TX takes TX: Around the World in a Long Weekend

by Rachel Hamburger, intern

For LSU fall break I made my way back home to Houston. I used this as an opportunity to eat at a lot of my favorite restaurants I’d been missing while at school. Lucky for me, Houston is a major foodie city with thousands of delicious restaurants to choose from. I’m a fan of different cuisines, so naturally my favorite restaurants reflect this. Here’s some of my faves that I was lucky to stop at over the extended weekend:

Tex-Mex: Chuy’s

Chile Rellenos, Refried Beans and a Soft Taco at Chuy's

Chuy’s Tex-Mex is one of my absolute favorite spots for Tex-Mex. Although it has grown into a chain, it originated in Austin and the location I go to in Houston is one of the first franchises. I go to different Tex-Mex restaurants for different things: Los Tio’s for cheese enchiladas, Lupe Tortilla for the fajitas, El Real for nachos, etc. 

My reasoning for loving Chuy’s the way I do is for its chile con queso and chile rellenos. The queso has roasted green chiles, which gives it a great smoky spicy flavor. The rellenos are roasted and perfectly fried Anaheim peppers stuffed with delicious melty cheese.

My go-to order is a soft ground beef taco and a cheese chile relleno, double refried beans and no rice. Chuy’s has THE BEST refried beans. I don’t usually end up being able to eat the double serving of refried beans, but I always order it for leftovers.

Mediterranean: Fadi’s

Gyro at Fadi's

Fadi’s is a cafeteria-style line, with so many options. For example, they have about 10 different types of hummus alone. This time I got gyro, hummus, pomegranate eggplant, and dolmades (rice-stuffed grape leaves). Gyro meat is cooked on a vertical rotisserie. The most common is beef, which is what I ordered. Fadi’s has delicious homemade pita bread, it’s about 10x better than pita bread from a package-- hot, doughy and delicious. I try to order differently every time I go to Fadi’s, because everything is so good and I like to try out different things.

Houstonian: Local Foods

The Seasonal Harvest Salad at Local Foods

While this isn’t an ethnic restaurant, it can be considered “Houstonian” cuisine, kind of fits, right? The first Local Foods location opened in 2011, and they already have 3 locations and are working on a fourth. Their concept is just what the name entails: the use of local ingredients. 

Each location is spectacularly designed, it’s the type of restaurant you love to go to because of the atmosphere (as well as the food, obviously.) Their menu consists mainly of sandwiches, salads and soups but they also have tons of delicious sides, as well as multiple vegan options. 

Houston is a city full of food, but the focus on local organic foods has become increasingly popular, and the fast expansion of Local Foods is proof of that. I got the Seasonal Harvest Salad with chicken. I love getting this salad because it really does use whatever ingredients are in season, so it’s different each and every time I order it.

Indian: The Bombay Brasserie 

All of the things at The Bombay Brasserie

I have been going to eat at The Bombay Brasserie since I was a little girl. It is my absolute favorite Indian restaurant on planet earth. My parents both love Indian food, and introduced me to it at a very young age. I have loved it from the start and consider the Indian cuisine one of my favorites. Every day, Bombay Brasserie has a lunch buffet (typical of many Indian restaurants.)

I know that many people frown upon buffets, as they usually aren’t the best quality, but this is not the case with Bombay Brasserie. Silver ornate chafing dishes and white tablecloths are what you get at this lunch buffet.

Why do I love going to the buffet versus going for dinner? The Indian cuisine has so many different dishes and unless you go with a larger group for dinner, you won’t get to try different ones. It is a cuisine best served family style, but I typically am eating out with one parent or the other. That doesn’t enable you to be able to order in typical “family style” fashion so the buffet is perfect.

It’s all served with warm Naan, traditional Indian flatbread similar to pita, and poppadum, a thin, giant, round Indian cracker (typically made from lentils or chickpeas.) My all time favorite dishes are Saag Paneer, a creamed spinach with cubes of paneer cheese (a cheese used in many Indian dishes), and Chicken Tikka Masala, cubes of roasted chicken in a creamy tomato and butter sauce. I also can’t go to the Bombay Brasserie without ordering a Mango Lassie to drink. It’s a mango yogurt drink that is perfect in cooling your mouth down from the many spices in the food.

Thai: Thai Cottage 

Red Chicken Curry

My last stop of the weekend was Thai Cottage, my favorite Thai restaurant. I almost always order the Red Chicken Curry; because it is so good I have a difficult time straying from it. Thai red curry is very different from Indian curry. It is soupier and made with red curry paste, coconut milk, bamboo shoots, peas, carrots and basil served with rice. If you didn’t know any better you would think it was full of cream, but its smooth, velvety texture comes from the coconut milk.

When ordering, you tell the waiter which spice level you want, from one to five. I opt for level three, which is pretty spicy but not so spicy that you can’t enjoy the food. Thai cottage has nine Houston area locations, so no matter what part of town you’re staying in, there will likely be a Thai Cottage in the vicinity.

These are just a handful of my favorite Houston spots that I miss dearly when I’m in Baton Rouge. I hit up most of these places every time I’m back in H-town. If you find yourself in Houston anytime soon, check any (or all) of these out. You’ll thank me later.

