A Chocolate Lover’s Dream in Ogunquit

By Jim Kanak
Staff Columnist
OGUNQUIT—
There’s a buzz of activity at Harbor Candy Shop in Ogunquit these days. As Valentine’s Day approaches, owner Jean Foss and her staff are hard at work, preparing nearly 100 varieties of chocolate that have satisfied customers from near and far for over three decades.
“I started it because I wanted to live in Maine,” Foss said. “My parents had operated it as a seasonal business, open a few weeks a year. My father was very gifted when it came to making anything.”
The original seasonal shop was located near the Main Beach parking area, in the building that houses Huckleberry’s today. Foss moved it to its current Route 1 location.
“I put my mind to owning the real estate,” she said. “It grew gradually and now is open year round.”
Most people are familiar with the retail end of the operation, the shop that is a few doors north of the Village Food Market. What many people don’t know, however, is that the shop contains a veritable chocolate factory as well, where the staff creates by hand the turtles, truffles, fudge and other chocolate delights that have a national following.
“The store is known outside the state, maybe more than inside,” Foss said. “We have a mail order business from customers we pick up in the summer. 85 percent of our business is from the shop. That leads to the 10 to 15 percent of mail order and that sustains us in the winter.”
Foss said the key to producing excellent candy is a combination of things. “The recipe is important, but the ‘feel’ is watching the process as you go along,” she said. “It’s about trouble shooting. Once in a while you might notice that something might not be right, maybe the temperature or the humidity. Very few people know about chocolate. (Making it) is more complex than something like baking.”
Another key is freshness. “The shelf life varies by product,” Foss said. “Some kinds are good for two weeks, some for three, and some less. We make everything fresh. We try to keep freshness in mind all the time. Why sell something that’s really nice and then destroy it by virtue of your timing?”
The popularity of a particular variety varies by the time of year. “In the summer, people like classic, simple fudge,” Foss said. “Turtles are one of our best varieties. We make them all from scratch. There are no short cuts. That’s what brings people back.”
For Valentine’s Day, truffles take center stage. “They are the item,” said Foss. “Thirty years ago, we headed off to France to learn the basics of what a true truffle is. It must be fresh and kept cool. We throw them away after two weeks.”
Another characteristic of Harbor Candy is its ability to produce some of its chocolate without depending on traditional dairy products. That has earned the shop an award from the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). “We have a number of products that were already vegan, with no dairy or anything,” Foss said. “We developed a truffle by making it with soy milk. We have a milk chocolate made with rice milk. It is good for health reasons, for people who can’t use diary products.”
They key, though, is the care that Foss and the staff take to create their hand-made delicacies. “We’re small, not big and showy,” said Foss. “That’s how nice chocolate works.”
Photo caption: Harbor Candy Shop owner Jean Foss with a sampling of the nearly 100 varieties of chocolate the shop produces. (Jim Kanak photo)

Guarded Optimism at Dover Chamber Economic Forum

DOVER—
“Technically, the recession is over.”
Those were the words of local economist Brian Gottlob of PolEcon Research at a recent Economic Forum hosted by the Greater Dover Chamber of Commerce. The 2010 Economic Forecast was the first in a four-part Forum Series presented by Federal Savings Bank, with additional events scheduled for May, September and November of 2010.
Gottlob acknowledged that to those who continue to feel the pinch of the recession, his words may be difficult to believe. However, several times during his presentation to a crowd of more than 50 local residents, business owners and political representatives at the Hampton Inn in Dover, he re-iterated his strong belief that the New Hampshire seacoast – and Dover in particular – was poised for a strong rebound in the months and years to come. Gottlob’s optimism is not merely speculation or wishful thinking, but the result of years of experience and many hours of recent research, which he carefully outlined in a series of informative graphs and charts.
The other panelists at the Forum, Federal Savings Bank President and CEO Jay O’Neill, and Maria Simos of e-Forecasting.com, both agreed that recent trends indicate that better days are on the near horizon. Chamber Executive Director Kirt Schuman summed up the overall tone of the presentations with the term “guarded optimism,” and congratulated the many business owners in the audience on having successfully weathered the storm.
“The news of a recovery couldn’t come at a better time,” noted Schuman, “and although we’re not completely out of the woods yet, I think everyone found it refreshing to receive some information that was more positive than the economic doom and gloom we’ve been inundated with for so long.”
Though markedly optimistic, the trio of presenters was careful to sprinkle doses of caution into their words. Simos pointed to 2011 as being the more likely period of economic growth, with 2010 serving as more of a stabilization period. Gottlob cautioned Dover residents and elected officials against “shooting themselves in the foot” by slowing progress as a result of looking to recapture the past, and O’Neill noted that increased government regulation of banks could also be damaging to the economic recovery process.
Nevertheless, the audience left with a much more upbeat feeling about the prospects of recovery – a welcome and long-awaited breath of fresh air.
The 2010 Economic Forecast is the first installment in a four-part Forum Series presented by Federal Savings Bank, in partnership with the Greater Dover Chamber of Commerce. Each morning session covers a different topic, and includes a full breakfast. In May, the annual “State of the City” Forum will be held at the Cochecho Country Club, followed by a segment on local Advertising and Public Relations in September, and an analysis of the Creative Economy in November.
Residents may register for any of the Federal Savings Bank Forum Series events by visiting the Dover Chamber’s online Calendar at www.dovernh.org.
Photo caption: Jay O’Neill of Federal Savings Bank, Brian Gottlob of PolEcon Research and Maria Simos of e-forecasting.com comprised the panel at the Dover Chamber’s recent Economic Forum, which was held before a crowd of over 50 residents, business owners and political leaders at the Hampton Inn in Dover. (Courtesy photo)

