Amy Jo Ehman

Amy Jo is a freelance writer based in Saskatoon and is a regular contributor to CBC’s “Blue Sky” and Prairies North magazine. She also has a monthly column for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and has written for Harrowsmith Country Living.  Her blog http://homefordinner.blogspot.com/  chronicled her “year of eating locally” and continues to showcase the local food scene.

An accomplished speaker, Amy Jo is invited to local food festivals across the province to speak on the advantage of local eating.

Amy Jo Ehman grew up in Craik, Saskatchewan surrounded by big gardens and vast fields of wheat. She left the farm for university, studying first at the University of Saskatchewan then completing a BA in Journalism at the University of Regina..

From the Author:

“By all accounts it was an ordinary pork chop. Until that first bite. In an instant, the author remembered the flavours of her childhood on the farm. Plump raspberries by the handful. Carrots still clinging with soil. Sweet corn shucked, boiled and smothered in butter. A slice of apple pie in winter redolent of a hot, lazy summer day. It was the pork chop of her childhood, fresh off the hoof and unbelievably good.

Was it nostalgia, or did everything taste better back then? And could it taste that good again? Fueled by nostalgia and her taste buds, Amy Jo Ehman set out to rediscover the flavours of her childhood—the flavours of natural, local, farm-fresh prairie food. To be sure, that journey did not lead to a grocery store but to the farmers and markets of Saskatchewan, deep in Canada’s agricultural heartland.

Not satisfied with baby steps (or bites) Amy Jo and her husband jumped wholeheartedly into the search for fresh flavours, vowing to serve only locally-produced food at their own dinner table for one year. From asparagus in spring to zucchini in fall—and the jelly in between—they discovered the amazing variety, quality and taste of prairie food. Like any journey it was full of surprises, from aphrodisiac mushrooms to ancient sea salt to vast fields of lentils where wheat was once king.