At the Athenaeum: Portsmouth's Blue Strawbery chef James Haller follows his bliss at 86
The delicious past of the fabled Blue Strawbery restaurant can be savored in photos, albums and press clippings in the Portsmouth Athenaeum archives.
"Gene Brown kept the albums," chef James Haller said in an interview. "Newspapers from all over the country would cover us. We started by sending out a press kit."
Haller, Brown and Mark John Burke founded the famed eatery on Nov. 18, 1970, at 29 Ceres St., with Haller remaining as executive chef and co-owner for 16 years.
"It was never work," he said. "It was always fun from the moment I stepped into that kitchen. You start from nothing and you never know where it can take you."
The restaurant was sold in 1995, and is now home to The Black Trumpet.
Haller's first book, "The Blue Strawbery Cookbook or Cooking (Brilliantly) Without Recipes," was published in 1976. He recently wrote his ninth, "At the End of Ceres Street, A Chef's Salute to Portsmouth, New Hampshire."
It all started with a hot dog: Chef James Haller’s love letter to Portsmouth in new memoir
"I've been pop-up cheffing, though at this age, at 9 p.m., I want to go to bed. I don't want to be being brilliant in the kitchen," said Haller, who just turned 86.
The years sit lightly upon him, and he is incandescent in conversation. His book tour of the last year has included many appearances at local venues.
He discovered his comfort with sharing his writing with a crowd thanks to the advice of his friend, Stephanie Voss Nugent.
An actor and researcher known for her presentations on the life of Isles of Shoals poet Celia Thaxter, Nugent told Haller: "People like to be told a story. Read it just as you would tell the story. They don't need a recitation."
How Blue Strawbery got started
It is with relish that he recounts starting Blue Strawbery with Brown and Burke with a $4,500 loan from friends and family. In the end, they required only $2,700.
That included $15 each for a used refrigerator and two apartment-sized stoves.
"We'd have all eight burners going, and both ovens. We had to use a chair to keep one of the stoves closed," he said.
Walter Jackson owned the Ceres Street building, and offered to rent it to the trio for 5% of the restaurant's gross income. He sold the space to them three years later.
"There were people in town who made life possible," Haller said of Portsmouth. "It was people who saw you had something to offer, and wanted to help make it happen."
That was true for "anybody who came in with just a dream," he said, citing Pontine Movement Theatre and the West End Theatre as examples. In a clipping from the Athenaeum archives dated Dec. 9, 1970, the York County Coast Star declared, "'Blue Strawbery' in Portsmouth instant success - four-week-old restaurant offers superb food, warmth, intimacy and charm."
Cooking inspirations and other cooking projects
Haller, who grew up in Chicago, moved to New York and lived there eight years in the 1960s. One of the most memorable meals he had in the city was at a Brazilian restaurant that offered two seatings of 40 people at a time.
"I thought, 'What a wonderful way to cook,'" he recalled, saying that became his vision for the Blue Strawbery.
His other inspirations?
"All fresh all the time," he said. "And cooking without recipes. I never made the same thing twice."
The albums in the Athenaeum archives include many television listings − from 1975 to 1985 Haller created dishes in eight minutes as the resident chef for Boston's "Good Day, Live" morning talk show on WCVB.
A 1984 article invited readers to a workshop by Haller on "Cooking for the Seriously Ill," and describes the chef's work with Seacoast Hospice.
"I brought 38 people food to the end of their lives. Then I wrote a book about it," he said, describing 1994's "What to Eat When You Don't Feel Like Eating." A cooking demonstration that year during a conference at McGill University in Montreal would lead to 800,000 copies being printed and Haller receiving the Canadian Robert Pope Wellness Award. His partner of 36 years, John Byrne, is now his editor, and gets a byline on Haller's two most recent books.
"He takes my stories and turns them into literature," Haller said.
"It's a dream" - James Haller focused on writing more books
Athenaeum researcher Roland Goodbody wrote the introduction to "At the End of Ceres Street," noting Haller covers 50 years of Portsmouth's evolution from "topless bars to bottomless pockets."
"In it, he tells the origin stories of some of its enduring places, as well as those that have disappeared from all but memory, and brings to life some of the more eccentric of its resident cast," Goodbody wrote.
Haller is currently working on two books. One is about South Berwick, where he has lived in a restored Colonial since 1972.
"I was probably the first gay hippy to walk into the small market in town," he said. "They looked at me strangely."
He is also working on "69th and Normal," offering readers previews of the book on his Facebook page.
"This is what I wanted to do ever since I was a little boy," Haller said of writing. "It's a dream."
The Portsmouth Athenaeum, 9 Market Square, is a membership library and museum founded in 1817. The research library and Randall Gallery are open Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m. Masks are required. For more information, call 603-431-2538 or visit www.portsmouthathenaeum.org.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth's Blue Strawbery chef James Haller plans two more books