Acre: Humble, Southern and Inspired

by Aimee Tortorich

After an epic road trip to New York cooking at the James Beard House & Chefs and Champagne and eating at some of the best restaurants in NYC, Team Bite and Booze had one more important stop to make. Jay had been talking about having dinner at Acre in Auburn, Alabama for over a week. I didn’t think it would live up to the amazing dishes we had in New York, but Chef David Bancroft blew me away.

Acre in Auburn, Alabama

Nestled only two blocks from the historic Toomer’s Corner in Auburn lies one of the South’s hottest new restaurants. Acre is a restaurant that passionately follows the farm to table concept. Surrounded by an acre of fruits, vegetables and herbs, Chef David has fresh ingredients fueling his creativity a few steps away. A self-proclaimed “country boy” and a master culinary magician in my eyes, Chef David welcomed us with true southern hospitality. Seating us at the Chef’s table he immediately began offering up simple, but flavor packed, inspired dishes. 

Chef David picked watermelon from the front yard of the restaurant for a snack and a cocktail!

As a chef, it’s a dream of mine to build a career focused on the harvest of southern, seasonal ingredients. Raised to live off the land, I’ve always had a passion for this kind of cooking.

The first dish that hit our table was the Chicken Fried Bacon. Two strips of house-made smoked bacon were gently fried in a pepper batter and served with silky white sawmill gravy, Vermont maple syrup and garnished with local pecans. We were fighting over the last bite because it was that good!

Chicken Fried House-Made Bacon, sawmill gravy, Vermont maple syrup, local pecans

These tender Gulf shrimp swimming in an Asian-inspired sweet and spicy BBQ butter sauce almost knocked me out. We were only on our second course and a single bite of the crispy sweet corn donuts dredged in the flavored butter had me feeling feelings. 

 

Peel & Eat Shrimp-“Top secret” BBQ Butter, Sweet Corn Donuts

This was easily one of my favorite dishes of the night. If curry is on the menu, I’m all over it and this dish didn’t disappoint! The balance of heat and sweetness around the tender oyster was absolutely addicting.

Chargrilled Oysters-Curry Butter, house-made hot sauce

The beef tartare with stone ground mustard was the perfect balance of umami and tang. The creaminess of the tender beef with the acidic, spicy mustard was a perfect bite on a charred bread.

 

Wagyu Beef tartare-stone ground mustard, grilled bread

The smoky flavors of the salmon balanced well with the acidity of the mustard and pickled veggies. I could ping pong back and forth between this dish and the beef tartar any day.

Smoked salmon rillettes-mustard, pickled veggies, grilled bread

The flavorings of the sausage were far from traditional. Chef de Cuisine, Caleb Fischer added bright Asian flavors to the sausage, which balanced out the fattiness of the pork. The house-made waffles had a nice crunch, but tender on the inside, while the huitlacoche purée brought the whole dish together with nice, earthy notes. 

Sausage and Waffles-house-made sausage, house-made waffles, Huitlacoche (corn smut) sauce

  

As our bellies began to get full, Chef David slowed the pace down with a nice and refreshing intermezzo. A fresh picked watermelon from the garden graced our table garnished with torn basil, Gulf of Mexico salt from our friends at Cellar Salt Co. and a slight drizzle of Georgia olive oil.

Sliced watermelon, torn basil, Cellar Sea Salt, Georgia olive oil

Chef David brought out his magician skills with the highlight of the evening, a two-year aged ham. Beautiful in color and thinly sliced, the ham melted in my mouth. Following boucherie-style tradition, we shared a shot of whiskey with a Bancroft twist. First, you place a drop of Poirier cane syrup on your tongue and let it sit. Then, we took a sip out of a mason jar filled with skins/fat from the ham soaking in Woodford Reserve and finished it all off with a bite of that heavenly ham. 

 

2 year aged ham, Poirier cane syrup, 2 year old ham skins/fat in Woodford Reserve

The cream poached sweet corn with sweet corn donuts was a simple, yet flavor packed dish. It came as no surprise that Chef David picked the corn from the restaurant garden. He described the Silver Queen variety as the “cream of the crop.” Super tender, extremely sweet, and a perfect welcome back to the South.

Cream poached Silver Queen corn with corn donuts

We closed out our amazing dining experience with a humble but tasty dessert, fig cinnamon rolls. It was especially touching for Jay because we had just served his Granny’s famous cinnamon pecan rolls earlier that week at the James Beard House. They were warm, fluffy and drenched in icing; job well done Chef Caleb Fischer!

Chef Caleb Fischer's cast iron fig cinnamon rolls

After dinner, we took a tour around the property where Chef explained the significance and importance of living off the land. Every crop in the garden and protein used inspired the kitchen to create dishes that were not only well thought out but executed with a humble touch. I hope to return to Acre sooner rather than later to see what Chef David is cooking up!

Beausoleil Restaurant, Uprooted

by Sydney Blanchard

Chef Nathan Gesham at Christina's in downtown Baton Rouge

On any given Saturday, you're liable to find Chef Nathan Gresham elbows deep in fresh produce at the Red Stick Farmers Market, making the rounds and shaking hands with the local farmers and producers who've become his friends over the last decade.

