Charlie Trotter famous quotes

03-28-2025

A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Food #Together #Cuisine
Chefs, as a whole, say yes to any project, fundraiser, or tasting because they have such a generous spirit.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Fundraising #Spirit #Chef
The art of cooking is among the most intimate things that we can do for another.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Art #Cooking #Intimate
Excellence is about fighting and pursuing something diligently, with a strict and determined approach to doing it right. It's okay if there are flaws in the process - it makes it more interesting.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Fighting #Interesting #Excellence
Always make stock in a large quantity and freeze it in plastic bags. That way, when you want to make a nice soup or boil veggies, you can simply pull the bag out of the freezer.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Nice #Bags #Soup
I never considered Miles Davis a perfectionist; I always considered him as an excellence-ist, where deviation is actually kind of cool.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Excellence #Kind #Perfectionist
I love faltering. I love, in a sense, coming up short. Because you learn nothing from success. You learn so much from failing.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Failing #Faltering
I wasnt using college as a stepping stone to law school or some other career. I just wanted a liberal-arts education.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Art #School #College
My parents couldnt be looser. It was the ultimate laissez faire upbringing.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Parent #Laissez Faire #Ultimate
If you want the meaning of families and life and religion and philosophy rolled into one package, all you need to read is The Brothers Karamazov.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Brother #Philosophy #Needs
It's a challenge to demonstrate that you can prepare some really interesting food with humble ingredients.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Humble #Interesting #Challenges
My fantasy is to have a restaurant where there are no written menus, but where you just ask people, What are you in the mood for? Fish? Meat? White wine?
-- Charlie Trotter

#Wine #White #People
I couldnt really relate to the fraternity or party scene, to the people out in the mall every day protesting one thing or another. I felt like there was no one I could relate to.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Party #People #Fraternity
One must know combinations, one must have a true knowledge of food to be in the moment.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Moments #Combination #True Knowledge
Well, I kind of think that the opposite is true. The customer is rarely right. And that is why you must seize the control of the circumstance and dominate every last detail: to guarantee that they're going to have a far better time than they ever would have had if they tried to control it themselves.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Thinking #Opposites #Details
I have always looked at it this way: If you strive like crazy for perfection - an all-out assault on total perfection - at the very least you will hit a high level of excellence, and then you might be able to sleep at night. To accomplish something truly significant, excellence has to become a life plan.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Crazy #Sleep #Night
You have to be critical of what you do every day, to analyze it and be willing to push it further.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Critical #Willing
Iâ€™m all about making money. Itâ€™s the greatest thing, because it means you get money to spend.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Mean #Get Money #Making Money
What I was reading was already part of my psyche, but finally someone else was saying it's okay to walk alone.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Book #Reading #Okay
Students need to learn how to think critically, how to argue opposing ideas. It is important for them to learn how to think. You can always cook.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Thinking #Ideas #Important
Fernand Point's philosophy instilled what cuisine is all about: generosity and hugeness of heart.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Philosophy #Heart #Generosity
Cuisine is only about making foods taste the way they are supposed to taste.
-- Charlie Trotter

#Food #Way #Taste

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