Now I don’t know how many of you have ever had the opportunity to wake up early and get a great big whiff of crisp, cold New England air this time of year, but I have! So, when the Basil & Chocolate Tour Bus came screaming up Interstate 93 at the speed of sound into the great state of New Hampshire, that crisp, cold New England air screamed two things; old world food and the 2012 New Hampshire Primary!

Well three things actually, as I made a note to myself to never again attempt to stick my head out the window of a vehicle moving that fast in sub-freezing temperatures. The doctor, a fiscal conservative by the way, says that the skin that once helped to cover my cheeks will be back just in time for spring training so as Bill Murray once said, “I’ve got that going for me, which is good.”

So yeah New Hampshire!  The Granite State!  “Live Free or Die” territory!  No sales tax, income tax or luxury tax, ehh Mr. Romney? The home of Dartmouth College and Robert Frost, Steven Tyler and a place that not only kicks off the presidential primary season but usually lends itself as a virtual crystal ball as to who will occupy the white house following November’s general election so let’s get it on!

First, we need to cruise over to The Big Bean Café in Newmarket and grab the best breakfast pizza around!  They call it “The Cooper” and it’s homemade salsa with scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese on freshly made flatbread, topped with sour cream and avocado, served with New Hampshire home fries baby!  Woooooooooo!

One massive White Heron Chai, (organic of course), and we are on our way!

So as we found out from our buddies at “Taste of States, A Food History of America” the first New Hampshire colonists built homes, started fisheries, and traded with local Indian tribes for furs. Unfortunately, these settlers had no agricultural experience and found it hard to adapt to their new surroundings, (see Perry, Rick).  Although familiar with saltwater fishing, they still depended upon England for most of their food supplies. Wild game and turkey were plentiful, but nobody knew how to catch them and ammunition was in constant short supply.  Mr. Gingrich’s great-grandfather’s grandfather drafted legislation in order to catch turkeys as a matter of liberty and the pursuit of happiness along with the stockpiling of ammunition, but failed only to resurface to take full credit for it several years later.

During the summer, the settlers learned to gather wild black currants, raspberries, and strawberries. They started importing seedlings and cutting of fruit trees from England, and soon almost every farm had an orchard. Vegetable gardens could not be relied upon as a steady supply of food, however, due to the short growing season and sudden changes in the weather which as you know my cheeks or what is left of them can attest to!

In 1719, shiploads of Scotch-Irish families arrived and settled near the Merrimack Valley and brought potatoes with them.  Within two decades, potatoes became an important crop in the region. The English, who also settled in New Hampshire, introduced another root vegetable, the turnip, to New England and by 1840 more than half of the land in New Hampshire was farmed and this explains the 120,000+ jobs that Mitt Romney has taken credit for creating.

In addition to the English and Scotch-Irish, there was also a large influx of French-Canadian settlers in New Hampshire. “How’s it goin’ EH?”  They brought with them recipes for roast pork, pea soup, pickled beets, and salmon pie made with mashed potatoes, onions, milk, and seasonings.  They are also credited with the development of apple butter which has been made in New Hampshire since colonial times.  None of our GOP hopefuls lays claim to that cool piece of tasty trivia.

So now that the history lesson is over and there’s an empty pizza box flying around the tour bus, we are off to answer three very important questions.  First, where the Helen Hunt is Mitt Romney and why does it look like he’s just taking New Hampshire for, do we dare say, granite?  Yeah I know it’s not spelled that way but it was an easy one.  Secondly, how long has Jon Huntsman been campaigning in New Hampshire?  Finally, and most importantly is where are we going to post up and cover the primary?

So the B&C transportation director sets his GPS for a very exciting place called Longhaul Farm along Squam Lake in Holderness, New Hampshire for a bunch of reasons but the best one is that we had a peak at the menu they produced from this past July for one of their now famous Grower’s Dinners.

