Recipes for a Heavyweight

Mogan’s Cafe Owner Keeps Boxing Contender Hungering for Title Shot

One never knows where his profession might lead. David Williams found that to be the case this summer when an unexpected phone call turned into the opportunity of a lifetime. Williams spent the last several months living at Brookdale Caesar’s Resort in Pennsylvania’s Poconos Mountains cooking for heavyweight boxing contender Wladimir Klitschko, who was training vigorously for his fight against Samuel Peter, which takes place this Saturday night in Atlantic City. Klitschko had met Williams’ friend and fellow Palisadian George Billauer through a fundraiser for Billauer’s quadriplegic son, Jesse. When the six-foot, six inch Ukrainian told Billauer he was looking to hire a cook for his upcoming bout, Billauer immediately recommended Williams. “We talked for awhile when he was in Germany,” Williams said of his very first conversation with Klitschko. “He had already talked to a couple of other people, but I sent over my resume and before I knew it, he had chosen me. I think it’s because he loves Italian and that’s my specialty.” Williams, the head chef and owner of Mogan’s Cafe on Palisades Drive, also coaches the Palisades High boys soccer team. His temporary assignment has kept him from witnessing his daughters’ first days at Paul Revere Middle School and Palisades High, but he is glad he decided to accept it. “This whole experience has rejuvenated my cooking juices,” Williams said. “It’s increased my own self-motivation because I’ve never met anyone as self-motivated as him. He gets up at the crack of dawn every morning to run four or five miles. His discipline is just incredible.” For this fight, Klitschko hired Hall of Famer Emanuel Steward, who was Thomas Hearns’ longtime trainer and has worked with numerous world champions, including Oscar De La Hoya, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis. Yet while Steward and the rest of Klitschko’s camp (consisting of assistants, a physical therapist and six sparring partners) were housed nearby, Klitschko picked Williams to be his roommate. “We lived in a townhouse much like one you might see in the [Palisades] Highlands,” Williams said. “I had my own room and a bathroom downstairs. When he wasn’t in the gym, there wasn’t a whole lot to do to pass the time other than a lot of movies and conversation.” Spending nearly 24 hours a day with the boxer, Williams got to know Klitschko well and admitted that what began as strictly a business relationship developed into mutual respect. “At first I looked at it as just a job, but it’s amazing how well we get along and he’s become a genuine friend now,” Williams said of Klitschko. “He’s a learning machine. He just takes everything in. And he actually speaks very good English, although he knows about five other languages, too.” Williams was in charge of monitoring Klitschko’s calorie intake and preparing three meals a day for the entire camp. Although he talked to the fighter before the start of training camp, Williams said much of what he did was based on trial and error. So how much food does a heavyweight in training eat? Williams provided the following example of a typical day’s menu: Breakfast: Chicken sausage fritalta (an Italian omelette), green tea and cottage cheese. Brunch: Fruit, such as watermelon and bananas. Lunch: Garden salad with baby green lettuce and strips of grilled filet mignon. Or… chicken with white bean soup, grilled lamb chops with roasted bell pepper, corn relish with celantro and herbed basmati rice. Appetizers: More fruit, like tangerines and nectarines. Dinner: Bruschetta appetizer with goat cheese; grilled filet mignon with balsamic vinegar honey glaze with mushroom and roasted garlic mashed potatoes. As for dessert, Williams said one of his mother’s recipes–raspberry cheesecake–is Klitschko’s favorite. Other meals the Palisades’ culinary expert frequently prepared were oatmeal, pork, fish, lamb, veal and shrimp cocktail. “The hard part for me wasn’t so much the cooking, because I do that for a living,” Williams said. “It was having to constantly come up with new combinations of foods so that he didn’t get tired of any one thing but, at the same time, all of the right nutritional needs were met.” Williams will fly back to the Palisades on Sunday, the day after the fight, but he may be asked back to training camp before the end of the year–this time to cook for Wladimir’s older brother and current heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko, who lives in Bel Air. “This is a great opportunity to show that I can fight and I can fight pretty good,” Klitschko, who has professional record of 44-3 with 40 knockouts, said at the pre-fight press conference. “Everybody knows Samuel Peter is a new guy, a new generation, with a lot of wins. He’s been a nightmare for his previous 24 opponents so it should be a good fight for the audience to watch.” Steward, who is known for his ability to find and exploit weaknesses in an opponent’s style, predicted a knockout victory: “I’m excited about this fight. Peter has a lot of aggression, a lot of fire and a lot of spirit. He’s like a young Mike Tyson, except he’s more physical. Mike was able to neutralize his handicaps because of his great speed whereas Peter just overpowers his opponents. On the other hand, Wladimir is a world class fighter. He’s a gold medal winner in the Olympics and he’s had almost 50 fights, which a lot of people don’t realize. I gave up a lot of opportunities in the last year with a lot of different fighters because I have a lot of confidence in Wladimir. I believe he’ll win by knockout in three to seven rounds.” Saturday night will be the first time Williams has ever sat ringside at a live boxing event and he hopes it won’t be the last. Though he would not guess the outcome, Williams said he believes Klitschko is in the best shape of his career. “The whole training camp was so scientific, so strategic,” Williams concluded. “Everything was monitored–from his diet, to his workouts, to his sparring–everything. I know Wladimir thinks he is as ready as he can be and that’s the most important thing.”