It’s kai-oat (coyote), not kai-oat-ee (coyotee). It’s a highway, not a freeway, and dang it, it’s a crick, not a creek. And yes, sir, Montana is a state. Nine months ago, I made the move from Montana to California. As a prime example of why one should never leave the safety and camaraderie of organic, sustainable realms of people, or associate within anyone outside of a Trader Joe’s when not in farm country, upon having been asked where I was from and responding, “Montana,” I have been met with the response “Is that a state?” twice now.

In truth, the title of this article isn’t entirely true. There are lots of pre-packaged ice cream vendors, supermarkets selling bananas, and yes, McDonald’s in every major town. But for the two days I spent in the seaside town of Peniche, Portugal, it was pretty hard not to eat local.

The funny thing was that nobody even talked about the food being local or seasonal or fresh. It was assumed to be. But when my girlfriend and I started raving about how orange-y the oranges were, how plump and succulent the strawberries were, and how shockingly orange the egg yolks were, our hosts felt obliged to explain to us poor deprived Americans where these wonders had come from.

I’ve always found freshly baked bread is comfort food of the highest order. There is something reassuring about the aroma of baking bread as it fills my kitchen and floats through the rest of my home. If I make a loaf early in the morning, I can almost guarantee that it will be devoured before the end of the day (with a little help from some little mouths in my house). And because I think about these thins, I began to wonder if I could find local flour to for my bread baking. After all I can find vegetables, fruits, eggs, dairy, and honey, could I do the same for flour? As it turns out the answer is, yes.