The Official Bite and Booze Holiday Gift Guide

by Sydney Blanchard

The original idea for this post was to make a gift guide for the Baton Rouge food lover. But then we realized...it's hard not to be a food lover in a city like Baton Rouge. Like, pretty much everyone on your holiday shopping list probably loves to eat, right?

Yeah, that's what we thought.

Here are some locally available items we know we'd love to receive during the holiday season, so there's a pretty good chance someone you know will appreciate them, too.

Heck, we'll just come out and say it: we think we've got pretty good taste.

For the Louisiana Transplant

South Louisiana Supper gift box from Red Stick Spice Company, $28

For the Fast Peeler 

Love Crawfish, Love Louisiana tee from Storyville, $16

For the Grillmaster

Himalayan Salt Plate at Shoppers Choice, $32

For the One Who's Tired of Burning Everything

Pastry and Savory Leisure Classes at Louisiana Culinary Institute, around $125

For the Indulgent Health Nut 

Hanleys Foods Dressings at Calandro's Supermarket, $5

For the Craft Beer Aficionado  

Tin Roof Merch at the Tin Roof Tap Room, $20

For the Recipe Collector

Louisiana Cookin's Louisiana de Mer Cookbook, $20

For the President of the Jay Ducote Fan Club 

Jay D's Holiday Bundle, $25

For the Hosts with the Most

Donner-Peltier's locally produced spirits, around $30

For the Farmer's Market Frequenter 

Taste of Louisiana gift basket from Indie Plate, $45

For the Fashionable Foodie

Mimosa New Roads Pecan Necklace, $30

For the Wine Snob

Landry Vineyards Wines available at Calandro's Supermarket, around $15

For the One with the Freezer Full of Gumbo

Gumbo Print from Defend New Orleans, $20

For the Spice Junkie

Slap Ya Mama gift basket, $20

Month of Salads: The Salad Shop

by Sydney "Brown Nose" Blanchard 

The Salad Shop has endless salad options

Ah, August. It's the month I look forward to the most. Not only because it's my birth month (and Jay's), but because it's the much-anticipated MONTH OF SALADS at Bite and Booze.

What is the month of salads, you ask? It's a time when Team Bite and Booze reflects on all the unhealthy food we constantly shove into our faces for the sake of food blogging and tries to correct that with nothing but GRASS for an entire month.

I'm generally of the opinion that salad isn't real food. Carrots? Spinach? Heck, that's rabbit food!

Jay's salad

But this month may change that opinion. Especially after we dropped in for lunch at The Salad Shop on Perkins. Oh boy, have I ever been missing out.

Jay and Blair went with custom salads.

Jay went with a spinach and arugula mix topped with beets, carrots, craisins, walnuts, and Hanley's avocado dressing.

Blair opted for romaine and arugula mix topped with red onion, edamame, sun dried tomatoes, bacon, sunflower seeds, feta, avocado, and Hanley's Sensation dressing.

I hate building my own anything: salads, sandwiches, wraps, you name it. It stresses me out to have too many options!

That's why I went with the Fiery Fiesta, one of The Salad Shop's creations. I swapped out the spinach for romaine, but I kept all the other toppings the same: avocado, pico de gallo, red bell pepper, black beans, corn, and tortilla strips topped with jalapeño ranch dressing.

My take on the Fiery Fiesta

I actually finished the whole thing.

The Salad Shop is great because you can build your own salad if that's your thing or you can pick a deliciously crafted salad of their menu.

Month of Salads #5: The Salad Shop

My Creation at The Salad Shop

After listening to one too many sad attempts made by Blair to change the lyrics to 50 Cent's "Candy Shop" to something about salad, I finally made it in to The Salad Shop for lunch. They have eight signature salads for the indecisive, but the coolest thing about The Salad Shop is their "build your own salad feature." While you can find this model at a few other places in town, The Salad Shop has four different types of lettuce, 52 toppings, and 16 dressings to choose from (you can even turn your salad into a wrap). It's like the mad scientist lab of salads! I mixed some romaine and arugula together and added in edamame, sliced almonds, feta cheese, red onions, sun-dried tomatoes, bacon, and avocado and had it tossed in Hanley's Sensation Salad Dressing! They throw it all in a bowl, chop it to bits, and boom! Whether you're on the go or have a minute to sit down and relax, The Salad Shop is a great place to veg out.

Fresh on the Shelves: The Bite and Booze Featured 5 at Calandro's

Bite and Booze Featured 5 at Calandro's Supermarket

I'm excited to announce a brand new promotion at Calandro's Supermarket, title sponsor of the Bite and Booze Radio Show! The Bite and Booze Featured 5 is a new monthly promotion supporting local products in your favorite neighborhood grocery store! You get 5% off of your entire basket (with no limit high or low) at both locations of Calandro's if you grab each of the five items being featured that month. We will be changing the items on a monthly, but starting now through the month of August you can grab these five items to ring up your discount:

Any Slap Ya Mama product
Any Cupcake Allie product
Any Hanley's salad dressing
Any Denicola's product
Any package of Richard's sausage or other pork products

Drop everything and head to Calandro's for the best local shopping deal you've ever seen, unless you hate deals... if you hate deals on great local products you may want to skip out on this one. All you have to do is check out with those 5 items in your basket and you'll automatically get 5% off your entire purchase.

Also, please leave a comment below about what local products you'd like to see in September on the Bite and Booze Featured 5!