Renowned Chicago chef Charlie Trotter died this morning. He was 54 years old. The foodie world will miss him, and those of us who are blind will, too. A post I wrote in 2011 explains. R.I.P., Charlie.

Her specialty is risotto

by Beth Finke

Published October 25, 2011

That's Laura Martinez of Charlie Trotter's.

And, oh yeah. Laura Martinez just happens to be blind.

In her spare time (!) Laura teaches a cooking class at Friedman Place, a non-profit Supportive Living Community for Chicago adults who are blind and visually impaired. Laura doesn’t live at Friedman Place, but she was there last Thursday when I visited to give a presentation about my writing life. The Friedman Place web site promotes the full range of services and activities they provide “so that residents’ days are healthy, dignified, and stimulating.” While I am confident Laura’s cooking class keeps Friedman Place residents dignified and stimulated, I can’t vouch for the “healthy” bit: she served her signature brownies to residents during my presentation, and the luscious chocolaty treats were downright sinful!

I had a chance to talk with Laura before she skedaddled to her day job, and she told me co-workers on the line at Charlie Trotter’s have become comfortable having her there prepping, cleaning and chopping the food. I asked if she had a specialty. “Well, a lot of vegetarians come to Charlie Trotter’s,” she said,her voice betraying a proud smile. “They like my vegetable risotto.”

Renowned Chicago chef Charlie Trotter first met Laura a few years ago during a visit to the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. Laura had been working in the Lighthouse cafeteria kitchen at the time, and it was love at first taste. Charlie is quoted in an article in the Chicago Tribune about Laura:

“I was watching her work and saw how she handled things with her hands, touching for temperature and doneness, and I ate her food and it was quite delicious. We got to talking and she told me about her dreams and I said, ‘What would you think about working at Charlie Trotter’s?'”

Laura was still attending the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu culinary program at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago at the time. Charlie Trotter offered to help with her tuition, and Laura has been working for him ever since.

The staff and residents at Friedman Place absolutely gushed over the presentation I gave with Harper last Thursday, so many of them shaking my hand and encouraging me to return with my new dog next year. I am flattered, of course, but I’m not fooling myself: I’m pretty sure they think they’ll get Laura’s brownies again if I come back.

A portrait of me from Charlie’s Fade to White project.

Remember Charlie Simokaitis? Charlie is a commercial photographer, and a while back I published a blog post about a project he took on honoring his teenage daughter. Faye has a deteriorating eye condition that will soon leave her completely blind, and she was the inspiration for Fade to White, a compilation of portraits Charlie took of people who have visual impairments or are blind.

I learned about a new project Charlie is working on when he left a comment to the post I wrote last month about my friend Jamie Ceaser’s new public television show. His guest post explains:

Finding One’s Voice on Local, USA

by Charlie Simokaitis

Last year I teamed up with fellow photographer Jason Creps to start a filmmaking company called Groundfire Pictures. Up until then, we both were primarily shooting still photography for our own advertising, design and music industry clients. We got the idea for Groundfire Pictures after I spent time photographing a food pantry/community kitchen at Ravenswood Community Services for a piece my friend Anne Ford was writing. During the photo shoot she told me about The Chicagoans, a column she writes for an alternative newspaper in Chicago called The Reader. The column tells stories of everyday people who live in and around the Windy City, and she wanted to sta

Mae Ya

rt incorporating video with the interviews. My filmmaking career was born: Groundfire Pictures has produced 12 episodes for TheChicagoans.tv already, with more to come.

Word about our work got around, and we were approached by producer Jamie Ceaser to participate in a new public TV series called Local, USA. I follow Beth’s blog, and when I read a post here last month saying that Jamie was in Beth’s book club, I was like, “small world!”

Jamie produces Local, USA for public TV, and our short film airs this week as part of the Finding Ones Voice episode. Our film tells the story of singer/protégé Mae Ya Carter Ryan, a young woman Wise beyond her eleven years. Mae Ya is a fascinating subject, and her mother and manager, Ina, is pure warmth. The day we shot in their Bronzeville home, Ina invited the entire crew for an enormous breakfast. And whoa, her little girl sure can sing. An excerpt from The Chicagoans column my friend Anne Ford wrote about Mae Ya mentions her musical mentor, Bruce Thompson. Thompson is a Baptist minister who played with Isaac Hayes, and his review gives you an idea of what makes young Mae Ya so special:

Thompson, who met the famous gospel singer many times, says it’s no coincidence that some people who’ve heard Mae Ya sing have called her “little Mahalia. I am not supposed to believe in reincarnation,” he says. “But I believe that that’s Mahalia Jackson in that little body. It’s the richness of her voice. She has such good control over it.”

