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Volume 10, Issue 39, Week of September 30, 2013
Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper
The
Prairie Diner
Jody Peters is exploring the hidden gems of restaurants and great food on the Prairies (Photo by Sandy Hutchinson)
Saskatoon-born TV host serving up food, friends and fun
T
Tammy Robert Saskatoon Express
here’s been a handful of defining moments in Jody Peters’ life. Most of them involved his dad. Peters, a Saskatoon-born comic, was two years old when he was adopted by Mennonite parents from Aberdeen, Sask. Born at St. Paul’s Hospital, of Canadian and Jamaican descent, the animated funnyman becomes uncharacteristically subdued when he speaks of his father, Ron Peters, who passed away in April of this year after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. “My dad had conviction. If he said it he meant it,” said Peters. “I truly believe that my father had a very profound impact on me. My dad never stopped being my hero. He just did what he wanted to do, without worrying about being cool.” Today Peters takes on the world with a level of carefree cool that anyone who has seen him in action understands. Constantly in motion while incessantly vying for laughs, his latest project has given him the
opportunity to channel that energy into superb, often unexpected dining experiences across the Canadian prairies. Jody Peters is The Prairie Diner. “We’re exploring the hidden gems of restaurants and great food in the Prairie provinces, primarily Saskatchewan,” said Leslea Mair, president of Zoot Pictures and producer of The Prairie Diner, starring Peters as host. The upcoming series which will be featured on City TV Saskatchewan beginning in early 2014. “It’s about the wild, wacky and wonderful,” Mair said. “Restaurants you wouldn’t necessarily expect to be here and owners with wonderful stories.” Mair said once Peters auditioned it was clear he was a natural fit. “He’s so great on camera; people open up and talk to him. He’s naturally both curious and gregarious, everything you’d want in a host.” The Prairie Diner is midway through shooting in Saskatchewan, and into Manitoba and Alberta. Local production has already taken place at eateries such as Two Gun Quiche House, Weczeria and Leyda’s. “We’ve got Jody right in the kitchen
learning about and making the food,” said Mair. Each half hour segment will feature three eateries, with Saskatchewan musician Jack Semple providing the show’s soundtrack. Peters comes by his roots honestly, with a proper Saskatchewan farm upbringing fuelling his passion for Prairie fare, including all the hard work and sweat equity that goes with it. “I love meeting people from across the Prairies who have the courage to open a restaurant,” said Peters. “It’s incredibly hard. There’s so much work that goes into it, from the cooking to the serving. We’ve chosen restaurants that are different, out of the ordinary. Managing people is a difficult task — organizing them in the kitchen is a whole different ball game. It’s insanely meticulous.” Jody relates to that ethic. “The family I was adopted by was very — it sounds so cliché — tough but fair,” he said. “My dad was a hippie type of guy. He had been a pastor before I was with the family. Then he went back to university and got a de-
gree in social work. In the ’70s there was allegedly a push for Saskatchewan social workers to adopt non-white children. It wasn’t a popular thing for a mom to have a black kid back then, so there were a few of us.” Peters reflects on his father’s passion for agriculture, while admitting it wasn’t something he shared. “He was just that helping, caring person doing things for others,” he said. “Social work can really burn you out. I don’t know why, but he decided to go back to farming. There’s so much work to do. You do a bunch, then you go do some more that you neglected to do in the first place. He loved that; I didn’t. That was not me. I was just really shitty at the farm thing.” Yet Peters admits it was a solid, honest upbringing. “We were not wealthy, but we never went hungry,” said Peters. “We were farmers. We had a little bit of land, some cattle, some chickens. We raised our food. It’s weird to say that now because people are trying to get back to that.” (Continued on page 4)