Paula Deen

by Paula Deen

  Also by Paula Deen

  THE LADY & SONS JUST DESSERTS

  THE LADY & SONS SAVANNAH COUNTRY COOKBOOK

  THE LADY & SONS, TOO!: A Whole New Bunch of Recipes from Savannah

  By Paula Deen with Martha Nesbit

  PAULA DEEN CELEBRATES!

  PAULA DEEN & FRIENDS: Living It Up, Southern Style

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  Rockefeller Center

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2007 by Paula Deen

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Unless otherwise noted, all photos courtesy of the author. Photo of Paula Deen and grandson by Mac Jamieson for Cooking with Paula Deen magazine. Photo of Michael Groover kissing Paula Deen by Bob Busby. Photo of Paula Deen and Bubba Hiers by Russ Bryant. Photo of Bubba Hiers and family © by Christine Hall.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales: 1-800-456-6798 or business@simonandschuster.com.

  Designed by C. Linda Dingler

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Deen, Paula H.

  Paula Deen : it ain’t all about the cookin’ / by Paula Deen, with Sherry Suib Cohen.

  p. cm.

  1. Deen, Paula H., 1947- 2. Cooks—Biography. 3. Cookery, Southern. I. Cohen, Sherry Suib. II. Title. III. Title: Paula Deen : it ain’t all about the cookin’.

  TX715.2.S68D438 2007

  641.5092—dc22

  [B] 2006053501

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-9285-6

  eISBN: 978-1-416-53968-1

  ISBN-10: 0-7432-9285-5

  Acknowledgments

  First of all, thanks to my darlin’ Michael, always Michael, my handsome, sexy, funny husband, who always makes me laugh so hard, I think I’m gonna bust. And thanks to my precious family who come along for the excitin’ ride every day—Bobby, Jamie, and Brooke; Aunt Peggy Ort and Aunt Trina; my baby brother and partner, Bubba Hiers, and his new partner, Dawn Woodside, and her sons, Iain and Trevor; my beautiful niece, Corrie, and cute nephew, Jay; and, of course, the great Groover kids, Anthony and Michelle, and Michelle’s new husband, Daniel Reed. I love and am so grateful for my brother-in-law, spiritual advisor, and Cajun connection, Father Hank Groover. My husband’s baby brother, Nick Groover, the unwillin’ subject of Captain Michael’s childhood taunts, is not only part of my extended dear family, not only our neighbor, but also the contractor of the beautiful home Michael and I enjoy so much; Nick’s wife, Jodi, and their adorable children, Jordan and Lauren, are in my life forever now.

  My lovin’ appreciation goes to my collaborator and newest friend, writer Sherry Suib Cohen, who helped me find the words I needed to tell my story. Sherry leaves Savannah talkin’ Southern (she thinks) and with an educated view of butter.

  What would I do without Team Paula, which includes my never-forgets-anything, inspirational executive assistant, Theresa Luckey; my fabulously creative, witty, and indispensable right-hand man, Brandon Branch; the accomplished and devoted Michelle White, who wears so many hats—among them extraordinary graphic designer; Cassie Aimar, my talented personal assistant; and my favorite accountant on the planet, Karl Schumacher, for their never-ending efforts to make sure the details of my personal and professional life work smoothly. My agent, Barry Weiner, is the closest thing I’ve had to a father since my real father died; he’s always there for cheerleading and wise words. I love you, Barry Cuda—you’re my hero. My literary agent, Janis Donnaud, is endlessly loyal and helpful and always in my corner. My attorney, Peter Smith—well, I just adore him; he’s one of the finest men I have ever met.

  My Lady & Sons restaurant family is also the absolute best! Dora Charles has been there from the start, makin’ me look good and keepin’ me sane. I couldn’t do without Rance Jackson, my number one kitchen manager; Dustin Walls, my general manager; and Scott Hopke, who is our executive kitchen manager. Cookie Espinoza is our office manager, and she manages to keep everyone happy and on track. The entire staff, from the bussers to the wait-people, from the hostesses to the dishwashers—each and every one of them is so important to The Lady & Sons, and I’m forever grateful for this team we’ve formed.

