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Whitney Miller

Whitney Miller
Born Whitney Leigh Miller
(1988-06-01) June 1, 1988 (age 28)
Poplarville, Mississippi, United States
Website www.whitneymiller.net
Culinary career
Cooking style Southern food, Baking, Pastries

Whitney Leigh Miller (born (1988-06-01)June 1, 1988) was the winner of the first season of the US version of MasterChef in 2010. Miller was named the first ever American MasterChef winner by MasterChef judges, Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot, and Joe Bastianich.

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.

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 (US). Despite being young (22 years old), she mentioned she has great ambition and being young doesn't mean she doesn't have that 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 corn bread 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.

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


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