Mary Ellen Williams

How Corn Chowder Launched a Company

Mary Ellen, with late husband Allan Williams, had a small farm in Pennsylvania and she was known for cooking up delicious meals with farm fresh ingredients. During retirement she was asked to serve her famous Corn Chowder recipe at the local Corn Festival. After a few successful seasons of patrons wanting her secret recipe, she packaging a version using premium dried ingredients that produced the same great taste of her original recipe. Log Cabin Soups was officially established in 1991, with partner and friend Shirley Goldthorpe by her side. With a recipe box full of homemade soups, she expanded the line and the two sold them at craft fairs around Pennsylvania and neighboring states.

After retiring a second time in 2000 – passing the torch to Greg and wife Mary Kay who renamed them Cooke Tavern Soups after their historic property – she continued to put her culinary skills to work creating new recipes of gourmet dry soup mixes to add to the Cooke Tavern line.

Paying homage to his parents, Greg named Cooke Tavern’s Mi Madre’s Chicken Tortilla after Mary Ellen and the Farmer Al’s Homegrown Tomato Basil Bisque after his father.