It has been a time of transformation for Chelsea Winter – change in her work, change in her home life and change in herself. Photo / Aimee Kelly
The beloved Kiwi cook has had a lot on her plate since becoming a single parent, moving to a small seaside town and dishing up a new recipe book. She shares the transformation she has undergone and what she’s serving this festive season.
Chelsea Winter is on week two of a vicious cold, the arrival of which managed to inconveniently coincide with the launch of her long-awaited new cookbook, Tasty. The book is the triumphant culmination of one of the most tumultuous periods of her life. But on the day of her interview with The Weekly, the best-selling author is remarkably positive about the setback, despite being completely surrounded by tissues.
“I’m clearing so much stuff out that whatever is coming after this must be pretty good,” she says dryly. “Colds and sicknesses are usually a sign your body needs to cleanse and clear itself out, so after a big purge like this, there’s so much more to come in.”
Laughing, she continues, “I mean, there have been times when I’ve also been like, ‘This is ridiculous!’ But I’m here for it. I’m here for all of it.”
It has been a time of transformation for Chelsea – change in her work, change in her home life and change in herself. In discussing the events of the past two years, the word “liberation” comes up just as much as the word “resilient” does.
There’s been a move to the small Taranaki community of Ōakura, as well as a step into solo parenting after she split from her partner. She is throwing everything into being a mum to their two sons, Sky, five, and Sage, two.
“You can feel when things need to change,” she says candidly. “I could feel it in my body. I needed to be more flexible about what I was bringing into my diet. And in my mind, my soul and my heart, I knew I needed to find more time for myself.”
She feels as though she is coming out of the fog of early parenthood. These days, life feels more expansive.
“I really did want to give the first couple of years to the kids and now I’m stepping back into parts of my life that are just for me,” she explains. “You can never go back to the person you were before you had kids, right? You’re a different person afterwards, with all this experience under your belt and you forge ahead as someone new – stronger, more resilient and more grounded.”
But this period has also been challenging and confronting. In the past few years, Chelsea says she has “faced more of my shadows”, sharing, “One thing that children will do is trigger you and make you face those sides of yourself that have lain dormant for so long. It’s been a very transformative time.”
Solo parenting is not for the faint-hearted, but Chelsea is resolute about carving out time for herself – rising at 5.30am to meditate and then, on the other side of the day, heading out into her vegetable garden in the twilight hours once her boys are asleep.
She is protective of this new-found peace, she says. “I don’t really drink any more. My nights are so precious.” Being alone, out there in nature, is a gift. “The liberation that has come from having that me-time has been euphoric.”
Chelsea’s current stage has been something of a quiet after the storm – that time for reflection coupled with a resurgence of energy and joy, all of which is reflected in Tasty. The project was a work in progress that mirrored her own life for so long. She shelved it when she found out she was pregnant with Sky, not wanting to get back into the cookbook production phase as quickly as she did with her eldest son. Recipe-testing with a 6-month-old the first time around “wrecked me”, she says, so she pressed pause.
“How Tasty has come together, it’s truly magical,” smiles Chelsea. “It was a joyous process and I know when I’m in that place, the book will be well-received. People will be able to feel that joy when they cook from it. That’s what Tasty feels like to me – joy, inspiration, creativity … It feels light and happy.”
And it seems the public agrees. Tasty became the top-selling non-fiction book in New Zealand the week it was released.
Chelsea’s a big believer that you have to be in a good place to do good work – you cannot force the enthusiasm that comes with creating the kind of recipe books that have made her one of the most beloved cooks in New Zealand. And now that she’s a mother, she has to make her time creating new work in the kitchen as productive as possible.
“Every minute is precious – I don’t take anything for granted and I don’t want to waste even a second of my life doing something that’s not in alignment with me,” she says. “I don’t have time for that any more. I’m 40 and I’m only going to do things that are good for me.”
This latest cookbook also follows Chelsea’s own food trajectory. When she started working on Tasty, she was fully plant-based in her own eating and, by the end, she wasn’t. This shift appealed to her own sense of finding balance and becoming more flexible.
Her 2020 book, Supergood, was a fully plant-based book, which felt like a complete 180 from her past work. “I don’t think my previous five books even had one plant-based recipe in them!” she exclaims.
Chelsea knew it would possibly be a controversial move – “people don’t like change” – but she says she was still surprised at the level of vitriol that greeted her new direction. Her fans were used to decadent desserts and over-the-top, indulgent baking, then they found themselves being served up new versions made from vegetables.
“My social media was usually such a place of love, joy and everybody supporting each other,” the 2012 MasterChef New Zealand winner recalls. “I had this community of 400,000 people who were very lovely and then suddenly there were some people who weren’t happy. They didn’t love me any more.”
Chelsea’s smiling as she says it, but the move was a risk to her household-name status. While she picked up 10 new followers for every person that she lost and the success of Supergood proved there was a need for plant-based recipes designed for the everyday eater, it was a shift from being universally beloved.
