How exactly do you define spices?

Everyone defines what they mean by local. I like to stick to the tri/quad state definition meaning that anything from NJ, NY, CT, and PA are game. I also consider anything at the NYC Farmers Markets to be "local" as well. For the OLS, everything in our meal should be from within our definition of local except for spices and oil. So what exactly constitutes spices? Sugar? Vinegars? Fish Sauce? Citrus?
I'm a beginner home cook and have learned enough to know some very basic techniques and begin to improve with ingredients that look wonderful and are local. So for OLS, my biggest challenge is to adapt my favorite recipes to local ingredients. We took an asian cooking class and it totally inspired us to try new flavors and techniques. Asian cooking requires tons of prep (which my husband and his incredible knife skills love) so we usually prep for 2-3 meals worth of ingredients. For tonight's meal of flank steak salad, I think I did a pretty good job, except for the fish sauce, citrus, and spicy stuff.

Flank Steak Salad
1.5 lbs Flank Steak (Farmers' Market) sub tonight with skirt steak

Dressing
1/2 Fish Sauce (not local)
1/2 Lime Juice (not local)
1 tbs jalapeno or other pepper adjusted to your spice comfort
1/2 cup combined basil, thai basil, mint, cilantro (my window boxes)
1-2 splashes Surachi (Asian spicy sauce) (not local)
Small onion, shallots, or green onion

Salad
Mixed Greens
Local Radishes sliced wafer thin

I like to begin with the dressing and squeeze the juice out of as many limes as I have. I match that in fish sauce. Fish sauce is kind of gross but like anchovies, imparts a wonderful flavor and saltiness that pairs so well with limes juice. My husband like this at a 3:1 ratio instead of a 1:1 ratio so play around and see what you like. Small dice the onion and pepper and chiffonade the spices. I am very excited that the herbs came out of my window boxes and I look forward to the super spicy peppers that I planted later in the summer. Put everything in a bowl.

Pat the steak dry and salt and pepper it on both sides. We ended up with skirt steak today but skirt, flank, or hanger steak all seem to work well. We use the grill pan and cook it on the stove. You can make it rare because it will "cook" in the lime juice so we skip the over step of the process and just let it sit in the dressing. Once it is rare, we let it rest and the slice it really thin against the grain. We let it marinate in the dressing for 30 minutes to an hour.

Once its marinated, assemble the salad and pile the meat on top, pouring some of the dressing on the greens. You can also make it with rice but that's definitely not local.

So, does this count as a local meal? I'm not sure but I did reach my goal of adapting a long standing recipe for local ingredients (namely the radishes and cut of beef I found). Its a darn good recipe...and I'm not sure its even legal to make fish sauce in the US.