For California native and chef extraordinaire Whitney Otawka, the road toward a professional cooking career in the South took several fascinating twists and turns. While she attended the University of California, Berkeley, the then anthropology student and admitted Francophile took a kitchen job at a local, traditional crêperie. What started as a way for Whitney to enjoy and further explore notable French cuisine lit a match of curiosity for all things culinary. As one of just two people in the tiny kitchen—the other being the owner, a native Frenchman—Whitney found herself under his wing as his apprentice, learning anything and everything.
“We’d cook dinner and eat together at the end of each day,” she says. “He showed real kindness to me and took the time to
