Friday Is National Peanut Butter Day
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- This Friday, Jan. 24 is National Peanut Butter Day. According to the National Peanut Board, it takes about 540 peanuts to make a 12-ounce jar of peanut butter, and Americans spend almost $800 million a year on peanut butter.
"I live for peanut butter," said Mitch Omer, owner of Hell's Kitchen restaurant in downtown Minneapolis.
Since the restaurant opened 12 years ago, Omer's been making his own peanut butter.
"It's only five ingredients, but with those five you have a million ways you can put that together. It took a long time to get to the balance between sweet and salt," Omer said.
Hell's Kitchen won praise in 2003 from food writer and radio host Lynn Rosetto Kasper. Within an hour, the emails crashed their system.
Since then, Omer has shipped peanut butter all around the world.
"We had a regular customer whose nephew in Iraq wanted peanut butter. We shipped it to him, then she told us she had a problem," said Omer. "His commanding officer is from Minnesota. He wants peanut butter, too. After that, we shipped cases of peanut butter to Iraq every month. It was fun. I have visions of people in the desert in a war zone eating my peanut butter."
Omer is discounting peanut butter by 20 percent for the weekend of National Peanut Butter Day. You can pick it up in the restaurant at 80 S. 9th Street, or online at hellskitcheninc.com (Online Promo Code: HKPB20). Also, click here for a link to Omer's peanut butter recipe.
Another small batch peanut spread maker has opened business in Minneapolis. Buddy's Small Batch Nut Butter is the brain child of an entrepreneurship graduate from the University of St. Thomas.
Andrew Kincheloe created four flavors made in Minneapolis: honey peanut, chocolate peanut, cinnamon raisin, and sweet candied nut.
All the flavors use honey made in Minnesota.
"My goal was to create the perfect ratio of honey to peanut butter and to solve the frustration of oil separation in a fresh jar," Kincheloe said.
