total of 126 species.

In the 23 days I took to cycle across Texas to the Mexican border, the rate jumped to 3.7 species per day. And the birds started to take on a tropical flavor, with green jays replacing blue jays, and the plain chachalaca replacing the American turkey. Other changes were cause for anxiety, and as Spanish began to replace English, I felt a knot rise in my throat. I had managed to subordinate the fears that so many people

Masterson met several other cyclists from all over the world as they were funneled through the narrows of Panama.

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FIRST PERSON

My wife heard an NPR story about traveling the border state of Tamaulipas, where there’s a road dubbed the Road of Death. I agreed that I would take the bus of life from Reynosa to Veracruz. projected onto my journey, but my wife heard an NPR story about traveling the border state of Tamaulipas, where there’s a road dubbed the Road of Death. I agreed that I would take the bus of life from Reynosa to Veracruz.

Perhaps anxiety got the better of me, and I came down with a virus that grounded me for 10 days, but I was fortunate to land in the Hotel Bienvenido in Cardel. The roof of the hotel, which sits in the center of this modest-sized town just outside Veracruz, is a hawkwatch site, perhaps the most famous one in the world. The counters who gather each fall had counted, by the time of my arrival, a grand total of 752,995 broad-winged hawks from the hotel’s roof. The migration here is so massive that another site

has been established six miles west of Cardel — just far enough so that birds are not double counted by both counters.

The combined tally by the time I arrived ran to 1,494,471, and if you include the 18 other species of vulture, hawk and falcon that use the flyway, the final number was 3,930,943.

I jumped back on the bike when the virus finally lifted and pedaled south into the mountains toward the Guatemalan border, stopping for two weeks in San CristÓbal de las Casas for an intensive Spanish course.

With each day that passed trouble-free, my anxiety lifted a little, though I still managed to find myself in a few scrapes. Stranded late on Christmas Eve in Matias Romero with a dead iPhone, I had no means of navigation through the dark streets back to

Masterson cycled south through the Appalachians and the southern states during the most divisive election season in recent memory. In Texas, they have decided that politics, smoking and hawk-watching don’t mix.

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FIRST PERSON

my hotel, nor could I call for a taxi. There was nowhere to charge my phone, notwithstanding the fact that electrical outlets are much less common in Mexico than in the US. My gut told me it was not safe to walk home, so I found an evening service and knelt down before the Virgin Mary to pray, and there, behind her feet, I spotted my salvation — an outlet.

The mountains could not be avoided, and in the coming days I would climb to 10,000 feet over the Alaskan Pass in Guatemala. I continued south, following the birds as best I could, past Lake Atitlán, into Honduras via the Mayan ruins at Copán Ruinas, along the eastern shore of Lake Nicaragua. I pulled into Kekoldi in southern Costa Rica in late February, 176 days after setting out from Hancock, New Hampshire. Rosalie, who passed this way

on October 18, was now in Peru. While at Kekoldi I noticed a change in the heartbeat of the Earth that told me my journey was coming to an end. Rosalie was starting to drift northwards, and as I stood on the canopy tower in Kekoldi looking out toward the Atlantic Ocean, I noticed a stream of birds overhead, Mississippi Kites heading north to nesting grounds in central and eastern North America. I knew the broadwinged hawks would not be far behind.

I crossed the border into Panama for the final sprint. The wind gusted to 60 mph as I crossed the Continental Divide one last time — two oceans swapping energy across a tiny 50-mile-wide sliver of land. With time and money running low, the Panama Canal would be my last stop, but not before I lived one last metaphor that would tie our journeys together.

For the entirety of the trip, I encountered no other transcontinental bicyclists, but within the space of a couple of days, I ran into an Australian and a German cycling north from the tip of South America, a Spaniard cycling north from Peru, and a German who left the Northwest Territories in June and planned to reach Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina by the end of 2017. Five different species of bicyclists brought together by the geography of the Central American isthmus, just like the hawks.

I arrived home on March 16, rolling back the half-year journey in six hours, grateful for the trip of a lifetime. When I left New Hampshire, I expected that the end point, wherever it lay, would be the end point of my journey, but the hang-gliding flight in Houston awakened an idea. In May I joined a hang-gliding school in western New Hampshire, where I trained all summer and graduated with a beginner rating in October. It turns out that I’m only half way through my journey. NH

About the Author Counting birds in the sky takes practice. Trained observers are stationed at count sites along the migratory route, and the data is submitted to hawkcount.org.

Eric Masterson works by day as a land specialist for the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, New Hampshire, where he runs the stewardship program for the organization’s approximately 10,000 acres of conservation easements, assists with new conservation projects and coordinates their field trip program.

Learn more

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Kempton, Pennsylvania hawkmountain.org Harris Center for Conservation Education Hancock harriscenter.org HawkCount hawkcount.org Lake Atitlán in the Guatemalan highlands of the Sierra Madre mountain range

More About the Author ericmasterson.com nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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ARTISAN

Nature, Set in Gold From single stones to complex compositions

BY SUSAN LAUGHLIN

A

t the heart of every Kristin Kennedy piece is a naturally beautiful gemstone. After the stone — watermelon tourmaline, Tahitian pearl or maybe a seductive opal — is chosen, the gold setting is created around the gemstone’s character and shape. Kennedy starts by carving the shape in wax and then casting it in 16k yellow gold or 14k white gold. The carving process, without the need for hammers or saws, allows an organic shape to blossom.

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Kennedy, who is originally from the Southwest, studied jewelry design in Flagstaff, Arizona, at the Gemological Institute in Carlsbad, California, and then apprenticed with a goldsmith in Sedona.

In 2000 she moved to New Hampshire and was rapidly accepted into the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen.

Four years ago, she opened a retail store and studio on Warren Street in Concord to display her lavish collections. Rings are

set with large pearls, cut stones and even ancient gold coins. Large luminous opals are paired with diamonds and rubies and set in gold bezels that are further embellished with gold settings for pendants and earrings.

Gold pod-like petals are layered with tiny diamonds for a touch of glimmer for statement neckpieces. It’s all the beauty of nature set in nature’s most beautiful metal.

Shown here is Kennedy’s popular watermelon tourmaline line. The natural colors of translucent pink and green vary in intensity, and she is able to select the best specimens for her work, often sharing the selection process with clients for their custom designs.

The old-fashioned rose cut is Kennedy’s favorite facet for gemstones. With fewer faces, the natural beauty of the stone, and eons of time that created it, are not disturbed, but enhanced. Like her work, timelessness is captured and set high on a pedestal. NH

Find It

Kristin Kennedy Fine Jewelry Design 30A Warren St., Concord kristinkennedy.com

courtesy photos

Left: 14-karat yellow gold and watermelon tourmaline chandelier earrings Top right: 18-karat yellow gold ring with rose-cut salt and pepper black diamonds and white diamond accents Above: 22-karat yellow gold and pink tourmaline earrings

WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

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These pillars (left) in Pittsburg marking the border between the US and Canada create a small 18-inch gap of “no man’s land” that’s neither here nor there, unlike the usual single marker (above).

No Man’s Land

The tall tale(s) of two boundary markers

BY MARSHALL HUDSON

L

ooking something like two toddlers in a playpen or two boxers about to go toe-to-toe swapping punches, there exists an odd configuration of boundary markers in northern New Hampshire on the international border between Canada and the US. These two bounds are near the point where Route 3 crosses from Pittsburg, New Hampshire, into Chartierville, Quebec, and are about as far north as you can go while still remaining in New Hampshire.

Stories told about these side-by-side monuments say that one bound is in Canada while the other is in the US, and between them lies approximately 18 inches of no man’s land.

If you are wondering why there are two monuments marking one single spot or how there came to be a gap of no man’s land between the two countries, you have to look back to 1842 and the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, named in part after New Hampshire statesman Daniel Webster. This treaty was written to end some 60 years of squabble over the border. The dispute resulted from an unclear description included in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the American Revolutionary War.

When the Webster-Ashburton Treaty was negotiated and finally executed, the two countries, by mutual agreement, set out to survey the length of the newly defined border from the mouth of the St. Croix River in Maine and New Brunswick to the St. Lawrence River in Quebec and New York.

Legend says that one team of surveyors

The International Boundary Commission recognizes Monument #484, yet it remains an unresolved — although amicable — dispute between two nations. started at one end and proceeded east, while the other team started on the other end and proceeded west. The two survey teams concluded their work in 1847 when they met in the middle in Pittsburg, New Hampshire.

But at the point where the two surveys came

together, they discovered that their lines didn’t quite meet, creating a discrepancy of a little less than two feet.

Considering the total distance that was surveyed, the equipment available and the techniques that were then in practice, this small discrepancy was not very significant.

The two survey teams could not determine the cause of the error, nor reach an agreement about the proper location of the point, so they shook hands and erected two boundary monuments side-by-side that have remained in place, locked together by a concrete pad for more than 170 years. The International Boundary Commission now recognizes this double monument as Monument #484, yet it remains an unresolved — although amicable — dispute between the two nations.

As with any good tall tale, there’s another version of this legend. This alternate story suggests that there wasn’t really a surveying discrepancy at all, but rather that the surveyors involved had an extra monument with them (and a sense of humor) and decided to erect a double monument just to make for a good story. Personally, I prefer the version of a lack of precision that needs a little international camaraderie to resolve the issue.

One final tall tale told about these monuments says that the steel playpen erected around these bounds was done to prevent criminals from escaping into the sliver of no man’s land, and thus being beyond the reach of the law from either country. More likely it was done just to prevent snowplow trucks from bumping into the monuments while pushing snow around. NH nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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POLITICS

Women’s Wave

#MeToo might sway the 2018 midterm elections

BY JAMES PINDELL

R

ecent midterm elections in New Hampshire have been a wild ride.

In 2006 there was a major Democratic wave, and then in 2010 it was the Republicans’ turn. Democrats were put back in office in the 2012 presidential election, but Republicans replaced them in 2014.

These midterm elections largely had to do with how Granite State voters felt about the sitting president. At critical points in those years we just weren’t that into presidents from both parties, including George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

At the same time, each of those elections had a subplot that dominated the campaign conversation. In 2006, it was the war in Iraq.

In 2010, it was the recently passed Affordable Care Act. In 2018, the subplot is already clear: It’s the #MeToo movement.

It began last fall with The New York Times story that detailed Harvey Weinstein’s long history of alleged sexual harassment and assault. His swift downfall, and the resulting spread of #MeToo on social media, led to a vast number of women, many of them celebrities (and some famous men like

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Terry Crews) sharing their stories online and with the media. The intent was to show that Weinstein’s accusers were hardly alone — that this was a widespread problem that affects all women, not just movie stars, both in the workplace and elsewhere. The result is an ever-growing list of prominent, powerful men — from actors and politicians to journalists and media icons — who have lost not just their reputations, but jobs and careers.

There is a reckoning taking place. Time magazine named the women behind the movement as its “Person of the Year” for 2017.

We have yet to see if the impact will be felt at the ballot box and things could get interesting at the midterm elections.

Partly because of the #MeToo movement and partly in reaction to the election of Trump, himself accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct (the Women’s March just after the inauguration is estimated to be the largest single-day demonstration in US history), there are a record number of women running for office around the country. One study by Rutgers University found that there are already more than double the number of women running for major office

in 2018 than there were in 2016.

In New Hampshire, we are accustomed to women running — and winning. We were the first state to have a majority of women serving in the state Senate. We were the first state to have our entire Congressional delegation consist of women. While many Republican women have been trailblazers in the state, currently the federal delegation is made up entirely of Democratic women.

Things may not change drastically this year. But what should be noticeable is how the candidates will be asked in town halls and in debates, not just about tax cuts or health care or North Korea, but also about workplace culture and sexual discrimination.

Now may not be the best moment to seek office if you are a heterosexual white guy, but attitudes are slow to change. An investigation by New Hampshire Public Radio found that more than 100 members of the state Legislature didn’t sign a statement saying they had read a couple of paragraphs spelling out the sexual harassment policy. Once notified, some did sign, but most did not. (See the list of who did and didn’t at nhpr.org.)

How voters make up their minds at the ballot box is a complicated matrix. But in 2018, it is clear that New Hampshire voters will have more women to potentially vote for, and that the #MeToo movement is clearly on their minds. NH

illustration by peter noonan

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IN THE NEWS

Blips Monitoring appearances of the 603 on the media radar since 2006

photo by steve hall/”@thesunk”

Above: Anok Yai and sister Alim pause during a day of meetings about modeling contracts in New York.

Left: One of Anok’s new headshots

Going Vogue

How one photo changed a Plymouth State student’s life overnight

BY CASEY MCDERMOTT

A

nok Yai always dreamed of hitting the big time as a model — but that goal always remained just that, an aspiration. Everything changed for the 20-year-old Plymouth State University student when photographer Steven Hall snapped a portrait of her at Howard University’s homecoming weekend in October. Hall posted it on his Instagram account, @thesunk, and within hours, it was racking up thousands of “likes” and hundreds of adoring comments.

“I def thought this was some famous model,” one follower wrote. “An agency needs to sign her ASAP,” chimed in another.

Within a day, Alim Yai — who lives in Manchester and has been acting as her sister’s informal spokeswoman — says modeling agencies were, in fact, taking notice.

By November, Anok landed a contract with NEXT Management, an international modeling and talent agency that counts among its clients pop stars including Ellie Goulding, M.I.A. and Dua Lipa. A mere 65 days after signing her, NEXT revealed Anok’s first advertising campaign and it’s a major one. She’s modeling for Prada’s spring/summer 2018 line photographed by Willy Vanderperre (check it out at prada.com).

She’s just hit the ground running,” her sister says.

Within weeks of going viral on Instagram, Anok also landed another affirmation most would-be models dream of: her own profile in Vogue. In an interview with the fashion magazine, she emphasized how important it was for her to use her newfound spotlight for good.

“I definitely want to be a role model for young

dark-skinned girls and girls in general — I want to bring to light ideas of self-love and self-confidence,” she told Vogue at the time. “I am so excited about where this will take me and I’m happy because I can do what I am passionate about.”

The biochemistry major said she hopes to encourage other young girls to explore STEM careers. (Since signing her modeling contract, Anok is taking a break from Plymouth State but hopes to finish a degree online, according to her sister.)

Despite the cheers from online followers, Alim says her sister’s initial brush with internet fame was met with some skepticism from their family.

They moved to the United States in 2000 from Egypt, which they fled to escape genocide in Sudan, according to Vogue. Alim says her parents always emphasized the importance of taking education and a career seriously. So Anok shied away from pursuing her interest in modeling and the arts in favor of what seemed like a more practical collegiate path.

“I had to talk them into it, saying that this is a great thing, that she’ll finish school on her own time, but this is definitely the opportunity of a lifetime for her,” Alim says. “They’ve been really supportive, and we’ve just been there for her ever since then.”

Anok hopes to make everyone — her family and her followers — proud.

“She’s just trying to be the best model and the best citizen that she can,” Alim says of her sister. “She doesn’t just want to be a pretty face.

She wants to be someone who can contribute to other individuals and to the community.” NH

IN OTHER NEWS ... The Truth Is Out There: David Fravor, a retired Navy pilot living in Windham, detailed his own (unconfirmed) UFO encounter to a New York Times centerpiece about a secret Pentagon program that allegedly investigates such extraterrestrial incidents. Fravor said he still isn’t quite sure what to make of the unidentified object he saw while flying over the Pacific in 2004. But, he told the Times, “I want to fly one.” • More “Redrum,” Anyone?

Acclaimed horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan told a Stephen King fan site he’s open to pursuing an adaptation of “Doctor Sleep” — King’s sequel to “The Shining” that’s set in New Hampshire. In his words, “Who wouldn’t want to venture back into the world of Danny Torrence?” nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Pony Up Photo by Chris Saunders Some say the 2020 First in the Nation Primary season begins now, as we round the bend into the midterm elections and candidates swarm the state. But for true contenders, the season never ends — and there is no truer contender for the US presidency than Vermin Love Supreme, a “fringe” candidate who has been running for the office since 1992 on a colorful campaign platform that promises a free pony for every American. When Hillary Clinton came to Gibson’s Bookstore in December to sign copies of her book, “What Happened?”, Supreme took to Concord’s Main Street (with a campaign pony) and offered to sign copies of her book as well.

I live in a small, rustic house in the frosty woods of the Cape Ann peninsula (current indoor temperature 27 degrees, excuse me while I go split some wood). It has guest shacks, a swimming hole and an 18-hole mini putt-putt course lined with junk sculptury.

From down the street we can see the Seabrook power plant up the coast. My wife and I have lived here, low-rent and low-key, for almost 30 years.

My folks, Marianne and Norm, were high school sweethearts. She was a ward of the state. He was a ne’er-do -well. After they got knocked up with yours truly, they had a shotgun wedding. Storybook stuff.

We took family trips to Storyland, Santa’s Village, Benson’s Wild Animal Farm and Clark’s Trading Post.

They split when I was 10. We ate plenty of Reagan cheese and cans of welfare meat. We wore bread bags inside our boots. My dad lives in Punta Gorda.

My mom passed in October.

The free pony for every American is a cynical promise that excites the little girl in all of us.

The “Pony Pledge” is a stone cold lie that I stand by with all my heart. It has entered the political lexicon as an unobtainable desire.

I am a social anarchist. I believe that “mutual aid” is the glue that holds society together. If we can provide for ourselves and each other, our need for government is diminished. Peter Kropotkin was a great anarchist thinker and writer. Read his book “Mutual Aid.” The inclusiveness of the NH primary is a shiny example of open democracy. The lack of riot cops on the campaign trail is a big plus.

The Hillary supporters hated me. They were openly hostile. I brought them a pony. They would not let me sign their Hillary books. Too bad. Would have made them more valuable.

My transformation from annoying crazy young man to distinguished crazy old man would never have happened without New Hampshire egging me on.