He doesn't use services like Indie Plate. Gresham, like many chefs, prefers to foster one-on-one relationships with local producers. It's that connection to his ingredients that makes his Beausoleil Restaurant stand out.

The idea for Beausoleil came about in 2010 during Gresham's time as chef de cuisine at Galatoire's. Joining forces with former Galatoire's general manager Jeff Conaway and restauranteur Michael Boudreaux of Juban's, the concept for a Southern, French-style restaurant with Mississippi flair was born.

Lunching like a champ today at #beausoleil with @redstickbenedict @jesspryles @bloup3 @christychachere @jasonmcc01! Shrimp and scallop with celery root purée and red eye gravy! #nomnom #gobr #tastelouisiana

A photo posted by Jay Ducote (@jayducote) on Apr 21, 2016 at 12:11pm PDT

Gresham said his goal for Beausoleil has been consistent since its opening.

"I wanted to use fresh ingredients, make everything in-house, and evolve it," he said.

And in the four years since the restaurant's opening, he's done exactly that.

According to Gresham, he sources about 60 percent of the ingredients on his menu locally. Along with sourcing directly from the farmers market, Gresham sources from Covey Rise Farms, Iverstine Family Farms, and Two Run Farms in his home state of Mississippi.

Chef Eric Arceneaux makes Beausoleil's bread, and soon he'll be sourcing more from Fullness Organic Farms.

In the mean time, Gresham said, Beausoleil's menu will continue to change constantly. His fresh, locally sourced ingredients inspire him to play around in the kitchen and try out new ideas.

"Baton Rouge can't just be stuck between Lafayette and New Orleans," Gresham said. "If you want Baton Rouge to become this neat place, you've got to support the people around you. Otherwise it's just going to keep being overlooked."

For Gresham, making sure Baton Rouge doesn't get overlooked starts in his own kitchen.

"To me, it's all about relationships and doing what you believe in."


Read more Uprooted here:

Nino's Italian, Uprooted
Indie Plate, Uprooted
Red Stick Farmers Market, Uprooted
Iverstine Family Farms, Uprooted
Murder Point Oysters, Uprooted
Southern Foodways Alliance, Uprooted
Fullness Farms, Uprooted
Louisiana Seafood, Uprooted

Bocage Bee & Honey, Uprooted

Bocage Bee & Honey, Uprooted

by Sydney Blanchard

Each month, our Uprooted series will highlight local chefs, restaurants, organizations, and farmers who are spearheading the farm-to-table and local foodways movements in South Louisiana.

Bocage Bee & Honey often have up to 20 different varietals of honey on hand. Photo courtesy of Bocage Bee & Honey.

Milou Barry can't stand to walk down the honey aisle at Albertsons.

Bottles in the shape of bears or honeycombs filled with thick, golden liquid line the shelves in the well-lit grocery chain. It's not a sight that would incense a normal passer-by, but Barry, co-owner and marketer of Bocage Bee & Honey, finds it hard to tolerate.

Many brands of honey on the shelves, Barry said, contain added sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, rendering the label "honey" inaccurate.

"It's illegal!" Barry said, and she makes sure to tell the manager so every time.

Barry's passion for honey began when she met Bocage Bee & Honey co-owner and beekeeper Elizabeth Holloway. The women met through mutual friends and immediately clicked.

When Barry first tried Holloway's backyard Meyer lemon honey, she was hooked.

In 2009, Barry, with a background in restaurants and catering, and Holloway, who was formerly deeply involved in New York theatre, became business partners, selling varietals of honey collected across five parishes at the Red Stick Farmers Market each Saturday.

Each honey varietal's flavor is affected by a number of factors, like the seasons, weather conditions, and a hive's proximity to different pollens. Like wine, honey from the same location may taste differently year after year. Similarly, honeys can be complex in flavor, with notes of berry, sugarcane, and vanilla, and vary in smoothness. Their Old Bridge varietal, harvested from the meadows at the base of the old Mississippi River bridge, is their most popular to date.

Soon, the pair were dealing in more than honey. They began selling candles, lotions, and what they call "Verry Carefully Burnt Honey," the dark, syrupy result of accidentally cooking honey for too long.

Along with increasing their brand awareness and partnering with restaurants like Commanders Palace in New Orleans who use their honeycomb, Barry and Holloway also became familiar with peoples' misperceptions about bees and honey (according to Barry and Holloway, there are no studies that prove ingesting local honey combats allergies).

"I tell people, 'a garden without bees is a poor garden indeed,'" Barry said. "Bees are gentle, non- aggressive creatures who do much more for us than we do for them."

According to Barry, people tend to be unnecessarily terrified of bees and see them as backyard pests, but bees won't bother you unless you bother them, she said.

Due to a number of factors, including irrational fear of these gentle pollinators, honeybee populations have faced an alarmingly steep decline in numbers over the last few years. 

Barry and Holloway, along with the EPA, believe that chemicals in pesticides used in farming along with weed killers are effectively poisoning honeybees, rendering them confused and often unable to return to their hive. 

"There is a huge dichotomy around us," Barry said."The farmer makes his living tending his fields, but then he sprays them with poisons to kill the things that destroy his plants, and kills the very things who make it abundant in the process."

