I ate while Omer talked.
He went to Iowa State on a football scholarship, but walked off the field one day when he realized he hated the sport. Then he hitchhiked around the country for a while, landing in Oklahoma and marrying at the age of 21. He and his 16-year-old bride moved to the Twin Cities, looking for work. He got a job as a prep cook and sent away for a clergy license from the back of Rolling Stone, becoming a minister with the Church of Mother Earth so he could perform wedding ceremonies on the side.
An explosive employee who was fired repeatedly, Omer partied hard and fought with his young wife. When they divorced in the late 1970s, he took a job as a security guard with traveling rock bands. The life suited him. He got to see the country, and the drugs were good. Somewhere along the line, he got married for a second time and had three children. But instead of settling down, Omer just got wilder.
Then came the Waylon Jennings tour of 1981. Omer found a concertgoer trying to steal some of the band's equipment. At roughly 300 pounds, Omer easily could have restrained him; instead, he kicked the kid nearly to death.
"That's when I knew I had to quit." I paused, spoon midway to my mouth. There were tears in this huge stranger's eyes and he reached out to touch my hand. "I was out of control. I was hurting people, and I didn't know why."
So Omer moved his family back to Minneapolis and went back to kitchen work because it was all he knew. But this time, he landed at the New French CafC) -- arguably the city's best restaurant at the time -- and the head chef there quickly realized Omer had talent. Suddenly, he said, he was "lit on fire to cook." And all was good for about a year. But then his behavior deteriorated again, his second marriage ended. Omer was fired from the only job he'd ever loved.
Lonely and broke, he began eating compulsively and gained 150 pounds. Morbidly obese, he moved to northern Minnesota, where he passed years working as a short-order cook and nighttime radio DJ. Mornings he would take saunas then run naked through the frozen forest, his long hair streaming behind him. Eventually, he quit at the request of law enforcement: skiers who spotted him kept reporting that they'd seen Sasquatch.
By then, my porridge was mostly gone and finally, I couldn't eat any more. But also, I was beginning to think this man might make a good story after all.
"So how did you get from there to here?" I asked.
"Two things," he boomed. "I went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me as bipolar with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. And I had gastric bypass." Though the irony inherent in a starving chef was not lost on Omer, food -- more specifically, food in excess -- had been the constant through his loveliest highs and vilest lows. And so, in 1999 he underwent the procedure, and immediately lost 165 pounds. And once he was normal size again -- or what passes for it when you're a hair over 6-foot-4 -- and on a cocktail of drugs that successfully controlled his moods, he got a new chef job, a good one. Then he met Cynthia.
"You gotta talk to her! She's the best thing that's ever happened to me. And she's a monster of a businesswoman. It's because of her that I have...," he opened his arms wide, "this."
So I did. The following day I met Cynthia Gerdes, founder of Creative Kidstuff -- a $10 million Minneapolis toy company -- for a glass of wine. And she started telling the story where Omer had left off: In 2000, she was married with two children and a thriving business, but she wasn't happy.
"Oh, my first husband was a wonderful man." A small, round woman with curly, dark hair, Gerdes ate a green salad entirely with her fingers. "But we were so mismatched. I'm all crazy and tons of energy and totally ADHD, and he was just ... not."
She decided to divorce around the same time Omer posted a personal ad on AOL. Gerdes logged on, contacted him, and the two were engaged within months. "I said in my first note to him that I was looking for someone who was sane and insane at the same time." She rolled her eyes and laughed loudly. "Boy, did I ask for it!"
They married in 2001. Omer cleaned up and began slowly to repair his troubled relationships with his kids. Then, in 2002, he and Gerdes conceived and opened Hell's Kitchen, a unique spot that, ironically, played up all of Omer's old demons: rock 'n' roll, Goth culture, excess and rich food. And even as he settled down personally, Omer's manic past turned him into a raging commercial success. By the time I met them, the business was solidly in the black -- a rarity among new restaurants -- thanks to Omer's off-kilter gourmet recipes and Gerdes' careful management.
I went back to my office and the story practically wrote itself.
Next page: Jane and Michael Stern say: "Huevos rancheros of the gods"