Paula Deen

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nightmare/

Paula Deen is one of my favorite TV cooking show hosts. There's something about her down home looks and accent and personality that draws me in. She loves to cook with lots of butter and southern fried foods that I really shouldn't eat but I will tell you, every time I cook a Paul Deen recipe, it is darn good!

Paula owns the Lady and Sons in Savannah, Georgia and runs it with her sons Jamie and Bobby. She has her daily TV show, and does specials, and has 5 cookbooks she has published.

She has an interesting background. She found herself the divorced, single mother of two young boys and had to do something to support them, so she started cooking, which was the only thing she knew how to do and knew how to do it well.

She started with a little catering business but really what it was that she did was made sack lunches and her sons deliver them. She called her business the Bag Lady and she worked it right out of her kitchen.

Soon she opened the Lady & Sons and it grew. The specialty of the Lady & Sons is the buffet which includes those specialties you would hope to find in the south, fried chicken, sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese and deep friend Twinkies.

She now has a desert line at Walmart with Dark Rum Pecan pie, old fashioned fudge and gooey butter cake bars. Her shows, Paula's Home Cooking, Paula's Party and Paula's Best Dishes are my favorites.

One of the things I really enjoyed with Paula Deen was a few years back she began dating a tugboat captain, Michael Groover, a very quiet bearded kind looking man. She decided to marry him and they had a special all about the wedding. She also has Michael on many episodes of her show.

Anyway, Paula Deen was doing a good deed delivering over 25,000 pounds of food at a Thanksgiving charity event when a flying ham hit her in the face. They were off loading a truck load of hams when someone tossed a ham and it accidentally hit Paula Deen in the face. She did complain that her face was a little sore, but she went on with the event anyway. What a trooper, Paula!