When local bees flourish, so does local produce. Without local bees and pollinators doing their job, not only will there be no honey, but there will be nothing left to eat.

Barry said saving the bees starts in our own backyards.

Bee hive removed from a tree. Photo courtesy of Bocage Bee & Honey.

"In order to save the bees, and all pollinators, each yard must become a sanctuary," Barry said.

That means giving up chemical weed killers and learning to pull them up by hand and enlisting the help of flowering plants, grasses, and edibles like fruit trees to attract pollinators like honeybees, butterflies, moths, hummingbirds, and more. 

Saving the bees won't happen overnight.

"If you cannot see several bees during the spring and summer days, and if you never see a few moths flitting around, or there are no little blinking lights flashing on a warm evening, there is a good chance your yard has been poisoned," Barry said.

Barry said it may take a few months of rains and careful tending to repair the damage, and it takes a whole neighborhood to follow the plan to revive their natural neighborhood.

"Everyone needs to remember, trees are the natural habitat of bees," Barry said. "If you see a swarm of bees in your tree, please do not call an exterminator. Thank Mother Nature for blessing your yard with the creatures who will keep it alive and well."

Read more Uprooted here:

Nino's Italian, Uprooted
Indie Plate, Uprooted
Red Stick Farmers Market, Uprooted
Iverstine Family Farms, Uprooted
Murder Point Oysters, Uprooted
Southern Foodways Alliance, Uprooted
Fullness Farms, Uprooted

Louisiana Seafood, Uprooted

Louisiana Seafood, Uprooted

by Sydney Blanchard

Each month, our Uprooted series will highlight local chefs, restaurants, organizations, and farmers who are spearheading the farm-to-table and local foodways movements in South Louisiana.

In 2010, after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig caused 4.9 million barrels of oil to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, BP vowed to clean up the mess for which they were responsible.

Apart from removing oil from the Gulf, BP allotted money to be used for a PR campaign that would not only clean up their image but would clear up the idea that the Gulf’s seafood was tainted by the spill.

Six years and millions of dollars later, the Louisiana Seafood Board is still working to do just that.

Photo courtesy of the Louisiana Seafood Board

The Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, considered part of the office of tourism, moved to Baton Rouge from New Orleans two years ago. Since their founding in 1984, their goal has been to promote and educate people about Louisiana’s rich abundance of seafood.

Following the 2010 oil spill, the Seafood Board was handed a $30 million dollar check to be used on, among other things, aggressive public relations campaigns to rebuild the lost confidence in Louisiana’s seafood industry.

According to the agency’s Executive Director Karen Profita, the state is the second largest seafood producer in the nation, right behind Alaska. The challenge Profita and her small team face is that 90 percent of seafood consumed in the United States is imported. Of that 90 percent, less than three percent of it gets tested, she said. And according to recent research that tested imported seafood from local grocery stores, 90 percent contained chemicals banned in the United States.

Local shrimpers take pride in their superior product. Photo courtesy of the Louisiana Seafood Board.

Before the LSU alum became the board’s Executive Director less than two years ago, Profita knew next to nothing about the state’s seafood industry, and she said it’s been a steep learning curve from her background in non-profits.

“There’s a lot more to it than I would have guessed,” she said.

Profita said her agency is tasked with ensuring Louisiana’s seafood industry is getting the support it needs. The board is comprised of representatives from the Alligator Industry, the Wild Catfish Industry, the Oyster Task Force, and the Louisiana Shrimp Association, to name a few.

Day to day, Profita plays a role in representing the board members’ interests and working with legislators to come up with compromises that benefit both the fishermen and consumers.

Despite hurricanes and oil spills and rising gas prices that greatly affect their margins, Profita said she is continually impressed and inspired by the state’s shrimpers and oyster farmers and crab fishers.

Karen Profita, the board's Executive Director, is inspired by the fishermen she interacts with. Photo courtesy of the Seafood Board.

“I think that’s what so amazing to me,” she said. “I have a great respect for them because they keep coming back. It has just been challenge after challenge for them.”

One of the main challenges for local fishermen is an uneven playing field, Profita said. Imported seafood, mainly from overseas, isn’t required to pass the rigorous inspection or uphold the ethical labor standards domestic seafood producers do. Much of the seafood the United States imports isn’t tested for antibiotics or other banned chemicals, and reports of countries using slave labor to process seafood have increased.

This makes imported seafood cheaper for restaurants and for consumers, often at the cost of the domestic seafood industry.

"We kind of like to get people mad about it,” Profita said. “And it’s important the people in Washington know.”
So why buy domestic? The Seafood Board has spent the last few years (and a few million dollars of BP money) explaining to the public why insisting on Gulf seafood is so important.

Their strategy has mainly been one of education so far. Profita explained that educating consumers about the Gulf’s diverse ecology and showing them the superior quality of its seafood is a major part of the approach.

“We know the purity of our product and the safety of it is going to win out,” Profita said.

The Louisiana Seafood board also stresses the seafood industry’s huge economic and cultural impact in the state. One of the many reasons tourists flock to Louisiana is for culinary tourism. And according to Profita, visitors are impressed not only by Louisiana’s seasoning but by the quality of the seafood itself.