A Tribute to J.D. Salinger

By Chip Schrader
Book Review Editor
If only there was one more book. So cries the eternal adolescent inside who grasped at every word Holden Caulfield said by the pen of Jerome David Salinger, better known simply as J.D. Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye came out in 1951, the angry and shunned main character rode a train home after flunking out of another boarding school. All the while, his younger sister, Phoebe, was the only thing that remained pure in his young and jaded life. Pure to the point he tried to wipe away the “F” word from a wall so someone like his sister would never walk along and see it.
It was that word that set American culture on fire. Profane and subversive to many, perhaps; indeed the taboo of profanity and vulgarity had been set free, but subversion hardly seems to fit. Salinger used that word once, and in a context that ironically was a memoriam to American innocence, and now that word is etched so deeply into pop culture that it cannot be burned, blurred, or bleeped away. Now not every time can this word be masked, and no more in American Literature.
This novel was so much more than that, though. In eleventh grade English, it was the first thing that was true. In my anxious and angry adolescence, Salinger’s gentle voice reached me through those pages and said to me: “It’s okay. There are many other lost souls out there to walk beside you.” Caulfield’s anger gave me a sense of righteousness. Five years later, and I read it as a completely different novel that made me laugh at the sarcasm, wit, and indifference to society.
That is what a great novel is. The reader holds more of its meaning than the words themselves.
If only there was one more book. “Catcher in the Rye,” “Franny and Zooey,” “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: an Introduction” and “Nine Stories” are everything this man had to share before retiring from public view for over five decades. “Nine Stories,” to Salinger fans, is also essential reading containing the stories “A Perfect Day for a Bananafish” and “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut,” where nuanced details like a careless mother resting her child’s glasses face down stir the reader with its beautiful particularity.
Salinger’s disappearance fueled rumors about odd ritualistic habits, pseudonyms (Thomas Pynchon the most famous rumor) and behavior, some of them confirmed by his daughter Margaret’s memoir “Dream Catcher.” Books like “Children’s Letters to J.D. Salinger” attempted to fill that void, and that vast market that yearned for his words. Nothing ever really did fill that void Salinger left. The person at this laptop writing you these words owes his college major, his career, and his dreams as a writer to Mr. Salinger.
If only there was one more book…but there isn’t. These four works are what he had for us, and at the very least and very most, we have that.

Children’s Museum Mardi Gras Features Live Cajun Music and More

DOVER—
The Children’s Museum of NH will hold its annual Family Mardi Gras Celebration on Sunday, Feb. 14 from noon – 5 p.m. This colorful cultural celebration features entertainment and activities for all ages, and is generously underwritten by Laconia Savings Bank.
 
The Family Mardi Gras Celebration will include live Cajun music by The Fiddling Thomsons at 1 and 3 p.m., regional foods of New Orleans to sample, and children’s parades through the museum led by museum mascot Albert The Costumed Alligator. Children can make Mardi Gras masks and jester hats, and each visitor will receive a strand of colorful Mardi Gras beads to wear and take home. All Mardi Gras activities are included in regular paid admission to the museum: $8 for adults and children, $7 for seniors, and no charge for museum members and children under age one.
Featured entertainers The Fiddling Thomsons are a father-and-son duo from Newmarket who have performed their lively Cajun music at festivals throughout New England. Dad Ryan is a music and dance professional who has been honored by inclusion in the traditional and touring artists rosters of the NH State Council on the Arts. He teachers fiddle, banjo, flute, piano, and other instruments. Son Brennish has been performing for many years of his young life and plays fiddle, wooden spoons, zydeco rubboard, and the pennywhistle. 
For more information on the Family Mardi Gras celebration, please call (603) 742-2002 or visit www.childrens-museum.org.
Photo caption: Father and son Ryan and Brennish Thomson will entertain families with Cajun tunes at the Children’s Museum of NH Mardi Gras Celebration on Sunday, Feb. 14. (Courtesy photo)

