The One Book One Province tour came to Humboldt on Thursday night as dee Hobsbawn-Smith dropped into the Reid Thompson Library to read from her collection of essays, Bread and Water.
The book is a collection of writings that spans decades of work, starting with her days as a restauranteur in Calgary at her locally focused eatery, Foodsmith. Some of the pieces appeared in the Calgary food publication Calgary Palette, or as part of her freelance work for the Calgary herald.
Other essays in the collection are much more focused on her home province of Saskatchewan and the 100-year-old family farmhouse she and her husband, writer Dave Margoshes, live in. The most recent of those essays was written about five years ago as a tribute to her late father shortly after his passing.
In as much as Hobsbawn-Smith delves into her passion for food and its connection to community, she focuses intently on the prairie landscape on the farm just west of Saskatoon and the experiences wrought by a shifting ecosystem.
In 2010, the spring and summer rains were so plentiful that the water pooled on their farm leaving the house an isolated island without even driveway access. Hobsbawn-Smith came home from a book event in Montana to discover the flooding and the circumstance of a prairie lake four feet deep for acres in all directions. It was a body of water that lasted, with varying shorelines, for a period of seven years, rebranding them from dust bowl flatlanders to lake dwellers.
In this time, dee chronicled the changes in wildlife, the arrival of waterfowl of all varieties, and of muskrats, and a strange beachline of miniscule snail shells that crunched underfoot like breakfast cereal.
The essay "Watershed" outlines the experience and pays exquisite attention to the light and shadows, the whispering sounds of the invasive bullrushes, and the catalogue of waterfowl that found its way to the novel wetland.
“I was doing a lot of physical work, so I was the one contending with a lot of the mosquitoes,” dee said reflected on the shifting habitat. “But I was also aware that we had been inundated with dragonflies – these amazing pieces of flying gauze, like silk on the wing. We had as many as we had because we had so many mosquitoes – because we had so much water.”
Always a locavore, even at her Calgary restaurant, Hobsbawn-Smith is always on the lookout for local produce and challenges herself to see what she can produce or purchase close to home. In the essay "Prairie Pragmatic," she puts to the test the breaking points of local-procurement restrictions, even to the point of bidding farewell to exotic spices like cardamom and cumin in favour of garden-fresh basil or thyme. It’s an exercise that has paid dividends in the “Elbows Up” environment of shopping with a national conscience.
Toward the end of winter, she admitted, she had to get creative with the vegetables that kept well, like spuds or cabbage. She likened the repetitive nature of the diet to “watching Hugh Grant play himself in film after film.” Still, she pressed on finding innovative recipes and presentations.
Hobsbawn-Smith is a believer in the notion of food as integral to community. Passing on recipes to family, breaking bread at a home potluck, the boisterous gathering at a community steak supper. The communion always intersects with cuisine. The love of food and its preparation is hard wired in her.
“I know that I grew up making things with my grandmother and learning how to make cookies – I brought cookies tonight to share. The hands are really where a lot resides in the human body. We can feel things with our fingers; they can shape things. They really are the most magical part of part of our bodies. To be able to make things at all and to come from a family of makers where our hands create things that in turn feed people, that is the most magical thing of all.”
Indeed, dee brought cookies with wildly imaginative ingredients to share with listeners over a tea or coffee afterward. The book is a recognition of returning, familiarity, and adaptation anchored by the tradition of food.
She continues her tour with One Book One Province across Saskatchewan to other libraries.