Commercial shrimping, crabbing, and fishing are also part of the culture here. Entire communities were founded upon the commercial fishing industry. Any hit the seafood industry takes hurts local fisherman trying to make a living off their catch.

Profita said she often finds herself asking, “How do you preserve that and make sure they can still make a living from that?”

One of the ways the Louisiana Seafood Board tries to preserve this way of life is with their grocery co-marketing program. Their goal is to sell large volumes of seafood to grocery chains across the country to get loyal fans in other markets. If the grocery chain agrees to buy a certain amount of seafood, the board agrees to put 10 percent of the cost of the seafood toward helping the stores market the seafood with things like social media campaigns.

Their co-marketing program has already seen success in a grocery chain in the Northeast, and they’re hoping to continue to grow it across the country.

Profita explained the farm-to-table movement, or in this case, the “dock-to-dish” movement, often overlooks seafood.

"I don’t know why that hasn’t registered with people,” she said. “It’s really fascinating that they’ll spend forever picking out the tomato that goes in the dish and not think about the shrimp they’re putting it on.”

For consumers, Profita said, it boils down to “know better, eat better.”

When purchasing local seafood in grocery stores, Profita said, closely inspect the package. Labels on imported seafood may include an American flag or even a Louisiana name, but they’re not always from the United States or from Louisiana.

Profita also encourages Louisianans to demand domestic seafood in their grocery stores and in restaurants they frequent.

“They’re willing to sell it if they know you’ll buy it,” she said.

Find out more about the Louisiana Seafood Board by exploring their gorgeous website and keeping up with them on social media.

Read more Uprooted here:

Nino's Italian, Uprooted
Indie Plate, Uprooted
Red Stick Farmers Market, Uprooted
Iverstine Family Farms, Uprooted
Murder Point Oysters, Uprooted
Southern Foodways Alliance, Uprooted

Fullness Farms, Uprooted

Fullness Farm, Uprooted

by Sydney Blanchard

Each month, our Uprooted series will highlight local chefs, restaurants, organizations, and farmers who are spearheading the farm-to-table and local foodways movements in South Louisiana.

An often unmentioned but important catalyst of the farm-to-table movement is what you might call a Walden-esque fantasy of escapism. Thoreau’s famous escape to Walden Pond at the end of the 19th century represents the fear and anxiety of a world reacting to the growing pains of the Industrial Revolution.

More than a century and a half has passed since the original publishing of Walden, and now more than ever before, technology sprints ahead of us at breakneck speeds. And, in theory, it breeds in us all the desire to return to our roots to escape it all. It’s sort of a romanticism of nature, a romanticism of the primal.

For most of us, this Walden Pond fantasy will never be more than that, just a fleeting daydream while stuck in traffic or on hold with the internet service provider.

For others, like Allison and Grant Guidroz, they made their dreams a reality.

These Baton Rouge natives started Fullness Organic Farm within the last year, and they’ve been able to turn their little half-acre of greens into a lucrative income stream. 

Look at these gorgeous leafy greens out at Fullness Farm off of Nicholson Drive in Baton Rouge

Both Allison and Grant graduated from LSU in 2011 with degrees in psychology and agricultural business, respectively. After college, the couple began working with Slow Food Baton Rouge and Americorps, through which they were able to to live and work on Inglewood Farms in Alexandria, Louisiana, and another farm in Arkansas, learning what it takes to run an organic farm.

Allison and Grant Guidroz, owners of Fullness Farm, are proud of their carrot babies

“We looked at it kind of like getting our graduate degree [in organic farming],” Allison said.

Before finding his calling in organic farming, Grant had briefly majored in finance in college.

“I figured I wanted to make a lot of money and not work hard, and I thought that would make me happy,” he said. “But it turns out, maybe working really hard and not making a lot of money but doing something that I love is what will make me happy.”

Allison and Grant are the picture of happiness. They live in what used to be a caretaker’s house on their land. The house, built in the 1940s, had been abandoned and was covered in mold, but the couple remodeled it, and their cozy little cottage acts as Fullness Farm headquarters for the Guidrozes and their dog, Tippy Toes.

Allison and Grant’s half-acre of land bears gorgeous greens. They mainly focus on growing baby greens, but they also grow spinach, three kinds of kale, mustard greens, radishes, turnips, arugula, French sorrel, broccoli, carrots and more.

Generally, they harvest and deliver to local restaurants on Fridays and sell the rest of their product at the Red Stick Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings.

The only organic growers at the market, the Guidrozes decided to do make Fullness Farm their full-time gig after their first go at the farmer’s market.

For Grant, it’s not about producing huge volumes of produce. A huge motivator is producing the best tasting, most nutrient rich foods possible. 

According to research conducted over the last 15 years, certain plant species have been found to contain more phytonutrients than others. Phytonutrients are compounds linked to reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and dementia.

For example, a Peruvian purple potato has 28 times the cancer-fighting benefits than russet potatoes. One species of apple has 100 times more phytonutrients than the Golden Delicious variety found at most grocery stores.

“I want to grow seriously good food,” he said.

Tri-color carrots at Fullness Farm

For Allison, it’s the same.

