TISDALE 鈥� Author Amy Jo Ehman knew since high school she wanted to be a journalist and writer.
Finishing high school, she went on to journalism school and then worked at CBC as a reporter.
Now she has three books published, two of them focused on her love for food.
Ehman spoke about her work as an author at the Tisdale Library on Oct. 15 as part of a three-day tour in the region, including Choiceland and Nipawin.
鈥淭isdale is such a wonderful food producing region of Saskatchewan, just driving out here and seeing the fields and abundance of this area is so typical of the beautiful farms,鈥� Ehman said. 鈥淭his is like food central. They should be proud, obviously they are proud of the food production of this region.鈥�
Her first published book was Prairie Feast: A Writer鈥檚 Journey Home for Dinner.
鈥淭hat is about the year my husband and I decided to just eat off the local bounty of Saskatchewan, to search out what was grown here and the food traditions of those of us who live here,鈥� Ehman said. 鈥淭hat was quite an adventure to source out all these foods and after I had done it for a year I wrote a book about it because it was so much fun and so many adventures and people we met and stuff like that.鈥�
She was inspired by it after a meal at a friend鈥檚 house.
鈥淭hey lived on an acreage and they raised pigs, and we had pork chops for supper. The pork chops were so good, they were like the pork chops I remember going up on the farm when we raised pigs.鈥�
After this happened she couldn鈥檛 go back to grocery store pork.
鈥淗appy animal life, that was so much better than the pork chops I was buying in the grocery store,鈥� Ehman said. 鈥淭hose pork chops from the grocery store turned gross to me instantly, and I thought, 鈥業 want to source all my food this way.鈥欌��
This not only became her first book, but gave her the idea for a second book.
鈥淭hat kind of morphed to me to see about how the pioneers ate,鈥� Ehman said. 鈥淭hey had to be extremely self-sufficient.鈥�
This book was titled Out of Old Saskatchewan Kitchens and was the book she chose to go over at the Tisdale Library in her talk on Oct. 15.