  My Simon & Schuster publishing family feels like real family to me. I’m immensely grateful to the following people who have turned my memories and ideas into this beautiful book. I love them all, but best of all I love my brilliant editor, Sydny Miner, who lavished such care, thought, and creativity on each page, you’d think this book was her real-life baby. I’m so beholden to Syd, my dream editor, and also to her personal assistant, Michelle Rorke, who has been marvelous and responsive throughout the whole publishing process. Linda Dingler and Jaime Putorti worked beautifully and imaginatively on the interior design, and I am really happy with Jackie Seow’s cover design. I also lucked out because Arden Ward took the cover photograph—don’t y’all agree? Thanks are also surely due to Randee Marullo and Sybil Pincus, the copy editors who diligently combed this book to make it the best it could be.

  I’m also so pleased that David Rosenthal, the enlightened and extraordinary publisher of Simon & Schuster, leads my book team, and that Deb Darrock and Aileen Boyle are the fine associate publishers of the best publishing house in America. Deep gratitude goes to Tracey Guest, director of publicity, and her staff for telling the world about Paula Deen: It Ain’t All About the Cookin’, and the biggest hug to everyone else at S&S who made this very personal memoir possible.

  Thank you, thank you, thank you to a remarkable woman who’s recently come into my life and given me a new focus and such joy. She is Phyllis Norton Hoffman, the publisher and president of Hoffman Media, LLC. Phyllis had the foresight to spot a powerful connection between me and the women in America—not just Southern women—and she offered me my very own stunning magazine, Cooking with Paula Deen. I was just astonished when she approached me—who would ever read such a thing?—but today, the magazine is sold on newsstands internationally. The magazine is about cookin’, naturally, but also about entertaining and decorating and quaint little towns, and business and beauty and the color of eggs and—oh, just about everything that’s on the minds of women like me.

  My gratitude goes to four new and fabulous business partners who support me wonderfully: Pete Booker, Larry Pope, Jim Schloss, and Joe Luter III. Welcome aboard, all of you!

  I’m forever grateful to the Food Network and my producer, the wild and wonderful Gordon Elliott, who have literally changed my life and have made me, Paula Deen, into a television star—I can hardly believe it! Judy Girard, Brooke Johnson, and Bob Tuschman of the network are deep in my heart forever. My two shows, Paula’s Home Cookin’ and Paula’s Party, have given me a chance to share a love of makin’ good meals and havin’ fun with my terrific fans, who are always challenging me to cook better, tell more secrets, and show my stuff … even when my stuff ain’t so perfect. I relish every moment of my life journey and I can’t wait to see what happens next! Think of it: I’m a sixty-year-old, grey-haired, overweight woman and I’m still employed. Life is a beautyful thing.

  So many thanks are due to Melanie Votaw, who transcribed every interview for this book, and from about a hundred tapes put my words down on paper with meticulous accuracy. And a huge thank-you to Nancy Assuncao, my personal publicist.

  This book would not be complete without acknowledging the man with whom I spent twenty-seven years, Jimmy Deen. We had our differences, but he’s a good
person, a kind man, and together we made the most handsome, wonderful sons imaginable.

  Finally, I want to give thanks for my beloved momma and daddy, Corrie and Earl Hiers, and to my Grandparents Paul and my Grandparents Hiers, who left life much too early. They molded me and had such a great influence on my life because they offered me the steady confidence, support, and love every little girl needs—especially a little girl who knew, deep inside, it ain’t just about the cookin’—it’s about surviving, and then love and laughter and living well, Southern style.

  This book is for Jack Deen, perfect grandbaby of my heart, and littlest cook. I’ve waited so long for you, child. In your precious self, our family past and future meet. I fell in love with you, tiny Jackpot, even before you were born, and already I know I will cherish the man you will become.

  You’re gonna come to like fried chicken, baby boy: it’s in your genes.

