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Access Atlanta > Blog > Archives > 2007 > August > 03 > Entry
Chef travels upriver for taste of U.S.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Food Network loves to use its personalities, such as Rachael Ray and Emeril, all over the schedule until you can’t avoid them.
Atlanta’s Alton Brown is part of the club. He works not only on his seminal show “Good Eats” but also helps out with “Iron Chef America” and is debuting the second season of “Feasting on Asphalt” Saturday night at 9.
“Feasting,” he said, is far tougher than mugging for the camera in a studio.
“It’s the hardest work ever,” Brown tells Buzz.
The host spent a month this past spring on his motorcycle traveling about 3,333 miles up the Mississippi River sampling local fare from Louisiana to Minnesota. “In order to do it right, you have to go out every day without a clue. I made six hours of television with no plan.”
In other words, he’d enter a restaurant without the owner knowing so he could get spontaneous reactions. “You have an hour before everything changes. People are real at first. But after a while, their personalities change. The site is sullied.”
His rationale for the trip, he said, is to “capture an important part of our cultural heritage that we’re losing to chains and the big Wal-Marts of the world. The Mississippi River is one of the richest veins in this country, with vital diners, truck stops and little mom-and-pop roadside restaurants.”
Brown will join Dave FM’s Mara Davis as guests tonight at the Lucky Yates Talk Show at the Laughing Skull Lounge next to the Vortex in Midtown. Tickets are available at www.ticketalternative.com. Show starts at 9.
Couture, cocktails and cash
The city’s social season officially got under way Thursday night as hundreds of Atlanta’s glitterati assembled at Urban Chic ‘07 inside Fever nightclub to survey the latest fashions, raise money for AID Atlanta and dish.
At the bar area, VIP reception attendees daintily dangled designer necklaces created for the event by Goldwasser Signature Jewelry — (the accessories translated into free drinks, you see). Others happily noshed on nibbles caterer Dennis Dean was busy whipping up.
To his considerable credit, Ted’s Montana Grill co-owner George McKerrow Jr. didn’t work us over with a piece of the silent auction when he spotted us (his wife, Ginair, is a devoted member of Urban Chic’s host committee).
While he cheerfully declined to discuss his business partner Ted Turner’s personal relationship with novelist Elizabeth Dewberry (the romance was made public this week via a dubious e-mail sent by the writer’s ex), McKerrow did have plenty of praise for Dewberry.
“We like her very, very much,” McKerrow said. “I’m hopeful that more people will be introduced to her work.”
Other notable attendees included: Atlanta attorney Mark Trigg and his wife, Darlene, photographer Harriet Leibowitz and jewelry designer Mark Edge.
Downstairs on the catwalk, the fashionably attired crowd got an advance peek at new looks provided by Bill Hallman, Deka, Fab’rik, Merci Woman, Sage, Sandpiper, T. Boutique and others.
Runway fashion show producer Randi Layne added edge to the evening by including “real life”-sized models into the show.
Each time the gals in gorgeous full-figure frocks came down the runway, the entire venue burst into applause.
Their malnourished counterparts, however, drew a more subdued response from the crowd.
A ‘Chic’ Holliday
Thanks to Urban Chic co-chair and Blue Med Spa co-owner John Stupka, the evening also boasted its own Tony Award-winning guest, Jennifer Holliday. The powerhouse vocalist was a customer at the spa during her recent run at the Fox Theatre.
On playing her signature role for the final time in last month’s production of “Dreamgirls” at the Fox, Holliday told us: “I think I’m finally ready to let Effie go. I was so blessed and grateful to be able to do the show here one last time as well. Atlanta holds such an emotional connection for me for this show.”
Holliday says returning to the role helped her spiritually leave “the battle of the two Jennifers” effectively behind her. When the film version came out last year, some media outlets wanted to compare film actress Jennifer Hudson’s performance to Holliday’s original. “I felt that I needed to fight to reclaim my song [the musical’s showstopper, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going”] and my place in ‘Dreamgirls.’ I was able to do that here with a lot of love from the audience each night.”
After losing many of the Broadway production’s original cast members and creative team to AIDS in the 1980s, the actress said she was only too happy to turn out at Urban Chic to support the charity.
High five
Top-selling CDs at Criminal Records in Little Five Points for the week of July 28
1. “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga,” Spoon
2. “Our Love To Admire,” Interpol
3. “Easy Tiger,” Ryan Adams
4. “Era Vulgaris,” Queens of the Stone Age
5. “Fragile Army,” Polyphonic Spree
— Courtesy: Criminal Records
Celebrity birthdays
Today: Actor-comedian Richard Belzer (“Law & Order: SVU”) is 63. Actor Billy Bob Thornton is 52. Actor Daniel Dae Kim (“Lost”) is 39.
Sunday: Actress Cammie King (Bonnie Blue Butler in “Gone With The Wind”) is 73. Actress Maureen McCormick (“The Brady Bunch”) is 51. Rapper Adam Yauch (“MCA”) of the Beastie Boys is 43.
Contributing: 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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