Longhaul Farm epitomizes the concept of farm to fork and promotes exactly that by hosting events throughout the calendar year like gardening education workshops, theme dinners, brunches and tapas parties and spring and summertime Grower’s Dinners.  Theses events celebrate locally grown and prepared fare and include a tour of the farm and a menu featuring baked brie, tomato salad with caramelized onions and goat cheese and fresh mint leaves stuffed with gingered mascarpone and raspberries.  How cool is that?

Oh there’s more?  For dinner, the mixed grill features Agape Homestead chicken, White Gates Farm raised beef and FV Rimrack shrimp cakes with aioli, all served with fresh garden salsa, Longhaul Farm herb roasted summer bounty vegetable medley and potato galettes stuffed with Longhaul Farm greens and gruyere.  If you can muster something sweet to top off such a meal, try the maple crepes with summer berries, then because you lived so free, feel free, to then die because you may have just consumed not only the purest meal of all time but certainly one of the tastiest.  For the record, anyone who wants to join me in July is officially invited because I am not missing this event!

As a side note, it’s BYOB for all you twelve steppers out there.  I’m just throwin’ it out there folks because hand pressed cider only goes so far sometimes!

So like Longhaul Farm, everyone seems to love good ole’ Mitt Romney and his victory here in the land of the free seemed to be a foregone conclusion.  Just ask Mitt Romney.  We tried but couldn’t seem to reach him as spent most of the week campaigning in South Carolina. So before the republican nomination is just handed to the handsome entrepreneur from Massachusetts, it appears that the leaders of his own party don’t see him as the marketable face of the franchise, so to speak, in order to defeat Barack Obama in November.  Notmittromney.com is the recently created website to illustrate just how liberal Romney is on the many issues important to Tea Partiers who, for the record, just plain hate him!

Coffee anyone?

How about that $10K wager with Perry live on television or that he likes to “fire people who provide services to him”?  Can he be more out of touch with today’s Americans?  Bet ya’ ten bucks he can and does long before we roll into South Carolina in two days!

These acts of stepping on one’s own “tallywacker” are slowly but surely eroding votes from the Caucasian men who make less than $50K annually, a source of traditional success for GOP leading men.  Ron Paul ran the score up on Mitt big-time here in New Hampshire as far as those voters were concerned as he did in Iowa.

Independents say they can’t rally around Romney either because the budget deficit is all that is on their agenda and Ron Paul talks about little else and do you know why?  Because everything else should be talked about long after that subject has been exhausted!

Ron Paul is just mega-cool sometimes isn’t he?

So at the end of the day, Romney’s familiarity prevailed and he took New Hampshire with little opposition.  America’s candidate, Ron Paul finished with a solid showing followed by Huntsman who, for the record, started campaigning in New Hampshire in 1974.  Newt and Perry may have well just as soon skipped The Granite State as they were both non-factors.  Wait, Rick Perry did skip New Hampshire?

Good-bye to a great guy in Jon Huntsman who just couldn’t generate enough momentum to get in the game properly and wait a minute, what’s that sound?  Does anyone hear that?  I think that’s Rick Perry scribing his endorsement for Newt Gingrich as he is all but out of it at this point.   Rick Santorum deserves to be mentioned because he has earned it and because we just can’t make any more sweater vest comments!  You go Senator Santorum!

Comments?  Ideas?  Think you have the recipe that ends all recipes?   Flip it into your tax return, off-shore investment, open marriage with your former spouse or give it all to your church and get it to Charleston because we are on our way to Dixie for a dogfight in the south where we love some of that hospitality and where everything is made with butter and bacon and brown sugar.

Put it in a paper cup and walk it out the front door to us at [email protected].  You’ll be glad you did and we may just make you famous.  Well, for a few seconds anyway.

See you in South Carolina y’all!

Until then, do great things, eat well and get out there and support your state’s caucus or primary.

Food….  It’s Why We Live