American Chef and Restaurateur. A graduate of New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, Trotter started cooking professionally in 1982 after earning a degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. For five years after college, he worked and studied in Chicago, San Francisco (at the California Culinary Academy), Florida and Europe. 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 and three management books, and has promoted a line of organic and all-natural gourmet foods distributed nationally. Trotter was 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 invited groups of public high school students into his restaurant as part of his Excellence Program two to three times per week: after eating a meal, the students were told how the food was prepared and the motivations of those preparing it. Trotter also was 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. However, Trotter refused to be associated with animal rights groups,[citation needed] stating, "These people are idiots. Understand my position: I have nothing to do with a group like that. I think they're pathetic." 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.