by Paula Deen
Our menu now almost never changes because we still know what our customers want, even though we may get tired of looking at it and cooking it. There’s not an Italian in the whole damn kitchen, but we absolutely make the best baked spaghetti you ever put in your mouth. Our lasagna will make ya tongue want to slap ya brains out. It’s got chunks of cream cheese all in it, and people are just not expecting that. So delicious! And don’t forget the biscuits and the hoe cakes.
Probably one of the biggest questions asked by non-Southerners is what’s a hoe cake? The answer is pan-fried corn bread. We use cornmeal, flour, eggs, and oil. It looks like a regular pancake, and it tastes like a corn pancake. Once, I did some research and traced the origins back to the Native Americans because corn was a big part of their diet. But folktales have it that when the field hands would come in from the fields, they would cook this corn bread over an open fire on a hoe. Not a “ho.” We ain’t talkin’ about that girl on the corner!
Of course, we added baked chicken to the fried chicken because there are always those tourists who want to watch their intake of fried goods. We can always make concessions for the health-conscious by doing things like using smoked turkey wings to add flavor to our beans and greens instead of ham hocks, and we do. But you know what? Turkey wings aren’t the same as ham hocks. Baked chicken can’t hold a candle to the fried. Seems to me a better approach for weight watchers would be to look at Southern food as a treat.
You know, sometimes I get kidded about my love for the ingredient that strikes terror into the heart of so many—butter. To paraphrase Saturday Night Live, which maintains that Barbra Streisand is so delicious she’s like buttah, I always have known that buttah is bettah. Because so many people are afraid of butter (and sour cream and cream cheese), I have to have a sense of humor about it or end up defending my choices every day. One day I ’bout fell off my chair laughing when I read New York comedienne Sara Schaefer’s idea of a “Paula Deen recipe” on an Internet blog. I thought it was so funny, I want to share it with you.
Sara said, “I have made many successful Paula Deen recipes. I love her personality as well. I love that she is an independent, strong woman who maintains her grace, humility and kindness. She knows what life is all about—and she knows how to make it taste good. So it pains me to say this, but sometimes she crosses the line. Her recipes often look like this:
“Butter, for greasing pan
2 cups butter
1½ cups butter oil
¼ cup butter juice
3 cups all-purpose butter
1 teaspoon baking butter
3 cups peeled and finely chopped butter
1 cup shredded butter
1 pinch butter, for taste
“Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Generously grease a tube pan.
“For the cake: In a large bowl, combine the butter, butter oil, butter juice, and baking butter; and mix well. Fold butter, butter, and butter into batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bathe in it until you go into cardiac arrest.”
So, despite the butter, probably because of the butter, we prospered mightily at The Lady & Sons, and we didn’t even have one case of cardiac arrest. Also, it didn’t hurt when on a pretty day in 1999, Jerry Shriver, a food and travel writer for USA TODAY, came in with a bunch of guests. At the time, I had no idea who he was, but he and his friends were so adorable, so smiley, so appreciative of everything we brought them, that the whole staff fell in love with this group. They gobbled down lunch like it was the last one they’d ever have.
And then whoa, what good news! In the December 19 issue of USA TODAY, Jerry honored our restaurant as the one in which he enjoyed the “Most Memorable Meal” of the year, putting us at number one over restaurants in Paris, Chicago, Rome, and New York City. Me—the Albany cheerleader!
The lines grew to three times around the block.
I was given an honor by the Georgia Senate for bringing so much economic health into the state, and when I gave them my thank-you speech, the only thing I really wanted to say was, “I know my momma and daddy are watching today, and somewhere they’re spinning, ’cause you don’t know how many bad report cards they had to sign for me.”
In many ways, I was spinning, still the little girl with the crummy report card. Here’s a confession: with all the glamour of my life, in my heart I still feel a little like The Bag Lady. No, I ain’t poor no more. But remember that first two hundred dollars I started with? Often, even today, it seems like that’s really all the money I have. My brain knows it’s not true, but in my heart, I worry that nothing real good ever lasted for long in my life. Now, that’s stinkin’ thinkin’. Often I have a sense of danger that follows me everywhere. I don’t trust good fortune all that much.
And at the time The Lady & Sons was just peaking, my heart was so empty, it sure didn’t feel like good fortune lived there.
Grandmomma’s Fried and Steamed Chicken
At The Lady & Sons, our signature dish is, of course, the mouthwaterin’ fried chicken. Here’s a secret, though: I learned to make fried chicken from my grandmomma, who made it a little different because she both steamed and fried the chicken. I had to modify the recipe for the restaurant because it was impossible to both steam and fry each piece for hundreds of people every day.
Here is Grandmomma Paul’s original recipe (with my own House Seasoning added), which I think she learned from her one and only mentor, Mrs. Henrietta Dull.