I am now an internationally respected elder statesman of wing nuts. Thank you, Granite State.

While running as a perennial US Presidential hopeful, Vermin Supreme has already achieved that most American of statuses: celebrity. And like any successful celebrity he has his own line of merchandise. Along with his political manifesto, “i Pony” (which he invited HIllary Clinton supporters to sign during his Concord protest), there’s a documentary film which chronicles his rise to political immortality, “Who Is Vermin Supreme? An Outsider Odyssey.” Visit this story online for links to purchase either, plus details on where to order your very own authentic Vermin Supreme boot hat. nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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PETS and TO THE RESCUE From encouraging reading to healing the wounds of war, animals are improving lives throughout New Hampshire.

By Tiffanie Wen

Left: Mountain Valley Treatment Center, located in Pike, New Hampshire, helps adolescents who struggle with OCD and anxiety disorders. Pictured here is one of the residents with staff member Greg Vogel, who owns the nearby Innerquest Equine Center and River House Farm.

photo by john sherman photography

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A resident with one of Mountain Valley Treatment Center’s animal inhabitants

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hancing human well-being throughout New Hampshire in more surprising ways too.

From licensed therapy animals to farm goats that make yogis chuckle while they’re in downward-facing dog, here are a few ways our animal friends are working to improve human happiness in the Granite State.

Contributing to therapy

Unlike service animals, such as guide dogs, who perform tasks and help their owners with disabilities, therapy dogs typically provide psychological support to people other than their handlers. What’s more, while service dogs shouldn’t be pet all the time because they can get distracted from their jobs, people are encouraged to pet and cuddle with therapy animals, who oftentimes have very friendly, relaxed temperaments.

As the name implies, therapy dogs can also aid in different types of psychological therapy and counseling.

“The therapeutic alliance is the relationship between the clinician and client, and

research shows that a strong therapeutic alliance is a strong predictor of good client outcomes,” says Sarah Revels, who is trained in animal-assisted therapy and is the founder and managing clinician at New Hampshire Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies in Barrington. “Now there’s research that shows having an animal partner present dramatically increases the therapeutic alliance and speeds up how quickly you can build it,” adds Revels.

For example, Revels says that in her experience, it can take two or three months of sessions to get a child with selective mutism — when a person can not speak or communicate effectively in certain social settings — to begin to talk to her. With an animal in the room, she has regularly had children with the same diagnosis begin speaking in their first session, with the child sometimes directing his or her communication to the dog.

For adults with social anxiety, Revels has incorporated her two giant breeds — a 5-year-old greater Swiss mountain dog

photo by john sherman photography

Every Saturday, Chloë Traister heads to the Portsmouth Library to help children improve their reading. About once a week, Amherst resident Lunar Bachman volunteers at local nursing homes and hospice centers. And Siggy Young is training to become a volunteer therapist and work with struggling clients in one-on-one therapy sessions.

Of course, what makes these volunteers even more remarkable is that Chloë is a 7-year-old golden retriever, Lunar is a 2-and-a-half-year-old white ragdoll cat with a brown tail and Siggy is a 7-month-old greencheeked conure — a type of small parrot native to the forests of South America.

Animal lovers already know that furry, fuzzy and feathery companions have the ability to lower physiological functions associated with stress. Since at least the 1980s, scientists have demonstrated that spending time with pets can reduce our blood pressure and heart rate. But animals are en-

photo by laura horwood-benton

named Shug and a 6-year-old great Pyrenees mountain dog named Emma — into exercises outside the clinic.

“We know if we take the large dogs for a walk, people will notice them. So we roleplay some basic facts the client can tell people about the dogs, go through the questions people always ask about them, and what kind of behaviors we can you expect from people on the street,” she says. “The first time we go out I will walk the dog and the client watches how I make eye contact with others, answer basic questions, etc. The next session the client handles the dog, and if someone says hello and asks a question, it’s now the client’s responsibility to answer the questions and say hello. Dogs can be a great vehicle for some of that type of work.”

Revels is so convinced of the therapeutic benefits that her goal is to ultimately have one animal per clinician in the group, and she’s working with her clinicians to choose the animals carefully for different purposes.

For now, her practice currently includes four therapy dogs and the green-cheeked conure named Sigmund, or Siggy for short. In the waiting room, hermit crabs welcome clients, who can pick them up while they wait for their appointment.

Animals are a large part of the treatment at the Mountain Valley Treatment Center, a nonprofit short-term residential treatment center for adolescents struggling with OCD and/or anxiety disorders, in Pike. Residents regularly interact with chickens and pigs and undergo

“One of the reasons working with horses is so great is because there are a lot of unknowns when you’re around a 2,000-pound animal ...

In a big way it allows residents to confront perceived danger.”

—Julia Hilton

equine-assisted therapy and exercises.

“At the heart of a lot of anxiety and OCD is a fear of uncertainty,” says Julia Hilton, a residential coordinator at Mountain Valley who has also worked as a primary therapist and is trained in equine-assisted mental health. “Oftentimes you have an adolescent who’s used to their home environment, where things have been wrapped around them for a long time because the families are trying their best to help their child in what we call accommodation.”

Hilton says their anxiety causes the kids to organize everyone in their life in a way that they can feel safe and secure and can avoid facing uncertainty. But when they

Chloë helps children learn to read at the Portsmouth Public Library. As the kids read out loud, her presence helps reduce their anxiety, increases social support and is a source of motivation.

do inevitably feel uncertainty, they are ill-equipped to handle it, and will engage in safety behaviors such as playing video games or isolating themselves.

“One of the reasons working with horses is so great is because there are a lot of unknowns when you’re around a 2,000-pound animal,” says Hilton. “Obviously, we make sure the kids are safe and train them in how to be around a horse. But even with the safety precautions, you’re still dealing with an animal with a mind of its own. In a big way it allows residents to confront perceived danger. It’s the opportunity to experience that in a safe way, supported by staff in a way that is a nice complement to more traditional talk therapy.”

She describes one activity called a roundpen exercise. “The client goes into a paddock, or round pen, with a horse and they notice how the horse is reacting to them.

You have them come out and debrief that experience. What were you noticing, what was the horse doing, what were you thinking and feeling,” she says. “After you debrief and the client becomes aware of their feelings, the horse reacts differently to them.

Horses are not necessarily afraid of the anger or anxiety, they’re just afraid when they don’t know what someone is feeling. When a human understands how they themselves are feeling, the horse responds well.”

“Twice a week we go to the horse barn, which is very therapy-related,” says one teenage resident suffering from anxiety. “We’ll talk about how the horses influence our emotions, and it can really calm you down to be around the horses and communicating with the horse nonverbally.” She adds that her nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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“If you’re quiet enough or if you’re feeding them, they’ll get closer to you and don’t mind if you hold or pet them. It feels rewarding to win the trust of a vulnerable animal like that.”

—A resident at Mountain Valley Treatment Center

favorite horse is Leo, a 6-year-old bay-colored Appendix American Quarter Horse. “Leo is very calm, and when we do exercises together it’s almost like they are listening to us. It definitely feels like they understand us.”

Another teenage resident suffering from depression says she loves the chickens, which the residents help feed and get into their coop at night. “We care for them.

We feed them, we keep them warm, we get them in their house at night, we also collect their eggs,” she says. “If you’re quiet enough or moving softly enough or if you’re feeding them, they’ll get closer to you and don’t mind if you hold or pet them. It feels rewarding to win the trust of a vulnerable animal like that.”

On a recent Saturday in December, about a dozen kids, ranging in age from 6 to 10, sat in a reading circle in the Children’s Room at the Portsmouth Public Library. One child read a few pages from “Captain Underpants.” Another read passages from a kids’ version of “The Hobbit.”

Their main audience? Desey and Chloë, two friendly golden retrievers, who laid in the middle of the kids getting pet by little hands and seeming to listen intently. It was a special treat to have two dogs, since Desey is moving away and Chloë will be taking over as the library’s regular reading dog.

In 2016, a team of researchers from the University of London reviewed previous research on children reading to dogs. It found that dogs can improve children’s reading by increasing the amount of social support, reducing anxiety and acting as motivation.

Studies of specific programs, such as R.E.A.D. in Salt Lake City, have shown children’s reading levels can improve by two to four grade levels by regularly reading to dogs.

Michael Traister, a lawyer from New Castle and Chloë’s handler, says for kids without dogs, visiting the dog at the library is a reward they can look forward to. There are other advantages as well. “Some kids start out scared of dogs too,” says Traister. “One parent told me Desey and Chloë were the only dogs that their kid could be around because they’re quiet and gentle and don’t bark.

Hopefully it’ll help them get over their fear.”

Lifting spirits A Mountain Valley resident

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Of course, volunteer animals bring their de-stressing abilities to other contexts too.

Therapy dogs, certified through one of the

photo by john sherman photography

Teaching children how to read

photos courtesy of jenness farm

big national organizations such as Pet Partners, which provides certification courses for handlers and their partner animals, are regular guests on college campuses like Dartmouth and UNH, where they provide some fun for stressed-out students during finals.

There is some evidence to justify the trouble of bringing therapy dogs to campus. One study from 2016 found that having dogs on campus the week before finals lowered students’ perceived (self-reported) stress levels.

There’s even evidence that therapy dogs can reduce our experience of pain. One study published in the Pain Medicine Journal split participants into two groups.

One group waited in a waiting area with a therapy dog present before their appointments; the other did not have access to the dog. Twenty-three percent of patients in the dog group reported a decrease in pain, while only 4 percent in the non-dog group did.

The patients in the dog group also reported less emotional distress.

Traister, who suffers from a chronic pain condition himself, says that it’s no surprise animals can reduce pain. “Dogs are almost medicinal. It takes you out of yourself.

There’s no great wisdom there, we’ve known that for thousands of years. Spending time with animals provides a bit of Zen.” Retiree Marilyn Bachman makes weekly trips with her ragdoll cat Lunar to nursing homes and hospice centers in towns including Bedford, Manchester and Merrimack, where she visits individuals and their families.

“The volunteer work is very rewarding,” says Bachman. “Giving to the community — to people that are in their last days or moments in passing. The families are also so appreciative of having an animal come and give them any kind of comfort.”

She says that clients may spot her orangeand-white cat and come over to pet him. She brings a baby brush so they can brush him and improve occupational therapy skills as well.

“Last week I was with a client who was near the end. We had visited her previously for many weeks and she was asleep,” she says.

“This particular day, I reached out for her hand and helped her stroke Lunar, and she actually made facial expressions and moved her fingers. That was pretty astonishing.”

In a more lighthearted context, goats have been crashing yoga sessions at Jenness Farm in Nottingham. Taking place in the spring and summer months, goat yoga is exactly what it sounds like — a regular yoga class,

Goats Gone Viral Cat videos may rule the internet, but last spring a different adorable animal went viral — goats. Specifically, baby yoga goats.

The goat yoga classes at Jenness Farm in Nottingham blew up the internet last spring when they posted a few videos of their inaugural goat yoga classes to their Facebook page (read more about the classes on page 48). The idea didn’t originate at Jenness, but the internet didn’t care — adorable baby animal content is a recipe for viral success, no matter who first came up with introducing goats to yoga.

The farm’s Facebook page went from about 5,000 followers to 50,000 in a week. Media coverage soon followed, from the local (such as this magazine) to People, The New York Times, Daily Mail, Mashable and The New York Post.

People couldn’t get enough of the roughly 10-week-old goats — named Tula, Lily, Lotus, Zinnia and Poppy — bouncing on and off participant’s backs, balancing on backsides and prancing around the room and just generally causing merry mayhem.

Demand for classes outstripped the actual availability — waitlists were formed and the video hits just kept coming.

As with most viral phenonena, there was

a backlash. It wasn’t much, but some were under the mistaken impression that Jenness Farm’s goats — those cute little critters so gleefully playing with humans — were destined for the butchery. That’s just not so.

Jenness is a “no kill” farm, and their many products are made with milk from their “pampered” herd of dairy goats. In fact, their motto is “only the happiest goats make the best goat milk soap.” No goats are ever harmed at Jenness, and one could argue they’re having just as much fun during the classes as the human participants.

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Lilly the Hero Dog

Lilly the pit bull wears the red cape and mask of a superhero because she is one. No, she can’t fly or shoot lasers from her eyes, but she certainly has the life-saving part of the job down pat.

A few years back, Lilly’s human companion, Christine Spain, collapsed unconscious on train tracks in Shirley, Massachusetts. As a train barreled down on them both, Spain still hadn’t woken up. The train’s engineer later told first responders that he saw Lilly pulling Spain off of the tracks as he tried to stop the train. He couldn’t, and was convinced that they’d both been struck. In fact, Lilly had managed to save Spain, but suffered severe injuries in the process. Thanks to the work of the team at Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston, Lilly survived, though she lost her front right leg and now has steel plates to repair

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her pelvis and support her left leg. At the time, it wasn’t clear if she would ever regain the strength to walk on her own again. However, photographer Kaylee Greer of Dog Breath Photography (pictured next to the photo she took of Lilly) says that it hasn’t slowed Lilly down one bit. “Today, Lilly is the happiest, sweetest and most vibrant dog you’ll ever meet,” she says. “And boy, does she ever walk! Hops, skips and bounds is quite a bit more like it.” We suspect she might be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound like a certain other red-caped superhero, but we haven’t confirmed that yet.

So how did Lilly wind up on the cover? Greer, who’s originally from Salem, New Hampshire, supplied the photo for our inaugural pet cover back in 2016. That year was all about rescued animals, with the cover line “Rescue Me.” This year, we decided to flip that title and write about animals who help people. We thought, why not call it “Pets to the Rescue” and put a cape on a dog? We got back in touch with Greer, thinking she might have something up her sleeve, and there was Lilly on the Dog Breath website in all her caped glory. It was almost too perfect. Then Greer shared Lilly’s tale with us, and the cover was done. It might be the first time in New Hampshire Magazine history that the cover was finished before anything else in the issue.

You can read more about Lilly and Spain’s story at lillytheheropitbull.com, where you can also learn about Lilly’s Fund. Donations to the fund support efforts to educate the public about pit bulls, fund local pit bull rescues, help specific dogs and many other worthy pursuits. You can also keep up with Lilly, her family and Lilly’s Fund on Facebook at facebook.com/LillyTheHeroPitBull.

photo by john sherman photography

A Mountain Valley resident

but with seven mischievous Nigerian dwarf goats who approach participants for a cuddle or to jump on their backs.

“First and foremost, the whole class is for fun,” says Amanda Stanley, a yoga instructor from Dover who taught classes last season. “Of course, the yoga is a part of it, but it’s about doing as much or little yoga as you’re comfortable with and what feels good on your body.”

“People will stop in a pose and pet a goat. Or come out of something and snuggle with one. Often a goat will jump on top of people or take a nap on someone’s mat,” she says.

She adds that the goats dissolve any self-consciousness people might bring with them into class. Because everyone is having so much fun with the goats, they’re not focused on what their yoga looks like or if they’re getting it right.

The class was so popular that people were waitlisted for weeks. “They bring a calming and fun energy,” says Stanley.

“It’s so wonderful to be involved with these joyful creatures that are so sweet.

It’s so nice to have animals around to make you laugh and smile and pull attention away from yourself.” NH

photos courtesy of alton dadekian eckel

SUPER DUO

The Adventures of Wander Woman and Super Pup sounds like the title to a comic book, but New Hampshire’s own Alton Dadekian Eckel and Cole — and their alter egos — are very real.

Cole, a shiba inu, is a certified therapy and emotional support animal. Eckel, his human, is accomplished both academically and athletically — she has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of New Hampshire and her master’s degree in sports psychology and mental health counseling from Rivier University. When it comes to the outdoors, she’s completed both the Boston Marathon and Ironman Lake Placid, completed the New England AMC 4,000 footers (hiking all the 4,000foot White Mountains), she’s a nationally ranked triathlete and has placed as first female in ultramarathons. She also rock and ice climbs, kayaks, swims, bikes and just generally takes on all outdoor adventure.

For the past few years, Cole has been at

her side. Their first hike together was the toughest way up Mt. Washington through Huntington Ravine. Eckel always enjoyed dressing up for her various physical challenges — especially in a Wonder Woman costume. As she and Cole took on more and more incredible endeavors, people started calling them superheroes. Wonder Woman evolved to Wander Woman, and Cole became Super Pup, who also happens to enjoy wearing his cape, colorful coats or a pair of sunglasses. Together Wander Woman and Super Pup have hiked in New Hampshire, Vermont, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New York, Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. He runs beside her bike, joins her for swims (distances from a half mile to a mile), perches on the front of her kayak, camps in her car and has even accompanied her on hikes that were more than 30 miles long with a 10,000-foot elevation gain.

Eckel posts inspiring photos and stories of their adventures on her website, wanderwomansuperpup.com, and on Instgram at @wanderwoman_superpup. Who knows — you and your furry companion may be inspired to start taking on the great outdoors.

Superhero costumes not required.

Humans of War & Horses of Peace

The horse was once a beast of war, valiantly (or reluctantly) carrying men and munitions into the most deadly places on the planet. Now, for the most part, they are retired from that dire task. Were that only true of men and women too.

But the horrors of war are all too real, and not only for those still fighting in far-off lands. For far too many veterans, the war came home in the form of disabilities or psychological traumas — daily reminders of the depths of what people are capable of doing to one another. By some estimates, nearly half of the 2.5 million military personnel who have returned from war zones since 9/11 suffer with physical and psychological issues. Meanwhile, slaughter auctions and rescues are filled with discarded horses, most still in their prime with years of heart and soul to give.

The Human-Horse Initiative is a collaborative effort to create a equine-facilitated psychotherapy and learning center for both underserved and marginalized veterans and unwanted, discarded horses.