“We like to eat good stuff,” she said. “That was a big thing for me.”

Their return to Baton Rouge was no accident. The Guidrozes wanted to come home to utilize their resources, and say that the little strip of land off of Nicholson they dubbed Fullness Farm wouldn’t have been possible without their local connections.

“We really knew we wanted to be back home, doing it here, growing it for our friends and family,” Allison said. “I grew up with my parents cooking. I like to cook, and I really like good food. And man, this food tastes awesome.”

To try some of the awesome-tasting food coming out of Fullness Farm, look for them at the Red Stick Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings or grab some of their green goodies from Indie Plate.

Read more Uprooted here:

Nino's Italian, Uprooted

Indie Plate, Uprooted

Red Stick Farmers Market, Uprooted

Iverstine Family Farms, Uprooted

Murder Point Oysters, Uprooted

Southern Foodways Alliance, Uprooted

Murder Point Oysters, Uprooted

by Sydney Blanchard

Each month, our Uprooted series will highlight local chefs, restaurants, organizations, and farmers who are spearheading the farm-to-table and local foodways movements in South Louisiana.

Murder Point Oysters, right out of the water

Alabama's waters have had a rough go of it in the last decade or so. Hurricanes and an oil spill ravaged the Gulf coast and its economy, and according to Rosa Zirlott, Alabama streams had not produced oysters for many years.

That was before she and her family, former shrimpers, became oyster farmers. 

The Zirlott family will soon begin their third year as Alabama oyster farmers, and Rosa and her son Lane are enthusiastic about their latest family endeavor, Murder Point Oysters.

Rosa Zirlott, co-owner of Murder Point Oysters and Zirlott family matriarch

"They're oysters worth killing for!" Rosa said. 

Out in Porterville Bay near Gulf Shores, Alabama, lies Murder Point. According to legend, it used to be called Myrtle Point until 1927 when the man who held the oyster lease was murdered in a dispute over the lease. 

"You have to talk to the old timers to find out what really happened," Rosa said. 

Rosa and her family are one of only 12 oyster farmers in Alabama, and they've learned a lot about raising oysters in the last two years. It's safe to say they take their new venture pretty seriously. 

“This is very, very new for Alabama," Rosa said. “I talked my husband into doing it. I said, 'Let’s do it. If it works, we can say it works, and maybe more people will want to get involved.'"

Lane, in particular, has found his calling.

"Lane talks to them every day to give them the butter love," according to Rosa. "He feels like these oysters are his babies."

The care for their craft and stewardship to the environment is obvious in touring their oyster beds. 

Out on their boat in the middle of the oyster beds, college-age guys in wet suits and rubber fishing overalls tumble the oysters.

Murder Point Oysters are graded by size and tumbled every two weeks

Tumbling the oysters, or running them through a metal grading machine, causes the oyster to clamp town and makes the muscle stronger. Tumbling ensures that the oysters remain organized in the beds by size, and it also knocks the end of the shell off. This makes the oyster shells shorter, tougher, and easier to open up without the shell breaking. 

Every two weeks, the oysters are graded and moved to beds with oysters of the same size. According to Rosa, this is necessary to ensure Murder Point Oysters are up to restaurant standards.

"We try to create a quality product," Rosa said. "We’re trying to send the perfect oyster."

Murder Point Oysters cleaned off and ready for eating

But they don't stop at tumbling the oysters to ensure quality. Rosa said Murder Points oysters will taste different from the oysters growing in the waters next to them. Instead of keeping their oysters on top of the water while they're developing, the Zirlotts move their oyster babies up and down in the water column, allowing them to be flavored by different pressures, temperatures, and food sources. 

When the oysters are ready to be harvested, they're taken from the water directly to a processing facility owned by the Zirlotts, where they're then sent off to restaurants across the country where they are in high demand.

"It really is farm-to-table," Rosa said.

Prepared and garnished Murder Point Oysters served at Fisher's in Orange Beach, Ala.

The Murder Point Oyster business is maintaining consistent growth. In August they places 800,000 baby oysters into the water who will be ready to be eaten by 2016.

The Zirlotts take pride not only in their rich, buttery oyster crop, but in the work they do in sustaining and maintaining an ecosystem friendly not only to oysters but to the wildlife that share the waters with their oysters.

“We want to do right by the environment," Rosa said.

Read more Uprooted here:

Nino's Italian, Uprooted

Indie Plate, Uprooted

Red Stick Farmers Market, Uprooted

Iverstine Family Farms, Uprooted

Iverstine Family Farms, Uprooted

by Sydney Blanchard

Each month, our Uprooted series will highlight local chefs, restaurants, organizations, and farmers who are spearheading the farm-to-table and local foodways movements in South Louisiana.

Galen Iverstine (right) and his wife Angela (left) at Iverstine Family Farms in Kentwood, La.

When Galen Iverstine was nearing graduation, he said he found himself faced with the age-old question all liberal arts majors ask themselves: "What the hell do I do now?"

Following graduating from LSU, the political science major considered a number of options including the military or law school.

But a school project on food policy and environmental impacts of food systems got him thinking. He began looking at alternative methods of farming and how to bring products to consumers. 

