In Good Taste

Chef Spotlight Klancy Miller

Klancy Miller’s take on cooking shouldn’t be all that unique given that 31 million American adults live alone, but as it turns out her gift for creating solo recipes has made her a hot chef commodity. And while making single servings from other cookbooks means scaling down ingredients, adjusting cooking times, or being stuck with leftovers, Miller’s book, Cooking Solo: The Fun of Cooking for Yourself, gives singles exactly what they need to whip up a delicious dish for one. Miller is a writer and pastry chef who is deeply fascinated by all things French, earning a Diplôme de Pâtisserie at Le Cordon Bleu Paris. Klancy stayed in Paris to apprentice in the pastry kitchen at the Michelin-starred Taillevent restaurant and was later hired by Le Cordon Bleu Paris to join the recipe development team. During this time, Klancy was featured on Food Network’s Recipe for Success in an episode about American culinary professionals in Paris. She has appeared in the New York Times Food section, on Food Network’s Recipe for Success and Cooking Channel’s Unique Sweets. She has written for Cherry Bombe, Bon Appetit, Food 52 and The Washington Post. When she’s not writing or cooking, Klancy takes hip-hop dance classes, throws waffle parties, obsesses about her next vacation, and searches for the perfect cookie.

Honey-Mustard Salmon with Vegetables

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard 1 teaspoon honey 1 medium carrot, trimmed and cut into 1/4 inch-thick slices (about 1/2 cup) 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion (from 1 small onion) 1 cup thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms 1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt 2 tablespoons olive oil 1/3 pound skin-on salmon fillet (about 1-inch thick) 1 teaspoon butter, cut into four pieces 3 shiso leaves, thinly sliced (alternatively, you could use mint or basil) Ingredients:

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a quarter sheet pan with parchment paper. In a small bowl, whisk together Dijon mustard and honey, set aside. In a medium bowl, toss together carrot slices, sliced onion and mushrooms, salt and olive oil. Place vegetable mixture on prepared sheet pan. Place salmon on top of sliced vegetables. Drizzle honey-mustard mixture on salmon. Place pieces of the butter on top of the vegetables. Bake until salmon is cooked to desired degree of doneness and vegetables are tender, 1618 minutes. Sprinkle shiso leaves on top and serve immediately.

Directions:

SavingGrace

Yvette Nicole Brown

She followed her dreams to Los Angeles to be a singer, but nearly 40 years later, Yvette Nicole Brown is limiting her singing to the shower. Instead, she found success in front of the camera as one of the most sought-after character actresses in Hollywood, thanks to memorable appearances on numerous commercials and TV shows, including "House," "Entourage," "The Office," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Two and a Half Men," "Malcolm in the Middle," "That’s So Raven," and "That

‘70s Show" as well as recurring roles on “Drake and

Josh”, "Girlfriends," and perhaps most notably as costar on NBC’s critically acclaimed cult hit series, Community in a cast that includes comedic great, Chevy

Chase, and Donald Glover and a successful TV run that made her a hot Hollywood commodity. In the seven years since the show’s 2015 finale,

Brown has worked non-stop, co-starring in a handful of TV series including “The Mayor”, “Mom” and “The

New Edition Story.” Presently, she stars alongside John Stamos in the

Disney+ TV series, Big Shot, about a temperamental basketball coach who is fired from his job at the University at Wisconsin and relocates to California to coach a girls’ basketball team at Westbrook School, an elite high school for girls where Brown serves as the no-nonsense dean. But Brown–who has four projects in the works–including voicing the role of Rosaleen in the star-studded cast of Disney’s Disenchanted with Amy Adams,

Patrick Dempsey, Maya Rudolph and James Marsden, is almost as successful as a voice actor with countless animated TV series to her credit, including DC League of Super-Pets, The Chicken Squad, DC Super Hero

Girls and The Loud House. Work has been so plentiful that she has had to hire an assistant to juggle the work, but that’s exactly the way the 51-year old actress likes it. “I like working. I like being creative. There is very little I say no to,” says the actress who recently guested on ABC’s The $100,000 Pyramid and has also announced that a “Community” movie is in the works. “I love everything about entertainment,” the Cleveland, Ohio said. Ironically, acting was not her first choice. Raised on Motown music, Brown initially believed she might be a singer. So just after high school at about 18 years of age, she found herself in the lobby of a hotel singing a cappella for Michael Bivens, New

Edition star turned Motown record executive who was at the time riding high on his discovery of Boyz II

Men. So impressed was Bivens that he not only signed Brown on the spot, but set out to manage her as well. Ironically, enough she would in 2017 play his

Mom in BET’s “The New Edition Story”. Brown sang for a bit and was even featured on the

Motown album, The East Coast Family Vol.1, which included the Top 20 single, "1-4-All-4-1" all the while attending the University of Akron. The plan was to graduate and then move to Los Angeles and pursue music full-time. But things didn’t work out quite that way.

