On a cold Saturday morning in February, two of your Board members set up a table in front of the Co-op to help demonstrate to curious shoppers the impact of the store on the local economy.

We start with a bowl containing 4 cups of dried beans. This bowl represents the dollar value of your shopping basket. We then follow a recipe that reflects how each dollar coming into the Co-op is spent.

One half of a cup of beans goes straight to local farmers and producers. We are rightly proud of how the Co-op helps support our local food chain and provides a ready market that allows producers to expand and new ones to come in.

On the other hand, 1 3/4 cups go to products originating elsewhere. These range from produce from California and Mexico to prepared foods and household items that are made in other parts of the world. Of course, we'd love to see more products made locally; however, we also want to provide all of the items our owners and other shoppers want to buy.

Continuing with our recipe, one full cup of beans goes toward payroll and staff benefits. Surveys of our owners show a strong desire to ensure that we compensate the staff well. As a result, we offer one of the best retail jobs in town.

One quarter of a cup of beans goes toward rent, utilities, insurance and other costs associated with our premises at Lincoln Square.

Another 1/4 cup goes to local services such as bookkeepers, graphic designers, and printers. This is one of the ways that a local store keeps money in the local economy. A grocery store that is part of a larger chain would spend money on these services in the area of the corporate headquarters and not support these professional jobs in town.

Once these beans have been distributed, there are still some beans in the bowl. What's this? Profit! As a co-op, we endeavor to keep "retained earnings" as small as possible, while still being ready for strategic expansion or unforeseen circumstances. We distribute unused profits to local charities, and and also use these profits to further our social ends. Anything left over is distributed back to the owners in the form of dividends.

From this demonstration it's easy to see how money spent at the Co-op is spread around the community and helps to create jobs and opportunities beyond the walls of the shop. Money put into the hands of Co-op employees and suppliers gets spent again in our community, and the virtuous circle continues.

Take a moment to think about this in terms of our planned expansion -- it will expand sales and put even more money into circulation in our town. An investment in the Co-op becomes an investment in your local community.

How about that for magic beans?

We use the word a lot around here, but what does it really mean? It's plastered on everything at Common Ground -from the backs of our T-shirts, to our product signs, to the walls of our store- so it must be important! But what is "local"? There's no national, or even local, consensus on the definition. If the meaning is so ambiguous, why do we use the word so much?

Back at the old store, we were thinking the same thing. Products from any grower or producer who sold at the farmers' market or seemed to be located a reasonable distance away were labeled as "local." But this was far from a formal definition, and it did not really tell customers where the products they bought came from. Also, we were selling more products from neighboring states, and we wanted to recognize that distinction, too. So, in 2008, your co-op's staff decided we needed a more formal definition of "local" and "regional," for both clarity and consistency.

We formed a staff committee and started meeting to discuss what "local" meant. We thought of limiting our definition to Illinois's borders, but as we are so close to Indiana, we decided this wasn't appropriate. However, mileage seemed a clear and consistent tool - defining "local" by mileage took into account that some farms in Indiana are closer to Common Ground than other farms in Illinois. By using Google Maps, we discovered that the vast majority of the growers and producers that we had identified as "local" were located within 100 miles of our store. And so, our definition of local -being within 100 miles of Common Ground- was born.

On the other hand, a state-based definition of "regional" made sense, since Illinois shares borders with so many other agricultural states. We decided that any product hailing from any state directly neighboring Illinois, plus Michigan (because it's still very close and because we buy and sell a number of Michigan products), would be included in the "regional" definition. Also included in the regional definition are producers in Illinois and Indiana who operate outside of our 100-mile local radius.

Our definitions of local and regional were created specifically for identifying the products sold at your co-op. We hope they help you to know your food and farmers - after all, that's a lot of what Common Ground is about.

Indian cuisine has endless cauliflower recipes to offer. Here's one that absolutely anyone will love, adapted from Neelam Batra's 1000 Indian Recipes.

The Batter:

1 cup garbanzo bean flour (available in the baking section of the co-op)

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup minced cilantro

¼ teaspoon garam masala

water

Sift together dry ingredients. Stir in ¾ cup of water. The batter should be about the consistency of thin pancake batter. Add more water if it's too thick.

To Fry:

1 medium head cauliflower, broken into florets

½ teaspoon hot pepper flakes

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups safflower (or other refined oil for high heat) for deep frying

Mix the cauliflower, salt, and hot pepper flakes. Heat the oil in a deep pot over high heat until a dribble of batter immediately bubbles and rises to the top. Line a baking sheet with waxed paper and set a cake rack over it. (Alternatively, line the baking sheet with paper towels.) Add the cauliflower to the batter and mix well. Fish the cauliflower pieces out one at a time, tapping them gently against the side of the bowl to remove excess batter. Drop each piece in the hot oil, adding as many pieces as you can without them touching. Turn each piece carefully with a slotted spoon. When the pakoras are golden brown and crispy all over, remove them from the oil to the cake rack to drain. Eat 'em hot!