Teresa Paradis of Chichester’s Live and Let Live Farm and former Navy SEAL, equine facilitated psychotherapist and professional educator Dave Ferruolo are leading the effort to create a sustainable Human-Horse Healing Center that will be situated at the nonprofit Live and Let Live Farm providing no-cost, equine-assisted psychotherapy and learning to veterans, active military and their families.

Longer-term plans are to offer for-profit equine psychotherapy and learning programs and opportunities.

The center will be staffed by mental health clinicians and professional equine educators. Internships and learning opportunities for college students will be offered and the hope is to research the efficacy and outcomes of human-horse programs, and share what is learned with the world.

For more information or to get involved, visit humanhorseinitiative.com or liveandletlivefarm.org. nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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d l O s y wa P R E S E RV I N G

WINTER LOGGING BY H O R S E I S O B S O L ET E , B U T O N E N O RT H C O U N T RY NAT I V E IS KEEPING IT ALIVE.

By Erik Eisele Photos by Joe Klementovich

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ick Alger lives away from things. His house sits perched on a hill at the end of a dirt road, the only bald spot in a sea of trees.

He lives in Milan, a North Country town deep in the Northern Forest. His front window looks out on a sweeping panorama of the Presidential Range, with a view of the Mount Washington Auto Road snaking its way to the summit.

“There are certain days,” he says, when the weather is clear, you can watch the cars drive up. “And you can just about imagine what kind of car it is.”

The cars aren’t running today, however. It’s winter, the mountains are locked in ice. Alger’s hill is windswept and cold. So we sit inside, talking about horse logging before we commit to facing the elements.

“I don’t cut commercially anymore,” he says. “It’s an indulgence now. There’s plenty of reasons to do it, but not economic reasons. I’m 76 years old. I don’t put in 14 hour days anymore. But if you’re young and strong and stupid, it’s a lot of fun. You put a lot of muscle into it. It’s amazing what you can do with a single horse in a day sometimes.”

Wearing a quilted flannel shirt and tan work pants, Alger is almost what you would expect from a horse logger. He lacks the beard, but his face is fittingly weatherworn. The blue of his eyes and his salt-and-pepper, shortcropped hair belie his age, as does his agility. He moves like a man with strength left in his shoulders, a little stooped, someone who’s worked hard his whole life, but with a persistence that says it’s a weight he has no trouble bearing. He’s not slow, and he goes into the woods alone without hesitation.

“When I was logging seriously, I could work most every month from July to February,” he says. “I always enjoyed it. I did it way back in the 1970s, and I got the virus back then.”

The “virus,” as he calls it, is working alongside a 2,000-pound horse, felling trees and then using the horse to drag the logs to the road.

“I really just thrived on it,” he says. “I loved it.

I never got out of it exactly. I don’t know why.”

It could be that it was in his blood. Alger’s father was a logger before him, in the forests of Oregon. “He had some stories,” says Alger.

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forest industry. That was when logging, paper and other wood products created an industrial powerhouse. Back then, the nearby city of Berlin, known as “The City That Trees Built,” was the economic engine of the North Country. Berlin’s mills, along with others in Gorham, Groveton and across the region, sustained thousands of jobs.

Back then loggers would set up rough, hardhewn winter camps where they would spend the frozen season cutting and limbing trees.

The rock-hard ground and a canvas of snow facilitated easy transport, and frozen rivers and bogs simplified the awkward terrain. Horses were part of the team, paired with drivers who used them to drag the logs to the nearest river-

bank. There they would be piled up until spring arrived. The warm weather closed the forests, but it also brought the thaw. Freed of the winter’s topcoat and amplified by meltwater spring rains, the rivers offered easy transport for millions of logs. They rode to the mills, which sat positioned on the river’s edge for both hydropower and easy access to the wood, and fueled an industrial boom in Coös County.

But that boom was fading by the time it was Alger’s turn in the woods, and the age of horses had passed. His first season, 1970, was all engines and diesel power.

“Nothing but noise and nothing but speed, that’s all that mattered,” he says.

That didn’t appeal to him. And somehow, despite the absence of equines in the forest at the time, he found his way into something else.

“The partnership with horses, there’s a lot there. It’s much more textured, much more life enhancing.”

“When I started, I didn’t know a soul who was doing it,” he says. But the North Country was at one time full of people who logged with horses. “Ask any old Coös woodsman, they’ll tell you.”

“Horses are extremely efficient,” he says, but it’s a certain kind of efficiency. A skidder, which most loggers use to pull logs out of the forest, is faster, but it requires the logging team to cut a trail 12 feet wide anywhere the skidder has to go. A horse, meanwhile, can use a 4-foot trail. In a dense thicket, or anywhere the trees are growing tightly packed, that’s can make a big difference, he says. “With horses you can move a lot of wood without damaging the rest of the trees.”

But in logging you generally get paid by volume — the number of trees you pull out of the forest. There a horse’s delicate touch doesn’t help.

When using a skidder, “a good week was about 40 cords,” says Alger.

“A horse job was 10 or 15. Economically, it’s just not going to work.”

But it worked for him. He spent his weekdays September through June working as a school teacher — “English, math, square dancing” — and his weekends and summers in the forest.

“March, April and May nobody works,” he says, because the ground is too soft. “Logging had a natural cycle to it,” a seasonality directly tied to the outside environment. But “any summer I was looking for work there were three or four jobs.”

When he had the chance to take early retirement, he jumped at it, and he invested in horses. He went to working in the woods, hiring people to work alongside him off and on, but mostly on his own. “It’s kind of like being a pirate,” he says, “real old-style, 19th-century capitalism.”

“It wasn’t a rational choice,” he says. “It was an emotional choice. I’m no expert, I’m just the guy who did it.”

And in truth, he was never fully alone — Right: Rick Alger prepares Emma for a day of hauling logs out of the woods. Alger says that there are no longer any harness makers in Coös County, and to get the horses shoed, a ferrier has to travel more than 100 miles.

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They move together like old friends, deliberately.

She may be old, but she’s retained her power.

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he always had his horses. At one point, when his wife was alive, they had a dozen living in the barn across the driveway. Now he’s down to two: a 1,400-pound Suffolk gelding named Acer (“Because he’s an ace!” Alger says with a smile) and Emma, a 1,700-pound mare.

“A 1,700-pound horse is ideal,” he says. “For most of the work a team is overkill.”

“They’re both over 20, past their prime,” he says pulling on a jacket, intent on braving the cold.

His barn is like his house; it looks handbuilt, clean and sparsely decorated. It has the feel of a place put together by its owner, and slowly. “This is all horse-drawn wood,” he says, pointing to the beams. Five thousand feet of horse-drawn logs.

He heads into a stall and comes out leading Emma by her bridle. She is docile, slow, with giant steps that strike the wooden floor like hammers. They move together like old friends, deliberately. She may be old, but she’s retained her power.

He begins strapping her into a harness, a patched affair. “There are no harness makers in Coös County anymore,” he says. To get his horses shoed, a ferrier travels more than 100 miles.

The region’s horse logging past is evaporating.

“I guess you could call it a cultural thing.”

But Emma, Acer and Alger have endured.

He belts her in, and then leads her to a cart

Opposite page and above: Alger with Emma Below: Alger chains up the logs that he and Emma will drag out of the woods.

riding on an axle with rubber wheels that look plucked from a car trailer. Once she’s secured, he opens the gate, climbs aboard with the reins in hand and gives her a flick.

Emma starts slow, like a locomotive. The cart behind her bounces like an afterthought, gliding through the fence and over the snowy trail. A trail of chains snake out behind, kicking up bits of white as they drag.

Alger’s property is 40 acres, plus 100 acres of woodlot in the surrounding hills. He’s already cut down a number of trees, so today is a retrieval mission. Emma easily clops her way down a narrow wooded path. Alger braces himself with a good stance in the other-

wise unloaded cart. It jostles as it moves. Just standing there looks like athletic work, but he seems used to it.

The pair wind their way deeper into the forest. The chains sound like wind chimes as they accompany her hoofbeats. He is largely silent, letting her follow the well-worn path. They’ve been out here a lot, he says. Every time it snows you have to go out, he explains, to keep the trail packed down. Otherwise it becomes impassable.

After 15 minutes they stop at a cul-de-sac carved on the edge of a thicket. There’s barely enough room for the cart to turn, so Alger gets out and walks Emma around. When she’s pointed back toward home, he makes her back up. A pile of logs sits at the lip of the thickest underbrush. This is no place for a skidder.

Alger works quickly, wrapping lengths of chain around the butt end of logs, occasionally goading Emma to pull forward and back up, pull forward and back up to get the logs in line and ensure the chains are adequately attached.

“Up here most wood is what would have traditionally been pulpwood,” he says. “It can’t be turned into two-by-fours, but it can be ground up into paper.”

It can also be burned. These logs are eventually headed for Alger’s wood stove.

But first he has to get them out of the forest.

Once they’re all secure, he climbs back onto

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the cart and gives Emma another flick. The locomotive lurches forward, this time with the slightest strain, and again hoofbeats begin, followed by the wind chimes.

The return is slower. The logs drag like fingers across the snow, leaving ruts in their wake, but they slide easily. After every uphill, Alger pauses. “I watch her belly to see how hard she’s breathing,” he says. “The basic pace of the day should be a walk.”

There are lots of pauses on the way home, but Emma still makes short work of the distance.

On something like this, he says, a skid of this distance, he and a horse could do 100 logs a day.

But today there aren’t that many to take out.

It’s nearing the end of the season, and he’s picking up the final stragglers.

The most striking thing as they go are the sounds — the clink of the loose ends of the chains and the crunch of the snow under the cart’s wheels, the clomp of Emma’s hooves and the skittering of hardpack that follows every step. It’s subtle, muted. It would be easy to imagine another horse one hill over doing the same work. We’d never know. Alger and Emma wind

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Alger had already cut down a number of trees — this day’s work was about retrieving the logs.

through the trees like welcome visitors, part of the landscape rather than in opposition to it.

“I romanticized it a while back,” Alger had said earlier, but the reality is logging, even with horses, is risky. Every North Country family has stories of members killed or limbs lost.

But watching the two of them carve their way through the green and white hills, there’s no denying the nostalgia of it. It looks like something from a postcard.

Back at the top of the hill, Emma pulls Alger, the cart and the logs in a long loop until they’re in front of the woodpile, stacked just to the side of the house. Alger climbs down and begins unhooking the chains that hold each log. Emma holds still, steadfast as a statue. She knows the routine.

Alger grabs each log, all either 12 or 16 feet long, by an end and drags it to a pair of notched logs. The notches serve as ladder steps. He levers the freshly cut logs up, one side then the other, until they’re on top of the woodpile. His movements are slow but deliberate and powerful. Like Emma’s. He too makes short work of the task.

The two seem a matched pair, both past their prime perhaps, and in no hurry, but willing to pull more than their weight. Once the logs are stacked, Alger leads Emma back to the barn. The season is coming to a close.

One more year of horse logging is over.

But next year, after the snow melts and the ground dries, Alger and Emma will be back. You can count on it. Or just ask any old Coös woodsman. NH

Try It Yourself (Sort Of)

photos courtesy of charmingfare farm

You don’t actually get to swing an ax or haul any wood, but you can glide through the snowy forest on a former logging sled that’s undergone a few upgrades for comfort’s sake.

Charmingfare Farm in Candia offers horse-drawn sleigh rides, from romantic Valentine’s Day jaunts in the vis-à-vis sleigh to group rides on a converted logging sled that can fit up to 16 people. To make the sled human-friendly, a large body was constructed on top of the runners, which were once used to carry out the logs. Recognizing that some of us aren’t as spry as we used to be, they also recently added steps, rails and bench seating. The journey follows old logging trails through the woods and takes about an hour and a half, with a stop in the middle for s’mores (sticks are provided) and refreshments by the bonfire. See visitthefarm.com for more information on all of their winter activities, including the logging sled rides.

“John and Tom”

Willem Lange is a familiar face to many Granite Staters. His long-running “Windows to the Wild” series airs on NHPBS (formerly New Hampshire Public Television), and over 13 seasons he’s introduced countless viewers to the natural wonders of New England, from birding and hiking to remote canoe trips down the Allagash River and winter camping.

The outdoor adventurer also happens to be an accomplished storyteller. Among his list of published tales is the children’s book about the true story of Vermont logging team John and Tom. On a cold November day, John’s foot is pinned by a large pine tree, trapping him as night approaches. Tom, his faithful horse, is tied nearby, and must figure out how to unhitch himself to come to John’s rescue. Spoiler alert: He does (it is a children’s book after all), and both horse and man return safely home. The story is also beautifully illustrated with watercolors by Bert Dodson. Visit willemlange.com/john-and-tom.html to learn more about the book or to purchase your own copy. nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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Washington

NEW HAMPSHIRE The Way Things Were and Are

By Anders Morley, Photos by Kendal J. Bush

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icture a large boulder deep in the forest, webbed with fissures. It’s far enough from any road that, when you lay eyes on it, you feel you’ve earned it. This is no common boulder. An anonymous artisan once came here and carefully melted copper into the intricate pattern of cracks. It must have taken days.

Now, years later, the rock is laced in bright verdigris that catches the sunlight when it falls through the dark-green spruce boughs. The rock sits alone and unseen on a velvety bed of evergreen needles, as if delicately placed there by the hand of some cosmic jeweler.

Not long ago, I heard of such a thing. I’d been excitedly telling a friend that I was planning to spend some time in my favorite southern New Hampshire town. He knew the town, unlike most people, and told me that he’d once spent a day there with a knowledgeable woodsman, learning to track bears. At the end of the day, when the guide was sure he was thoroughly disoriented, he took my friend to this surreal spot. “I couldn’t begin to tell you how to get back there,” my friend tells me, “but I know it was in Washington, and I know I didn’t imagine it.”

Type “Washington, New Hampshire” into Google and you won’t find much about Washington, New Hampshire. You’ll get the official town website, of course, and a Wikipedia entry, but the rest of your search will drag up lots of unsought information about Mount Washington, flights from Manchester to Washington, DC, and a visit George Washington made to Portsmouth in 1789. There are those who consider this invisibility a point in the town’s favor.

New Hampshire’s Washington was named for the general from Virginia long before either the District of Columbia or the White Mountain summit — even before the office of the presidency was created, let alone filled.

But the name is only the most recent in a string of at least four, and, despite the obligatory sign on the common informing visitors that this was the first town incorporated under the name of the man who would become the first president, it’s really the least interesting thing about the place.

What draws me is a sense of remoteness, in time and space, that you get in this town of about 1,100 inhabitants, in spite of that fact that only an hour of leisurely backroad driving separates you from Manchester. Perched on the spine of land separating the Merrimack and Connecticut valleys, Washington’s town center is the most elevated in the state. When you breeze past the picturesque common on Route 31, glimpsing a sweeping view through 60

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the trees to your south, you’re driving along the second-highest stretch of year-round state highway in New Hampshire, lower only than the Kancamagus — which explains why you feel an impulse to slam on the brakes and give this place a bit of your time.

By car, Washington can only be approached from the sides. If you’re coming from north or south, you’ll have better luck hiking in on trails, paddling a canoe or, in the wintertime, riding a snowmobile. Residents are always telling prospective visitors from Keene not to trust their GPS; as often as not it’ll take them to the end of a lonely road in Stoddard or Marlow, where they’ll discover that the “roads” on the maps are Class VI at best, throw their hands up, and resign themselves to taking the long way around. North of town, a ridge running all the way to Lake Sunapee bars east-west passage.

Above: Ken Brummel, pastor of the Claremont Seventh-day Adventist congregation Right: Blankets provide extra warmth in the Seventh-day Adventist meetinghouse. The exterior is pictured on the opening spread.

It’s not just the minor inconvenience of getting there that gives Washington its romantic, faraway feeling. Driving along sections of 31 north of town, or heading west over the mountain towards East Lempster, the land is so thickly studded with conifers and dotted with water that you’d swear you were in Canada. Within town limits there are 26 lakes and ponds, and moose and bear are not an uncommon sight. It’s no surprise that the woods are sprinkled with hunting and fishing camps, making you forget sometimes that you’re still way south of the notches.

It’s also a paradise for those who prefer to

wander without rod or gun. There are probably more trail miles here than in any part of southern New Hampshire beyond the flanks of Monadnock. The 7,280-acre Pillsbury State Park, a former logging tract, boasts tens of miles of trails and plenty of flatwater for paddlers. I fell in love with Washington when I came into town off the 51-mile Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway Trail, which passes right across the common before heading north into Pillsbury. The Washington General Store is the only place of commerce along the entire route, and it’s not uncommon to see tired and hungry long-distance hikers drooling in anticipation of a cheeseburger at the lunch counter.

I can still remember the impression Washington made on me that day. It was late on a May morning as I climbed over the steep knob of Oak Hill and came down through a tree farm that belonged, I read in my guidebook, to a certain Phil Barker, one of many landowners generous enough to allow the trail to cross their property. After stopping at Phil’s place to top off my water bottle, I made the short walk uphill to the village. The day was rich with the promise of summer. This was a village, unlike some others in this part of the state, which seemed to give scarcely a thought to whether it looked like a page out of a scenic New England calendar. Yet if I were knocked over the head and blindfolded in some distant place, and then casually dropped off here, as soon as the blindfold came off I’d know beyond doubt that I could be in no place but New Hampshire — not Vermont, not Maine. No, Washington is New Hampshire, with absolute certainty. That morning an old man cultivating his garden said hello and looked at the sky, something in his gesture inviting me to do the same. People sat on their porches and watched the cars go past or waited for lunch and talked to their neighbors, while others stood in the yards tending to their grills, from which the pleasant smell of cook-smoke wafted to my susceptible nostrils. For my lunch in the general store I paid what elsewhere I’d have expected to pay 20 years before.

