Happy Thanksgiving to all!
We are so blessed at Calandro’s to be surrounded by such great people – our family, our friends, our incredible employees, the best customers in the world, and a multitude of partners and vendors that we work with daily. On this Thanksgiving Day, we just wanted to say how thankful we are for all of these wonderful folks – our extended Calandro’s Supermarket family – because it is these people and relationships that are at the core of what has, for nearly 74 years, and will continue to make us the special place that we are.
With that in mind, we had a wonderful chance last week to celebrate #ACalandrosThanksgiving with many of these folks and put a beautiful finishing touch on The Advocate’s Thanksgiving Recipe Contest that we sponsored. We had the winner’s dishes from the Recipe Contest prepared (and gobs of customers got to taste and appreciate the Thanksgiving culinary talents of the Baton Rouge community):
- Appetizers:
- Entrees:
- Side Dishes:
- Desserts:
…we had our hand-picked wine pairings for each dish:
- 2009 Petra Zingari Toscana Rosso (Appetizer: Eggplant Caponata)
- 2012 Foxglove Chardonnay (Central Coast) (Entree: Seafood Stuffed Bellpepper)
- 2012 Foxglove Cabernet Sauvignon (Paso Robles) (Side: Crawfish Cornbread)
- 2013 Saracco Moscato D’Asti (Dessert: Teeter’s Pound Cake)
![3x10 Recipe Wine Ad REVISED](https://calandros.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/3x10-Recipe-Wine-Ad-REVISED-605x1024.png)
Click on the image for a printable PDF with a description of the wine pairing choices we made for each winning Thanksgiving Contest dish!
…we had some of our very best local vendors including Delightful Palate, Millitello’s, Ruth’s Hummus, Re: Salad Dressing, and Malco’s Magificent Salsa sampling wonderful Thanksgiving-y dishes using their awesome products, and best of all, all of the Winners and most of the Finalists of the contest actually joined us at our Perkins Road store to talk about their recipes and dishes, taste the food and wines on display, and pick up their certificates and awards for the event:
- Eggplant Caponata (from Debbie Carmichael) with the Petra Zingari Wine Pairing
- Our very own Scanning Coordinator Camille showing off the Crawfish Cornbread (from Eleanor Mitchel) with the Foxglove Cabernet Wine Pairing
- Seafood Stuffed Bell Peppers (from Rhanetta Ruffins) along with the Foxglove Chardonnay Wine Pairing
- Teeter’s Pound Cake (from Bonnie Erickson) with the Saracco Moscato D’Asti Wine Pairing
- The Advocate’s awesome (and incredibly fun) crew were all in attendance
- #ACalandrosThanksgiving Party in the front foyer of Calandro’s Perkins!
- Blaise Calandro, III saying thanks to all the participants and sponsors
- Presenting Kristi Gogreve with her Finalist Award for her lovely Cranberry Pear Relish
- Mr. Bill Baker accepting his award for his delicious Steak William Finalist dish
- Tricia Canella’s Chicken, Sausage, and Tasso Gumbo dish was very deserving of a Finalist Award
- With an interesting twist on a standard potato salad, Mr. Greg Mullowney’s Sweet Potato Salad dish was very deserving of this Finalist Award
- Appetizer Category Winner Debbie Carmichael accepting her award for her out-of-this-world Eggplant Caponata recipe
- Eleanor Mitchell’s Winning Side Dish – Crawfish Cornbread – was incredible!
- Mrs. Rhanetta Ruffins’ Winning Seafood Stuffed Bellpepper dish won for best Entree
- Mrs. Bonnie Erickson drove all the way in from St. Francisville to accept her award for best Dessert with her “Teeter’s Pound Cake” recipe
- All of the Finalists and Winners who were able to make it Calandro’s Perkins assembled – thanks for coming out y’all!
- Camille is going to kill me, but its such a cute pic of one our awesome employees having some fun at the event, I couldn’t resist. Thanks Camille!