Will speak at Hill Library May 20
Hill’s real-life CSI investigator underwent ‘trial by blowtorch’
by Len Lear and Joan Forde

Chestnut Hill native Anna Dhody is curator of the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians, an expert in forensic anthropology and a consultant for two television shows on the Fox network, Bones and House.

Anna Dhody, 34, who grew up in Chestnut Hill and graduated from Springside School in 1993 (and received Springside’s “Outstanding Young Alumni Award” last year), is a real-life CSI forensic investigator. But while the beautiful men and women on the multiple CSI shows as well as Bones, Cold Case Files and other TV shows seem to have glamorous jobs, real life is quite different.

“I don’t even watch the shows because I get so frustrated,” said Dhody last Friday. “On TV they get to wear great clothes to crime scenes — black pants, stiletto heels, etc. And they solve the cases in less than an hour. It’s become a problem with real-life juries who have to be re-programmed about what this kind of work is really like.”

Dhody’s most dramatic real-life experience with the anything-but-glamorous work involved examining corpses produced by violence took place in 2003. Dhody traveled to Peru to work with the United Nations in identifying the remains of some of the estimated 69,000 “Desaparecidos” murdered by the former Peruvian government and the Shining Path guerrillas between 1980 and 2000. While in Peru, Ms. Dhody taught human osteology and forensic anthropology to the employees of the Public Ministry and also performed analysis on many of the found human remains.

“It is a sight to behold,” she explained, “when you walk into a building and there are 200 bodies in body bags stacked up to the ceiling, and you have to examine them all. It is not pleasant. I was so busy with the work that it covered up the fact that I was emotionally numb. Otherwise, I could not have done it. I had to recoup when I got back home.”

Executive chef Dan O’Hara was born 23 years ago in Chestnut Hill Hospital.

Dan O’Hara, who was born in Chestnut Hill Hospital 23 years ago, definitely has big shoes to fill (but Dan is 6-foot-4 and was a star wide receiver at Westlake High School in Maryland, so his feet are big enough to fill almost any shoes). Last August, Dan was named executive chef at Bliss, located in the historic Bellevue building at 220-224 S. Broad St.

The shoes (and shows) Dan had to fill were those of South Philadelphia native Francesco Martorella, who opened Bliss in October, 2003, and who co-owned it with Philadelphia Flyers owner, Ed Snider. Martorella had helmed several upscale restaurants in the area such as Brasserie Perrier and the restaurants in the Four Seasons Hotel and Ritz Carlton Hotel. He has been called “America’s Super Chef” by Food & Wine magazine, and his cuisine was described by Gourmet magazine as “a cookery course in a capsule.”

“I know Martorella was a great chef,” said Bliss’ new owner, Chris Dhimitri, “and Dan may be young, but he is a very talented chef also. I’ll put Dan’s cooking up against anybody’s.”

Youthful choirs are superb at Chestnut Hill church concert
by MICHAEL CARUSO

Sunday evening’s concert by the American Boychoir in the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill was fascinating for several distinct reasons. First, there was the incredibly high quality of the singing of this Princeton-based choir of 48 trebles, altos and tenors drawn from across the country and even around the world. Second, there was the impressively broad variety of music the choir sang so beautifully and expressively. And third, there was the nothing-short-of-amazing difference in timbral color between the sound of the American Boychoir and that of the Motet Choir of the Pennsylvania Girlchoir, which is in residence at the church and which took part in the performance.

Ron and Bev Loux have opened the Poppy’s Seed Bakery in the Chestnut Hill Farmers Market, right across from Neidermyer’s Poultry. In the center is their granddaughter, Amanda Yoder. (Photo by Paula Riley)

Ron Loux worked at Neidermyer’s Poultry in the Chestnut Hill Farmer’s Market every Saturday for nine years. He got to know many Hillers and loved the atmosphere of the marketplace. Loux was frequently asked by his customers if there was a bakery in the market.