3 eggs
House Seasoning (see page 96)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1½-to 2-pound chicken, cleaned and cut up
Crisco or vegetable oil for frying (deep enough to cover the chicken)
In a shallow bowl, beat the eggs with ⅓ cup water. In another bowl, add a pinch of House Seasoning to the flour. Roll each piece of chicken in the egg, then roll in the seasoned flour. My Grand-momma Paul used to always return the seasoned chicken to the refrigerator and let it sit there for about 2 hours before actually cooking it. Remove the chicken from the refrigerator, heat the shortening to 375°F in a frying pan—or, even better, in a Dutch oven—and put the largest pieces and dark meat in first followed immediately by the smaller pieces of white meat chicken. Cook, covered, for 5 minutes. Remove the cover and turn the chicken when the undersides are well browned. Cook, covered, for another 5 minutes. Remove the cover and cook until the chicken is well browned. The entire chicken will take about 20 to 25 minutes to cook. Don’t turn the chicken more than once or else some of the extraordinarily fine flavor will be lost.
Chapter 10
SHARING RECIPES
I refuse to believe that sharing recipes from a good cookbook or yo’ momma’s kitchen is silly. The best butter beans do just as much good in the world as peace talks.
As our business at The Lady & Sons grew, I had what some told me was a crazy idea. I wanted to write a cookbook. To cook good, you need a recipe. People kept asking for my recipes and I’d kid around and say, “I’d love to share them with you, but I’m goin’ to keep them for my own book when I write it.”
Stay in the kitchen, do what you do best, don’t be writing no books; that’s what I heard when I mentioned my idea. To be honest, I kind of agreed. Who would be interested in my dishes except for the folks that ate at my restaurant? I could sell maybe ten to twenty copies of a cookbook in a good month, I figured. Then I refigured.
It could put us on the local map. If it worked—a big if—it could lead to other stuff. Maybe I could get a couple of Philadelphians or Chicagoans into my restaurant, and maybe even a few more New York tourists. Good deal, and what fun. I really would write a cookbook.
I remembered the first cookbook I ever had; as a matter of fact, I’ve still got it, lovingly stained by a thousand different meals. Better Homes and Gardens put it out, and it was a red-and-whitechecked number bound like my school notebook. When I was eighteen, Toni Nix, one of my mother’s best friends, gave it to me at my wedding shower. You always remember the first boy you
kiss and you always remember the person who gave you your first cookbook.
Since we were doing so well on Congress Street, and I’d gotten those bank accounts out of the red, I set my next goal and it was to be a Lady & Sons cookbook.
I would publish it myself, I decided. How else did books get published? In hindsight, I can tell you that it never dawned on me that there were giant publishing companies whose business was making books and distributing and selling them all over the world. I only knew that whatever I had, I’d gotten it by hard work, and I’d done it pretty much by myself. That’s how I would publish a cookbook for the people who’d enjoyed the meals I served up in my restaurant. I knew it would take some money to get it done so I started saving toward this next goal—and luckily, for the first time in my life, the money was coming in pretty fast.
Someone told me about a lady who had her own desktop publishing business. I was definitely computer-illiterate; I wasn’t even close to buying one, let alone learning how to work one of those darn things. This nice lady and I connected and she sent out requests for bids to print the book. Well, wouldn’t you just know it, I was thrilled to pieces when the bids came back and a little printing company on the next block down the street came in at the lowest bid. We could keep my money right here at home in Savannah. The lowest bid wasn’t so low—about twenty thousand dollars—but I was determined to go through with it, and I’d saved the money.
Was it hard to write? Let me tell you, that first cookbook was so stinkin’ easy to write, it was unbelievable. I just went to my mother’s brown paper sack and got all the recipes out that had been handwritten by the women in my family down the generations. Then I sent it to my new friend, who typed it out all nice and pretty. I called it Favorite Recipes from The Lady and Her Friends.
I decided that I wanted my cookbook to be fun. Cartoons were fun. Someone told me about Geri, this girl at the Savannah News Press who drew cartoons, and I asked her to do a cartoon of me and Aunt Peggy making gingerbread men who were six feet two with eyes of blue. I contacted friends and asked for their best recipes, and after each one I wrote a little story about that friend’s connection to me. I just had a blast with that little book.
Finally, it came time to take the disk to the printer, and I asked how many we should print, and the answer was that a thousand would be more than enough.
“Well,” I asked, “how much would one thousand cost and how much for five thousand?” Turned out five thousand was much cheaper per copy.
“I want five thousand,” I told them.
My friends said, “Paula, no! That’s insane. You’re screwing up already by overordering.”
Well, I failed in math, but not in logic and risk taking. I went for the five thousand.
The boys knew I was working on the book, and gradually they were getting as excited as I was. One day, the print shop called Jamie and said, “We’ve got three books ready, hot off the press. Want to come and see them?”
Did we! On the way, walking down the street holding hands, Jamie said, “Betcha fifty bucks you’re gonna cry!”
I said, “I’ll bet you fifty bucks I ain’t! I’m so glad to be shed of this book.”
He took about three more steps, then stopped again and said, “I’ll bet you one hundred bucks you’re gonna cry.” Right there in the middle of the street we turned to each other and shook hands. I said, “I ain’t goin’ to be cryin’, son.”
We went into the printer and they handed us the books. When we opened the book we smeared the ink—it was that fresh off the printin’ press. Jamie said, “Turn to page four.”
