CNNmoney.com recently showcased community campaigns aimed at supporting local, independent businesses through the recession.

With $2 bills and “buy local” promotions, towns are launching their own stimulus efforts to keep local merchants in business….The names and details vary, but the campaigns all share one goal: Educating shoppers about the power their spending has to shape their local business landscape.

One of my favorite stories is from Brewton, Alabama, where Danny Cottrell at the Medical Center Pharmacy gave his 24 employees $16,000 in cash bonuses. He handed each employee an envelope of $2 bills and asked them to donate 15% to a charitable cause and spend the rest at local businesses. 

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Loving Mark Bittman’s simple, flexible ideas for using the bounty of the season in his Minimalist column. I’m a sucker for savory recipes that use fresh fruit and three recipes, in particular, jumped out.

1) Mix wedges of tomatoes and peaches, add slivers of red onion, a few red-pepper flakes and cilantro. Dress with olive oil and lime or lemon juice.

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We are grateful for cornucopia of photos on our site, many of which are the work documentary photographer Jason Houston, who writes:

I have been photographing farms and farmers in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts where I live for over a decade. I started this project because I believed that food and where it comes from and how it is made is one the most urgent, universally important issues our world faces today. And the more time I’ve spent on this work, the more I have come to understand…

read on and see more photos