Then there’s the familiar transformation Thompson says he’s witnessed in Mae Ya: “If you say, ‘Sing,’ right before she does it, she stops being a little girl and becomes that song. You can see it happening. That’s another thing she does like Mahalia.”

Chicago-based Ebony Magazine invited Mae Ya to sing at New York’s Lincoln Center for tomorrow night’s salute to Berry Gordy, Jr. Her mom says the invite came, in part, due to people at the magazine seeing the Groundfire Pictures video. What an honor. For all of us.

Beth here. If you don’t have tickets to Lincoln Center, don’t fret: You can see – and,more importantly, hear — Mae Ya on public TV tomorrow night from the comfort of your own home. Charlie’s  Finding Ones Voice episode on Local, USA airs tomorrow night, November 4, on World Channel, and Chicagoans can tune in for a re-broadcast on WTTW, Channel 11, this Thursday, November 7 at 11 p.m., too. Charlie and Jamie are two very talented artists who sincerely care about people — I know this TV show will not disappoint.

That’s us at the Drummond Thomas Montessori school, one of several gigs last week.

Whitney and I visited four different classes at Drummond Thomas Montessori School in Chicago last Wednesday morning. After I told one class that even when my eyes are open, all I see is the color black, one preschooler wondered, “Then how do you know when you’re tired?”

I can tell you this much: I’m pretty tired right now! Stimulated, too –Whitney and I traveled nearly 500 miles last week giving presentations everywhere from Central Illinois to Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

• Tuesday we were in Champaign, Ill., giving a guest lecture in an animal sciences class at the University of Illinois
• Wednesday we were at that Montessori School
• Thursday we spoke to students enrolled in a disability studies class at DePaul University here in Chicago
• Friday we took an Amtrak train to Milwaukee to give the keynote and lead a workshop for an organization called Vision Forward

That Vision Forward conference is all about kids in the public schools who are blind. Many of their parents, some grandparents, and teachers and other staff members who work with them attended the writing workshop I gave after my keynote. These folks hav a lot to say, and I hope the workshop encouraged them to get some of their thoughts down on paper. It’s amazing how therapeutic writing can be.

Oh, and about the keynote: I ended it with that seven-minute Good Stuff video. If you’ve seen What’s it Like to Go Blind? you might recall the part where there’s a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces on the screen? One mom came up afterwards to compliment the visuals and ask for the YouTube address. “We have such trouble explaining what our daughter’s vision is like,” she said. “Those missing puzzle pieces, that’s a perfect way to describe it.”

I signed books after my keynote and workshop were over, and it was no surprise that we sold more Braille copies of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound than print ones.

While a 9-year-old who is blind waited for me to Braille my name into his book, he asked a question about Whitney’s harness. I took it off, let Simon check it out firsthand. He returned it when he was done, and before I buckled it back on, I asked, “You want to pet her?” He sure did, and Whitney wriggled and wagged and kissed Simon in return. Don’t look now, but I think we have a future guide dog user on our hands.

Whitney and I had a lot of fun and made a lot of new friends last week, and now that we’re home, you know what? Somehow, someway, even without being able to see, I know we’re both tired!

I met Ryan Hartigan While I was training with Whitney. Ryan is the Online Media Specialist at the Seeing Eye, and he interviewed Whitney and me along with a few other guide dog teams for a one-minute video to promote the school.

Ryan and his wife Sarah volunteer as puppy raisers for the Seeing Eye, too, and right now they’re raising Ike. Ryan sent me an email the other day to report on Ike’s progress, and he agreed to let me share that note as a guest blog post.

A dog with good taste

by Ryan Hartigan

That’s Ike. He just ate my book up.

Apparently the shepherd puppy we’re raising really wanted to remind us about you. This was just too funny and ironic, and I had to pass it along.

Ike, the 11-month-old shepherd we’re raising, is not a destructive dog. Last Sunday, I got up and took Vinny, Watson and Ike out, fed them, made coffee and settled on the couch while the dogs took an extended nap with Sarah.

