Meet Winnie

Elaine Edel has special reasons for writing under the pen name Winnie and naming her first book and her company, Winnie’s Winning Ways.

Her love for cooking goes back to her grandmother’s kitchen. She remembers her grandmother’s love for cooking and baking and the two of them making bread, buns and donuts together. On many occasions she remembers going along to deliver some of this fresh baking to less fortunate neighbors. Her mother sensed her daughter’s enjoyment for cooking and gave her plenty of opportunities to experiment with different recipes and ingredients. Those early positive experiences in the kitchen laid the foundation for a lifelong passion for cooking and sharing her knowledge and ideas with others.

Living on a farm provided the space and feeding a family of seven provided the need for a large garden. She took her turn at milking cows and even now continues to help with many other farm chores as they seed and harvest their crops of grain. Her garden gives her access to a year round supply of vegetables and fruits. The cows, in the earlier years, provided all of the milk they wanted to drink and more to turn into butter and cheese. And their harvested fields still yield a variety of grains to mill and sprout.

The family struggles with floods from time to time, and a drought led Winnie to selling baked goods at farmer’s markets and to catering meals to small groups. This led to even more recipes. But the drought in 1988 was also instrumental in the beginning of Winnie’s Winning Ways! She decided to share all of the many recipes she had created over the years through cookbooks. After that, as a need arose, she worked on more recipes and published another book until she had a total of seven.

She continues to update these books and as well shares newly created recipes through her website. Today as we are faced with so many diseases, Winnie’s focus has become more about adding nutrition to the foods she prepares and the recipes she shares. She believes nutritious foods can be like a medicine and can keep us healthy!