Cookbook will be food for thought
Waterloo’s new artist-in-residence launches a community recipe project
WATERLOO — Food brings people together.
That’s why Barbara Hobot, Waterloo’s new artist-in-residence, wants to create a cookbook full of beloved recipes and illustrations from residents across the city.
“It’s an opportunity for neighbours to gather together and share stories around food,” she says.
Called “Growing Together: A Neighbourhood Cookbook Project,” this year’s community art event will be more than something nice to look at.
The artist-in-residence program is an opportunity for local artists to engage with residents and animate public spaces with a community art project.
Hobot will host workshops in community gardens and parks this summer to collect recipes, hear stories and take photos of people’s drawings of food.
Food is a unifying force that often transcends people’s histories, backgrounds, values and language, Hobot says.
That is why she decided to focus her community art project on food.
“It’s an easy way for neighbours to get to know one another.”
People can bring their favourite handwritten recipes to her workshops. They don’t need to be perfect, Hobot says. It doesn’t matter if recipes are worn or stained or even in a different
language. She will take them home to scan them for the cookbook, but she can also take photographs of them on the spot.
Hobot will take photos of illustrations people create from hand drawings to embroidered images or clay sculptures of vegetables for the cookbook.
She plans to make origami vegetables.
“It’s a cool way to collect different kinds of images,” Hobot says.
“We can get really creative with it.”
Hobot also wants to collect stories.
Maybe an old memory associated with a family recipe or a funny story about an encounter with a strange ingredient.
“I want this to be a record of getting to know one another,” she says.
The finished cookbook will be available for free in little libraries across Waterloo.
There will be an opportunity to build and decorate little libraries at Hobot’s workshops as well. There will be one library for each of the city’s seven wards.
The artist-in-residence program typically receives $5,000 from the city each year but the amount was doubled to $10,000 for 2017.
Hobot’s cookbook project will launch with a meet-the-artist at the City of Waterloo Service Centre Open House on June 10, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Hands-on workshops will be held in community gardens and parks from June to September. Finished cookbooks will be available after the program ends.