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Dreams 2/20/04 two, for Charlie Trotter 11/5/13

Janet Kuypers
started 2/20/04, edited 11/5/13
for Charlie Trotter, 9/8/59 - 11/5/13

I apparently was working
in downtown Chicago again,
and it was night time
and me and a coworker
got to the building we worked in.
The building was locked,
but we worked there,
we must have had keys or something,
and that’s when the coworker said,
“There’s a fire on the fourteenth floor,
we can’t go in.”
And I couldn’t see any fire —
how did this lady even know
there was a fire?
But she left,
so I walked away with her.

We were walking through downtown
so we could get to our train stations,
and knowing I had an over-hour long
train ride home, it was nice
to have someone to talk to...

And as we were walking through downtown,
I started talking about
things in Chicago I remembered.
I mentioned that
there was a building on Wacker Drive,
north of Randolph or Lake,
in that east-west curve
before it goes north again,
and the building had huge windows,
a few stories tall,
and they had the huge statues in their lobby.
And I remembered that at Christmas time
the people from the building would put
huge Santa caps on these tall statues
for everyone to see while they walked to work.

And then for some reason I talked about
meeting Charlie Trotter at my old job,
he spoke at our trade show we created.
I was sitting at the front counter
before the show started,
so to pass the time
I was re-reading the Ayn Rand book
‘Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal.’
Well, he stopped me when he saw
that book and he started
talking to me about Ayn Rand —
he even had audio cassettes of her lectures
that he said I could borrow, but I never
met up with him after that trade show,
and even though I spent an arm and a leg
to have dinner at Trotter’s restaurant
once, I never got the chance
to see him there and even ask
about those stupid lecture cassettes.
Then he closed down his restaurant
so he could get a masters in philosophy,
and I thought, that’s amazing,
to be such a successful and well-known chef,
and just stop working
to study philosophy...
Maybe I should have had out
my Ayn Rand Book “Philosophy:
Who Needs It?” when Charlie Trotter
stopped me, but it’s cool to think
that on some levels,
when it comes to philosophy
or when it comes to books,
we may both be on the same page.
so I said yeah, he was
a really well-known chef,
I mean, Emeril Lagasse was there
at our trade show too,
but this was before
he had his own show or anything...
But you know, as I was
talking to her, that reminded me
that at one of our trade shows
in New Orleans, Emeril Lagasse gave us
a dinner at his restaurant Nola’s.
I thought the name “Nola” was
Emeril Lagasse’s wife’s name
(until I was reminded that
New Orleans Louisiana is NOLA).
So much for naming your restaurant
after your wife, I suppose.
I mean, it’s not like Charlie Trotter
named his restaurant after his wife
or anything... But now that I recall,
Trotter’s is the only restaurant
I’ve ever been to where they
pair a different wine
with each of your upwards of
ten courses for dinner.
I mean, Wine Spectator magazine
even called Trotter’s the best
restaurant in the nation.

So okay, I chose to spend that money
for dinner at Charlie Trotter’s.
And okay, maybe it was worth
an arm and a leg.

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