The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

At any rate, what’s my big problem with Zimmern? Where to begin, where to begin? First, I should admit that I really don’t know who this Zimmern fellow is. I mean, I really don’t know who the hell he is, just as, I’m sure, he doesn’t know who the hell I am. I got wind of a recent dust-up in the blogosphere, however, and felt curious enough to search Google for images of the man. I start there whenever possible, because I have no problem at all judging a book by its cover, being a firm believer in that old business about a picture being worth a thousand words.

I know I said yesterday that I was going to talk about my favorite books from 2007. I'll do that eventually, I suppose, although who really gives a rat's ass? Right now I'm all worked up about something else, so the book nonsense will just have to get shoved aside for the time being.

I was going to tell you about my most memorable dining experiences of this past year, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. There is more pressing business at hand: Andrew Zimmern's recent blog post.

Here's what happened. Mitch Omer -- one of my dearest friends in this world -- showed up at my house on Thanksgiving with a red-lined version of Andrew Zimmern's December column, livid about some of the things it contained. Mitch railed. I defended Andrew on many points. We got into a bit of a tiff, which we worked out in about 30 seconds over a nice Cabernet. Then we moved on.

^{The above photo is an altered version of "AZ in Action," taken by Sarah McGee.}

Mitch Omer, proprietor of Hell's Kitchen restaurants in Minneapolis and Duluth, responds to Andrew Zimmern's Perspective in the December issue of Mpls./St. Paul Magazine:

"That's all I can stands, and I can't stands no more!" ~Popeye the Sailor