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Thursday, March 23, 2006
MetroFresh gets walk-on help for busy-actors’ weekend
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
MetroFresh owner Mitchell Anderson had to get creative with the schedule this Friday night at his popular Midtown Promenade eatery. Since opening last year, Anderson, an actor on “Party of Five” and “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” has hired a number of underemployed Atlanta actors at MetroFresh. However, due to many of them being featured on stages Friday night, everyone needed the same night off.
So Anderson has rounded up his partner and Atlanta hair guru Richie Arpino, his foodie mentor Jenny “Souper Jenny” Levison, Betsy “The Cupcake Lady” Robbins, and model and business owner Randi Layne as his celebrity servers. Their tips (and a matching fund of up to $300) will be donated to Pets Are Loving Support.
“Everybody always says, ‘If you ever need help, just ask,’ ” Anderson told Buzz, laughing. “So I’m asking!” MetroFresh will stay open until 10 p.m.
Further confirming his insanity, Anderson told us that starting April 2, he’ll sacrifice his sole day off by opening MetroFresh for Sunday brunch with frittatas, quiches, pancakes, stuffed french toast, soups and salads and Prosecco mimosas.
Carter cachet makes bed sale extra cushy
Lillian Carter slept here, and so can you. If, to paraphrase Bob Barker, the price is right, that is.
A bedroom suite from President Jimmy Carter’s late mother is coming up for auction at 11 a.m. Sunday at King Galleries in Roswell. In the early 1920s, Miss Lillian — as she was known — instructed her yardman to haul the suite to the dump. Instead, the man moved it to his barn, where the furniture stayed for years. After his death, his daughter sold it to a Columbus doctor, who restored the suite to its original condition. Recently, the doctor decided to scale back his antique furniture collection and put it up for auction.
The walnut and burled walnut suite — a full-size bed with headboard and a marble, mirror-back chest of drawers — is an example of Eastlake craftsmanship. “Eastlake, which was named after an English architect, was a popular American furniture style around the turn of the century,” said gallery owner Susan Brown. “It was simple, with clean lines, and affordable for the time, the very antithesis of Victorian furniture. Eastlake, today, is a very desirable style with collectors.” Brown estimates the bedroom suite, which is about 100 years old, will sell for between $3,000 and $5,000. And, with the Southern presidential connection, the set could bring even more at auction. For more information: 770-998-1618.
Panda passion
Panda breeding season officially has begun at Zoo Atlanta: Lun Lun is in heat.
Zoo officials announced Wednesday that recent behavioral changes and hormone levels in the 8-year-old giant panda indicate that ovulation will occur in a matter of days.
Once that happens, the zoo will put the male panda Yang Yang in the same enclosure with Lun Lun — they are kept apart much of the year, to simulate their solitary life in the wild — and officials will watch for natural mating.
Now in their third mating season, Zoo Atlanta’s pandas have never copulated. Lun Lun was artificially inseminated the past two years but did not become pregnant. The zoo is prepared to artificially inseminate Lun Lun again this year but will wait to see if natural mating occurs before making that decision.
Zoo spokeswoman Susan Elliott said panda caretakers are estimating that ovulation could begin Sunday. When it starts, the pandas have an agonizingly brief window of time in which to conceive, essentially 24 hours.
If successful, a panda cub birth at Zoo Atlanta would be the fifth U.S. birth since 1990. Only about 1,600 pandas remain in the wild, with about 185 in captivity. Only four U.S. zoos have pandas on loan from China. In addition to Atlanta, they are San Diego, National Zoo in Washington, and Memphis. The San Diego and Washington zoos produced panda cubs last year.
Sick bay
Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler will undergo surgery this week for an undisclosed medical condition, forcing the band to cancel the remaining dates on its North American tour.
The band’s publicist, Marcee Rondan, said that Tyler was “doing fine” but declined to elaborate on his condition.
“Despite Aerosmith’s desire to keep the tour going as long as possible, Tyler’s doctors advised him not to continue performing to give his voice time to recover,” Rondan said in a statement.
Tyler, who turns 58 on Sunday, can’t perform for an extended period of time, Rondan said, adding the band was on hiatus.
Celebrity birthdays
Singer Ric Ocasek (the Cars) is 57. Singer Chaka Khan is 53. Actress Amanda Plummer is 49. Singer-keyboardist Damon Albarn of Blur is 38. Actress Keri Russell (“Felicity”) is 30. Actress Nicholle Tom (“The Nanny”) is 28.
Contributing: Marylin Johnson, Tom Sabulis and news services. If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
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