About Elaine

Raised in rural Alberta, Elaine Wilson started getting busy in the kitchen as a child. Raised primarily on packaged foods (cream of mushroom soup was a staple ingredient), Elaine began exploring new ways of preparing food while in junior high. By high school she prepared most of the meals at home, infusing roast beef with garlic and making pan-fried potato omelettes. This was 30 years ago, when Caesar salad was considered an exotic dish and the only fresh herb available at the small-town grocery was parsley.

At 18, Elaine moved to Thailand and her food world exploded. Surrounded by an incredible range of vegetables, fruits, seafood, herbs and spices, every dish was a revelation, an experience in flavour and texture. She returned to Canada forever impacted by this amazing cuisine and it remains both her favourite to enjoy and her specialty to prepare.

During the last 25 years, Elaine has lived in Los Angeles, Toronto, Honolulu, Ottawa, England, Montréal, and returned to Edmonton in 2003. Having worked as a private chef, she started Allium Foodworks in 2004, quickly becoming one of Edmonton's busiest personal chefs, creating interactive dinner parties, teaching cooking classes, developing recipes and products for local producers, and preparing ready-to-eat meals for busy clients.

Elaine's perspective on food is to keep it real, accessible, fun and easy to replicate. She teaches students how to create delicious meals using international flavours and local products whenever possible.

She believes that eating needs to be celebrated. In a world where so many go without every day, she believes that we should be grateful for the abundance we have, enjoying all the real food available to us - fresh vegetables and fruits, whole grains, beans and lentils, beautiful herbs and spices, humanely raised meat and wild seafood. And she also believes in giving back - locally, the Food Bank is a great way to start.

Her aim is to help people achieve balanced eating, avoiding extreme and elimination diets (unless of course where there are food allergies or digestive disorders). Incorporating a wide range of foods into our daily eating is part of how to enjoy great food that's real and really good. Steering away from processed food and focusing on fresh products available locally, Elaine creates delicious, quick meals with a wide variety of flavours.

Elaine has also become one of the food community's strongest supporters and promoters of local producers and food artists. From providing a resource on her web site, to showcasing their products at cooking demos and markets, to helping them develop new products and tweak existing ones, Elaine believes that eating local is an important element in eating real.

Over the years, she has become one of Edmonton's most popular cooking instructors and cooking stage chefs, bringing energy and fun to every demo at shows like Northlands Home Grown Alberta (FarmFair), the Edmonton Home & Garden Show, the Alberta Gift Show, City Market, and the Women's Show, among others. She has taught classes and corporate team building through Allium Foodworks and at/for Telus, Revive Wellness, Hendrix, Laurier Heights School, Envirofuels, and the MS Society.

A frequent chef on Breakfast Television and Shaw TV, she has also been featured on City TV, Access TV, Help TV, and most recently, on Slice TV's X-Weighted as a food coach. She has been featured in the Edmonton Journal, the Vancouver Sun, the Montreal Gazette, the St. Albert Gazette and the Edmonton Examiner.

When it comes down to it, Elaine's all about having fun with food - cooking it and enjoying a great meal with good friends. Her motto is "who says you can't play with your food!" and clients agree. From shopping tours to one-on-one coaching sessions, cooking classes to in-home dinner parties, Elaine enjoys bringing her passion for real food, balanced eating, international flavours and local products to the table...literally!

Read more about Elaine's food journeys through the city and on her travels on her blog where you can also access her recipes and get healthy eating tips. Follow her on Twitter to get up-to-the-moment food news on who has what where (like when Vien Dong gets in a new shipment of Thai soy sauce, or when Lucky 97has fresh kaffir lime leaves, or the latest food find at the local farmers market). Follow @alliumfoodworks on Twitter and you can also become a fan on Facebook, and stay up-to-date on classes and coming events.

And if you prefer your news only on occasion, subscribe to Elaine's occasional e-newsletter which she sends out a few times each year.

That's a lot of social media - so choose which one works best for you. And share your food-related stories, comments, and finds because Elaine is always wanting to learn more about what's available close to home.