It was a tribute to me from my sons. Now, I never left my business for anything, but that day I had to go home and go to bed, that minute. This is how page four read:
Our mother, Paula H. Deen, is a true symbol of strength and perseverance. This book is a product of her twenty-four-hour workdays. It is her third “child” and she has nourished and cherished this book just as she has cared for her two sons, in a way only a mother could do. This book spans many years and many jobs, from homemaker to bank teller to restaurant owner; our mom’s dreams for the future have come true.
Thanks to our mother, these are now the best days of our lives. We have more pride in this lady than can possibly be imagined. She has our undying adoration and our commitment to follow in her direction. Mother is a remarkable lady. We hope you enjoy her wonderful cookbook.
We love you, Mom.
Jamie and Bobby
Jamie won his bet. I cried like a bloomin’ cow. I don’t think I’ve ever read the tribute but one more time since because it makes me bawl wildly every time I lay eyes on those words.
My children and I had been having such a hard time with our relationship because I was such a slave driver. I didn’t care about anything except survival. Of course, they were older than I was when I lost my parents, but I didn’t want them to suffer the devastation I bore if something ever happened to me. I wanted them to cry, then laugh, and, most important, carry on everything we had built together.
Honestly? I thought I had done permanent damage to our relationships. I had said things out of anger that I didn’t mean, but still I knew they wouldn’t forget those harsh words. Then to see that they understood, and they still loved me? That page in the book meant everything to me.
The next day I set the cookbook out on the credenza in the dining room of the restaurant.
Just as I thought, there were some exciting things finally beginning to happen in downtown Savannah. John Berendt had written his wildly successful book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and Clint Eastwood had come to town to make the film. It was very exciting to see all these cameras shooting all over our city. Some of the old Savannahians, the blue bloods of Savannah, might not have liked the book because it brought so many curiosity seekers and tourists, but it did so much for the city’s economy. I will forever be grateful to John Berendt for writing his book, and then for later writing the introduction to my book.
So, here was my humble little book settin’ out on a table. It sold for $16.95. We sold about twenty-five copies in the first month. We had 4,975 left to go.
One day a violent rain came up just out of the blue, and a woman from New York just happened to be walking down the street with her boyfriend. When she got to my place it started lightning and thundering. The woman stopped into my restaurant to get in out of the rain. She had never heard of me, the restaurant had not been recommended to her.
Ever hear of a word called synchronicity? It means a coincidence that is too meaningful, too wonderful, to be just coincidence. It happens when seemingly unrelated things are linked together and create an extraordinary other thing. I think the fact that I had a cookbook just sitting there, dying to be read by millions, and a rainstorm and a woman who could change my life all just happened to be in the same place at the same time—well, God was making sure Paula had a whole lot of synchronicity working that day.
Her name was Pamela Cannon. I didn’t know it then, but she happened to be an editor from a New York publishing company called Random House; she’d been in town because of John Berendt’s book, which had been published by Random House. I served her and her boyfriend chicken and biscuits and hoe cakes. She was the publishing girl, I was the hoe-and-biscuit girl. She did not tell me then who she was, but I spoke to her and her boyfriend and welcomed them as I did all my other guests, and went on with my work.
This is the funniest damn thing. One day soon after the rainstorm, the phone rang. It was Pamela Cannon. She said, “You don’t remember me, I was in the restaurant a couple of weeks ago to have lunch, and the lunch was quite delicious. Did I see a cookbook in there?”
Thinking fast, I said, “My goodness, yes! My little book’s been out only a month and it’s doing so good.”
Good was twenty-five copies.
She said, “Well, I did not buy one, but if I give you an American Express card number over the phone, can you send me a few copies?”
I said, “I’d just be delighted to do that for you.”
I hung up the phone and went and found Jamie. I said, “Jamie, I just got a call. Do you know what Random House is?”
Jamie looked at me, and he shook his head and said, “You cannot be my momma. Momma, Random House is one of the top three publishing houses in the country. What did she want?”
“Copies of the cookbook,” I answered.
You could see the color draining from his face. He literally ran and got three cookbooks, and he ran to Mail Boxes Etc. and got them in the mail within twenty minutes after her call.
“Well, we’ll probably never hear any more about that,” I told him.
I was wrong. Pamela Cannon called again, and she said, “Hey, Paula, I just want to say congratulations. Your cookbook has merit, and Random House would like to publish it.”
I remember when we got that call. I was sitting there in the dining room with Jamie. It was around 5:45, and we only opened up at night for private parties, so we knew how much food to cook, and how much money we were bringing in. Jamie was the waiter that day, and I was the only cook because it was at night, and I had let all the staff go home. Everything was ready. We were just waiting for the people to get there. We had flickering candles on all the tables.
After that the phone call, I started jumping up and down, and Jamie and I hugged and kissed and danced all around that dining room floor.
Random House was going to pay me an advance of five thousand dollars. To myself, I thought, Oh, my gosh, that’s a lot of money, but by that time I had businesswoman written in my heart, so I got up the guts to call New York and say, “Pamela, that is going to be very hard for me to accept—just five thousand dollars.”