Community Spotlight

Chef’s Choice

by Daisha Cassel

Things Are Cooking features the latest kitchen goods

Things Are Cooking
Concord, NH

While Concord residents know that the Main Street area is a great destination for full-service restaurants, Things Are Cooking is the downtown spot with the tools, gadgets, and advice to heat up your own kitchen.

Fun & Unique Products

Janet Learned, who along with husband Art has been running Things Are Cooking for nearly 20 years, stock many unique products in their kitchen shop. Le Creuset cookware in a rainbow of colors lines the windows of the downtown shop. In additional to the iconic enameled pots and pans, a full selection of All Clad cookware is presented, and pieces can be special ordered. While knives ship from Japan, and cookware is stocked from France, the store features local flavor as well—literally. New Hampshire maple syrup, locally made teas from Harney and Sons, and Stonewall Kitchen products line the shelves; cooks can serve up their creations in New Hampshire–made Great Bay Stoneware pottery.

A Personal Interest

A small staff helps run the store, and the management is, according to Janet, “mostly mom and pop! We both like to cook, and we always thought it would be cool to have a kitchen store.”

After traveling around the country for Art’s previous career, the couple came back home to New Hampshire and decided to cook up a business plan for Things Are Cooking. “We’ve been in business in Concord for almost 20 years; we started in 1990 in the Steeplegate Mall,” explains Janet. Now active in Main Street Concord, the New Hampshire natives “always have loved the downtown,” and jumped at the chance to set up shop on Main Street in May 2007.

While the staff is able to ship gifts and special orders across the country via UPS, Janet and Art are attuned to the local community, and keep their in-store registry “low key.” Janet describes it as “sort of a wish-list thing where a husband can come in and say ‘what did my wife want?’” For a glimpse, log on to www.ThingsAreCooking.com.