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Access Atlanta > Blog > Archives > 2006 > November > 03 > Entry
New eatery dishes it out for symphony
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra string quartet members greeted attendees at the private preview of Trois on Friday night. The new three level restaurant from Bob Amick and Todd Rushing was appropriately a benefit for the beleaguered Atlanta Symphony Center.
“It was a no-brainer,� Amick told Buzz. “If the Symphony Center gets built it will be a world class structure that will be on the cover of Time. We need to make it a reality.�
Trois opens to the public Nov. 13. Let’s hope the paint is dry by then. We ran into Pecan Pie Couture owner Clint Zeagler just after his full-length black quilted jacket got christened with paint from a freshly painted wall.
Gazing at the paint streaks on his right sleeve, Zeagler told us, “I’m just going to add some beadwork. It’ll be great!�
Stars come out for Hawks’ big opener
The long-suffering Atlanta Hawks have tried to amp up the “game experience� and bring in the stars to populate the sidelines. At Friday night’s home opener at Philips, they accomplished those goals — and pulled in a solid victory against the Knicks to boot.
While the star factor wasn’t blinding, it was plentiful: ex TLC’er Rozonda “Chilli� Thomas, Collective Soul members Ed Roland and Will Turpin, New Edition* singer and Realtor **Ronnie DeVoe, hot rap artist Young Joc and Falcons player Rod Coleman. On the sidelines, Hawks legend Dominique Wilkins towered over Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin. Rapper T.I. missed the opener but purchased season tickets for the first time this year and will be doing a post-game concert Nov. 11.
V-103’s Ryan Cameron had plenty to cheer as he returned for a third year as announcer while his very pregnant former Hot 107.9 co-host and A Team leader Rashan Ali came back to do sideline reporting — once. She’ll be taking a break from those duties until late January; Cameron’s current sidekick Elle Duncan will spell for her.
Singer songwriter suffers car crash
Singer-songwriter Josh Kelley’s family and friends in Augusta had an unsettling phone call last week.
The Georgia-born performer, on tour in support of his album “Just Say the Word,” was among those injured in a death-defying bus crash Oct. 23 on an iced-over portion of I-694 in Minneapolis.
Kelley tells Us Weekly that he and his bandmates had just settled down to sleep in their bunks around 2 a.m. “when I woke to bottles flying out of the fridge. The driver had hit a patch of ice on an on-ramp, and the bus lost control, flipping five to seven times. Stuff was hitting me like I was inside a dryer. Halfway through the spinning, my head hit something really hard, and we all started screaming. I thought I was going to die. The bus had landed on its side, and our bunks formed a tepee over us. When we realized we were alive, we were like, ‘Oh, my God, I love you guys.’ It was intense.”
While tour manager Preston Jones broke his neck in the accident, miraculously, no one else was critically injured, said Kelley, 25, who was treated for a serious gash to his head.
He put off calling his fiancee, “Grey’s Anatomy” actress Katherine Heigl, 27, until noon the next day.
Kelley told the celeb mag that Heigl reacted much like anyone who plays a doctor on TV: “She is an amazingly calm girl. She wanted to make sure I got X-rays, which I did. Every day, I check my body and try to figure out how we walked away.”
Out on the town to sample eateries
In keeping with tradition, chefs participating in Friday night’s “A Meal to Remember” Meals on Wheels fund-raiser at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead spent the eve of the event tasting their way through town. Author and veteran “Meal to Remember” participant Carolyn O’Neil served as tour guide for chef Jose Fernandez of the Ritz-Carlton, Battery Park in New York; chef Matias Martinez of the Ritz-Carlton, South Beach in Florida; and chef Jordi Valles of the Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island in Florida on Thursday night. The night out served as a reunion for the Spanish-born chefs, who all previously worked together in Barcelona. The quartet relaxed with mojitos and Latin-inspired bites at Mitra in Midtown, courtesy of chef Gerardo Ramos. Atlantic Station’s Lobby restaurant chef Nick Oltarsh had grilled and spicy Georgia white shrimp awaiting them inside Twelve hotel. For dessert, the tour extended out to the Perimeter Mall area and Seasons 52. O’Neil told us Friday they were treated to a backstage view of the eatery’s high-tech kitchens, where cooks use computer screens instead of recipe books to prepare dishes. Said O’Neil of the chefs’ reaction: “Wow! There’s a lot of modern technology back there.”
Gospel star likes energy of the ATL
Contemporary gospel star Donald Lawrence’s appearance at Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church on Sunday will return him to the city where his latest record originated. The Chicago resident and his Tri-City Singers recorded their current live CD, “Finale Act I and II,” at the Tabernacle downtown. “Atlanta has always been a good place for me, period,” Lawrence said before the show. “Just the energy of the city, the whole music scene there is really strong. Gospel and secular.
“Plus it was really easy for everyone to fly in there, because the weather is probably going to be good,” he continued. “Chicago’s a lot more unpredictable. … If people had to fight snow to record, it might have been a fight for me to get that good gospel out of them!” For more information on the 7 p.m. performance, call 770-448-5475.
Emmy nomination baffled Burstyn, too
Ellen Burstyn was just as flabbergasted as everyone else when she heard she’d been nominated for an Emmy this year for her blink-and-you-miss-it role in the TV movie “Mrs. Harris.”
In an interview with AP Radio, the 73-year-old Academy Award winner spoke publicly for the first time about her Emmy nod: “When they told me I was nominated for that, I went, ‘What, are you kidding?’”
Burstyn’s cameo in “Mrs. Harris” lasted 14 seconds; she spoke a total of 38 words.
“I thought it was fabulous,” she said. “My next ambition is to get nominated for seven seconds, and, ultimately, I want to be nominated for a picture in which I don’t even appear.”
Her nomination drew the ire of those who felt she hadn’t logged enough screen time. In August, Burstyn lost the Emmy to her “Mrs. Harris” co-star Cloris Leachman.
“The brouhaha around it, you know, they tried to reach me for a statement,” she recalled. “I said, ‘This doesn’t have anything to do with me. I don’t even want to know about this. You people work it out yourself.’”
Contributing: Sonia Murray, Rodney Ho and news services.
If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
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