In 1840, the people of Washington Center decided to build a church on the common. Until then, the nearby meetinghouse had been used for meetings both civic and religious. A handful of people living in the southern part of town had recently come under the sway of the Millerite movement, which had taken backwoods America by storm with its teaching that Christ’s Second Coming, or the Advent, would take place in October of 1844. The Millerite faction used the matter of the new meetinghouse as grounds to form their own “Christian

Behind the church there is a milelong inter- liar lens through which Seventh-day AdvenSociety” and hatched a plan to build a separate church building that wouldn’t require a pretive path called the Sabbath Trail. It winds tists interpret Christian theology. Even for long slog up Faxon Hill on Sunday mornings. through sun-dappled hemlock woods with a nonbeliever there is something rich and The building, a Greek Revival pared down to stones inscribed along the way highlighting meditative here, a compelling call to slow an austere elegance, was built in 1841, and aspects of the history and teachings of Sev- down, listen to the fluttering leaves, smell the within a few years most of its members, who enth-day Adventism. I don’t think there could scent of duff and bask in the warm light of autumn. This is a far more empathic were to be disappointed by the Millerway of learning about a religion than ite prediction, had embraced another reading an encyclopedia article. At unorthodox teaching — worship on the very least, it was a history lesson Saturdays. Because the twin doctrines and a pleasant way to stretch my legs. of imminent Advent and seventh-day The church building is thoroughly worship first came together in this rein keeping with the spirit of the place. mote Washington meetinghouse, it is It was built over the course of six said to be the birthplace of Seventh-day weeks in 1841. Wanting to see inside, Adventism, although the denominaI called up Ken Brummel, pastor of tion was not formally organized for anthe Claremont Seventh-day Adventist other two decades. congregation, to give me a tour. It was The Seventh-day Adventist meetwinter now and we parked at the end inghouse is as good a place as any to of the road. Ken works the nightshift channel Washington’s old-fashioned in a factory, and he seems sleepy and feeling. It sits all alone down a dirt Above: The counter at the Washington General Store, the outside of which is pictured at left a little unsteady as we shuffle along road maintained only in summer. I the crusty snow. He notes that, even went for an unaccompanied visit last Below: Store owner Ryan Curran with his mother Nancy Curran, the former owner though the church’s builders thought October and was struck by the building’s appearance without at first knowing be a more suitable place for such a thing. Stop- the world was going to end in three years, why. It was a minute before I realized that ping to read the first few inscriptions, I’m not they built a church that did not need signifiit was the absence of power lines running to sure I’ll have the patience to punctuate a mile cant renovations for 160.

To enter the building is to get a glimpse into it. The large surrounding lawn, the adjacent 30 times. The afternoon is wearing on. But graveyard and the church itself are a place of soon I enter the spirit of the thing. I knew rural New Hampshire a century and more ago. tranquility, where the 21st century seems far very little of this religion before coming here, There are no electric lights, and the windowand I learned that the Sabbath is the pecu- panes are wavy antique glass, affording rippled away and unimportant.

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dish of butter. A geranium decorated the window end of the table.

Phil and Gwen are the oldest natives left in town. The proof is in the way Gwen pronounces the word “native” itself, with the old brittle t-sound that one seldom hears now, followed by a vowel that bends into a rising diphthong. Phil founded the Washington Historical Society in 1982, and 35 years later he and his sister are largely responsible for its continued existence. A refrain in the society’s newsletters, and in our conversation, is the need for young blood. Phil and Gwen are tired, and when you see all they’ve done, it comes as no surprise.

The Barn Museum, where we go after our snack, is one of their labors of love. It began as an unsellable Used for worship only seasonally, the piece of property that was donated to Washington Seventh-day Adventist meetinghouse teeters on the line bethe historical society. The foundation Above: Stones with inscriptions dot the milelong Sabbath Trail. had to be shored up and then much tween relic and vestige. There’s a sense of the barn rebuilt, using the original in which Washington itself hangs in Below: From left: Washington Congregational Church, Center School and Town Hall methods, from the inside out. For its the same balance. This occurs to me when I arrive one sunny winter morning at the sunny alcove that looks south over a sloping work, in 2006 the Washington Historical Society home of Gwen Gaskell and ask if I should take orchard, asleep under a bed of sparkling snow. won a Preservation Achievement Award from Her brother, Phil Barker (the man who had the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance. my shoes off before coming inside.

“No,” she says, quite brusquely. “We live here.” given me water on the summer day I’d walked Inside there is an immense collection of arIn the southwest the sun is still barely above into town), stood to greet me with a hand- tifacts that spill over from the main museum the horizon. The atmosphere of Gwen and her shake, and then the three of us sat down to a building next door. Along the western wall of husband’s house is old — not 19th-century table dressed with a festively patterned vinyl the barn are three life-size dioramas depicting old, but maybe 30 or 40 years old. It gives me cloth and spread with hot cocoa, an assort- a kitchen, a workshop and a sugarhouse, all the same feeling that my grandparents’ house ment of muffins and coffee cakes and a small as they would have appeared in 19th century views south to Jackson Hill. The gray and white pine floors and pews, as well as the curved ceilings done in lath and plaster, bespeak care in the workmanship. For bathrooms, there are two plank-built privies at the edge of the forest out back. When in use, the church is warmed with period stoves that, I’m somewhat disappointed to learn, have been converted to run on propane. On the wall are antique charts illustrating the phases of theological history as understood by Seventh-day Adventists. Ken sits down at a pump organ and plays “When the Saints Go Marching In,” treadling away at the pump pedals with a smile that says he’s awake now.

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did when I was a kid. Yet it doesn’t feel as if I’ve traveled backward to the past from the present; rather, it’s as if I’d never left the past to begin with. This past feels like it’s been taken such good care of that there’s never been any need to update anything.

Gwen leads me through the kitchen to a

King Street, where the Seventh-day Adventist meetinghouse is located

Inside the Barn Museum, maintained by Phil Barker and his sister Gwen Gaskell

Washington. The exhibits are carefully curat- ucate young people about life in a New Hamp- along the very changes that have made them ed, and Gwen and Phil can tell an intimate shire hill town in the late 19th century. She even leave their old towns, what strikes me is that story behind every square inch of this place. affected a limp that Clara Hurd is known to there’s no animosity in the way they talk about To rebuild the barn and create the exhibits, have had. To this day, Gwen continues to mine non-natives. As the last of a breed, however, Phil milled 18,000 board feet of lumber on his the diaries for insights into Washington’s past. they take their role as torchbearers very seriportable sawmill. ously. There’s something of the missionary’s The neighboring History Museum houses In a way it’s odd that Gwen and Phil are so concern for doctrinal purity about them. domestic objects that need to be kept warm. deeply committed to preserving the past, Washington has appeal because here the Among these is a barn loom, built in gulf between the way things were 1801. The loom is so named because its and the way things are is still small. structure recalls that of a timber-framed If that’s to remain the case, someone barn. It’s a huge and complicated conmust be able to keep open the lines traption that came into their hands in of transmission between past and unfamiliar pieces, but this undaunted present. And so Phil and Gwen are brother-and-sister duo managed to put eager to pass on their immense store it together, after which Gwen set about of knowledge to whoever loves this teaching herself to weave on it. She’ll place, because if you take a thing for demonstrate for visitors, and a few of granted, it won’t last long. her projects lend an authentic touch to The moral is that Washington didn’t the exhibits in the Barn Museum. just happen by accident. It’s as happy a union of nature and art as the Another of the historical society’s jewel-like boulder my friend told me (and particularly Gwen’s) highly involved undertakings was the acquisition Above: The Barn Museum holds a huge range of artifacts from about. I did ask Phil and Gwen, as well 19th-century Washington. as a couple of other people in town, and study of 40 years’ worth of diaries, Below: Phil Barker and Gwen Gaskell at the Barn Musuem about that enigmatic rock, but none of dating from 1872 to 1911, kept by a Washington woman named Clara Hurd. As because, when you compare Washington to them had ever heard of it. Yet my friend conwith the loom, Gwen dove head first into the other places, the past hardly seems threat- tinues to insist he saw it. I only hope that old writings and came about as close as one can ened here. But what they both seem to real- Washington goes on existing — unspoiled like to slipping into another person’s skin. Using ize is that there’s a danger in thinking things the rock, but also unforgotten — and doesn’t descriptions found in the diaries, she made are the way they are “just because.” Gwen and fade into a dreamlike place you once heard clothes like the ones Clara wore and then trav- Phil love this place. Although they regret peo- about from a friend, or read about in a magaeled around the state impersonating her to ed- ple moving to Washington and trying to bring zine article, long ago. NH

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“I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful.”

– Bob Hope

Seth Meyers is looking good in this shot promoting his hosting of the 75th Golden Globes Awards ceremony on January 7.

Photo by Lloyd Bishop

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Events Listing 71 Seniority 74 Health 76 Home 79 Local Dish 83 Dine Out 84

A Closer Look at Our Own Seth Meyers

The “Late Night” host returns to New Hampshire for a good cause

BY RICK BROUSSARD In the political world, the term “favorite son” indicates a beloved local candidate who might best represent a state in an election.

And while Seth Meyers exhibits absolutely zero interest in pursuing a political career, well, we can dream, can’t we? Meanwhile, in just about every other way, Meyers has become a New Hampshire favorite son as we’ve followed his success from his early fame as cast member, writer and “Weekend Update” anchor on “Saturday Night Live” to his current household-name status as the host of “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”

You may have just seen Meyers hosting the Golden Globes awards night in January, but you’ll have a chance to see him up close and personal when he returns to New Hampshire this month for two performances at the Capitol Center for the Arts — a benefit for CASA of NH and the Granite State Children’s Alliance. And, being the nice guy that he is, he also found some time in his schedule for this one-on-one interview.

People call you a New Hampshire native, but most Granite Staters have to be descended from a Colonial governor to achieve that status. What’s the most New Hampshire thing about you?

In the article they refer to you as “unflappable.” Does that sound like you?

I don’t consider myself as unflappable as that piece suggests. I think that’s a lovely thing to be called because I have a career where one could so easily be flapped. I’m about to embark upon doing the Golden Globes and when you host something like that, it’s very helpful to remember that you’ve done things like this before and they’ve gone well enough, because those are the times where it’s very easy to spin out. But I do try to keep an even keel and stay appreciative of the fact that I get to do these things for a living and I never take that for granted.

You were kind enough to pose for our own 2006 “It List” cover. That was the first true celebrity cover we ever did.

Wow! 2006? You guys were early adopters.

We saw you coming. We even sent you an It List T-shirt to wear for the shot.

Oh, yeah, it’s in the scrapbook.

The T-shirt?

No, the photo.

How did you get involved with CASA and the Granite State Children’s Alliance?

They are engaged in some serious business. Will the performances at the Capitol Center offer any challenges to you?

The night’s just going to be about having a good time and raising money for a good cause. This will not be a tutorial. We’ll just have as much fun as possible, hopefully raise a lot of money and let the people of these two organizations go out and do what they do.

You started at SNL just weeks after the 9-11 attacks. That must have been a tough time to deliver topical humor.

Yes, well, I started at SNL right after 9-11, but it was five or six years before I started doing “Weekend Update.” I was a cast member who then became a writer who then became a “Weekend Update” member, so I took an uncommon path.

Is there a New Hampshire mystique in comedy as a result of you, Adam Sandler and Sarah Silverman being from here? Or is that just something people here notice?

I can only say that when I was a kid it was the coolest thing in the world that both Adam and Sarah were people I could see on television who I knew were from the Bedford and Manchester area. I hope that’s been true for people coming up after me. I know that for those of us from New Hampshire who have succeeded, we talk about it constantly. The last time Adam Sandler was on our show was ostensibly to talk about his last project, but I think we spent most of the time talking about New Hampshire. Just to realize we experienced the same vacation spots, the same arcades, the same places to hang out in Manchester — it’s great to have that shared history.

Well, of course I’m not a native in that I was born in the Midwest. I don’t know what’s the most New Hampshire thing about me.

Probably just my roots — where I went to school and where my parents still are. That’s what I consider home.

As much as I love New Hampshire, I’m not as connected with it, living in New York. This is an idea my dad floated by me that made sense right away — coming up there and doing a couple of shows to raise some money.

I must warn you, while preparing for this interview I saw the current issue of Men’s Journal. Is that not the most burly picture of you ever taken? (See image, next page.)

Why is the cause meaningful to you?

Do your experiences here figure into your writing? Was it good material?

Well, it strikes me that the one thing we should all be able to agree on is that kids should all get a fair chance. Also, in this day and age, it’s nice to have some organizations that everyone can get behind, and so hopefully that will be the spirit of the night.

It wasn’t material, but Manchester West was a fantastic public school. My experiences there were outstanding. There was a winter follies show where kids could write comedy sketches and do them without adult supervision. By the time I finished up my time there, I had

Yeah, and it’s definitely not a coat or sweater I would ever wear otherwise.

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603 LIVING this fire inside me to pursue comedy. But it was really just about opportunity and being at a school that lets you express yourself.

Did you have any summer camp experiences that were life-shaping?

I was pretty much a homebody, but I did go to the Mike Andrews baseball camp at Brandeis for two summers. I would say that was life-changing because after two intensive baseball camps, it was very clear to me that baseball was not the future for Seth Meyers.

You and your wife are expecting a second son, and they will have roughly the same age difference as you and Josh. Are there NH experiences that you and your brother had that you want to give your kids?

Well, the thing I keep thinking about is how I’m going to raise two Manhattan kids and

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Are there any NH values that you admire and would like to see instilled in your kids?

or is it just wit-in-the-moment kind of humor? Did you ever steal any of his bits?

I hope my kids have an independent streak and that’s something I felt growing up in New Hampshire. A core sense of fairness and the want to speak out about it when you don’t feel it’s being executed. But we’ll see. Hopefully, there will be enough New England blood left in me by the time my kids are coming up that it will rub off on them.

Umm. I think I just stole a style from him. My dad is less jokes and more just the funniest guy in the room. My dad is funny funny, not just dad funny. He is incredibly quick on his feet, a great storyteller, doesn’t suffer fools and is just a delight to be around.

People must ask you about your movie career. You were working on a couple of films last time we spoke, but I only see one acting credit for you, as Professor Alan Kitzens in Brendan Fraser’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” ...

Let me jump right in and say no one asks me about my movie career. I haven’t been in one in like eight years. I’m such a bad actor they

Does your mom laugh at his humor?

My mom has laughed at everything my father has ever said. He’s on an incredible Cal Ripkin-esque streak of making my mom laugh.

Did your sense of politics find some roots here?

For me the touchpoint was I read a lot of Hunter S. Thompson, who would talk about being on presidential campaigns and drinking at the Sheraton Wayfarer — that old place where all the political hacks used to hang out. It was a big deal to me that it was right down the street.

How about NH Primary experiences?

BEFORE AND AFTER: Cover model Seth Meyers as he appeared on NH Magazine’s very first issue featuring our “It List” in 2006 and on the most recent cover of Men’s Journal.

they will be cooler than I am by the time they are .. 4 or 5? ... just based on experiences and things they’ll see. With that, I feel bad for them in that I went to a fundraiser the other night for the Hudson River Park — which is some old piers they have sort of renovated to be tiny soccer strips — and you just realize it’s millions and millions of dollars just to create what every single NH kid has in their backyard. I hope that someway, somewhere we can provide our children the sort of space to have the kind of carefree upbringing you have growing up in New Hampshire — this beautiful place with a lot of room to move around where you know your kids are safe and they know that too. That’s a great way to grow up.

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moved me behind a desk about 10 years into my career and I’ve been there ever since. So, yeah, it never comes up.

You and a group of your pals have made the acclaimed TV series “Documentary Now.” We’re meeting about our third season now.

That, people ask me about. It has been a great joy. It’s such a specific show for people who care about and love documentaries. I can’t tell you how full-time it is doing a late night talk show 40 weeks a year, so there’s not a lot of room for other things. You have about enough time for one vanity project a year.

You’ve said your dad is funny. I think all dads are funny, being one. Does he do jokes

Yeah, when I first moved here in 1984 we had a fake election in our class where we were all assigned candidates and had to give speeches based on their positions. That was really exciting. In ’92 at Manchester West High, pretty much all the candidates came through and spoke. I got to introduce now-California-Governor Jerry Brown. It was really exciting. I remember getting to hear Clinton speak in ’92 and I was very confident he was a go-nowhere candidate. I remember going back and watching “The War Room” — that fantastic Pennebaker documentary about the campaign. It’s crazy because it opens with shots of Manchester. It’s only 1992 and it just seems like yesterday, but I can’t believe what cars looked like when I was a freshman in high school. It’s like wait, what?

You’ve added so much to the cultural grab bag. Is there a joke or a sketch that you hope you will always be remembered for?

For years it was “Really!?! with Seth and Amy” with my old cohort Amy Poehler. I would say now it’s probably “A Closer Look” on our show. But my goal is just to keep getting a little bit better every day and hopefully be someone people enjoy working with. The nice thing about having your own show is you get to hire people you like working with and building a family that, ultimately, no matter how stressful the work is, you are happy to see the people you go about with each day.

Thanks for your time, Seth. Any last words for our readers?