Iverstine saw a gap in the Baton Rouge market for sustainably farmed proteins, and with zero experience, lots of passion, and some start-up capital from his father, Iverstine Family Farms was born the winter of 2010.

"[My dad] never saw a business idea he didn’t like," Iverstine said.

At the 127-acre farm in Kentwood, Louisiana, it's a family affair: Iverstine's father acts as the head project task manager; his mom does the bookkeeping; Iverstine keeps up with daily chores, harvesting, and marketing and sales; and Galen's wife Angela works full time in Baton Rouge "to support [Iverstine's] farming habit."

"[Angela] always jokes she started dating a political science major and married a farmer," Iverstine said. "Every time I have a crazy idea, she’s like, 'Hey, if you think you can do it, go for it.'"

Iverstine's crazy idea wasn't a novel one. But it was one that predates the industrialization of meat.

The farm utilizes animal impact on land to improve soil quality. Iverstine uses what is called an "intensive rotational grazing method," in which beef cattle, chicken, turkeys, and hogs work together on a patch of land.

Here's how it works: the cattle intensively graze the tall grass in pastures for one day. The cattle effectively trample the grass, feeding microbes in the soil, and defecate, fertilizing the soil. Next comes the poultry, who sanitize the manure by eating parasites in cattle feces, which reduces the amount of chemical de-wormer used on the cattle. Then, the hogs are rotated through any wooded areas and act as a kind of controlled burn.

Needless to say, for a newcomer, it isn't easy to break into the world of farming.

"While we have a large agricultural university, we’re not seeing any farmers coming out,” Iverstine said.

According to Iverstine, the biggest prohibiting factors for new farmers are acquiring land and start-up funds. Land is expensive and tends to stay within families that own it.

Further, mentors are hard to come by. Not many older farmers are eager to help out the next generation, but Iverstine was able to learn from local cattle producers and from a farm he interned with in New Hampshire.

Iverstine hopes to help foster new farmers and to pass along the skills he's learned in the last years, including how to sell products to consumers.

For Iverstine Family Farms, that includes actively keeping their customer base informed, engaged, and growing.

“Social media creates this level of transparency about what we do," Iverstine said. "I think there has been this development of mistrust between people and their food for some reason. [Social media] creates a complete open door.”

Using social media not only helps Iverstine promote his products, but it helps him to educate his consumers. Creating a smarter consumer who will support local agriculture means teaching people to eat seasonally, Iverstine said.

Often, that can mean convincing customers to cook something they've never looked before.

"It’s about people gaining confidence in cooking real food and different cuts of meat," Iverstine said. "That's what it takes: an open-minded consumer who’s flexible in the kitchen.”

Iverstine said once people taste "real food," it's a game changer.

Currently, Iverstine Family Farm products are available at the Red Stick Farmer's Market and through IndiePlate, and local restaurants including Nino's Italian, Table Kitchen & Bar, City Pork, Houmas House, and Velvet Cactus put Iverstine products on their menus.

“There’s a larger call to keeping your local economy booming by supporting people who are circulating their dollars into the local economy," Iverstine said. "Just like our animals work together on the pasture, there is defintiely this produce-consumer symbiotic relationship that has to happen.”

Read more Uprooted here:

Nino's Italian, Uprooted

Indie Plate, Uprooted

Red Stick Farmers Market, Uprooted

Red Stick Farmers Market, Uprooted

by Sydney "Brown Nose" Blanchard

Each month, our Uprooted series will highlight local chefs, restaurants, organizations, and farmers who are spearheading the farm-to-table and local foodways movements in South Louisiana.

Copper Alvarez is the Executive Director at BREADA. Photo courtesy of Copper Alvarez.

When you're the Executive Director at a local non-profit organization, your role often extends beyond the boardroom.

Just ask Copper Alvarez, Executive Director at BREADA, the Big River Economic & Agricultural Development Alliance. Alvarez finds the formality of her title at the Baton Rouge-based non-profit somewhat amusing. 

“It’s pretty official, but as far as executive directors go, I empty trash on Saturdays," Alvarez laughs. "I do things maybe all executive directors don’t do. We’re a small staff.”

When she's not manning garbage cans, Alvarez said her days are spent maintaining facilities, looking for new site partners, doing administrative grant work, coordinating markets, visiting farms, and working with chefs, farmers, and national groups.

“Every day is a different day, which is why I like it," she said.

The Mississippi native has been with BREADA since the non-profit formed 14 years ago, and in her years at the helm of the organization, she's seen the community come to embrace BREADA's programs including the Red Stick Farmer's Market and Main Street Market in downtown Baton Rouge.

The Red Stick Farmers Market began in 1996 when a group of farmers was recruited for the city's first farmer's market by graduate student Chris Campany as part of his Master's thesis in LSU's Landscape Architecture program.

That November, the first market was held, and six years later, BREADA opened Main Street Market downtown, which serves as a small local business incubator.

In the years since its inception, the Red Stick Farmers Market has become a weekend destination and community gathering place for many in Baton Rouge. Beyond purchasing fresh locally grown produce and quality cuts of meat from area farmers, the Red Stick Farmers Market offers cooking demos, educational opportunities for kids through their Red Stick Sprouts program, and an arts market each month.

