Whitney Miller

Last updated

Whitney Miller
Born
Whitney Leigh Miller [1]

(1988-06-01) June 1, 1988 (age 35)
Poplarville, Mississippi, U.S.
Nationality American
Years active2010-present
Culinary career
Cooking style Southern food, Baking, Pastries
Award(s) won
    • 2010 MasterChef winner (FOX)

Whitney Leigh Miller Humphrey (born June 1, 1988) is an American chef who won the first season of the US version of MasterChef in 2010. [2] Miller was named the first ever American MasterChef winner by MasterChef judges, Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot, and Joe Bastianich.

Contents

Profile

Miller grew up in a very food, faith, and family-oriented environment, always in the kitchen cooking with her mother and two sisters or her great-grandmother. Benefiting from her great-grandmother's inspiration in Southern hospitality and cooking large Sunday dinners for extended family and friends, she aspired to be a great cook from an early age. Because of her talent with desserts on Fox's MasterChef, she was deemed the "Pastry Princess." Her cooking style encompasses using fresh ingredients and putting her own modern twist on Southern classics. [3] In 2014, she married Ryan Humphrey, [4] and in 2016 she gave birth to a son they named Miller. [5]

Season 1 of MasterChef (U.S., 2010)

Miller entered the competition as a small town girl home cook and a college student from Poplarville, Mississippi. She first appeared in episode 2 of MasterChef (U.S.). Despite being young (22 years old), she mentioned that she has great ambition and that being young doesn't mean she doesn't have as much experience as anybody else in the competition. In the 14 episodes, she won three mystery box and elimination challenges, and five of her dishes were chosen in the top 3, one of which led her to the finale.

In the finale, Miller's final dishes were sweet shrimp on crispy cornbread with black eyed pea purée for the appetizer, country fried chicken for the entrée, and a white chocolate bread pudding for the dessert. In what the judges described as a "difficult, but unanimous decision," and for having better overall execution of her final three dishes, Miller was chosen as the first US winner of MasterChef. She won a quarter of a million dollars, a personalized cookbook and the prestigious MasterChef trophy.

Miller wrote her MasterChef cookbook, Modern Hospitality: Simple Recipes with Southern Charm, which was released in July 2011. [6] [7]

In 2011, Miller returned as a guest in season 2, episode 9, of MasterChef (U.S.), where the contestants had to replicate one of her signature dishes, crispy catfish with homemade slaw and sweet potato fries.

Professional career and highlights

Miller has been featured across the globe in Southern cuisine cooking promotions, including The St. Regis Tianjin in China. In January 2013, Miller was featured as the opening night chef (the first Southern chef) at Chefdance 2013 within the Sundance Film Festival, cooking for celebrities such as Kenny Loggins and Norman Seeff.

Miller's professional career includes developing recipes and/or creating videos for companies such as SousVide Supreme in the US and Malaysia, magazines such as Clean Eating and Southern Living , and nonprofits such as the Mississippi Girl Scouts of the USA. She has conducted guest cooking classes at Viking Cooking Schools in Mississippi and in February 2013, Surfas in Costa Mesa, California. Working with Panera Bread as the featured food expert, in July 2013, she hosted an online chat, giving cooking and entertaining tips.

Miller acted as a frequent guest host for ABC's Birmingham Talk of Alabama's TV cooking segment. She utilizes her seasoned palate as a judge for food competitions such as the 2013 World Food Championships held in Las Vegas. She also created recipes for California Olive Ranch and participated in Food Blog South 2014 in which she gave samples of her olive oil biscuits. [8]

Her recipes have been featured in the MasterChef and Ultimate MasterChef cookbooks. She is a food writer of magazine articles for Flavors (Atlanta), Taste of Home , Southern Living, and Eat. Drink. Mississippi. Her recipes, articles, and book promotions have appeared in People , Women's Health , MasterChef, Clean Eating, and Cooking Light magazines as well as online at Self, California Olive Ranch, and SousVide Supreme.com [3] and also in national publications such as Spirit of Women . [3]

On October 21, 2015, it was announced that Miller will be joining The Coop in Orlando, Florida. [9] The Coop is owned by John Rivers of 4 Rivers Smokehouse. [10] [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cookbook</span> Book of recipes with instructions

A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcella Hazan</span> Italian-born American cookbook author

Marcella Hazan was an Italian cooking writer whose books were published in English. Her cookbooks are credited with introducing the public in the United States and the United Kingdom to the techniques of traditional Italian cooking. She was considered by chefs and fellow food writers to be the doyenne of Italian cuisine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Silverton</span> American chef, baker, and author (born 1954)

Nancy Silverton is an American chef, baker, restaurateur, and author. The winner of the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Chef Award in 2014, Silverton is recognized for her role in popularizing sourdough and artisan breads in the United States.

Ching-He Huang (Chinese: 黃瀞億; pinyin: Huáng Jìngyì; Wade–Giles: Huang2 Ching4-i4;, often known in English-language merely as Ching, is a Taiwanese-born British food writer and TV chef. She has appeared in a variety of television cooking programmes, and is the author of nine best-selling cookbooks. Ching is recognized as a foodie entrepreneur, having created her own food businesses. She has become known for Chinese cookery internationally through her TV programmes, books, noodle range, tableware range, and involvement in many campaigns and causes.

<i>The Best Thing I Ever Ate</i> American TV series or program

The Best Thing I Ever Ate is a television series that originally aired on Food Network, debuting on June 22, 2009.

