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.”

Month of Salads: Lüke

by Sydney "Brown Nose" Blanchard

There is nothing like the taste of a real tomato, you know? One that grew up basking in sunlight, and wasn't picked until it was perfectly ripe on the vine.

As a kid, I loved the tomatoes my grandmother grew on our ancestral family farm. Picked, sliced, and sprinkled with a little salt and pepper, homegrown garden tomatoes were all I ate in the summer.

Now, I mostly only have access to grocery store tomatoes. And they just don't cut it for me. They're pale and they taste like nothing.

But recently at John Besh's Lüke (located on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans), I had the pleasure of eating the best tomato salad of my life.

Heirloom tomato salad at Lüke in New Orleans

Lüke's heirloom tomato salad consists of sliced heirloom tomatoes, garden herbs, burrata, and country ham.

Heirloom tomatoes just taste better. In recent years, this non-hybrid tomato has become more readily available, and I can't get enough of them.

The burrata adds a nice touch. For the uninitiated, burrata is an Italian cheese made from combining mozzarella and cream.

It's simple, but it works. And it tastes like my childhood.

Month of Salads: Mansurs on the Boulevard

by Sydney "Brown Nose" Blanchard

I've only recently begun eating duck, and it's quickly become a menu item I gravitate toward.

Recently when Team Bite and Booze ventured to Mansurs on the Boulevard for our month of salads, I spotted the Warm Duck Salad, and it spoke to me.

Grilled duck medallions, along with pecans, bleu cheese, and dried cherries, sit atop a bed of spinach drizzled with a rosemary raspberry vinaigrette. It's the perfect combination of sweetness, warmth, crunch, and cheesiness. 

Warm Duck Salad at Mansurs on the Boulevard

Unlike other salads, this one goes for warm and hearty over crisp and refreshing, and the combination of the duck and spinach kept me full until dinner! This is a great option for the meat eater trying to get some greens in their diet (me).

Curious George: Whisk(e)y Wednesday presented by Lock & Key

by Blair "B-Rex" Loup

The Curious George at Lock & Key Whiskey Bar in Baton Rouge

An old fashioned made with Scotch? Oh yeah, Lock & Key went there.

The Curious George, appropriately named, is one of several amped up versions of the class cocktail on the menu at Lock & Key.

Three simple ingredients come together to make for a solid, stiff drink:

Monkey Shoulder Scotch
Bitters
House-made Ginger Syrup

This particular blended scotch has a little smoke game going on, which is great, because smokiness is something I love.

I’ve even had a drink served to me at Restaurant Cotton in Monroe in a dome full of smoke: epic.

The ginger syrup gives the drink a snappy element. It’s sharp, sweet, and fragrant. I would definitely recommend you try this and all of the different off-the-wall old fashioneds Lock & Key has on their menu!

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.