Be well and happy New Year. NH

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CALENDAR

Calendar Ed ito r’ s

Ch oi ce

OUR FAVORITE EVENTS FOR FEBRUARY 2018

Benefits 2/2

Snowfest Trade the putting green for the putting white with this mountainside snow golf tournament. The annual fundraiser for CASA of NH features nine holes along the Blue Ox trail for ski-and snowshoe-clad golfers, plus festivities far beyond the links, including lunch catered by The Common Man and an après-ski party in Babe’s Lounge. If you’d rather spend the day skiing and boarding than putting and driving, you’re in luck: The registration fee includes a full-day lift ticket. $105. 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Loon Mountain, 60 Loon Mountain Rd., Lincoln. (603) 401-5954; casanh.org/events

2/3

Fanfare ’18 Arts patrons, this one’s for you. The annual fundraising gala for Symphony NH will feature cocktails, dinner, live and silent auctions, and dancing to the live, jazzy tunes of New England Swing. Enjoy a swanky night on the town while supporting the concerts and educational programs of New Hampshire’s native symphony. $95. 5:30 p.m., Crowne Plaza Nashua, 2 Somerset Pkwy., Nashua. (603) 595-9156; symphonynh.org

2/4

tion for your freezer’s icemaker by trying your hand at this old-fashioned ice harvest. Visitors can hit the pond to help haul in chunks of ice (oxen included) or stick to the tamer activities such as visiting the bobhouse, listening to live music or admiring the festival’s fleet of antique snowmobiles. $3-$10. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Remick Country Doctor Museum & Farm, 58 Cleveland Hill Rd., Tamworth. (603) 323-7591; remickmuseum.org

Fairs & Festivals 2/2-2/4

Mt. Washington Valley Ice Fest Ice: If you can’t beat it, join it. This annual weekend festival features three full days of demos and clinics, plus keynote talks from ice climbing legend Raphael Slawinski. Seasoned climbers can try advanced tours like the one-day Mount Washington ascent, while newbies can opt for classes like Ice Climbing 101. Prices, times and locations vary. North Conway. (603) 356-7064; mwv-icefest.com

2/4

Vertical Challenge Tour Have you ever wanted the opportunity to compete against your family and friends on the slopes? Now is your chance. The VC tour is coming to Pats Peak, where skiers and snowboarders are divided by gender and age to compete in free casual ski and snowboard races. There will be gold, silver and bronze medals offered in every category of these competitive races. In addition to the slalom races, there is a festival-like quality to the event, featuring snowy activities, a Vertical Victory Party, music, games, giveaways and an awards ceremony and raffle. The races are free for all competitors holding a valid lift ticket for that day. Lift ticket prices vary. 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Pats Peak, 686 Flanders Rd., Henniker.

(888) 728-7732; patspeak.com/events

2/8-2/11

Newport Winter Carnival The small town of Newport will be transformed into a winter wonderland for four days of winter activities.

There will be events ranging from a winter carnival pageant to midnight ice skating to winter parades to pancake breakfasts. Don’t miss out on the endless amount of fun and the opportunity to celebrate 102 years of community this weekend. Prices and times vary, Newport Area Chamber of Commerce, 2 North Main St., Newport. (603) 863-1510; newportcarnival.org

2/8-2/11

Dartmouth Winter Carnival Dating back to 1911, this annual fête celebrates Dartmouth’s impressive winter sports history and the beauty of the Upper Valley in the snow. Organizations around campus host events during the carnival, so make the rounds to enjoy an ice-sculpting contest, a concert and quirky traditions like a human dogsled race on the green. Prices and times vary, Dartmouth College, Hanover. (603) 646-3399; dartmouth.edu

2/19-2/23

King Pine Winter Carnival One of the state’s most family-friendly ski areas gets in on the winter carnival fun with this week of snowy events. Visitors can take advantage of sleigh rides, a snowshoe tour and ski races designed just for families and kids. Don’t miss the fireworks display on Thursday night as festivities draw to a close. King Pine at Purity Spring Resort, 1251 Eaton Rd., Madison. (603) 367-8896; kingpine.com

courtesy photo

2/3 15th Annual Ice Harvest and Winter Carnival Find a new apprecia-

Penguin Plunge Join hundreds of people for this fun event that benefits the Special Olympics New Hampshire. Dress in costume (this year’s theme is Glow Party), a bathing suit, or whatever will keep you warm as you jump in the cold Hampton Beach waters. Funds raised are used to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition to over 3,000 athletes across the Granite State. After you warm up, don’t forget to check out the Post Plunge Party at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom where there will be food, music and fundraising awards. Plunge starts at 12 p.m., Hampton Beach, 115 Ocean Blvd., Hampton.

(603) 624-1250; sonh.org

2/24

New Hampshire SPCA’s 8th Annual Doggie Paddle Plunge Come and freeze your tail off for a good cause. Raise funds and plunge into the Atlantic Ocean at New Castle Beach. Your efforts will benefit thousands of animals that will turn to the NHSPCA in need of warm, nourishment, medical care and love this year. Bring your four-legged friends, but keep in mind that they can only watch from the beach. $15-$35, 11:00 a.m. to 2 p.m., New Castle Great Island Common, 301 Wentworth Rd., New Castle. nhspca.org

Miscellaneous 2/2, 2/9 & 2/23

Sleigh Ride Cabaret Do the frosty grips of winter have you down? Bundle up in your winter’s warmest and head over to Charmingfare Farm to unwind. Enjoy a horse-drawn sleigh ride, holiday lights, live acoustic music, cozy bonfire, homemade chili with cornbread, hot cocoa and marshmallows for toasting. $29. Times vary, Charmingfare Farm, 774 High St., Candia.

(603) 483-5623; visitthefarm.com

2/3

Evening Snowshoe Tours What could be more magical than a snowshoe walk? A winter wonderland nighttime walk. Join a naturalist from the Appalachian Mountain Club as they take you on a guided snowshoe tour of the Great Glen Trails. You will just use your senses (no flashlights of any kind) to navigate through the trails while listening for owls. Explore your senses during this unforgettable evening under the stars. $12. 7 p.m., Great Glen nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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2/5

Gibson’s Book Club: “The Importance of Being Earnest.” In keeping with their annual February tradition, the resident book club of Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord will read one of Wilde’s classics — this year, “The Importance of Being Earnest.”

Newcomers are encouraged to participate, or you can come as the spirit moves you. Free. 5:30 p.m., Gibson’s Bookstore, 45 S. Main St., Concord. (603) 224-0562; gibsonsbookstore.com

2/8

NHTP’s Elephant-in-the-Room Series: Mental Illness Mental illness is a taboo topic to discuss but not at this venue. Snap!, written and performed by Regi Carpenter, is the true story of a 16-year-old girl’s descent into mental illness and her journey back to reality and freedom. Snap! uses music, gesture and humor to make audiences feel as if they are a part of the experience as well as facilitate a deeper discussion and understanding of mental health. Don’t miss out on this play that has been described as “heartfelt, courageous and altogether inspiring.” Free. 7 p.m., New Hampshire Theatre Project, 959 Islington St., Portsmouth.

(603) 431-6644; nhtheatreproject.org

2/11

10th Annual Seacoast Yoga Mala Seacoast yogis unite, this event is for you. Come together and join a three-hour class of 108 sun salutations, chanting and meditation. There will be a diverse range of teachers available and classes for all abilities. All funds raised will go to SATYA’s efforts in providing therapeutic yoga to at-risk and vulnerable populations. Stay after class is over and attend the special 10-year celebration. 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Rivermill at Dover Landing, 2 Washington St., Dover. (603) 516-2571; seacoastsatya.com

2/13

Mardi Gras 5K on Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras may be about the music, parades, picnics, floats and entertainment, but this year it is also about you.

Throw on your purple, gold and green beads and run or dance your way through this fun 5K event.

The course brings you through the historic Manchester Mills before finishing downtown on Elm Street, and there are also post-race beer tickets that can be redeemed at five downtown bars. $20-$30. 7 p.m., Brady Sullian Plaza, 1000 Elm St., Manchester. millenniumrunning.com

2/23-2/24

Murder Mystery Weekend Who did it? Was it Miss Scarlet in the garage with the candlestick? Enjoy a night of extortion, bribery and murder at The Silver Editor’s Choice

Fountain Inn where you and the other guests are the characters in this live version of “Clue.” Every guest gets a packet with details on their character, suggested dress and secrets about themselves and others. Along with the murder mystery fun, there will be a five-course dinner and breakfast the next day. Come alone or get your own group together for this experience that you won’t soon forget. $100 a person. Times vary, Silver Fountain Inn and Tea Parlor, 103 Silver St., Dover. (603) 7504200; silverfountain.com

2/24

Hearth-Cooking Workshop Come take part in this memorable cooking experience at the Wheelwright House at Strawbery Banke. The two-hour hands-on workshop allows you to learn about open-hearth cooking skills as you enjoy a traditional menu. Cook fresh pork and apple pie, roasted root vegetables, gingerbread long rolls, whipped cream and freshly churned butter. $65. 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Strawbery Banke, 14 Hancock St., Portsmouth. (603) 433-1100; strawberybanke.org

2/25

Sunrise SnowCoach Tours While getting up at 6 o’clock in the morning is a drag, a breathtaking winter sunrise at treeline is so worth it. SnowCoach drivers will take you to treeline to witness an incredible scene. Even though you will be in a heated van, it is recommended that you dress warmly should you want to get out and take pictures. 6:15 a.m., Great Glen Trails, 1 Mount Washington Auto Rd., Gorham. (603) 466-3988; greatglentrails.com

2/26

New England Quilts and the Stories They Tell Bundle up in a quilt of your own and listen to Pam Weeks weave heartwarming tales of service and tradition. Quilt history is full of its own myths and misinformation, and tells stories of world history, women’s history and industrial history.

Weeks will discuss fashion fads, the Colonial Revival and quilt-making for Civil War soldiers.

Participants are encouraged to bring one quilt for identification and/or story sharing. Free. 7 p.m., Hill Town Hall, 30 Crescent St., Hill. (603) 6592422; nhhumanities.org/event-calendar

2/27

Historic Tours at the Historic Theater See what goes on behind the scenes during an hourlong tour through the historic theater. You will be able to hear the backstories of The Music Hall, from its connection to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to the role that it played in helping families manage under strict food rationing during WWII. Don’t miss the opportunity to get an upfront look at the restorations and renovations that allow the theater to thrive without losing its 1878 charm.

$8, 5:30 p.m., The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth. (603) 436-2400; themusichall.org

Performing Arts 2/1

LeAnn Rimes It’s not every day that country royalty comes to the Granite State. This internationally acclaimed singer has won two Grammy Awards, 12 Billboard Music Awards, sold more than 44 million units and is here to sing her way into our hearts with her “Love is Love” tour. $45$65. 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry.

(603) 437-5100; tupelomusichall.com

2/1-2/3

Rock of Ages Take a break from the new year craziness and rock out for the night with songs of Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Poison and more. $25-$46. Times may vary, The Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Mancester. (603) 668-5588; palacetheatre.org

2/3

Best of North Shore Comedy The cure for the winter blues is back and better than ever. This hilarious show will feature Boston comics like Brad Mastrangelo, Will Noonan (both seen on Comedy Central and MTV) and Marty Caproni. $23, 8 p.m., The Colonial, 95 Main St., Keene. (603) 352-2033; thecolonial.org

2/5

Michael McDonald The 5-time Grammy Award-winning musician performs at the intimate Tupelo Music Hall as his first new album in 17 years is released. $100-$140, 8 p.m. Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry. (603) 437-5100; tupelomusichall.com

2/7

Mr. Popper’s Penguins This one is for your little ones at home. With original songs and even performing penguin puppets, this action packed musical adaption of Richard and Florence Atwater’s popular book is the perfect treat for your family this winter. $7, shows at 10 a.m. and 12 p.m., Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord.

(603) 225-1111; ccanh.org

2/9

Jeff Dunham One of the biggest names in comedy and ventriloquism comes to Manchester for his “Passively Aggressive” tour. Join Dunham and his famous cohorts Walter, Achmed the Dead Terrorist, Bubba J and Peanut as they joke and laugh about family and politics. Ticket prices vary. 7 p.m., SNHU Arena, 555 Elm St., Manchester. (603) 924-5000; snhuarena.com

2/9-2/11 NH Orchid Society 27th Annual Show & Sale Admire (or purchase) a ballroom of exquisite orchids and learn a bit about their horticulture at this annual exhibition. In addition to a roundtable discussion for first-time orchid growers and a weekend full of sales, free guided tours, featured talks and so much more. $8-$15. Fri 1 to 7 p.m., Sat 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sun 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Courtyard Marriot, 2200 Southwood Dr., Nashua.

(603) 880-9100; nhorchids.org

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courtesy photo

Trails, 1 Mount Washington Auto Rd., Gorham.

(603) 466-3988; greatglentrails.com

CALENDAR

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CALENDAR

Ed ito r’ s

Ch oi ce

2/3 Pirates of the High Skis!

photo by kris dobbins

Ahoy, mateys! In this fundraiser for the Adaptive Sports Partners of the North Country, participants are invited to suit up in pirate and wench gear and hit the mountain to search for hidden treasure.

Scallywags can also check out a silent auction, a Pirate Portrait Gallery photo booth and even a (temporary) tattoo parlor.

There will also be swag bags of goodies, door prizes and drawings for loot. 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Cannon Mountain Ski Area, 260 Tramway Dr., Franconia. (603) 823-5232; adaptivesportspartners.org

2/9

Sal “The Voice” Valentinetti He stole the show singing Frank Sinatra on “America’s Got Talent,” and now he is ready to take the stage in New Hampshire. Valentinetti received a standing ovation for “My Way” on the hit show and now has his own live show featuring his new band, “The Black Tie Brass.” Ticket prices vary. 7:30 p.m., The Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester. (603) 6685588; palacetheatre.org

2/9-3/4

The Hunchback of Notre Dame The bells of Notre Dame and your favorite Disney characters are leaving 15th-century Paris and are coming to the Granite State. Based on the Victor Hugo novel and featuring songs from the Disney classic, as well as new music from Menken and Schwartz, Hunchback of Notre Dame is a mesmerizing show that is captivating for audiences of all ages. It will surely be a topsy-turvy event. $20-$38. Times and dates vary, Seacoast Repertory Theatre, 125 Bow St., Portsmouth. (603) 433-4472; seacoastrep.org

2/9-2/11

The Little Mermaid Look at this show, isn’t it neat? Wouldn’t it make my winter complete? The Lions of Keene and the Keene Lions Foundation is proud to present its 66th Musical on the Colonial Theatre stage. The Lions foundation offers a romantic and beloved take on this Disney classic that will give you a break from February’s bitter cold. $22-$24. Times vary, The Colonial Theatre, 95 Main St., Keene. (603) 352-2033; thecolonial.org

2/23-3/18

Grease Don’t miss your favorite Pink Ladies and Greasers in this classic show as they leave you wishing for summer nights. The 1950s high school dream will rock the state in this musical that is both a homage to the ’50s and a satire to high schoolers’ desire to be rebellious. The hit songs like “Greased Lightnin’” and “We Go Together” are reasons why the show is among the world’s most popular musicals. Prices and times vary, The Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Mancester. (603) 668-5588; palacetheatre.org

Valentine’s Day 1/30-2/16

Love, Lust and Desire This annual Valentine’s Day exhibition hinges on romantic and sensual art of all kinds. Bring your significant other to browse and examine the works on a date catered to creative spirits, or come alone to pick out a piece to bring home as a gift for your other half. Tue-Fri

10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., McGowan Fine Art, 2 Phenix Ave., Concord. (603) 225-2515; mcgowanfineart.com

Visual Arts & Museum

2/10

Jong-Yoon Kim: Light, Form, and Material Plymouth State’s own will be presenting his precision paper-folding and practical paper sculptures. From paper to wood, he creates difficult and compelling spaces in both his practical and impractical sculptures that are “lighting the way to inspired design.” Free. Mon to Fri 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sat 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Museum of the White Mountains, 34 Highland St., Plymouth.

(603) 535-3210; plymouth.edu/museum-of-thewhite-mountains

Chairlift Speed Dating & Last Tracks with Moat Mountain Delete your dating apps for the day and try out some real-life matchmaking this Valentine’s Day. An annual tradition at Black Mountain, Chairlift Speed Dating invites ski-loving singles to mingle beyond their usual circle of friends while they hit the slopes. At the end of the day, Moat Mountain will present a dinner and beer tasting for the budding new couples before sending the group skiing back down the mountain by the romantic light of the stars (and headlamps). Black Mountain, 373 Black Mountain Rd., Jackson. (603) 383-4490; blackmt.com

2/14

Valentine’s Sleigh Ride Surprise your sweetheart by taking them on this winter wonderland sleigh ride. Cuddle up on the sleigh of your choosing and get cozy for a ride out to the Sugar Shack. Once you get there, you will be able to enjoy a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup while sitting around a fire. There will also be an assortment of tasty chocolate treats and hot cocoa. You may bring your own refreshments and beverages if you so desire. $42. Times vary, Charmingfare Farm, 774 High St., Candia. (603) 483-5623; visitthefarm.com

2/14

Valentine’s Day Dinner Theatre Take your valentine out for a night of dinner and music at the Atlantic Grill. Merrill Peiffer, Ari McKay Wilford, Alison Cusano, Chelsea Hermann and Patrick Dorow will perform a range of music from jazz to pop hits to Broadway tunes. Enjoy one of the four threecourse dinner options offered like filet mignon with a red wine demi or chicken with cranberry and local honey while you watch the Patrick Dorow Productions performance. There will also be a cash bar available. $85, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., The Atlantic Grill, 5 Pioneer Rd., Rye. (603) 433-3000; patrickdorowproductions.com

2/16-2/18

Dinner and a Show: “Almost, Maine” Take in a night of stagecraft and good eats courtesy of the Majestic Theatre. A talented cast will present this “merry musical romp” about the lives of modern American families while kitchen staff serves you an impeccable dessert. $38-$42. Fri-Sat 7 p.m., Sun 1:30 p.m., Executive Court Banquet Facility, 1199 S. Mammoth Rd., Manchester. (603) 669-7469; majestictheatre.net

2/6-3/1

2/10

New Hampshire Heritage Lecture: Triumph and Tragedy at the Castle in the Clouds Maggie Stier, the Castle’s director of development and engagement, will explore the development of summer homes by the rich and famous in the Lakes Region. She will also discuss the 1914 state-of-the-art, 6,000-acre Castle estate on Lake Winnipesaukee. $7. 2 p.m., New Hampshire Historical Society, 30 Park St., Concord. (603) 228-6688; nhhistory.org

2/15

Gallery Talk with Kader Attia Last month we told you about Kader Attia’s exhibit, “Reason’s Oxymorons.” Chad Elias, an assistant professor at Dartmouth, will be facilitating a discussion about the research-driven video installation.

