Style Readers Sound Off on Their Favorite Local Restaurants
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Featuring Food Network’s own retro rad diva, Emily Ellyn COOK LIKE A CHEF Sharpen your skills in the kitchen with some delicious recipes. 2014 WHERE SHOULD WE EAT? January Style readers sound off on their favorite local restaurants. The Issue JanuaryJJaJannuauaruarary 2014201202014010144 I 1 contJanuary 2014 // VOLUME 11 NUMBER 3 Featuring MIXING IT UP WITH EMILY ELLYN 36 Emily Ellyn is the home economics teacher you wish you had in school. She may be known as a fi nalist on Season 8 of Food Network’s “Food Network Star” but she’s been blazing her own trail in the culinary world. Talking about everything from her retro rad style to her skills as chef, Ellyn sat down with Style to dish about her life, her food, and her future. STORY: SHEMIR WILES 42 COOK LIKE A CHEF Everyone has a dish that’s near and dear. Five local “chefs” hit the kitchen to prepare and share favorite recipes that may soon fi nd their way into your personal recipe book. STORY: SHEMIR WILES 48 WHERE SHOULD WE EAT? Instead of telling you about the hottest places to dine in Lake and Sumter counties, we turned the tables and allowed you, our readers, to be the authorities to tell us your favorites. LADY LAKE: TOWN OF LAKES AND SUNSHINE 56 From a stagecoach stop to the birthplace of The Villages, Lady Lake has weathered many changes. Keeping its own identity hasn’t always been easy, but it still retains its small town charm. And no history of Lady Lake can be complete without mention- ing The Villages. STORY: MARY ANN DESANTIS 42 LAKE & SUMTER EDITION VILLAGES EDITION On the cover On the cover MODEL: EMILY ELLYN MODEL: DR. KIM IRELAND DIRECTION: JAMIE EZRA MARK DIRECTION: JAMIE EZRA MARK PHOTOGRAPHY: FRED LOPEZ PHOTOGRAPHY: FRED LOPEZ PHOTOSHOP: JOSH CLARK PHOTOSHOP: JOSH CLARK HAIR: BRIANNE CONNELLY, CAL’S BARBER AND BEAUTY, SPANISH SPRINGS SQUARE MAKEUP: MARY MACMILLAN, ESTEE LAUDER AT BELK’S, LEESBURG January 2014 I 13 MIXING IT UP WITH EMILY ELLYNWith her infectious personality and unique style, it’s no wonder Emily Ellyn captured the hearts of viewers when she appeared as a fi nalist on season eight of Food Network’s “Food Network Star.” Since that time, she continues to use her platform as a way to share her love for taking traditional dishes and remixing them — Retro Rad style. Between events, Emily made the haul over from Orlando and talked with Style about her life, her food, and her plans for the future. STORY: SHEMIR WILES PHOTOS: FRED LOPEZ+PROVIDED 36 I lakeandsumter .com Lake & Sumter Style: Emily, thank you so much for participating in our food issue. We consider it an honor. Emily Ellyn: It’s no problem. I’m happy to be a part of it. Style: A lot of people may know you from Food Network’s “Food Network Star,” but many might not know much about you as a person. Tell me a little about where you grew up. Emily: I grew up on a Christmas tree farm in the small town of Mantua, Ohio. Along with my sister (and constant childhood companion), we explored and experimented our way through our country childhood — raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows, donkeys, and horses. We also learned to plant, pick, process, and pickle at an early age. Each year we hoped to beat the previous years’ preserving records, and in fact, last year was a record year. My sister and I canned and froze more than 800 quarts of produce. Style: Wow! That’s impressive. I would imagine raising your own animals, planting your own produce, and making your own preserves as a child had a major infl uence on your love for cooking. Emily: It did. My family grew and raised nearly everything we ate. We cooked nearly every meal and would sit down around the dinner table together to celebrate the food we grew and harvested. As a result, I know where things come from — I lived and breathed the process from seed to table! As a toddler on the farm, I would follow the Christmas tree planter and stomp the soil around the baby tree saplings. I teethed on spring onions from the garden. I could kill and dress a chicken by the age of 5. I am what I January 2014 I 37 eat and understand food pack up a carry-on suitcase ice creams, stinky tofu, while I was a great student as being a fundamental and fl y off to an unknown fried chicken, and noodles. and chef, I should be out part of life. I understand country. By the time I left And the food stalls