“In between the time I was first signed to Motown and when I moved out here with the $500 I’d saved, the music industry changed. Everybody was getting naked and singing about stuff my mama would not be happy if I sang, so I ended up working at Motown instead. Singing”, Brown concluded, “was apparently not what the Lord had for me.”

But going home was just not an option for Brown. Instead, the decision marked the beginning of what she calls “the assistant route”, taking a series of jobs for MGM, MCA and even as a legal secretary for Showtime.

“It was while working as a legal secretary that I had this opportunity to go on the road with a David Talbert play as an actor and I said, ‘Ok, I’ll try it.’ I took a leave of absence for about nine months to a year. My boss at Showtime said ‘If you like it you can quit with our blessing. If you don’t like it, your job will be waiting.’ I was out there two weeks before calling them to say, ‘I love this.’ And I seemed to be good at it.”

Good was an understatement. Brown–who’d taken an acting class while in college– was a natural. Work in commercials for Pine Sol, Big Lots, Hamburger Helper led to success on episodic TV and before long feature film, where credits include the romantic comedy "Little Black Book" opposite Brittany Murphy and Kathy Bates; "Dreamgirls," "Meet Dave" starring Eddie Murphy, "Tropic Thunder," "Repo Men" with Jude Law and Forest Whitaker and "The Ugly Truth" with Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl.

“I believe when God has something for you, he opens doors for you and I think the purpose of music in my life back then was for me to make it to L.A.”

Fact is, Brown has excelled as character actress, fully embracing the term.

“Because that’s the type of actor that works forever. When you’re real pretty, you’ve got a shelf life. If you’re somewhat attractive but chubby, that pushes you into character acting and I’m okay with that,” said Brown. “I like being the funny girl.

And while she will forever be funny, the Emmy-nominated actress whose racked up 150 acting credits, is no longer the chubby one. After being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes and told she might lose her feet, the actress adopting a healthier lifestyle, changing her eating habits and exercising.

Over the summer, Brown toured with Queen Latifah’s It’s Bigger Than Me campaign to change the stigma surrounding weight.

“There's this idea that obesity is something that we've done to ourselves instead of it being a health issue, a disease, and it can be caused by your genes or your hormones,” Brown explains. “There's a lot of reasons why you could

be a little bit bigger than other people, and it's important to talk about it to those of us that are dealing with it – to say out loud that we're dealing with it –and then create a safe space for people to come and learn more about it so they can feel better in their own skin. “When they decided to talk about obesity being a disease, they thought I might be a great person to come on and talk about my experience.” Unlike many drawn by Hollywood’s bright lights, Brown believes to her core that the light now shining on her is so that she can shine it back on those who need help. “It’s never just about you,” says Brown, who has served on the board of the Screen Actors Guild and stays politically active. “I’m not one of these people in entertainment that believe I’m special, but I know everything good that has happened in my life is because of Jesus. It’s hard for me to have a conversation and not give God the glory because I see Him in everything. “I believe people who lose their way get wrapped up into thinking that there’s something about them that makes them worthy of the spotlight,” said Brown. “I don’t get that. How could you think that you’re worthy of people loving you to this degree? You have to know that there’s a reason for this and if someone wants to hear from me, I have to say something about what gives me this sense of peace or what’s important. What I think about things isn’t important, but what God thinks about things is. I think it’s happened for me because I have a heart for people and I’m an encourager.” Her saving grace, she says, is her faith. “The thing about faith is you’re taking a step on ground that you can’t see. It’s foolish because to people on the outside, and maybe even yourself, in hindsight, it’s crazy. But at the moment, you’re right at the place where God needs you. “I’m a big fan of gospel music so when I’m going through something, I’ll turn on a praise station and that feeds me. Also, I write down quotes that bless me. Quotes about keeping the faith and God’s goodness. It just grounds me. The Bible even says, ‘Think on these things,’ the things that are pure and wonderful. I feel like what you feed yourself is what comes out of you. So, if you feed your L.A. Focus /September 2022 self good stuff, good stuff will come out.” 22