The exhibition focuses on conversations about how non-Western and Western cultures approach psychiatric conditions and emotional breakdowns. The gallery talk will focus on the “psychoanalysis, ethnography and (post-) colonial violence in the work of Kader Attia.” Free.

12:30 to 1:30 p.m., Hood Downtown, 53 Main St., Hanover. (603) 646-2900; hoodmuseum. dartmouth.edu

Find additional events at nhmagazine.com/ calendar and even more winter things to do (including farmers markets) at nhmagazine.com/winter. Submit events eight weeks in advance to Emily Heidt at eheidt@ nhmagazine.com or enter your own at nhmagazine.com/calendar. Not all events are guaranteed to be published either online or in the print calendar. Event submissions will be reviewed and, if deemed appropriate, approved by a New Hampshire Magazine editor. nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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SENIORITY

Getting Unstuck

These super volunteers stand up for kids

BY LYNNE SNIERSON

S

he was 10 years old and had done nothing wrong. Nevertheless, she was removed by the State of New Hampshire from the only home she had known because of her mother’s opioid abuse and sent to live in a group home with strangers.

By the time her family situation improved enough to allow her to return home, the mother had a new man in her life and had already had two babies with him.

The boyfriend didn’t want the girl in the home, so the mother, afraid of losing him, wouldn’t take her back.

The girl ended up stuck in “the system.”

“I worked on that case and it was really sad,” says W. Wright Danenbarger, a retired prominent attorney from Manchester, who was the girl’s Court Appointed Special

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Advocates (CASA) volunteer. “The girl was punished all of the time in the group home because she was angry and rebellious, which was understandable because her mother rejected her, and it was her mother’s addiction to oxycontin that put her there in the first place. With nowhere to go and no one to want her, she had to stay in the group home.”

Danenbarger was perennially named on the “Best Lawyers in America” list and is a former president of the New Hampshire Trial Lawyers Association. But you don’t have to know your way around a courtroom as well as he does, be as persuasive in front of a judge or hold a law degree to be an extremely effective and influential CASA advocate.

“Our caring and capable volunteer advocates come from all walks of life and have diverse educational backgrounds,” says Marcia “Marty” Sink, president and CEO of CASA New Hampshire. For 29 years she’s been at the helm of the organization, which is based in Manchester and operates five regional offices statewide.

The New Hampshire program is connected to the national CASA network of 949 programs in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Created in 1977 by a family court judge in Seattle, the way it works is to have citizen volunteers represent and speak up in the courtroom for the best interests of every abused and neglected victim in the foster care and child welfare system.

These are the kids who have no one else in their corner.

“The least able to help themselves and defend themselves are the ones who suffer the most,” says Caton Bredar, a national television personality and 30-year CASA volunteer advocate. “These kids can’t stand up and speak for themselves in a courtroom in front of a judge, and many are too little to even be able to speak.

Think about if you didn’t have any family or anybody, and you were in a situation where the court was making decisions about your welfare and your future. That’s what life is for these kids.”

This volunteer opportunity gives you the chance to be the one constant in a kid’s life during the tempestuous time when all else seems like a variable. You are there when foster parents, social workers and judges can change at any given moment. You are their support system in an intimidating, frustrating and overburdened child welfare system.

“This work is a great fit for a senior,” says Sink. “We have an amazing group of senior advocates who have very full, rich lives and who have diverse personal and professional backgrounds. When they come to CASA, they are continuing to use a lot of the skills they have developed being a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle, and they also have skills used in their careers. They are able to apply some of those to this work,” she adds. Indeed, she says, 72 percent of the New Hampshire advocates are 50-plus.

“People who have life experience and wisdom are better suited for this work.

Sometimes people who are younger think they can change the world, so then (the

illustration by gloria diianni

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advocacy) can become very discouraging for them,” says Bredar. “If you have a bit of life perspective, I think you are more realistic and can be more effective and helpful.”

The help is certainly needed. Sink says that on any given day, her organization is dealing with approximately 800 child abuse and neglect cases, and although there are currently more than 500 active advocates, at least 100 to 150 more are needed to meet the demand from the state.

The current opioid crisis continues to exacerbate the situation exponentially, putting more pressure on the program.

“We are working diligently at recruiting additional advocates and we are also working very hard to continue to build our capacity to be able to adequately screen, initially train and supervise the numbers of advocates that we do need,” says Sink, adding that volunteers typically invest between 10 to 12 hours per month, depending on the case.

“CASA is a well-run organization in New Hampshire and Marty Sink is very competent. I would definitely recommend this for any senior who wants to get involved,” says Danenbarger. “The training is intense and does take up a few long days, but it’s very good and worthwhile training. The work is not difficult for anyone, let alone someone 50-plus. As long as you can think logically, write, and stand up and speak in a courtroom, you can do this. There is a little bit of paperwork involved in that you have to write reports, but your supervisor can help.”

Regardless of where you live in the Granite State, you can get involved. You certainly can make an enormous difference in the life of a child victim, and you’ll see quite a difference in your life as well.

“Our advocates tell us is that they had no idea of the impact this work would have on them and how life-changing it is for them to do this work,” says Sink. “Their input is helping our judges make better-informed decisions. They say that now that they’ve done this, they can’t imagine not doing CASA. They tell us that this is the most meaningful experience they have ever had,” she adds. “This is powerful work. It is empowering work.”

For more information about CASA and its outcomes, the screening and training process, and on how to become involved as an advocate, volunteer, fundraiser or board member, visit casanh.org. NH

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75

HEALTH

The factors that make us more likely to develop heart disease — such as obesity, diabetes, inactivity and smoking — also raise our risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

Health Connection Avoiding heart disease also boosts brain health

BY KAREN A. JAMROG

C

hange is hard. Maybe that’s why so many of us continue to line up for fast food, and spend too much time lounging on the couch rather than going for a walk or engaging in some other form of actual movement. Meanwhile, health professionals continue to warn of the dangers of heart disease, and rightly so. After all, cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of men and women worldwide.

But even though most of us are fully aware of what we should do to keep our heart healthy, many don’t realize that the factors that make us more likely to develop heart disease — such as obesity, diabetes, inactivity and smoking — also raise our risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

In addition to risk factors that are shared

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between heart and brain disease, “there are several types of heart disease that potentially affect the brain,” says Paul F. Boffetti, MD, FACC, director of interventional cardiology at Foundation Cardiology at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center in Nashua. People who have an irregular heartbeat condition such as arrhythmia or atrial fibrillation, for example, face an increased risk of developing dementia.

Some of the factors that make us more likely to have brain as well as heart disease are beyond our control, such as age and genetics. But research offers overwhelming evidence that we can tilt the odds of staying healthy in our favor through the lifestyle choices we make each day. Many of those choices help safeguard the condition of our blood vessels — which are crucial, of

course, to the heart, but also to the brain.

Cardiovascular disease “affects the vascular system, and the brain is a vascular organ,” Boffetti says, which means it is vulnerable to trouble that occurs in the heart, and in the blood vessels. The same atherosclerosis that gradually and quietly over the years gums up arteries near the heart with plaque, for example, can also impede blood flow in the vessels that feed the brain, and possibly lead to a stroke and cognitive impairment. “Atherosclerosis is a systemic disease that can affect many organs, but the heart and the brain are the two most commonly affected,” Boffetti says.

“Heart disease and stroke correlate because frequently it’s a similar process that causes the heart attack or the stroke to occur.”

People who experience a stroke face a heightened risk of vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease. Stroke damages the vessels that supply blood to the brain, killing brain cells by depriving them of vital blood and oxygen, and weakening the brain’s ability to concentrate, analyze, remember or perform other cognitive tasks.

Brain function can also be impaired by what are sometimes described as “silent strokes,” which can be influenced by some of the same factors that lead to heart disease. “Silent strokes are when you have

illustration by victoria marcelino

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603 LIVING a lack of blood flow to a certain part of the brain but do not have overt symptoms,” says Syed Peeran, MD, a vascular surgeon at Appledore Medical Group Coastal Cardiothoracic & Vascular Surgery, based out of Portsmouth Regional Hospital. While we might expect to be able to recognize what we think of as a typical stroke by observing a stricken individual’s suddenly slurred speech, half-drooped face or paralysis on one side of the body, someone who experiences a silent stroke might appear to only have difficulty finding the right word while speaking, Peeran says, or might experience a tingling or numbness in one hand.

Because silent strokes are subtle, people don’t always realize that they’ve had one.

In many instances, they or their loved ones attribute any noticeable symptoms to something else, such as aging or simple forgetfulness.

A silent stroke causes less profound damage to brain tissue than a large, acute stroke does, but the damage it causes is permanent — and a silent stroke can be a harbinger that a more prominent stroke is likely to occur. “It can be a warning sign that a pending stroke is about to happen,” Peeran says, stressing that such an omen should be taken very seriously.

Ultimately, however, the best approach to maintaining brain as well as heart health is prevention. And unfortunately, the characteristics that are linked with both heart and brain disease are all too common in the US population, Boffetti says, due to the typical American lifestyle. More than a third of American adults are now considered obese, for example, and high blood pressure and diabetes, which often go hand in hand with obesity, make us more likely to develop both heart and brain disease, thereby likely raising our chances of experiencing earlier onset dementia, Boffetti says, as well as dementia in general.

If you want to do what you can to minimize your chances of developing heart and brain disease, make smart lifestyle choices that include getting regular exercise, managing blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar and not smoking. Doing so, Peeran says, will help steer you away from factors that “contribute to cardiovascular disease and poor health all the way around,” and that definitely don’t do your brain any good. “Poor cardiac function and cardiac disease,” Peeran says, “can only be detrimental to brain function.” NH 78

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HEALTH

The danger of “silent strokes”

Factors that increase our risk of developing heart disease can also make it more likely that we will develop dementia, at least in part by raising our likelihood of having small strokes known as “silent strokes.”

During a typical stroke, a blood clot abruptly blocks blood flow to a specific region of the brain, resulting in an acute change in cognitive function or physical ability, says Paul F. Boffetti, MD, FACC, director of interventional cardiology at Foundation Cardiology at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center in Nashua. In contrast, a silent stroke is more diffuse, and occurs in the smaller vessels of the brain, “so it’s not like all of a sudden a third of the brain has no blood flow,” Boffetti explains.

“It’s more like all throughout the brain there is small vessel disease that leads to damage of the functioning brain cells — the neurons — and that can cause cognitive decline.”

These mini or silent strokes gradually erode brain function. “They are silent in the sense that you can’t identify the moment in which the stroke occurred,” Boffetti says, unlike a full-blown stroke, which leads to “an obvious, significant change in the ability to do something,” such as speaking or moving.

People can have more than one silent stroke, and don’t always realize that they’ve had one.

Family members might notice a subtle change in a loved one who has had a silent stroke, and chalk it up to age or forgetfulness. “But it’s more than that,” Boffetti says. “There has been damage to the brain. The brain will shrink a little bit as you age anyway, but this is beyond the normal aging process of the brain.”

And the damage wrought by smaller strokes is lasting. “Once you’ve lost brain tissue,” Boffetti says, “it doesn’t regrow.”

Reduce your risk

Safeguard the health of your brain and your heart by reducing your chances of developing brain or heart disease in the first place. The following are among the most crucial steps you can take to create a healthful lifestyle for yourself, as recommended by the American Heart Association: -Get plenty of physical activity.

-Eat a balanced diet that includes enough fruit, vegetables and whole grains. Choose low-fat dairy, lean protein and fish over foods that contain saturated fats, and avoid “empty calorie” items such as soda, candy and pastries.

-Maintain a proper body weight.

-Do not smoke.

-Manage your blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol.

For more information about a heart-healthy lifestyle, see the American Heart Association’s website heart.org.

For more detail about vascular dementia, see the Mayo Clinic’s website ayoclinic.org.

HOME

Let There Be Lights

How to light an open-concept design

BY AMY MITCHELL

O

pen floor plans tend to be the norm in newer, new-build or renovated homes these days.

While we could talk about the pros and cons of an open scheme and how to arrange your interiors for this type of layout until the cows come home, I’m here to talk about just one challenge homeowners will encounter — lighting.

Lighting tends to be the last thing homeowners think of when designing or renovating their homes — an afterthought resulting from decision fatigue. In consequence, I frequently see lighting plans that are either boring or a clashing mishmosh.

Lighting should be considered in tandem with the whole plan. Like the perfect jewelry for an Oscar night outfit, lighting puts the finishing touches on all your hard work.

In any interior, form must follow function in all (or most) things. You first have to tackle the practical aspect of lighting and then harmonize the aesthetics. So, practi-

cally speaking, most lighting falls under the following two categories: Ambient — This is the lighting that instantly illuminates a space with the flick of a switch. In a large open floor plan, this is usually your recessed lighting. I recommend adding dimmer switches to be able to control and soften the intensity of light as desired. The newer 4-inch can lights are a lot less visually invasive than the 6-inch ones that dominated ceilings 10 years ago.

Task — Task lighting allows you to perform specific activities — dining, preparing food, playing games, reading, etc. — without eye strain. Aesthetically coordinating task lighting is especially important in a spacious, open-concept room.

You can also use task lighting to define different areas in an open layout. This may seem like a no-brainer — i.e., kitchen island, dining area, living area — but don’t overlook your entry, game area, reading corner or bar area.

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Open-concept layouts are popular, but can be tricky to light. A mix of different fixtures will be necessary, but make sure you avoid clashing styles.

Task lighting fixtures are where you can get creative, but make sure that you follow a few rules of thumb to ensure that your open floor plan keeps that lovely flow. After all, that is its primary goal.

1. Choose your focal, or dominant, fixture first. This is mostly likely your dining or living area ceiling light.

2. Vary the next fixture, but repeat the finish and the shape of your focal fixture.

3. As you move along, you can change styles, but keep the finish or the shape from one to the next.

4. Don’t forget your lamps. They should harmonize in shape and style as well.

5. Not every light will be a focal fixture.

Some will play supporting roles. Just like in an opera, you can’t have too many divas sharing the stage or you’ll end up with a screeching mess.

Let’s create a hypothetical open layout that has an entry leading to an open kitchen/ dining/living room. I’ll take examples from a couple of popular lighting vendors — Currey & Company and Visual Comfort.

Let’s say that you fell hard for the Creole nhmagazine.com | February 2018

79

ADVERTISING

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Tip 2 Life has changed. The kitchen is the center of our lives. We cook, our children study, and we entertain in the kitchen. This makes the layout essential.

How many times have you asked your child to “stop standing there so I can get to the fridge?” We should be able to easily chat with guests, put chips and dip out on a buffet, and watch TV. We want guests welcome in the kitchen, but on the fringes where they add to the fun but don’t get in the way.

Tip 3 Get rid of the clutter. Most countertops are packed with the coffee maker, toaster, food processor, blender, knives, spices and pantry items. This makes it almost impossible to prepare food and makes the kitchen look messy. Have a place to store everything so you can see and use those beautiful countertops. At Dream Kitchens we will store everything away so you are ready for company at any time of day!

Nina Hackel, President | Dream Kitchens | 139 Daniel Webster Highway Nashua NH | www.adreamkitchen.com | 603-891-2916

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chandelier from Currey & Company for the living area of your great room. I absolutely love the antiqued gold finish juxtaposed with the more relaxed cane appliqué. This would be great for a casual but tailored room.

Working backward, I might then choose something similarly airy and with a gold finish for the dining area. However, I’ll switch it up a bit by choosing a fixture with round shades but in a linear format, like Currey & Company’s Dalby chandelier.

Moving on to the island, I want to keep my round shape, maybe go a little smaller in size so as not to compete with the dining and living areas, but bring in a new finish — oil-rubbed bronze. I love how the little brass accents on the Altamont pendant light from Hudson Valley references the gold of the previous two fixtures.

Continuing backward into the entry, I want something visually interesting but not overwhelming, and perhaps foreshadowing of what my guests will see in the upcoming open layout. This globe flush mount in an

Altamont pendant light from Hudson Valley

PPORTSMOUTH ATH OMPANY ORTSMOUTH B B ATH C C OMPANY S A L E S S H O W R O O M S

A

L

E S S H O W R O www.PortsmouthBathCo.com www.PortsmouthBathCo.com

O

M

McCarren Medium Flush Mount designed by Ralph Lauren from Circa Lighting

Bath & Kitchen Product Specialists:

Thoughtful Suggestions Knowledgeable Product Assistance Quality Products | Refreshing Ideas Bath && Kitchen Product Bath Kitchen ProductSpecialists: Specialists: Thoughtful Suggestions Thoughtful Suggestions Knowledgeable Product Knowledgeable ProductAssistance Assistance Quality Products Quality Products∣ ∣Refreshing RefreshingIdeas Ideas

Independent, Local Small Business:

100 West Road, Portsmouth, NH 03801 ph: 603.436.1401 | fax: 603.431.3958 (a division of Standard of New England, LLC) Independent, Independent,Local LocalSmall Small Business: Business: 100 100West WestRoad, Road,Portsmouth, Portsmouth, NH NH 03801 03801 ph: ph:603-436-1401 603-436-1401 ⦁⦁ fax: fax:603-431-3958 603-431-3958 (a(adivision divisionofofStandard Standardof ofNew New England, England, LLC) LLC)

aged brass, with the oil-rubbed bronze mesh feature at the top from Circa Lighting, is just the ticket.

