Fried chicken may be the inspiration for the Grammy Award winning Zac Brown Band’s hit single, “Chicken Fried,” but they fired up the grill to cook beef and pork to extend a warm welcome to select fans before a recent show in Atlanta.
“I missed cooking for people,” explained Georgia-born Zac Brown. “I closed my Lake Oconee restaurant, Zac’s Place, three years ago.”
But now during pre-show Eat & Greets, Zac has a new place to cook. With backup from longtime friend and Southern Ground executive chef Rusty Hamlin, Brown added heaping plates of locally grown, freshly prepared foods to the playlist.
Tiffany Stieferman, one of the lucky fans invited to sample selections from Brown’s Southern Ground Cookbook beamed, “I haven’t eaten yet, and I’m happy already!”
The chef first met the musician at Atkins Park in Smyrna, where Hamlin is still proprietor.
“A lot of bands do meet and greets before their shows, and it can be awkward for the fan and the artist. You know, like talking about the weather. But here the band members sit and talk and eat with the fans. It’s a lot of work, but it’s so much more fun.”
They do a lot more than share a meal. In a buffet line — set up under a tented area behind the main stage at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre — band members worked the serving spoons greeting guests one by one. Asking me, “Would you like some more?” fiddle player and vocalist Jimmy De Martini served up the wild rice with local baby spinach. During the show, I cheered the loudest for him. “It gives such a grass-roots feel,” says Michael Heyer, general manager of Atkins Park. “It blurs the line between singer-songwriter and fan by sharing the love of music and good food.”
It takes a country-size helping of energy to get through a dynamic live show from first act to encore. It was good to see a healthy line up of vittles at the Eat & Greet, including a salad of cucumber, tomatoes and mozzarella; a medley of grilled zucchini, yellow squash and mushrooms; Georgia-grown Broccolini with a lemon beurre blanc sauce; and Pocketknife Coleslaw — one of Brown’s recipes.
“It’s got a kick to it,” Hamlin said.
“We add a little horseradish and yellow mustard.”
When asked about the Chocolate Peanut Butter Biscuit Pudding, Brown cautioned, “If you eat a lot of that dessert, you’ll have to take a nap!”
“Cookie” will travel
Hamlin often oversees meal preparation for more than 300 at the Zac Brown Band music venues from “Cookie,”a tractor-trailer outfitted with a commercial kitchen that he designed and customized for the tour. The mobile kitchen, complete with a barbecue pit that is fired up with sponsor Kingsford’s charcoal, is on the road with the group for the first time this year. Brown, who sells his Southern Ground Grub line of spice rubs and sauces along with the band’s T-shirts and CDs, boasts, “The beef tenderloin we’re serving at the Eat & Greet is hand-cut and rubbed with my GA Clay Rub and seared on that charcoal grill that gets up to 700 degrees.”
Beyond the beer and barbecue on the menu, Brown thinks that breaking bread before the show provides a friendly setting for fans to connect — the ultimate social medium.
Tour plans include a setup where guests can sit in Front Porch Stage box seating where it’s all you can eat and drink. And rumor has it that someday Brown wants to feed the whole audience at his shows, even if it means dinner for 12,000. Apparently, “You Get What You Give” is a lot more than just words in an award-winning album title for the Zac Brown Band.
Carolyn O’Neil is a registered dietitian and co-author of “The Dish on Eating Healthy and Being Fabulous!” E-mail her at carolyn@carolyn oneil.com.
