Remembering Chef Charlie Trotter

We are saddened by the sudden loss of chef and author Charlie Trotter who passed away on Tuesday the 5th of November.

I will remember Charlie Trotter mainly as a teacher, using his Public Television Service cooking show, The Kitchen Sessions With Charlie Trotter as a platform to showcase his innovative style of food with added touches that shed a light on his quirky personality and his love of the jazz form: not just as a genre of music but a principal for how he approached food.

The series ran in 1999 and by the time I got around to watching it all the way through in 2000 my life had come to a simmer.

Trotter's cuisine and his remarkable imagination allowed me to re-imagine food in ways I never knew were possible.

By then I had discovered Ruhlman, had dated and lived with a few cooks, had read about Thomas Keller and then the rest is, as they say, history.

Trotter was there from the very beginning, with his wire-rimmed glasses, his beloved City of Big Shoulders, his brash modern jazz; his nerdy, almost nebbish quiet and his elegant, beautiful, genius food.

Rest in peace, chef.