75% local, with the help of Blueberry Clafoutis

My Taster and I are taking the Cook for Good plan local in July to see what percentage of our food dollars are spent locally, without going to the extremes that Barbara Kingsolver described so delightfully in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. So far, I've spent $294 on food we intend to eat this month, with 84% of that on local ingredients. If you add the costs of eating at two local restaurants, we've spent $331, with 75% on local ingredients. So surely it's possible for most people to go 10% Local!


I'd hoped to go over 50%, but we've done much better, even though the total includes some indulgences. Our local gourmet superstore, A Southern Season, is having its summer sale now, so the total includes a splurge on their chocolate-dipped cherries.

And we enjoyed a meal for one person at the Neomonde and meals for two at Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe. Fun and tasty, but also a reminder that cooking at home saves so much. Three modest restaurant meals account for 11% of our expenses.

I made the featured recipe this week, Blueberry Clafoutis, with nearly all local ingredients.

The fantastic eggs and blueberries from Little Tree Farm, where every hand-picked berry is perfectly ripe, unlike berries that have been mechanically stripped from the bushes. I replaced the lemon zest with lemon-balm leaves from my garden. The sugar is the regional and organic Florida Gold, available at Whole Foods and some local groceries. The flour is all-purpose Southern Biscuit Flour from Newton, North Carolina. Alas, that flour is bleached, so I'm still looking for local source of unbleached all-purpose flour. With milk from May View Farms, only the salt and butter came from far away. In your area, you may have a different mix of what is local and what isn't, but you can see how easy it is to make a recipe largely local.