But according to Alvarez, some people are still hesitant to take part in the weekly market due to concerns about affordability and accessibility.

"I don't know where the myth started that it is more expensive," she said. "People see the farmer’s market as being for upper class, trendy foodies, but it’s not."

In 2010 BREADA received a grant from the USDA to implement a token program that would match SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) recipients' money up to $10. The grant meant people with Louisiana Purchase cards would have more of an incentive to shop at the market, and it allowed BREADA to better serve the whole community. 

"It expanded what people thought about us," Alvarez said.

It also made a difference in the number of people shopping at the Red Stick Farmer's market.

Alvarez said that when she first started at BREADA, only three to five percent of people nationally shopped at farmer's markets. Now, that number has increased to 10 percent nationally. 

“The trend has finally hit the South," she said. "Hopefully we are just at the precipice of making it grow here. It’s a trend that doesn’t go away."

The farm-to-table scene in Baton Rouge is still shadowed by that of New Orleans, Alvarez said, where tourists are more willing to pay a higher price for cuisine prepared using farm fresh ingredients. 

Though she has seen an increase in Baton Rouge-based chefs' demand for local produce, she admits that most consumers are not demanding local, seasonal produce. 

"Here, the restaurants are up against a lot of chain restaurants," Alvarez said. "Generally, the restaurants who are local have to make a bottom line."

Part of BREADA's mission, and part of Alvarez's role as Executive Director, is to implement programs to people in the city about the seasonality of produce and the importance of choosing "real foods.

"Once you start choosing to eat locally, the freshness, the difference, the nutritional value is so much higher than most people realize," Avarez said. "It’s almost addictive."

Read more Uprooted here:

Nino's Italian, Uprooted
Indie Plate, Uprooted

Indie Plate, Uprooted

by Sydney "Brown Nose" Blanchard

Peru Sharma is one half of the dynamic duo behind Indie Plate

Each month, our Uprooted series will highlight local chefs, restaurants, organizations, and farmers who are spearheading the farm-to-table and local foodways movements in South Louisiana. 

When working on his dissertation in agriculture supply chain management at LSU, Peru Sharma spotted a gap in the market that he became determined to fill.

“My thought was," Sharma said, "the Internet economy has hit sort of every single aspect of our life except food, except agriculture.”

While at LSU, Sharma met Ben Bartage at a house party. After discussing the business of basketball, the law student was impressed, and the two agreed to work together in some capacity after they graduated. 

Shreveport native Ben Bartage co-founded Indie Plate in 2013

“I’m the foodie in the partnership," Sharma said. "Ben is more the legal guide, the businessperson. We have very different mind sets.”

And those very different mindsets led them to conceptualize Indie Plate in 2013, a grocery delivery service that brings farm fresh foods to local consumers.

Sharma had been working at the Red Stick Farmer's Market in Baton Rouge each weekend, and he began to think there had to be an easier way for millennials to access fresh, locally grown produce without having to wake up early on Saturday mornings. 

Thus, Indie Plate was born. 

What began as a form emailed out to a few customers became a website launched in December 2013 where customers can virtually add locally produced proteins, fruits, veggies, and baked goods to their shopping carts and have them delivered to their homes (as of now, they deliver to Baton Rouge, Prairieville, Denham Springs, Port Allen, Central, Brusly, Addis, Gonzales, Zachary, Maurepas, and St. Amant). Indie Plate even offers customizable farm baskets, meal kits, and pantry items from local producers.

Farm-to-table is but a click away. 

Sharma and Bartage have spent the last few years cultivating relationships with local farmers, which hasn't always been easy. Sharma said when Indie Plate first started, farmers didn't understand the concept of what they were trying to do. 

Sharma said it wasn't easy to earn the farmers' respect. It took showing up to the Red Stick Farmer's Market each weekend at 6 a.m., showing face, and enduring a joke or two aimed at his ethnicity (he's originally from India). 

“Farmers appreciate hustle," Sharma said.

What they do is give farmers larger markets. The 80 to 90 farms they work with now span from central Louisiana to Alabama, so Mississippi farmers can now sell produce fairly easily to Louisianans. 

Asian Glazed Black Drum using local ingredients from Indie Plate

"Most farms we work with have increased their business 10 to 20 percent," Sharma said. "Some farms have doubled their business through exposure they’ve gotten through Indie Plate.”

According to Sharma, 90 percent of Indie Plate's business is consumer business. But beyond supplying groceries to consumers, Indie Plate works with a select number of local restaurants to provide them with the freshest, highest quality local ingredients. But not every restaurant is on board.

“Baton Rouge restaurants, they’re more price-conscious, not very quality conscious," Sharma said. "But there are some restaurants like Magpie, Nino’s, City Pork, that really care about the quality of the food.”

Their plan is to continue to expand their business by employing drivers in order to shorten delivery times for consumers as well as work with more restaurants to get them on the farm-to-table train.

“The whole thing feels very organic," Sharma said. "It’s not corporate, it’s not big or large.”

Right now, the Indie Plate CEOs make all the deliveries themselves. 

“We went from a farmer’s market to a grocery store, and we’re continuing to expand.”