Area Luminaries Brighten CATA’s Poetry Out Loud Competition

DOVER—
It started with a glow. By 8 a.m. on Monday, January 11, Cocheco Arts and Technology Academy’s (CATA) common room was aglow with twinkling lights and in readiness for the all-day Poetry Out Loud event. By the glow of hundreds upon hundreds of tiny lights, CATA’s students took to the microphone one by one to recite a poem or lyric in a decidedly coffee house fashion. Following every ten students (give or take), science chair Brett Fletcher would get everybody up and moving to stave off restlessness and nerves, oftentimes causing a great deal of hilarity in the process. This morning event was a warm-up for the afternoon’s more serious competition, and it served its purpose well.
By noon, the entire CATA population had migrated to Dover Municipal Building Auditorium for the official Poetry Out Loud competition, featuring fifteen of CATA’s students: Tommy Haas, Emily Hayes, Anastasia Holt, Michelle Johnson, Holly Gabrielle King, Charlotte Lewis, Tasha McCartney, Hiromi Mizu, Joshua Mudgett, Damien Naugle, Colin Nollet, Kael Randall, Melissa Stevens, Tori Trudeau and Chloe White. Their task was to recite and interpret two poems by known poets while being scored based on the official Poetry Out Loud regulations.
A panel of prestigious judges met them there, including Dover Public Library Head Librarian Cathy Beaudoin, Dover Police Chief Anthony Colarusso, former N.H. Poet Laureate Marie Harris, educator-writer-traveler Ralph Montgomery, Dover’s Mayor Scott Myers, Dover Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Kirt Schuman, actor Michael Walsh, State Representative, Strafford County Commissioner and Rochester School Board Chair Bob Watson, and beat poet Beau Williams. In addition, there were scoring judges Don Cichon and Christine Luthi, and accuracy judges Megan Karas and Meghan Samson.
The winner of CATA’s 2010 Poetry Out Loud competition, sponsored by River Run Bookstore of Portsmouth, is senior Melissa Stevens, who will be attending Gordon College in the fall. She will go on to the regional semi-final competition early on Monday, March 8 at Southern N.H. University. The alternate (second place) is Anastasia Holt, a junior. They both received certificates of award, and both are offered a $15,000 renewable scholarship from New England College and up to $10,000 from Southern New Hampshire University.
English teacher Beth Allard spearheaded the entire Poetry Out Loud event, as she has for the past few years. Without her commitment to connecting CATA’s students with this and other incredible opportunities (including a recent collaboration with the Children’s Museum for a book reading featuring original works by CATA students), it likely wouldn’t have taken place. We are so grateful for her continued motivation in making Dover part of CATA’s classroom system. We also wish to acknowledge Cynthia Dubois, Rodger Martin and Catherine O’Brien of the N.H. State Council on the Arts, as well as Frost Place in Franconia, for awarding scholarships to teachers to attend the conference on Poetry and Teaching, which Mrs. Allard was able to attend on a full scholarship for two years, and a partial scholarship another year.
Photo caption: CATA Director Christy Cloutier Holmes awards Melissa Stevens the winning certificate. (Courtesy photo)

Sipp Wins PCA Geography Bee – Eager for Qualifying Test

DOVER—
John Sipp, an eighth-grade student at Portsmouth Christian Academy won the school-level competition of the National Geography Bee on Jan. 21 and a chance at a $25,000 college scholarship. The school-level Bee, at which students answered oral questions on geography, was the first round in the 22nd annual National Geographic Bee.
The kickoff for this year’s Bee was the week of Nov. 9, with thousands of schools around the United States and in the five U.S. territories participating. The school winners, including John Sipp, will now take a written test; up to 100 of the top scorers in each state will be eligible to compete in their state Bee April 9, 2010.
The National Geographic Society will provide an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for state champions and teacher-escorts to participate in the Bee national championship rounds in May 2010. The first-place national winner will receive a $25,000 college scholarship, a lifetime membership in the Society, and a trip to the Galápagos Islands, courtesy of Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic. To find out more about the National Geographic Bee, log on to: www.nationalgeographic.com/geographicbee.
Portsmouth Christian Academy is located at 20 Seaborne Drive, Dover, N.H. PCA offers a challenging academic curriculum from preschool through high school along with competitive athletic programs and other stimulating extra-curricular activities.
Photo caption: Brian Bell (center), Head of School at Portsmouth Christian Academy, congratulates eighth-grader John Sipp (left), who won the school-level competition of the National Geography Bee on Jan. 21. Sipp’s younger brother, fifth-grader Riley Sipp (right), took second place. (Courtesy photo)

Historic Mechanism Sings Like New!