A while later, I heard Sarah saying, “What did you do?” Ike walks into the living room with a book in his mouth, neatly chewed round at each corner, all the way through, but still entirely readable. I told him to drop it, which he did, only to reveal the title: Long Time, No See. I was floored!

First of all, this wasn’t a setup. I assure you. Ike has never messed with books, magazines or anything similar. My wife keeps a stack of books on her nightstand (probably eight or ten books) so at some point during their nap, Ike carefully selected your book to be customized by a Seeing Eye puppy! We still can’t believe it!

Hope Ike hasn’t offended your writing too much. I like to think he chose your book because it is so good. I have saved the book. It’s readable, and the way I look at it, Ike has made your story even more fantastic!

My book club pick was a flop. Maybe because everyone else read it in print, and I got to hear Academy Award winner Rita Moreno read the audio version? When all was said and done, the only member who liked Sonia Sotomayor’s My Beloved World as much as I did was Jamie Ceaser.

Always knew that Jamie woman had good taste.

Award-winning producer Jamie Ceaser.

When Jamie isn’t reading fascinating books like My Beloved World, she’s busy putting videos and films together. She’s been producing shows for Chicago’s public TV station WTTW for years, and one of her latest productions debuts nationally tonight. Local, USA is a weekly 30-minute compilation of stories produced by independent producers, content creators, and public television stations across the country. Jamie and her co-producer Eddie Griffin have already put 13 Local, USA episodes together, each one exploring a particular theme. It’s a busy time for Jamie, but she was kind enough to answer a few questions about Local, USA for my blog readers.

• Me: How’d you get involved in Local, USA?
• Jamie: V.J. McAleer — He’s Senior Vice President of Production at WTTW — got approached by WGBH in Boston about working with them on a new show. VJ is my boss, and my biggest advocate, too. He called when I was in Florida on a Tuesday and said we’d need a proposal by Friday. So I tanned and wrote.
• Me: Are you doing it all by yourself?
• Jamie: I’m co-producing it with Ed Griffin. Maggie Ness is associate producer.
• You drive me to book club sometimes, and I always love hearing about your work during those drives. You’ve produced programs on everyone from Abraham Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd to baseball icon Bill Veeck. What makes this project different from other ones you’ve produced?
• Jamie: Well, To be honest, this project does bring back memories of something I’ve done before: my first show at WTTW. That was Image Union, also a show for independent producers. But it was way back–way before youtube and iPhones and Quicktime and even DVDs.
• Me: How were things different then?
• Jamie: Films would come on 16 mm reels or videos in VHS cases. Local, USA may end up being a similar show, but the technology has changed so much. Now people send weblinks to screen their films and videos., And i can screen all of the shows I’ve produced so far — on my iPhone!
• Me: What do producers do?
• Jamie: Production can mean a lot of different things – it all depends on the type of show you’re working on, and the studio where you’re working. Show development, researching, interviewing people, shooting, editing, or even gentle coercion — production includes whatever you need to do to get the project completed.
• Me: So what did you have to do to get this one completed?
• Jamie: For this program, basically, we’re screening videos, logging them and cataloging them by theme and seeing what works together organically. After that we script the show and videotape the hosts on location.
• Me: Who are the hosts?
• Jamie: Niccole Thurman, a performer from Second City, and Evan Allen-Gessesse, an independent producer.
• Me: How long did it take to put these episodes together?
• Jamie: It was a lightning-fast season — we started in March and finished 13 shows by the end of June. That’s a pretty quick production schedule.
• Me: What can viewers look forward to on the first episode this week?
• Jamie: The first show has four stories about times gone by.
• Me: Any favorites?
• Jamie: My favorite one is produced by a teenager. It’s about his grandfather with Alzheimer’s Disease. He intercuts old family films to link his father’s early memories with his grandfather, and those memories aren’t available to his grandfather any more. It’s very poignant and sweet.

Jamie says the first season (13 shows) focuses on human interest stories and art pieces. “The shows we’re working on right now are more social justice-oriented.” Local, USA debuts on The World Channel tonight, October 21, at 9:00 p.m. Central Time and will continue to air on Monday nights after that, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Blog readers who live in the Chicago area can also tune in to WTTW Channel 11 to catch it on Thursday nights at 11:00 p.m.