  Contents

  Foreword

  1 Terror with No Name

  2 Something Smells Good

  3 On Not Listening to Yo’ Momma

  4 How Do You Get to Be a Woman of Substance When Your World’s Fallin’ Apart?

  5 The Terror Did Have a Name

  6 The Bag Lady

  7 The Bottoming Out and the New Beginning

  8 What I Did for Love

  9 The Lady & Sons

  10 Sharing Recipes

  11 Love on a Tug: Michael

  12 How I Got My Own Television Show, and It Wasn’t No Desperate Housewives

  13 Backstage Secrets and a Weddin’ to Beat All

  14 Blend. Don’t Mix, Stir, or Beat

  15 Food, Glorious Food, Southern Style

  16 So You Want to Own a Restaurant?

  17 Scenes from a Life: Growth, Cameron, Mr. Jimmy, Bubba, and Me

  18 Southern Comfort: Things I’ve Learned

  Index

  This work is a memoir. It reflects the author’s present recollection of her experiences over a period of years. Certain names and identifying characteristics have been changed.

  Paula DEEN

  Foreword

  I never call myself a chef. Never went to Chef School. Never made a Blanquette de Veau. Never met a boxed cake mix I didn’t like.

  I’m a cook. Learned at my grandmomma’s stove. But I can cook, honey, cook rings around those tall-white-hatted chefs. My fried chicken, my grits—oh my stars, you’ll think you died and went to heaven.

  Like everyone else on this earth, there’s a story behind the cook, behind the recipes, behind the woman.

  So, y’all, here is what the publisher calls my memoirs.

  How did they come about? Well, I’ve written five cookbooks, and after each one, I got thousands of letters from people asking about my personal life, not just my life with grits. Until now, I haven’t been about ready to do that. Maybe if you heard the truth about Paula Deen, about the mistakes I made in my life, how bad my judgment’s been at times, and how guilty I still feel because my mothering wasn’t always so wonderful … well, maybe you wouldn’t be quite as lovin’ to me as you have been. And that would kill me.

  If I could get back one wrong I did to my family, if I could choose some words I could take back and eat ’em down so they would never have seen the light, it would be the day I told my son Jamie I hated him. I can barely write those words now. I love my sons more than life, but we were in the heat of the battle of starting a restaurant business, trying to get all those people fed, and I felt like Jamie was pulling against me, rather than with me. If I could only live that day over, oh, I would. You’d better believe I learned that the spoken word can never be taken back. Sure, you can apologize for it, but you and the person you hurt will never, ever forget. Forgive, maybe, if you’re real lucky.

  I’ve asked for a lot of forgiveness in my life and I’ve given it as well. You know what? In church, they always tell you to forgive your enemies. Seems to me it’s even harder to forgive our loved ones and friends, but it’s much more important to do so because it’s the people we love who can hurt us the most. The terrible thing I said to Jamie taught me to speak with more care and try not to let my instinct for survival get me so mad I’ll give pain to someone close to me. But can you imagine me, a mother who loves her boys beyond love, saying such a thing to her own child?

  I’ll tell you something else: in all the things that have been written about me, there’s something that’s been left out of the tellin’. I’m a smoker. There, I said it. Hardly anyone outside my family knows that, and it embarrasses me because it’s an addiction I can’t be quit of, though I try every day. They say Jackie Kennedy was a chain smoker, but she would never allow herself to be photographed with a cigarette—and I get that real well because I also try my damndest to see that no one takes my picture with one. I love my fans so much and I hate to disappoint them; to see me with such a weakness will surely upset them. I still need to walk into a room where they’re waiting with my head up.

  But suddenly, somehow, it’s time to show and tell—warts and all. I plan to tell some hard secrets in these pages, but it’s taken a long time to get up the nerve to do so. Try ten years. Maybe twenty.

  Mostly, I want to share with you that I’m livin’ proof that the American dream is alive and well, that you can be an imperfect person and still end up with so much fun in your life you can hardly stand it. I’m prayin’ that if even one of you out there gets some inspiration from the way my own American dream turned into reality, it’ll be worth playing true confessions here.

  You should know this: you gotta be willin’ to work for that American dream—work for it, and feel the passion. You gotta truly be in love with what you do. If you have a wild hair to fly a circus trapeze, to chug out to sea on a tug, to own a restaurant when you haven’t much more than a dime to your name, or to search for true love even when you’re no spring chicken—go for it. Sure, luck plays a part, but here’s the thing: the harder I work, the luckier I get.

