Biography
A graduate of New Trier High School, Trotter started cooking professionally in 1982 after earning a degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. For the next 5 years, he worked and studied in Chicago, San Francisco at the California Culinary Academy, Florida and Europe. In February 2010, Trotter married longtime girlfriend Rochelle Smith. who is now also his publicist; his first marriage, which ended in divorce, produced a son, Dylan.
Charlie Trotter was the host of the 1999 PBS cooking show The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter in which he details his recipes and cooking techniques. He likens cooking to an improvisational jazz session in that as two riffs will never be the same, so too with food. He has also written 14 cookbooks, three management books and has a line of organic and all natural gourmet foods distributed nationally.
Trotter is involved with his philanthropic Charlie Trotter Culinary Education Foundation and other causes. He was awarded the Humanitarian of the Year award in 2005 by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. He invites groups of public high school students into his restaurant as part of his Excellence Program 2 to 3 times per week: they eat a meal and are told how the food was prepared and the motivations of those preparing it.
Trotter also is unusual among celebrity chefs for his outspokenness in matters of ethics, most famously when he took foie gras off the menu in 2002 for ethical reasons.
Charlie Trotter made a cameo appearance in the 1997 film My Best Friend's Wedding, screaming at an assistant "I will kill your whole family if you don't get this right! I need this perfect!" a parody of a stereotypical screaming angry chef.
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