in the of the kitchen and in the raw ingredients and how home to attend the Culinary shopping centers are really “front of the house” where to prepare them so it is Institute of America, I had interesting with shops I would be working directly now more interesting for visited and eaten my way specializing in teas, candies, with the people. I was also me to teach that part of the through 13 countries. noodles, dried meats and continually encouraged to go process and focus on some You are always trying fi sh, and spices. I could into teaching. of the other elements like something new to eat when seriously eat six meals a creatively remixing recipes. you travel, so of course this day and snack nonstop in Style: Do you think your had some infl uence on my between. experience as a teacher’s aide Style: I also understand cooking and taste. at CIA also made you want traveling with your family Style: So it seems like to teach? was also a major infl uence Style: Out of the 13 between your traveling and on your cooking. countries you visited, which home life, working with food Emily: Totally! I really was your favorite? seemed to be your destiny. felt like I was good at it. I Emily: My parents knew I was inspiring my believed that traveling was Emily: I have to say I Emily: From the time I students and it was easy and an essential component really enjoyed Taiwan. The could fi re up the stove, I was satisfying to share in my of education and life. street food is divine with cooking, planning parties, greatest passion. Plus, it was Therefore, every year, each fresh produce, interesting and taking care of the an extension of my natural member of my family would seafood, mile-high soft serve seemingly endless parade desire to help people. of people that trooped through our kitchen. Not Style: Now let’s switch surprisingly, this fueled the gears and talk about idea that I was destined to appearing on “Food Network be in the hospitality industry Star.” How did that come from birth. about? Style: You earned your Emily: Well, I was working bachelor’s degree in at Sublime Doughnuts restaurant management in Atlanta at the time to at the Culinary Institute help expand the doughnut of America (CIA) in New shop into an international York. Then you went franchise. I walked into on to earn two master’s the shop at 4:30a.m. one degrees — one from the morning and everyone Academie Internationale was standing around with de Management in Paris Cheshire cat grins on their and one from University faces. They handed me a of Central Florida’s Rosen packet of papers and said I College of Hospitality and was going to Washington, Management in Orlando. D.C. I quickly responded, Now I hear you’re fi nishing “I’m not going to D.C. to your Ph.D. in food service deliver doughnuts. I’m a education. What has been terrible driver and they the biggest thing you’ve won’t make it there!” Then learned while in school? they all said, “You’re not going to deliver doughnuts, Emily: What really you are going to D.C. to resonated with me because become the next Food I heard it so often was that Network star!” 38 I lakeandsumter .com It was an open casting call. I walked the “Fan Favorite” episode featuring in, put my name on the list, read over Lance Bass from ‘N Sync. The cool twist the paper work, and before I knew it, was I joined with her to assist in her my name was called and I was sitting third-time win. in front of one of the talent scouts. I was We fl ew to Los Angeles and asked within fi ve minutes to come back competed in a show that airs for one the next day with a cooked dish and episode. Amazingly, they had us build demo. I did and they said I would be a set, create specialty cupcakes using called back, which I was to interview secret ingredients, and then for the with Food Network personality Alton fi nal challenge we had to bake 1,000 Brown. And the rest is history. cupcakes. I still have a little P.T.S.D. when I see a cupcake. We worked hard Style: That must have been an amazing for that win! feeling to be picked for such a widely FROM SOUP TO NUTS popular show. What was it like being on Style: Sounds like it. Now Since your such a highly competitive show? time on Food Network, you have been FULL NAME: Emily Ellyn doing a lot of traveling attending trade SPECIAL NICKNAME: My family calls me Emily: Fifteen adults living in tight shows, performing cooking demos, quarters, not sleeping much, asked to and hosting special events.