Of course, every situation is different and depends on the architecture of your house and the furnishings. But I hope this helps you to realize the variety you can achieve in lighting for an open layout, while paying tribute to its flow. NH Decorator and color consultant Amy Mitchell is the owner of Home Glow Design. Each week, she writes for Home Glow’s “Saturday Blog,” focusing on fresh twists on classic style, American craftsmanship and value and quality for dollars spent. The blog also features more photos from this story. She lives in Hopkinton with her husband and two boys.

Resources

Currey & Company curreycodealers.com Hudson Valley Lighting hudsonvalleylighting.com Circa Lighting circalighting.com nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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LOCAL DISH

Homemade Pop Tarts for Your Valentine These taste nothing like the from-the-box version

These retro sweets can be made at home with your favorite pie dough (just add a tablespoon of sugar) or use the recipe below. The filling is simply a quality strawberry jam. At jajaBelle’s, the jam is house-made.

Pastry Crust 2 cups (283 grams) all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon granulated sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter, cold and cubed 1 egg 2 tablespoons milk Egg Wash 1 egg 1 tablespoon water Icing ¾ cup (85 grams) powdered sugar ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract Zest of one lemon A few drops red food coloring Filling 1 cup good-quality strawberry jam Decorative sprinkles

Pastry Crust: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar and salt. Cut in the butter until it is the size of peas and it holds together. Whisk together the egg and milk, and mix into the dough until it’s moistened and comes together.

photos by susan laughlin

jajaBelle’s Pastry & Coffee Shop Weekdays 8 a.m to 5 p.m.

Closed Mondays Sunday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m Saturday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. jajabelles.com

Jessica dePontbriand had immediate success with her Nashua Main Street coffee shop jajaBelle’s, offering her Greek family recipes such as baklava, finikia and spanakopita. Now, four years later, she is embracing the modern bakeshop concept and getting respect for her brownies, cookies and coconut macaroons too. She started in the baking business more than 10 years ago at farmers markets in Colorado, a connection she maintains each summer. At jajaBelle's, soups, salads and sandwiches are also on the menu, along with a full range of coffees and espresso made with fresh-ground A&E Coffee & Tea beans. The café invites one to sit a spell, relax or play a board game. jajaBelle’s Pastry & Coffee Shop 182 Main St., Nashua

Divide the dough in half. Roll out one piece of dough to about ⅛-inch thick, and using a sharp knife, trim into a 9×12-inch rectangle. Divide into nine 3×4-inch rectangles. Using a spatula, transfer the rectangles to a baking sheet that has been lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

Whisk together the egg and milk in a small bowl and brush the egg wash on each of the rectangles, edge to edge. Spoon 2 tablespoons of filling into the center of each rectangle, leaving a ½-inch of space around the edges.

Roll out the second ball of dough, cutting again into 3x4-inch rectangles and place the second rectangles on top of the nine ready ones. Press around the seams of the dough with your fingers, then use the tines of a fork around the edges. Prick the tops of the rectangles to allow steam to escape.

Refrigerate the sheet pan with the pastries while the oven heats to 350 degrees. Bake the pastries for 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool before icing. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week.

Icing: In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, lemon juice and zest. The icing should be thick, but spreadable. If necessary, add a splash of water until that consistency is reached.

Spread a spoonful of icing over top of each pastry and sprinkle with jimmies or other edible decorations.

Allow icing to set. nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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Page 1

Good Eats OUR GUIDE TO FINE DINING

Take Pride in N.H. Visit www.nhmade.com for a list of the state’s finest specialty foods

It’s Your Day to Shine.

The seafood paella is perfect for sharing on Valentine's Day.

Revolution Cantina, 38 Opera House Square, Claremont, revolutioncantina.com Open Tuesday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Dinner for Two The Fall/Winter issue of New Hampshire Magazine’s BRIDE is on the newsstands. Inside you’ll find gorgeous photography, inspiration, New Hampshire venues, the latest gown styles and much more.

All for the New Hampshire Bride

Visit us at bridenh.com.

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Revolution Cantina, located in Claremont's historic downtown, has high ceilings, open spaces, and a friendly bar and lounge area.

There’s love in the air too — well, at least in the name if you spell it backward. The Latin menu features plenty of Mexican options, including quesadillas and burritos, but it also has a taste of Cuba with a Miami-style Cuban sandwich on pressed bread and Costa Rican influence in the chicharrónes (fried pork bites).

Find a special Valentine’s Day menu or share the Spanish- and Cuban-inspired seafood paella shown above ($17.99). The

weekly Taco Tuesday features a special menu of tacos and deals on interesting margaritas.

The Sunday brunch menu item “Chicken Farmer I Still Love You” with pulled chicken, bacon, breakfast potatoes and Sriracha cream is an ode to a local landmark.

February 22 is National Margarita Day, so be sure to enjoy one of Revolution’s fresh fruit infused tequilas special for that day. Other Latin-inspired drinks include the national drink of Brazil, a caipirinha, with cachaça. You also might enjoy a Pisco sour with BarSol Pisco and, of course, a Bacardi mojito. NH

photo by susan laughlin

1 AM

603 LIVING

DINE OUT Our restaurant listings include Best of NH winners and advertisers along with others compiled by the New Hampshire Magazine editorial department. Listings are subject to change from month to month based on space availability. Expanded and highlighted listings denote advertisers. For additional and more detailed listings, visit nhmagazine.com.

H Best of NH

$ Entrées cost less than $12 2017 Editor’s Picks B Breakfast H Best of NH L Lunch 2017 Reader’s Poll D Dinner $$$$ Entrées cost b Brunch more than $25 $$$ Entrées cost between ( Reservations recom-

The Crown Tavern

TAVERN 99 Hanover Street, Manchester; (603) 218-3132; thecrownonhanover. com; $–$$$ D

Cucina Toscana

ITALIAN 427 Amherst St., Nashua; (603) 821-7356; cucinatoscananashua.com; $ L D (

MEDITERRANEAN 1069 Elm St., Manchester; (603) 666-3723; republiccafe.com; $–$$$ L D

mended

New – Open for one year or less

Giorgio’s Ristorante

PIZZERIA 24 Calef Hwy., Brickyard Sq., Epping; (603) 734-2809; 50 Dow St., Manchester; (603) 641-0900; 900degrees.com; $–$$$ L D

Angelina’s Ristorante Italiano

ITALIAN 11 Depot St., Concord; (603) 228-3313; angelinasrestaurant.com; $–$$$ L D

Bar One

GASTROPUB 40 Nashua St., Milford; (603) 249-5327; Facebook; $–$$ L D

Barley House H

TAVERN/AMERICAN 132 North Main St., Concord; (603) 228-6363; 43 Lafayette Rd., N. Hampton; (603) 3799161; thebarleyhouse.com; $–$$ L D

Bavaria German Restaurant

GERMAN 1461 Hooksett Rd., Hooksett; (603) 836-5280; bavaria-nh.com; $–$$ L D

Bedford Village Inn H

AMERICAN 2 Olde Bedford Way, Bedford; (603) 472-2001; bedfordvillageinn.com; $$–$$$$ B L D

The Birch on Elm H

NEW AMERICAN/TAPAS 931 Elm St., Manchester; (603) 782-5365; Facebook; $–$$ L D

Buckley’s Great Steaks

STEAKHOUSE 438 Daniel Webster Hwy., Merrimack; (603) 424-0995; buckleysgreatsteaks.com; $–$$$$ D (

Cabonnay H

WINE BAR/NEW AMERICAN 55 Bridge St., Manchester; (844) 9463473; cabonnay.com; $$$-$$$$ D

Campo Enoteca

ITALIAN 969 Elm St., Manchester; (603) 625-0256; campoenoteca.com; $–$$$ L D

Colosseum Restaurant

ITALIAN 264 North Broadway, Salem; (603) 898-1190; thecolosseumrestaurant.com; $–$$ L D (

The Copper Door

Pigtale

Gale Motor Co. Eatery H

$$ Entrées cost between

900 Degrees H

PIZZA/ITALIAN 220 East Main St., Hampstead; (603) 378-0092; 241 Union Sq., Milford; (603) 672-2270; pastaloft.com; $–$$ L D PIZZERIA 449 Amherst St., Nashua; (603) 864-8740; (603) 864-8740; pigtalepizza.com; $-$$ L D

AMERICAN/FARM-TO-TABLE 50 Commercial St., Manchester; (603) 836-1925; foundrynh.com; $$-$$$ D b

$18 and $25

MERRIMACK VALLEY

The Pasta Loft H

The Foundry H

SMALL PLATES 36 Lowell St., Manchester; (603) 232-7059; galemotoreatery.com; $–$$$ D (

$12 and $18

524-9373; magicfoodsrestaurantgroup.com; $$–$$$ L D

MEDITERRANEAN 707 Milford Rd., Merrimack; (603) 883-7333; 524 Nashua St., Milford; (603) 673-3939; 270 Granite St., Manchester; (603) 2323323; giorgios.com; $$–$$$ L D (

Granite Restaurant & Bar

NEW AMERICAN 96 Pleasant St., Concord; (603) 227-9000; graniterestaurant.com; $$–$$$$ B L D b (

Grazing Room

Republic H

Revival Kitchen & Bar

AMERICAN 11 Depot St., Concord; (603) 715-5723; revivalkitchennh. com; $$–$$$ D (

Riverside BBQ

BBQ 53 Main St., Nashua; (603) 2045110; riversidebarbeque.com $–$$ L D

Stella Blu

TAPAS 70 East Pearl St., Nashua; (603) 578-5557; stellablu-nh.com; $$–$$$ D

Surf Restaurant H

AMERICAN 33 The Oaks St., Henniker; (603) 428-3281; colbyhillinn.com; $$–$$$$ D (

SEAFOOD 207 Main St., Nashua; (603) 595-9293; 99 Bow St., Portsmouth; (603) 334-9855; surfseafood.com; $$–$$$$ D b

Grill 603

Taj India H

AMERICAN 168 Elm St., Milford; (603) 213-6764; grill603.com; $–$$$ L D b

Gyro Spot

GREEK 1037 Elm St., Manchester; (603) 218-3869; 421 Central Ave., Dover; (603) 343-4553; thegyrospot. com; $ L D New Dover location

INDIAN 967 Elm St., Manchester; (603) 606-2677; 47 E. Pearl St., Nashua; (603) 864-8586; tajindia.co; $–$$ L D New location in Nashua

Tuscan Kitchen H

Hanover St. Chophouse H

ITALIAN 67 Main St., Salem; (603) 952-4875; 581 Lafayette Rd., Portsmouth; (603) 570-3600; tuscan-kitchen.com; $$–$$$ L D

The Little Crêperie

SEACOAST

STEAKHOUSE 149 Hanover Street, Manchester; (603) 644-2467; hanoverstreetchophouse.com; L D ( CAFÉ 138 North Main St., Concord; (603) 856-7807; $ B L b

Lui Lui H

ITALIAN 259 Daniel Webster Hwy., Nashua; (603) 888-2588; 8 Glen Rd., West Lebanon; (603) 298-7070; luilui. com; $-$$ L D

Mangia

ITALIAN 33 Elm St., Manchester; (603) 647-0788; gomangia.com; $–$$ D (

Mangia Sano

ITALIAN 321 Nashua St., Milford; (603) 554-8534; Facebook; $–$$$ D

900 Degrees H

PIZZERIA 24 Calef Hwy., Brickyard Sq., Epping; (603) 734-2809; 50 Dow St., Manchester; (603) 6410900; 900degrees.com; $–$$$ L D

7th Settlement

BREW PUB 47 Washington St., Dover; (603) 373-1001; 7thsettlement. com; $–$$ L D

Bali Sate House

INDONESIAN 448 High St., Somersworth; Phone number (603) 7403000; Facebook; $–$$ L D

Barley House H

Bridge Street Bistrot

INTERNATIONAL 64 Bridge St., Portsmouth; (603) 430-9301; bridgestreetbistrot.com; $$–$$$ L D b (

Bubby’s NY Style Delicatessen H

NY DELI 241 Hanover St., Portsmouth; (603) 373-8981; bubbysdeli. com; $ B L D

CAVA

TAPAS 10 Commercial Alley, Portsmouth; (603) 319-1575; cavatapasandwinebar.com; $–$$$ L D

Chapel+Main

NEW AMERICAN 83 Main St., Dover; (603) 842-5170; chapelandmain. com; $$–$$$ D (

Community Oven

PIZZERIA 845 Lafayette Rd., Hampton; (603) 929-0102; thecommunityoven.com; $–$$$ L D

CR’s the Restaurant

AMERICAN 287 Exeter Rd., Hampton; (603) 929-7972; crstherestaurant. com; $$-$$$ L D (

Cure

NEW AMERICAN 189 State St., Portsmouth; (603) 427-8258; curerestaurantportsmouth.com; $$-$$$ L D (

Durbar Square Restaurant

NEPALESE/HIMALAYAN 10 Market St., Portsmouth; (603) 294-0107; durbarsquarerestaurant.com $-$$ L D (

Eastern Burger Company H

BURGERS 157 Portsmouth Ave., Stratham; (603) 580-2096; easternburgercompany.com; $–$$ L D

Ember Wood Fired Grill

AMERICAN 1 Orchard St., Dover; (603) 343-1830; emberwfg.com; $$$$$ D b (

Epoch

NEW AMERICAN 2 Pine St., Exeter; (603) 772-5901; theexeterinn.com; $$$–$$$$ B L D b (

Franklin Oyster House

SEAFOOD 148 Fleet St., Portsmouth; (603) 373-8500; franklinoysterhouse. com; $-$$$ D

The Galley Hatch

AMERICAN 325 Lafayette Rd., Hampton; (603) 926-6152; galleyhatch. com; $-$$ B L D

Green Elephant H

VEGETARIAN 35 Portwalk Place, Portsmouth; (603) 427-8344; greenelephantnh.com; $–$$ L D

Gyro Spot

MEDITERRANEAN 866 Elm St., Manchester; (603) 232-4066; matbahcuisine.com; $-$$ D

TAVERN/AMERICAN 132 North Main St., Concord; (603) 228-6363; 43 Lafayette Rd., N. Hampton; (603) 379-9161; thebarleyhouse.com; $–$$ L D New location in N. Hampton

GREEK 1037 Elm St., Manchester; (603) 218-3869; 421 Central Ave., Dover; (603) 343-4553; thegyrospot. com; $ L D New Dover location

Mint Bistro

Black Trumpet Bistro

Hemingway's

Matbah Mediterranean Cuisine

NEW AMERICAN/JAPANESE 1105 Elm St., Manchester; (603) 625-6468; mintbistronh.com; $$-$$$ L D (

INTERNATIONAL 29 Ceres St., Portsmouth; (603) 431-0887; blacktrumpetbistro.com; $$–$$$$ D (

AMERICAN 69 Water St., Exeter; (603) 583-5034; hemingwaysnh. com; $-$$$ D

MT’s Local Kitchen & Wine Bar

Block 6

Hop + grind

NEW AMERICAN 11 Leavy Dr., Bedford; (603) 488-2677; 41 S. Broadway, Salem; (603) 458-2033; $$-$$$ L D New Salem location

AMERICAN 212 Main St., Nashua; (603) 595-9334; mtslocal.com; $–$$$ L D

NEW AMERICAN 319 Vaughan St., Portsmouth; (603) 294-9060; 3sarts. org; $$–$$$ D Located at 3S Artspace

BURGERS 17 Madbury Rd., Durham; (603) 244-2431; hopandgrind.com; $–$$ L D

Cotton H

O Steaks & Seafood H

Braise

Jonny Boston’s International H

AMERICAN 75 Arms St., Manchester; (603) 622-5488; cottonfood.com; $$–$$$$ L D (

STEAKHOUSE/SEAFOOD 11 South Main St., Concord; (603) 856-7925; 62 Doris Ray Court, Lakeport; (603)

NEW AMERICAN 142 Congress St., Portsmouth; (603) 373-6464; $$–$$$ LD(

INTERNATIONAL 170 Main St., Newmarket; (603) 292-6682; ilovejbi.com; $-$$ B L D

nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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SEAFOOD 150 Congress St., Portsmouth; (603) 766-3474; jumpinjays. com; $$$–$$$$ D (

Laney & Lu Café H

DINE OUT

Tuscan Kitchen H

ITALIAN 67 Main St., Salem; (603) 952-4875; 581 Lafayette Rd., Portsmouth; (603) 570-3600; tuscan-kitchen.com; $$–$$$ L D b

Tinos Greek Kitchen

VEGETARIAN & VEGAN/CAFÉ 26 Water St., Exeter; (603) 580-4952; laneyandlu.com; $–$$ B L D

GREEK 325 Lafayette Rd., Hampton; (603) 926-6152; tinosgreek.com; $–$$ D b

Lobster Q

Urban Farmhouse Eatery

SEAFOOD/BBQ 416 Emerson Ave., Hampstead; (603) 329-4094; lobsterq.com; $–$$$ L D (

SEAFOOD 184 Lafayette Rd., North Hampton; (603) 379-9965; Facebook; $–$$ B L D

Mombo

Vida Cantina H

Wolfeboro; (603) 569-5788; miseenplacenh.com; $$-$$$$ L D (

The New Woodshed

AMERICAN 128 Lee Rd., Moultonborough; (603) 476-2700; newwoodshed.com; $–$$$ D

O Bistro at the Inn on Main

AMERICAN 200 North Main St., Wolfeboro; (603) 515-1003; innnewhampshire.com/our-bistro; $$–$$$ D

O Steaks & Seafood H

NEW AMERICAN 66 Marcy St., Portsmouth; (603) 433-2340; momborestaurant.com; $$–$$$ D (

MEXICAN 2456 Lafayette Rd., Portsmouth; (603) 501-0648; vidacantinanh.com; $–$$ L D

STEAKHOUSE/SEAFOOD 11 South Main St., Concord; (603) 856-7925; 62 Doris Ray Court, Lakeport; (603) 524-9373; magicfoodsrestaurantgroup.com; $$–$$$ L D