<i>Everything Tastes Better with Bacon</i> 2002 cookbook by Sara Perry

Everything Tastes Better with Bacon: 70 Fabulous Recipes for Every Meal of the Day is a book about cooking with bacon written by author, food commentator and The Oregonian columnist Sara Perry. The book was published in the United States on May 1, 2002, by Chronicle Books, and in a French language edition in 2004 by Les Éditions de l'Homme in Montreal. In it, Perry describes her original concept of recipes combining sugar and bacon. Her book includes recipes for bacon-flavored dishes and desserts.

<i>The Bacon Cookbook</i> Cookbook by James Villas

The Bacon Cookbook: More than 150 Recipes from Around the World for Everyone's Favorite Food is a cookbook on bacon by James Villas. It was published by Wiley in 2007. Villas is a former food editor for Town & Country magazine, and The Bacon Cookbook is his 15th book on food. He notes on the book's jacket that he was "beguiled by bacon since he was a boy." He describes the appeal of bacon in the book's preface, and in the introduction recounts the history of the product, as well as its variations from different locations internationally. Chapters are structured by type of recipe and food course, and in total the book includes 168 recipes.

<i>I Love Bacon!</i> Cookbook by Ben Fink

I Love Bacon! is a cookbook with over fifty recipes devoted to bacon and bacon dishes, many of them from celebrity chefs. The book was written by Jayne Rockmill and photography was provided by Ben Fink. Broken down into eight sections, the book covered how to make homemade bacon and moves onto "brunch" and "small bites" before covering soups, salads and sides, pasta, fish, meat, and desserts. I Love Bacon! was published in October 2010 by Andrews McMeel Publishing and met with favorable reviews for its unique dishes and helpful culinary tips for novices.

Rozanne Gold is an American chef, journalist, cookbook author, and international restaurant consultant. A four-time winner of the James Beard Award, she is a graduate of Tufts University in psychology and education, and holds an MFA in poetry from the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Nita Mehta is an Indian chef, author, restaurateur and media personality, known for her cookbooks, cooking classes and as a judge on cooking based television shows.

Hugh Acheson is a Canadian-born chef and restaurateur. He has owned four restaurants in Georgia, and serves as a judge on the reality cooking competition show Top Chef, and as an Iron Chef on Iron Chef Canada.

Romy Gill MBE is a British-Indian chef, food writer, author and broadcaster. She was the owner and head chef at Romy's Kitchen in Thornbury, South Gloucestershire. In 2016 she was appointed an MBE in the Queen's 90th birthday honours list. Romy has amassed a number of television and radio appearances, including presenting, co-presenting and judging roles. She regularly contributes to national and international publications, including The New York Times, The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph.

Unique Sweets is an American television series on Cooking Channel about various eating establishments across the United States and their signature or most popular desserts. The series features interviews with guest pastry chefs and food critics who give commentary about their favorite dessert dishes. Each episode features a different restaurant, bakery or specialty sweet shop, focusing on one theme, such as ice-cream, cakes or pies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logan Guleff</span>

Logan Guleff is a television personality, cookbook author, entrepreneur, and owner of Logan's Underground Supper Club. In 2014, he became the winner of the second season of the American reality cooking competition MasterChef Junior. In 2016, Guleff was listed in Time Magazine's "30 Most Influential Teens" as "a rising star in the culinary world".

Elizabeth "Liz" Haigh is a Singaporean-born chef who competed on MasterChef in 2011, and went on to win a Michelin star at the Hackney-based restaurant Pidgin. Haigh currently operates the kopitiam Mei Mei at Borough Market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Babish Culinary Universe</span> American online cooking series

Babish Culinary Universe, formerly Binging with Babish, is a YouTube cooking channel created by American cook and filmmaker Andrew Rea that recreates recipes featured in film, television, and video games in the Binging with Babish series, as well as more traditional recipes in the Basics with Babish series. The first video in the series was uploaded on February 10, 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green Elephant Vegetarian Bistro</span> Restaurant in Portland, Maine

The Green Elephant Vegetarian Bistro is a vegetarian restaurant serving Thai cuisine in Portland, Maine, that opened in 2007 in the city's Arts District. A second Green Elephant restaurant is located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Both have received critical attention for their vegetarian dishes.

The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize culinary professionals in the United States. The awards recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists each year, and are generally scheduled around James Beard's May birthday.

The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize culinary professionals in the United States. The awards recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists each year, and are generally scheduled around James Beard's May birthday.

References

  1. ↑ "Whitney Miller on Twitter: "@middlenamegame Leigh"". Twitter.com. June 8, 2013. Retrieved May 24, 2016.
  2. ↑ "MasterChef" Winner Whitney Miller Victorious Despite Chicken Mishap
  3. 1 2 3 whitneymillermc. "Whitney Miller Masterchef: About Me". Whitneymillermc.blogspot.com. Retrieved May 24, 2016.
  4. ↑ Whitney Miller (February 11, 2015). "My Valentine". whitneymiller.com. Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  5. ↑ "Welcome, Miller Ryan Humphrey". Plant City Observer. Plant City, Florida. August 25, 2016. Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  6. ↑ Miller, Whitney (2011). Modern Hospitality: Simple Recipes with Southern Charm. Rodale Books. p. 192. ISBN   978-1-60961-352-5.
  7. ↑ Miller, Whitney. "Facebook Page". Facebook . Retrieved June 11, 2011.
  8. ↑ "About". Whitneymiller.net. June 20, 2014. Retrieved May 24, 2016.
  9. ↑ McPherson, Heather (October 21, 2015). "MasterChef winner Whitney Miller joins The Coop to lead menu development". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved October 22, 2015.
  10. ↑ "Home - The Coop". A Southern Affair. Retrieved May 24, 2016.
  11. ↑ "4 Rivers Smokehouse | The Art of Smoking" . Retrieved May 24, 2016.
Preceded by
None
 MasterChef winner
2010 		Succeeded by
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.