Meryl Streep is narrating a pair of children’s classics, “The Velveteen Rabbit” and “The Night Before Christmas,” that will be released later this year as audiobooks at Starbucks coffeehouses. The audiobooks feature musical accompaniment by George Winston, the Edwin Hawkins Singers and others. Starbucks has been expanding its entertainment offerings, releasing CDs by Ray Charles and the Rolling Stones, among others, and promoting the movie “Akeelah and the Bee.”
Jamie Oliver opened his third restaurant under the umbrella of his Fifteen Foundation, Fifteen Cornwall, on May 19. The celebrity chef chose the Atlantic coastal community because he spent many childhood holidays in Cornwall, according to Hello! magazine’s website. The 100-seat restaurant had received 3,000 reservations before the grand opening. As with his other Fifteen restaurants, Oliver employs wannabe chefs from underprivileged backgrounds. The 21 trainees were chosen from 300 applicants last year. Oliver said: “Cornwall is a beautiful place and buzzing in the summer, but there are quite a lot of dark, rainy, less-busy months in the off season. There is reasonably high unemployment here, and various social problems.” Next on Oliver’s Fifteen menu: an eatery in Melbourne, Australia.
Kirstie Alley is a hottie again. The former “Cheers” star says her “Fat Actress” days are behind her and she vows to appear on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in just a bikini by November, the Hello! website reports. “I’m tall, so I could trick myself into thinking I could carry it off,” Alley, 55, said of her weight gain. “I said to myself, ‘You look good from this angle’ – but eventually I ran out of angles!”
