30 YEARS OF WELLNESS!
The Wellness Center at Leesburg Regional Medical Center is celebrating 30 years of keeping staff and residents healthy. Conveniently located off U.S. Highway 441, the center has a team of degreed exercise specialists, an indoor heated pool, aerobics classes, personalized strength training programs, massage therapy and more. It’s a 10,000-square-foot facility that has room for everyone. Since safety is primary to the organization, complimentary weight training and cardo machine orientation are offered. “The personalized attention and expertise of our staff, combined with our classes and instruction, will help you achieve your health and fitness goals,” John Bowers, manager of wellness services at LRMC, says in a recent press release. For information, contact the center at leesburgregional.org/wellness or 352.323.5640.
THE BUZZ ON MOSQUITOS
It may be November, but this is Florida, and if it’s hot and humid, mosquitos are a problem. Since we’ve had hurricanes and an increase in flooding, there are plenty of watery places for mosquitos to lay eggs. Rescue Smarter Pest Control has Mosquito GoClip Repellent to help keep you free of the little pests. It can be clipped to your clothing or anywhere and it works well. A Healthy Living staff member used it on a pool cabana during a family vacation when mosquitos were biting and found it very effective. The contents of the clip are all-natural essential oils, it’s DEET-free and safe for children, and the resealable pouch means you can use it several times. There’s also a yellow jacket repellent, which would be great for people who are allergic to the stinging. It’s also effective against hornets, wasps and bees. See rescue.com for information.
LET THE CALL OF THE WILD GO UNANSWERED
The Florida Department of Health in Lake County issued an alert to encourage residents to avoid any contact with wild or stray animals. There is always a risk of exposure to rabies. In Florida, raccoons, bats, foxes and unvaccinated cats are the animals diagnosed with rabies most often. “Rabies is a potentially fatal disease,” Aaron Kissler, administrator of FDOH in Lake County, says in a press release. “It is important not to handle wild animals, to be aware of unusual acting animals and to keep pets vaccinated against rabies.” For more information and tips about this alert, see floridahealth.gov.
ore than nine years have passed since her victory in the first U.S. season of “MasterChef” with Gordon Ramsay, but Whitney Miller still receives social media posts about the TV show from around the world.
The triumph at age 22 launched her career as a chef, cookbook author, recipe and menu developer, and food stylist. The Mississippi belle has showcased her Southern cuisine in China, Dubai, Malaysia, and South Africa.
In August, she launched a new cookie business in the Nashville-Franklin, Tennessee, area, where she lives with her husband, Ryan Humphrey, and sons Miller, 3, and Harrison, 8 months. Ryan played baseball at Lake-Sumter State College, and the couple formerly lived in his hometown of Plant City.
Whitney spoke by phone recently about her career, favorite recipes, and goals:
Q: What are your memories of “MasterChef”?
A: For my season, being the very first and the show had never aired in the U.S., we had nothing to go (by). We were going in blind not understanding what we were going to experience, so that in itself was pretty interesting, and then the fact that there really just wasn’t any kind of competition shows. We were just trying the best we could to take what talents that we had, what knowledge of food that we had and then apply it to these crazy scenarios.
We had to do team challenges, which they still do, and that’s challenging itself because you have all these dominant personalities and it’s like too many chiefs in the kitchen and everybody wants control and (to) lead, so that was interesting. And then the stress of the time; you’d have 45 minutes on some challenges, or you’d have an hour. It just never failed that you always felt like you didn’t have enough time.
Q: How did it feel to win?
A: It was a very exciting finale because it was me and another guy (David Miller) going up against each other, and his style of cooking was a little bit more like high end, and I was being true to my Southern roots but elevating it some. I remember it was just a very intense two hours, the most stress I’ve ever experienced probably in my life. And then, without fail, I’m down to the wire doing my plating and things, and thankfully, at least I plated my chicken right before the 10-minute mark because I wound up dropping it as I was taking it from the skillet to my plate. In the one moment I thought, “You’ve come way too far to fail.”
So, I hurried back and got another piece of chicken…and that piece of chicken cooked perfectly, according to Gordon Ramsay, in seven minutes. I remember Gordon being stressed, nobody thinking that that piece of chicken was cooked until it got into the judging, and that really was my make-it-or-break-it on whether I was going to win the show, that one piece of buttermilk pan-fried chicken.
Q: Describe your first cookbook, “Modern Hospitality: Simple Recipes with Southern Charm” (2011).
A: The first one is a good mix of what I grew up cooking and some of the things that I learned from the show, and how my cooking had matured in just that short amount of time and its influence in my recipes. But you definitely get a sense of where I came from, the small town (Poplarville) in Mississippi, the foods I grew up cooking, things from my great-grandmother. She taught me how to make biscuits and all those traditional Southern things, like a big Sunday roast.
with the batter, and you can make my Mississippi Mud Pie, which has a graham cracker crust and then a cream cheese whip cream, and toasted, salted pecans. It’s definitely been a favorite.
Q: Do you also try to appeal to health-conscious eaters?
A: I have some healthier takes on Southern foods, and I’ll tell people those are great options, and then for dessert, just portion control, because I don’t want to try to use anything that’s not natural. In the first cookbook, I
have a cauliflower mac and cheese recipe, so instead of pasta, you use cauliflower, and then I use low-fat milk, and that recipe was featured in People magazine. It’s a really popular one, a great way to try to introduce kids to vegetables.
Q: After launching a cookie business this year, what else would you like to accomplish?
A: Definitely a cooking show and a restaurant, I think, that I am working to
WHAT’S FOR DINNER?
Whitney Miller just got back from the Farmers’ Market and is planning a dish:
“I still love a challenge, so when I visited, I found a new kind of okra that I never worked with before. It’s called Star of David and it definitely caught my eye because it doesn’t look like your typical okra. Instead of long, slender okra, they were squatty and thick, and typically, I don’t go for those because I think they’re
come to fruition. They’ve always been dreams of mine. A cookbook was the very first thing that I ever wanted, and then to be able to have a way for people to taste my food, so doing that through this cookie business, it will be my first step towards a restaurant.
Being a mom of two little ones, it definitely changes things. I’m trying to go into this new business where I can still manage my little ones but make it slow enough growth to where I can figure out how to be a mom, an entrepreneur, and a chef all at the same time.
going to be more fibrous and tough. But, actually, they’re a more tender type of okra.
“And I also picked up some beautiful little cherry tomatoes that had the golden color and the red, and I’m going to make roasted tomatoes and okra. You just roast the vegetables in olive oil and salt and onions, and it’s very simple, very flavorful, and I think roasting is one of the techniques that I’ve found really plays up vegetables’ flavor.”
