Feeding your calendar: 'Cake Love' and more

• Has the economy forced you to branch out -- or are you thinking about jumping into the entreprenurial pool? Warren Brown, founder of CakeLove in Washington, D.C., and media star (he was host of "Sugar Rush" on Food Network and has been on "Oprah" and "Today") will bring his motivation to Johnson & Wales from 7 to 10 a.m. Aug. 11 for the speaker series Accelerating Your Business. Brown's appearance is sponsored by the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. It's free AND breakfast is included, but you have to register for a spot. To do that, go to http://www.charlottechamber.com/ and search on "Warren Brown."




• Remember the 10% Local Challenge I wrote about here last week? There's a Charlotte-area kickoff from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Aug. 17 at Atherton Market at Atherton Mill, 2104 South Blvd. Expect chefs demos, food tastings, shopping tips and dietary and nutrition advice, all to help you reach that goal of spending 10% of your food dollars on local food. To learn more, go here.




• "Southern Cooking: Then & Now" is the subject of the next WFAE Public Conversation, 7-8:30 p.m. Aug. 19 at the charlotte Museum of History. Moderated by Johnson & Wales University chef Peter Reinhart, panelists will be Heidi Billotto, Penny Craver of the restaurant Dish (love your sweet potato pie, Penny!), and soul food cooking teacher Denise Hairston. And if my own experiences with the Public Conversation format is any indication, audiences get to do a lot of participating.

New goal: 10 percent on local food

People are making all kinds of efforts to eat more local food. In Tuesday's Observer, you can read about a family that ate only whole foods for 100 days.

Here's another way to work local foods into your life: The Center for Environmental Farming Systems, based at N.C. State University, has launched a statewide campaign to get you to spend 10 percent of your existing food dollars on food produced in North Carolina.

According to CEFS, North Carolinians spend about $35 billion a year on food. If we each spent about $1.05 a day, or $7.35 a week, on locally grown, raised or made food, that would put $3.5 billion into the local economy.

If you're a joiner, you can register online to pledge to do it, at www.nc10percent.com. You can also find links to organizations that can help you locate local food sources. CEFS is hoping businesses also will sign up to focus their spending power or host employee challenges to eat local. Compass Group also is a partner. It has pledged to source 10 percent of the produce it sells to N.C. clients from within the state, and will work with CEFS to develop a model "farm-to-institution" buying program.

How about it? Do you have clever ideas for how you can boost your local-food spending?