MANCHESTER, NH – There’s something new brewing this weekend at Cat Alley Cafe, and it’s not just coffee: Sketch & Sip Sundays are now a thing – an art-build community thing that Cat Alley Cafe owner Tom Puskarich hopes to catch.
He has had 50 “community sketchbooks” printed, as well as “Bob the Cat” coloring books (an ode to the graphic mascot of Cat Alley Cafe), which will be available to customers on a shelf in the back near coffee, and oodles of drawing, drawing, and coloring tools. The goal is that between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m., customers come to sit, draw, sip mimosas, eat, talk about cats, or life, or life with cats, and start an art project. community simply by participating.
Or they can sketch a dog, although the cat vibe is strong with this one.
“You can come in and freestyle, and we’ll have some visuals on hand — cats, like this,” Puskarich says, pulling a photo on her phone of her handsome black cat standing poetically on an end table. near a living room lamp
The art-themed brunch is based on something one of Puskarich’s staffers saw on Instagram – Florida’s Brooklyn Art Library, which ran the Sketchbook Project for 17 years. Puskarich’s idea is much simpler and involves having two artists-in-residence available to provide sketch pointers for those who might need a boost of creative confidence. Sketchbooks will remain at The Bookery to be consulted or completed.
And then there is brunch.
In addition to bottomless mimosas ($15), the cafe will offer two specials — Bob’s Big Breakfast sandwich, with scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, Swiss cheese on sourdough bread and Anadama bread — described by Puskarich like an old New England recipe that incorporates cornmeal, maple syrup, and spiked with a host of other delicious nuggets, like raisins, nuts, and seeds, resulting in something that looks like a square Cinnabon with 10 times more flavor.
It’s a delicacy shrouded in legend – something about a fisherman’s wife named Anna served her husband too much porridge and not enough of what he really wanted, which was meat. bread. So he added flour and yeast and tried to make it himself. As he cooked, he mumbled, “Anna, damn her!” and Anadama bread was born.