“But that’s how life works, right?” she muses. “If you try to stay in the same spot to keep everyone happy, it’s going to be at your own detriment.”
It was another example of art imitating life. “The past few years have been a big, big, big lesson – and a huge evolution – in being okay with people not approving of what I do. I don’t need everyone’s approval. I don’t need anyone’s validation. I just do whatever feels in the highest integrity, in the highest good of me and my boys, and other people’s reactions and opinions aren’t going to sway me. It’s liberating.”
Chelsea is, however, glad that she faced that level of friction at that stage of her career, rather than earlier on. “I would have been inconsolable if that had happened in my twenties,” she admits. “I would have thought that I had ruined my life and I would have scrambled to fix it.”
That’s the beauty of being at this stage of life, says Chelsea. “I don’t get why people get so worried about ageing and turning 40 – I would not go back even a single year in my life.”
As well as that early-morning meditation, Chelsea credits beach walks for helping her find some space in her life – and mind – to reflect. She’s hired a part-time nanny just to ensure she can commit to this every day: an hour and a half of walking on the beach as exercise, but also as a delegated time to check in. With all that new-found space to reflect, is she proud of how resilient she’s been in the past couple of years?
“Yes, I am,” she says. “I’ve always been tenacious and not much really scares me. Being a mum, you really do have to dig deep. It doesn’t really matter what happens – you just have to keep forging on. But I’m impressed at my resilience and I’m impressed at the resilience of the other women I know who are doing all the same things as me.”
Chelsea’s well aware that there are so many mums out there who are also having to wear all of the hats and be everything to everyone. “We’re not meant to be doing this ourselves,” she says. “We’re not meant to be bringing up our children at home alone every day. That is not how it was designed to work – and yet here we all are anyway.
“I wish I could just give everyone a village, where we could all raise our kids together, to share the load and alleviate so much from everybody. But alas, it’s not the reality.”
Chelsea is lucky to have formed a tight-knit community of women in Ōakura. There is the nanny, Becky, whom Chelsea describes as “being like family”, and her close friend, Heliena, who has kids of a similar age, as well as her other bestie, Andrea, who lives out of town.
“I don’t know where I would be without them,” she says. “You know how you have those kinds of people in your life? They anchor me and support me in phenomenal ways.”
Chelsea’s sister also lives up the road and her mum is a frequent visitor. There’s also a Whatsapp group of friends firing on all cylinders at any time of day, which acts “as a light line” in difficult times and in good.
Christmas is a time of gathering and, this year, everyone will be descending on the family bach on Great Barrier Island. Chelsea is already worried that the small holiday house won’t hold everyone, but there will be two notable absences – her sons will be spending time with their father and his family.
“It will be the first time I haven’t spent Christmas with them, which will be weird, but that’s part of it,” she says.
Chelsea’s new partner will be coming to the island for the festive celebrations, along with one of her best friends. Recipes from Tasty will be on the table – the Christmas cake, the cheesecake, a selection from the salad chapter and a leg of lamb on the Weber barbecue.
For years now, Chelsea’s recipes have been a part of many a Kiwi family’s festive season and it’s a responsibility she doesn’t take lightly. She says, “It never ceases to amaze me – it’s literally the biggest cooking day of the year, so it’s an honour. It’s lovely creating a book and it’s lovely promoting it, but there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing people making the recipes and having their loved ones enjoy them. That is pure gold to me.”
Last year, it was her first Christmas as a solo mum. One year on, how does she feel as she heads into another holiday season? After thinking for a bit, she replies, “I do feel like a different person – so much stronger, so much more grounded. Nothing’s a big deal any more. Things don’t throw me off course or stress me out. The amount of growth I’ve had in the past year and settling into who I am, it kind of feels like Chelsea 2.0, to be honest.”
The creative energy that spurred her through Tasty has shown no signs of slowing down – she’s already almost completed another cookbook and will start shooting the pictures for it in January. She describes the follow-up as “family-oriented, balanced and nutrient-dense”, which feels spot-on for this next stage of her life.
One of the big reasons Tasty is her first cookbook free from refined sugar is because Chelsea is so aware of the effect the sweetener has on her boys. Her work has always come from the heart and now it also reflects what’s going on in her home as well, hence the focus on family.
“One of the things that has happened – maybe it’s because I’m finally getting some sleep – is that I suddenly have so much more capacity now,” she says. “I have all this capacity to create, to be a mother, to be ‘Chelsea Winter’, and to show up for my family and friends. It’s incredible – and this is the way of living that I want to keep nurturing.”
Next year, her youngest will also be of kindergarten age, so that sense of expansiveness is only growing. “It’s a whole new chapter – and I’ll have even more time back in my day,” she says. “I don’t know what that looks like yet or what I’ll find to fill that.”
It’s clear she’s in no need to rush.
“I’ll just let that take care of itself,” she reflects. “I’m going to continue to listen in to what’s calling.”
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