Charlie Trotter can walk on his hands. Around midnight last Saturday he suddenly flipped over and began strolling upside down through his house. It was that kind of night. The world's greatest chefs had come to help him celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his restaurant with a $5000 multi-course meal for charity. You'll read about that everywhere. But the celebration Charlie threw for the chefs the night before the big event was the best party I've been to all year. "Why did you come?" I asked Ferran Adrià. "For love," he said, thumping his chest with his fist. "I don't do this, ever, for anyone. But Charlie—I would do anything for him." Heston Blumenthal said much the same thing: "Charlie has done so much for cooking. But I don't just respect the man; I feel a real heart connection with him." Between enthusiastic discussions of his new deconstructed cakes, Pierre Herme echoed the others. Meanwhile Wylie Dufresne was turning out magical creations (my favorite, little bite-sized bits that dissolved into Eggs Benedict in your mouth) and Michael McDonald was cooking lobster and beef on hot rocks. Harold McGee was doling out advice. Up on the roof Priscila Satkoff was cooking irresistible Mexican food. It was pure summer in October, the mood so exuberant that when Charlie walked on his hands, Chicago Tribune reporter Monica Eng began turning cartwheels.
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