  A warning: you may be a little shocked at some of the language in this book, and that’s another weakness of mine. I tell people who come to my cooking class that sometimes I can be a little bawdy and I sure hope that don’t upset them. But I’m my father’s daughter, and I’m banking on one thing, and I’m not budging on this: my God has a sense of humor even if what I say has a four-letter word in it. I think He’d want me to laugh. What’s in my heart is not irreverence but a full knowledge that God’s laughing too.

  So, this is a book wishin’ you best dishes from my house to yours, but it’s also a look into my home, my true life, my loves, and my Southern heart.

  Chapter 1

  TERROR WITH NO NAME

  What did I have, what was makin’ me so scared that my heart about beat out of my chest? I just knew I was gonna die, knew my heart couldn’t stand this kind of pressure, and it had happened too many times before. Almost every last time I had to go outside by myself, that panic would start in and drop me to my knees. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop trembling. I felt weak and nauseated and dizzy, and I just knew I was gonna die in front of other people. If I dropped over in public, think how horribly humiliatin’ it would be.

  But, oh Lord, the magnolias smelled so damn good out my window, and all morning I’d been fixin’ to take my eleven-year-old son, Jamie, to baseball practice. After, I figured I’d hang out at the mall store in the housewares section, then maybe go strollin’ for a bit, just to breathe deep some of that sweet Georgia air. I wanted to walk through my door so bad and maybe today I could do it; maybe today I could go outside.

  There would be no breathin’ deep, no goin’ outside. The thought of outside grabbed my gut like a ’coon grabs a chicken. I started to sweat and my arms lost all feeling, like they belonged on someone else. At the very least, I was likely to faint at any moment. Would there be someone to see me, someone who would catch me if one of those panicky attacks came back and I lost control and fainted outside? Oh, my stars, I was frightened silly.

  It was 1978, an
d I was thirty-one years old. Was this the day I was finally going to die, the day I’d secretly been waiting for and dreading ever since my daddy passed almost thirteen years ago now?

  Well, maybe not, if I stopped thinking of going outside.

  You’re safe, Paula, I told myself. You’re safe inside this house. No one’s makin’ you go out, you won’t die today. Fact is—don’t you remember—y’all canceled the boys’ after-school stuff for the whole year.

  What sickness did I have? What had happened to me? My terror had no name—least none I’d ever heard. I was alone with it. So scared about goin’ outside.

  It wasn’t always this way.

  Chapter 2

  SOMETHING SMELLS GOOD

  You don’t have to be Southern to admire the smell of grits cookin’—hang with me, and even if you’re from New Jersey, you’ll be lovin’ grits.

  If you had to pick out a delicious childhood, it would have been mine. I was born on January 19, 1947, and grew up with a passion for life and, for a long time, nothing ever frightened me—nothing. My earliest memories are from when my momma and daddy, Corrie and Earl Hiers; my brother, Earl Hiers Jr., otherwise known as Bubba; and I lived in Albany, Georgia, out at River Bend, which was my Grandmother and Granddaddy Paul’s place. It was right at the Dougherty and Mitchell county line, about ten miles outside of downtown. River Bend was sort of a very mini resort sitting right on U.S. 19, and it was where all the snowbirds came—a little rest stop on their way to Florida and fancier pleasures. Our grandparents had a motel and cabins, a skating rink, a restaurant, and a big old swimming pool, and it was pure heaven, that River Bend. My handsome daddy worked at his car dealership and my momma helped her parents in the restaurant and I thought life was just grand: I lived in my swimsuit and my roller skates and you’d better believe I wore them both at the same time.

  I had my own personal playmate, Momma’s baby sister, Trina, who was just three years older than I. When Grandmomma told Trina that my twenty-year-old momma was gonna have a baby and that would make Trina an aunt, Trina immediately got underneath the table on her hands and knees and started crawlin’ around, just a-cryin’ something pitiful. Grandmomma said, “Trina, honey, why are you down there cryin’?” And Trina answered between sobs, “’Cause you told me I was gonna be an ant.”