ROCHESTER—
The most spectacular show at the Rochester Opera House is back in production. The severely damaged auditorium floor raising and leveling mechanism is again ready to take center stage, thanks to the dedication and technical expertise of George Allen, son Don, and the Oasis Alignment Services team, led by Regional Manager Bruce Littlefield. The historic mechanism, invented and incorporated into the Rochester Opera House/City Hall building by George Gilman Adams in 1908, is the only one of its kind remaining today.
During restoration in 1996 Mayor Harvey Bernier called upon OASIS founder, engineer and inventor, George Allen, to attempt the monumental restoration of the quirky mechanism, left for decades, frozen in the up position. Allen led his volunteer OASIS team, including Bruce Littlefield, in unlocking the forgotten secrets and in exacting a historically accurate repair. Why did George Allen take on such a daunting task that, in the end, required sixty hours per week and three years to complete? “It was a labor of love”, explained Mr. Allen.
As it sometimes happens, history repeats itself. The historic moveable auditorium floor mechanism, sustained seemingly irreparable damage in October 2007. Broken gears, twisted rods and compromised bearings…déjà vu, but a lot worse this time.
George Allen and son, Don, assessed the extensive damage at great length. They concluded that a historically accurate mechanism repair would demand complete removal and off site testing. Such a plan would be cost prohibitive. The idea of losing the ingenious system born in architect George Gilman Adams’ imagination was unthinkable, but the show must go on. The Allens devised alternative fixes including hydraulics or several small motors to lift and lower the floor in lieu of the original mechanism.
At some point during this tortuous process, Don Allen reported the astounding news that a portable magnaflux testing system could be brought on site to determine damage, which meant that an historically accurate fix was possible! George Allen and his skilled and dedicated team produced the first miracle repair during restoration. Without question, only OASIS, intimately familiar with every gear, rod, screw and intricacy of the hundred-year-old mechanism, would be trusted to produce a second miracle. But would they accept the challenge?
The answer from Regional Manager Bruce Littlefield, delivered with fervent emotion, “I could not imagine letting the last moveable floor of its kind die, especially with all the work the volunteers had put into the renovations of this historically valuable treasure, here in our own town. I knew it would take a lot of work, but I had the team that could fix it right!”
And, indeed, it did take a lot of work and the team did fix it right…so right that the old mechanism sings like new.
On Sept. 8, 2009 the OASIS team began the laborious job of disassembling damaged gears, bearings and rods. Team member Jay Jordan, fascinated by the hundred year old, yet well engineered mechanism, said of the laborious effort, “It was a miserable pleasure to work on.” Working in an extremely small crawlspace under the floor undoubtedly required ingenuity, evidenced by the employment of one quite unconventional tool…the skateboard. Both Jay Jordan and Jeff Copp, in turn and lying prone, rode the skateboard down a twelve inch board to reach damaged gear #7, tucked in at the farthest point of entry. Once retrieved, the gear rode the skateboard back. The team then loaded the priceless cargo into their van for transport to their Oasis shop for repair.
The team returned to the Rochester Opera House during the week of Sept. 28, 2009 to install the century-old, but good-as-new gears, rods and bearings. The far from state-of-the-art original motor and stop/start switch, treasures not to be tossed aside, were painstakingly restored and returned on Jan. 4, 2010 to, again, assume their unique role…to power “The Last Moving Floor in Action.”
On Jan. 6, 2010, Bruce Littlefield and Anthony Ejarque flipped the switch that begins the forty-five minute floor leveling process. The century-old mechanism whipped into action. “I’ve never seen it run this smoothly,” said Ejarque.
A historically accurate repair of a one-hundred-year-old, one-of-a-kind-mechanism unquestionably required an extra measure of expertise, creativity, patience and commitment. Adding special care at every step of the way, the OASIS team toiled many long hours through a grueling process from beginning to end. The community of Rochester is fortunate to posses this historic, cultural, educational and economic treasure and we are grateful for the Herculean efforts of Oasis Alignment Services, who, by their efforts, ensured that the “Last Moving Floor in Action” at the Rochester Opera House is preserved for the generations.
Photo caption: Jay Jordan was one of the people working on the massive renovation project at Rochester Opera House. (Courtesy photo)