Chef Otto's Blog

Last week, on Friday the 13th I attended a fundraiser for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). Not that I am superstitious, but the pandemic of the coronavirus certainly factored on my decision to attend. To be one of 500 plus guests, in the chandeliered confines of a Marriot ballroom eating from a two-sided buffet featuring yard bird and mac & cheese doubled one’s chances of becoming contaminanted. Groups of 10 and the 6-foot rule be damned I decided to attend. I was obligated, for two reasons. One, I was part of the auction that evening raising funds for LLS. I

Twenty twenty, whenever I see or hear that repetitive numerical phrase, visual acuity comes to mind. The clarity or sharpness of vision. The Snellen chart, created by Dutch ophthalmologist Herman Snellen in 1862. The classic eye chart you see in the office of an optometrist determines what level of vision you have. The Snellen chart has 11 lines of block letters. The first line is simply one large letter, such as E, H, or N. Successive rows have increasing amounts of letters that decrease in size. Normal vision is 20/20. It simply means you can read a specific line on the chart at the distance of

I was raised in a town the size of a postage stamp. It wasn’t even a town but a township. Webster defines township “an organized subdivision of a county” Brownhelm Township is anything but unorganized. This small farming community, located 30 miles west of Cleveland and a skipping stone’s throw from the shore of Lake Erie, is one of the most organized communities in America even though you won’t find it in the Rand McNally Road Atlas.   During the Great Depression the leaders of this agricultural hamlet decided to get together and provide for everyone in the village who

Being raised on the subzero shores of Lake Erie I was virtually guaranteed a white Christmas. Old Man Winter would wallop lake effect snow gripping the Heartland with a slashing chill dissecting your marrow. Drifts as high as the tractor trailers that were stopped dead in their tracks on the Ohio Turnpike. Do you recall the Blizzard of 78? Some called it a white hurricane. I get frostbite just thinking about it. In 1980 I was a young gun, gung ho US Navy Sailor, the pride of the fleet. So imagine the thrill when I received my orders to the

Mole, that wonderful, deep, rich, multi layered intense sauce from south of the border is a complex, intoxicating potion. Its origin is mysterious as it’s spellbinding flavor. There are 32 states in Mexico, two of them lay claim to mole, Puebla, and Oaxaca. There is no absolute documented factual evidence how, when and where mole was created. Unlike other famous dishes, Peach Melba for example. That was created by Auguste Escoffier. He conceived it in 1892 or 1893 at the Savoy Hotel in London in honor of famed Australian soprano, Nellie Melba. Relatively recent history in the gastronomic timeline, Peach