From battling mental illness to working security for The Rolling Stones, Mitch Omer has led an incredible life.  His love for good food and cooking kept him together through tough times, and he now runs a successful restaurant with a cult-like following. We caught up with Omer about his new cookbook, battling bi-polar disorder and his signature peanut butter recipe.

AndrewZimmern.com: Your first cookbook, Damn Good Food: 157 Recipes from Hell’s Kitchen, is part memoir, part cookbook.  Why was it important for you to tell your personal story within the context of recipes?

Mitch Omer: I’m bi-polar, with a side of obsessive-compulsive disorder and anal-retention and any other number of hyphenated maladies.  My life has been a cycle of hallucinatory highs, and suicidal lows.  My one comfort zone, before I was finally diagnosed and medicated was my love for food and cooking.  It always seemed to keep me level and focused (to some extent).  The book focuses on these struggles, sort of an “if-I-can-do-it-you-can-do-it” message with recipes.

AZ:  In the book, you talk about heading up well-respected kitchens, your drinking and drug use, gaining (then losing) over 200 lbs, falling in love, divorce, and mental illness.  It seems you’ve done and seen it all.  How have your experiences affected the way you cook and run your restaurant?

MO:  I’ve been in this business for more than 35 years, and have been fortunate enough to cook for, and cook with, some very incredible people like Jacques Pepin, Paula Wolfert, and Giuliano Bugialli, to name a few.  I got to study in Louis Szathmary’s library, and worked in some very good restaurants in Oklahoma, San Francisco, Boulder, Colorado and of course, Minneapolis. I have taken some knowledge from each experience and used it to guide me throughout the years.

AZ:  Who is your biggest influence in the kitchen?

MO: Depends on the kitchen.  At Hell’s Kitchen, it’s my partner, Steve Meyer. He’s a true line dog; day in and day out, on the hot line, orchestrating everything back of the house.  He’s the James Brown of restaurants, the hardest working man in food service.  I still take notes when I have dinner at my mother’s house, she’s still the best cook I know.  It’s hard to get anything done when you’re standing next to Jacques Pepin, all I can do is watch his hands.  The man’s as close to a deity as I can imagine; St. Jacques of Intimidation.

AZ:  You worked as a roadie for the Rolling Stones, Van Halen, Frank Zappa, and other huge rock and roll icons.  What’s your craziest story from the road?

MO:  I wasn’t a roadie, although they were great to hang out with.  I did security for all these guys.  Craziest story?  Getting stabbed at a Van Halen concert, having sex on the stage at Red Rocks amphitheater in Denver, playing softball with Journey, stealing props from Barry Manilow just to fuck with him (easily the biggest asshole to have to work for), and getting a beer bottle broken over my head, requiring 17 stitches, at Waylon Jennings show, then promptly kicking the shit out of the kid until I thought he was dead. Crazy?  Rock and Rolls defines crazy.

AZ:  Any apprehension about releasing your signature peanut butter recipe?

MO:  Not at all.  I’ve never held anything back, and I sure as hell didn’t do it for the cookbook.  No secret ingredients omitted.  Nothing.  Take the recipe, use it at home, plagiarize it for your own restaurant, change the ingredients to make it yours, I don’t care.  It’s a great product, and people will still continue to come to my restaurant to get it, and I’ll still be sending shipments of it to a few select troops in Iraq.

AZ:  Name your five favorite places to grab a bite in the Twin Cities.

MO:  Five is hard, this is a better restaurant city than most people can even imagine.  That being said, Tim McKee, and O.K., so he isn’t a restaurant, but he defines so much that is good in Minneapolis; Solera, La Belle Vie, Barrio, Smalleys, and Sea Change…who knows, there might be a few more. Tim’s food is eclectic, and borders on perfection. 

The Convention Grill has grilled hamburgers, not broiled (take that Burger King!), hand cut French fries, and true, thick malts and shakes. It just doesn’t get any better. 

Dulono’s at Lake and Lyndale, this Italian roadhouse makes my pizza my way; triple sausage, triple mushroom, and slightly overcooked.  I like it a little dark on top. I just tell them that it’s Mitch, and they know what to do.  Go to the motorcycle rallies the first Thursday of every month, it’s worth the show and well worth the food. 

Brasa. Personally, the aroma alone is worth going for. Spicy rotisserie chicken, boiled potatoes, and rice and beans, this is the one place topside that reminds me of Puerto Rico, my favorite and most visited vacation destination. 

Butcher Block in Northeast Minneapolis, they’re the new kids in town. A small, aggressive menu, but we go for the wings. I mean great wings! Screw Buffalo Wild Wings, their selection is incredible, and specials change daily. Who’d a thought a Snickers-type chicken wing would be so good, yes that Snickers, the candy bar. They advertise all the popular trend words with organic, grass-fed, and sustainable, but the food is great anyway. Tell Darin Koch that Mitch sent you.

AZ:  What’s in your fridge?

MO:  My fridge? Jeezus, my fridge shows the signs of manic-depression; 2% milk (about 5 months past its expiration date), homemade mustard, Japanese unagi (eel), assorted chicken wings (see Butcher Block), some kind of cheese (hard to tell through the mold), about 13 assorted barbeque and hot sauces, Kaliber n.a. beer, a veal loin, a half-eaten barbeque beef rib, Sevruga caviar, chorizo sausage, and grapefruit. One helluva food pyramid.

Mitch Omer is a wildly creative award-winning chef that hurled through most of his life setting fires, breaking limbs, drinking 24/7, getting fired, abusing drugs, gaining 200 pounds and barely avoiding suicide until he was finally diagnosed as bipolar.  His wild ride finally settled down enough to open a successful Minneapolis restaurant, lose 170 pounds, enjoy a sane marriage to his third wife and provide hope to others. "I've been fixed," he pouts as he glances at his crotch.  His first cookbook is the story of his survival intertwined with ALL the recipes that put Hell's Kitchen on the map.

 

Photo by DolceStudios.com