Moxy

The Wellington Room

Tavern 27

TAPAS 106 Penhallow St., Portsmouth; (603) 319-8178; moxyrestaurant.com; $$–$$$ D (

Nibblesworth Wood Fire Grill

NEW AMERICAN 409 The Hill, Portsmouth; (603)427-8022; nibblesworth.com; $$–$$$ L D

Otis H

AMERICAN 4 Front St., Exeter; (603) 580-1705; otisrestaurant.com; $$–$$$ D

The Railpenny Tavern

TAVERN 8 Exeter St., Epping; (603) 734-2609; railpennytavern.com; $-$$$ L D b

Revolution Taproom and Grill

GASTRO PUB 61 North Main St., Rochester; (603) 244-3022; revolutiontaproomandgrill.com; $-$$ L D

Rick’s Food & Spirits

AMERICAN 143 Main St., Kingston; (603) 347-5287; rickskingston.com; $–$$ L D

Ristorante Massimo

ITALIAN 59 Penhallow St., Portsmouth; (603) 436-4000; ristorantemassimo.com; $$-$$$ D (

Row 34

SEAFOOD 5 Portwalk Place, Portsmouth; (603) 319-5011; row34nh. com; $-$$$ L D b (

Rudi’s

NEW AMERICAN/WINE BAR 20 High St., Portsmouth; (603) 4307834; rudisportsmouth.com; $$-$$$$ LDb(

Shio H

JAPANESE 2454 Lafayette Rd., Portsmouth; (603) 319-1638; shiorestaurant.com; $-$$ L D

Sonny’s Tavern

NEW AMERCAN 328 Central Ave., Dover; (603) 343-4332; sonnystaverndover.com; $–$$ D b

Street

INTERNATIONAL 801 Islington St., Portsmouth; (603) 436-0860; Streetfood360.com; $ L D b

STREET'za

PIZZA 801 Islington St., Portsmouth; (603) 431-7500; streetza360.com; $–$$ L D

Surf Seafood H

SEAFOOD 99 Bow St., Portsmouth; (603) 334-9855; surfseafood.com; $$–$$$$ D

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NEW AMERICAN 67 Bow St., Portsmouth; (603) 431-2989; thewellingtonroom.com; $$$–$$$$ D (

LAKES

Bayside Grill and Tavern

AMERICAN 51 Mill St., Wolfeboro; (603) 894-4361; baysidegrillandtavern.com; $–$$ L D

Burnt Timber Tavern

BREWPUB/TAVERN 96 Lehner St., Wolfeboro; (603) 630-4186; burnttimbertavern.com; $–$$ L (Sat only) D

Canoe

AMERICAN 216 South River Rd., Bedford; (603) 935-8070; 232 Whittier Hwy., Center Harbor; (603) 253-4762; magicfoodsrestaurantgroup.com;$–$$$ D (

Corner House Inn Restaurant

AMERICAN 22 Main St., Center Sandwich; (603) 284-6219; cornerhouseinn.com $$ L D b (

TAPAS/PIZZA 2075 Parade Rd., Laconia; (603) 528-3057; tavern27. com; $–$$ L D (

Water Street Café

AMERICAN 141 Water St., Laconia; (603) 524-4144; waterstreetcafenh. com; $$ B L D

Wolfe’s Tavern

NEW ENGLAND TAVERN 90 N. Main St., Wolfeboro; (603) 569-3016; wolfestavern.com; $$–$$$ B L D b (

MONADNOCK Bantam Grill

ITALIAN 1 Jaffrey Rd., Peterborough; (603) 924-6633; bantam-peterborough.com; $$–$$$ D (

Bellows Walpole Inn Pub

INTERNATIONAL/AMERICAN 297 Main St., Walpole; (603) 756-3320; bellowswalpoleinn.com; $$ L D (

Cooper’s Hill Public House

Crystal Quail

IRISH PUB 6 School St., Peterborough; (603) 371-9036; coopershillpublichouse.com; $$ D

Faro Italian Grille

ITALIAN Rte. 137, Dublin; (603) 5637195; delrossis.com $$–$$$ D (

AMERICAN 202 Pitman Rd., Center Barnstead; (603) 269-4151; crystalquail.com; $$$–$$$$ D ( ITALIAN 7 Endicott St. N., Laconia; (603) 527-8073; faroitaliangrille.com; $$ D (

Garwood’s

AMERICAN 6 North Main St., Wolfeboro; (603) 569-7788; garwoodsrestaurant.com; $–$$ L D (

Hobbs Tavern & Brewing Co.

Del Rossi’s Trattoria

Elm City Brewing

BREW PUB 222 West St., Keene; (603) 355-3335; elmcitybrewing. com; $–$$$ L D

Fox Tavern at the Hancock Inn

BREWPUB 2415 White Mountain Hwy., W. Ossipee; (603) 539-2000; hobbstavern.com; $–$$ L D

TAVERN 33 Main St., Hancock; (603) 525-3318; hancockinn.com $-$$$ L D (

Kathleen’s Cottage

AMERICAN 247 Woodbound Rd., Rindge; (603) 532-4949; woodbound.com; $$–$$$ B L D b (

IRISH PUB 90 Lake St., Bristol; (603) 744-6336; kathleenscottagenh.com; $–$$ L D

Lavinia’s

AMERICAN 18 Main St., Center Harbor; (603) 253-8617; laviniasdining. com; $–$$$ D (

Lemongrass

ASIAN 64 Whittier Hwy., Moultonborough; (603) 253-8100; lemongrassnh.net; $–$$ L D

Local Eatery H

FARM-TO-TABLE 21 Veterans Sq., Laconia; (603) 527-8007; laconialocaleatery.com; $–$$ D (

Mise en Place

ITALIAN/AMERICAN 96 Lehner St.,

The Grove

Luca’s Mediterranean Café

MEDITERRANEAN 10 Central Sq., Keene; (603) 358-3335; lucascafe. com; $$–$$$ L D (

Nicola’s Trattoria

ITALIAN 51 Railroad St., Keene; (603) 355-5242; Facebook; $$$–$$$$ D

Pickity Place

LUNCH 248 Nutting Hill Rd., Mason; (603) 878-1151; pickityplace.com — A historic and lovely place to enjoy a true luncheon. Fresh, local ingredients are used, including herbs from the onsite gardens. The menu changes with the season. There are three seatings at 11:30 a.m., 12:40 p.m. and 2 p.m. $$ L (

Piedra Fina

LATIN 288 Main St., Marlborough; (603) 876-5012; piedrafina.com; $–$$ L D (

Restaurant at Burdick’s

FRENCH 47 Main Street, Walpole; (603) 756-9058; burdickchocolate. com; $–$$$ L D b (

The Sky Bridge Café H

INTERNATIONAL 10 Main St., Wilton; (603) 654-2457; skybridgecafe.com; $-$$ L D

The Stage H

AMERICAN 30 Central Sq., Keene; (603) 357-8389; thestagerestaurant. com; $-$$ L D

Waterhouse

AMERICAN 18 Water St., Peterborough; (603) 924-4001; waterhousenh.com; $-$$$ L D b (

DARTMOUTH/ LAKE SUNAPEE Base Camp Café

NEPALESE 3 Lebanon St., Hanover; (603) 643-2007; basecampcafenh. com; $-$$ L D

Bistro Nouveau

AMERICAN The Center at Eastman, 6 Clubhouse Lane, Grantham; (603) 863-8000; bistronouveau.com; $–$$$$ L D (

Candela Tapas Lounge

TAPAS 15 Lebanon St., Hanover; (603) 277-9094; candelatapas.com; $$-$$$ D (

Canoe Club Bistro

AMERICAN 27 South Main St., Hanover; (603) 643-9660; canoeclub. us; $–$$ L D (

Cataleya's Caribbean Bar & Grill

CARIBBEAN 420 Main St., New London; (603) 526-6600; Facebook; $-$$ L D

Flying Goose Brew Pub H

BREW PUB 40 Andover Rd., New London; (603) 526-6899; flyinggoose.com; $–$$ L D

Latham House Tavern

TAVERN 9 Main St., Lyme; (603) 795-9995; lathamhousetavern.com; $–$$ L D

Lou’s Restaurant H

AMERICAN 30 South Main St., Hanover; (603) 643-3321; lousrestaurant.net; $-$$ B L D

Lui Lui H

The Old Courthouse

NEW AMERICAN 30 Main St., Newport; (603) 863-8360; eatatthecourthouse.com; $$–$$$ L D b (

ITALIAN 259 Daniel Webster Hwy., Nashua; (603) 888-2588; 8 Glen Rd., West Lebanon; (603) 298-7070; luilui.com; $-$$ L D

Pearl Restaurant & Oyster Bar

Market Table

ASIAN 1 Jaffrey Rd., Peterbrough; (603) 924-5225; pearl-peterborough.com $$–$$$ D (

FARM-TO-TABLE 44 Main St., Hanover; (603) 676-7996; markettablenh.com; $–$$ B L D b

DINE OUT

Millstone at 74 Main

Libby’s Bistro & SAaLT Pub

AMERICAN 74 Newport Rd., New London; (603) 526-4201; 74mainrestaurant.com; $–$$ L D b

NEW AMERICAN 115 Main Street on Rte. 2, Gorham; (603) 466-5330; libbysbistro.org; $$–$$$ L D (

Phnom Penh Sandwich Station H

The Little Grille H

VIETNAMESE 1 High St., Lebanon; (603) 678-8179; phnompenhsandwiches.com; $-$$ L D

AMERICAN/INTERNATIONAL 62 Cottage St., Littleton; (603) 444-0395; thelittlegrille.com; $–$$ L D

Revolution Cantina

Margarita Grill

LATIN AMERICAN/MEXICAN 38 Opera House Sq., Claremont; (603) 5046310; revolutioncantina.; $-$$ L D b

MEXICAN Rte. 302, Glen; (603) 3836556; margaritagrillnh.com; $–$$ L D

Stella’s Italian Kitchen

ITALIAN 5 Main St., Lyme; (603) 7954302; stellaslyme.com; $–$$ L D

IRISH PUB 3002 White Mountain Hwy., North Conway; (603) 356-7005; Julykellys.com; $–$$ L D (

Suna

Moat Mountain Smokehouse

May Kelly’s Cottage

AMERICAN 6 Brook Rd., Sunapee; (603) 843-8998; magicfoodsrestaurantgroup. com; $$–$$$ D (

BREW PUB 3378 White Mountain Hwy., North Conway; (603) 356-6381; moatmountain.com; $–$$ L D (

Sunshine Cookshop H

One Love Brewery

JAMAICAN 145 Pleasant St., Claremont; (603) 543-000; Facebook; $-$$ L D

Taverne on the Square

AMERICAN 2 Pleasant St., Claremont; (603) 287-4416; claremonttaverne. com; $–$$$ L D

Tuk Tuk Thai Cuisine

THAI 5 S. Main St., Hanover; (603) 2779192; tuktukthaicuisine.com; $–$$ L D (

NORTH COUNTRY Bailiwicks

AMERICAN 106 Main St., Littleton; (603) 444-7717; bailiwicksfinerestaurant.com; $-$$$ L D (

Biederman’s Deli & Pub

DELI/PUB 83 Main St., Plymouth; (603) 536-3354; biedermansdeli.com; $-$$ L D

Black Cap Grille

AMERICAN 1498 White Mt. Hwy., N. Conway; (603) 356-2225; blackcapgrille.com; $-$$ L D

Chang Thai Café H

THAI 77 Main St., Littleton; (603) 4448810; changthaicafe.com; $-$$ L D

Chef’s Bistro

NEW AMERICAN 2724 White Mountain Hwy., North Conway; (603) 3564747; chefsbistronh.com; $-$$ L D

Covered Bridge Farm Table H

FARM-TO-TABLE 57 Blair Rd., Campton; (603) 536-1331; farmtablenh. com; $-$$ L D b

Delaney’s Hole in the Wall

AMERICAN/ASIAN 2966 White Mountain Hwy., North Conway; (603) 356-7776; delaneys.com; $–$$ L D

Gypsy Café

INTERNATIONAL 111 Main St., Lincoln; (603) 745-4395; gypsycaferestaurant. com; $–$$ L D

Jonathon’s Seafood

SEAFOOD/AMERICAN 280 East Side Rd., North Conway; (603) 447-3838; jonathonsseafood.com; $–$$$ L D (

The Last Chair & Sublime Brewing Co.

AMERICAN/BREW PUB 5 Rte. 25, Plymouth; (603) 238-9077; thelastchairnh.com; $-$$ L D

603 LIVING

BREW PUB 25 South Mountain Dr., Lincoln; (603) 745-7290; onelovebrewery.coml $–$$ L D

Rainbow Grille & Tavern H

AMERICAN/TAVERN 609 Beach Rd., Pittsburg; (603) 538-9556; rainbowgrille.com — Serving a variety of comfort food from seafood to ribs. The tavern serves appetizers, hearth-baked pizzas and sandwiches. $–$$ D (

Red Parka Steakhouse & Pub

STEAKHOUSE 3 Station St., Glen; (603) 383-4344; redparkapub.com; $–$$ L D

Rustic River

AMERICAN 5 Main St., North Woodstock; (603) 745-2110; rusticriverrestaurant.com; $-$$ L D

Schilling Beer Co.

BREW PUB 18 Mill St., Littleton; (603) 444-4800; (603) 444-4800; schillingbeer.com; $-$$ L D

Shannon Door Pub

PUB Rte. 16 & 16A, Jackson; (603) 3834211; shannondoor.com; $-$$ L D

Shovel Handle Pub

PUB 357 Black Mountain Rd., Jackson; (603) 383-8916; shovelhandlepub. com; $-$$ L D

Six Burner Bistro

AMERICAN 13 South Main St., Plymouth; (603) 536-9099; sixburnerbistro.com; $-$$ L D

Thompson House Eatery

NEW AMERICAN 193 Main St., Jackson; (603) 383-9341; thethompsonhouseeatery.com; $$-$$$ D

Tony’s Italian Grille & Pub

ITALIAN 3674 Rte. 3, Thornton; (603) 745-3133; $$ L D (

Vito Marcello’s Italian Bistro H

ITALIAN 45 Seavey St., North Conway; (603) 356-7000; vitomarcellositalianbistro.com; $$-$$$ D

Woodstock Inn Station & Brewery H

BREWPUB Rte. 3, N. Woodstock; (603) 745-3951; woodstockinnnh.com; $–$$ L

Visit nhmagazine.com/food for more listings around the state. You can also sign up for Cuisine E-Buzz to receive the latest food news and happenings. nhmagazine.com | February 2018

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illustration by brad fitzpatrick

603 LIVING

On Hold for an Eternity When Heaven and Earth are away from their desks

O

ur old friend Willie Wordsworth wrote, “The World Is Too Much With Us.” Fat lot he knew! In our time, the world is too much against us. Even the small, supposedly backward towns off the main highway of progress have adopted modern, progressive, highfalutin, high-tech, big-city ways.

I recently dialed the number 487-2500 and I heard: “Thank you for calling the Town of New Boston. Please listen carefully for your options. If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time. If this is an emergency, dial 1. For the Town Hall, dial 2. For - ” Well, I dialed 2. And guess what? This is what I heard: “Thank you for calling Town Hall in the Town of New Boston. Please listen carefully to your options. If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time. If this is an emergency, please dial 1. For the Town Clerk’s office, dial 2.”

So, again I dialed 2. Someone actually answered the phone. I asked to speak with the person whose extension I did not know.

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nhmagazine.com | February 2018

BY JACK KENNEY The phone at that extension rang.

“Hi, you’ve reached –“ I heard myself groaning and stifling a curse.

“I haven’t reached a “g*sh d*rn” thing except another useless recording!” I said.

“I’m away from my desk right now ...”

Well, lah-dee-dah! Isn’t everyone but Robot Voice away from her desk right now?

Is there anyone on Earth, I wondered, who is not away from his or her desk right now?

What about Heaven, I wondered. If you call Dial-a-Prayer, you get a recorded message.

But what if you could call Heaven itself?

“Thank you for calling Heaven Itself.

Please listen carefully to your options. If you wish to speak to Saint Peter, dial 1. For the Blessed Mother, dial 2. For the Big Guy Himself, dial 3. For real estate development, call Brady-Sullivan at 4.”

Now suppose you dial 3. Stand by, please.

“Hi, you’ve reached Yahweh, Jehovah, God Almighty, the Big Guy Himself. I’m away from my desk right now …”

Desk? God has a desk? Does he have a filing cabinet too? Does he have files on all of us,

like J. Edgar Hoover did? During the brief rise of the “God is dead” theology, did the Big Guy destroy all the files, like Edgar did just before he died? Or did he leave that task to the original Apostles? The recording continues: “But if you will leave a brief message, along with your phone number, your date of birth, your mother’s maiden name and the last four digits of your Social Security number, I’ll call you back sometime within the next thousand years, which, as you may have heard, are as but a day in the eyes of the Lord.”

Oh. The Lord works in mysterious ways, his wonders to behold. But it wasn’t God who invented automated answering systems. That was the Devil’s work. Stephen Vincent Benét told us how the Devil created the original “Granitegate” scandal in “New Hampshuh” way back before the Civil War. (Surely you’ve read “The Devil and Daniel Webster.”

If not, it’s available from Amazon.) Had there been telephones, automated answering systems and robot voices back then, Ol’ Dan’l Webster might still be on hold. NH

“Thank you for giving me the ride of my life. I only hope someday I can fly the DHART helicopter and help people like I was helped.”

- Camden

There are moments in life that change everything. For Camden, it was realizing that he wants to help others the way Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Advanced Response Team helped him. As a national leader in patient-centered care, with locations throughout New Hampshire and Vermont, we’re proud to be there for your life moments.

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