by Paula Deen
I felt so proud. Jamie, Bobby, and my Aunt Peggy were sitting there in the second row, their faces grinning with excitement, and I’m sitting up here by Oprah and thinking, Only in America could this happen. I’m sitting up here to the right of the queen even if she doesn’t think she’s the queen.
She said, “So, you can cook.”
I said, “Well, I didn’t get this way by looking at the pictures of cake, Oprah.”
She liketa fell out of her chair. The audience went nuts. Right at the first, we hit it off. We laughed together, and we teared up together during the interview. I probably had only ten minutes with her, but I quickly gave her a short version of my life story, and I told her that at forty-two, I took complete responsibility for my life, and God had not missed one day blessing me for doing that. I could see the tears forming in her eyes. I really felt connected to this woman.
And then I did a smart thing. Grass don’t grow under my feet, honey, even when I’m with the queen. I announced right there on Oprah that shortly I was going to have my own cooking show on the Food Network.
Do you know how many people watch Oprah? About ninety zillion. My restaurant had been doin’ real well and usually had a waiting line, but after Oprah, it seemed like people were coming from all over the world. Everyone was asking when my show was starting. I was amazed that Oprah’s arms were so long and they stretched out so far. The Lady & Sons became a destination trip for many people. Fact was, I couldn’t fit any more people into the restaurant no matter what show I was on because I had just so many tables, and that’s when I started thinking about moving to a much bigger place.
When I got home, I wrote Oprah a note even though I knew she’d probably never get to read it, the note being among thousands she gets every week. But I still wanted to write. “Girl, I want you to come to Savannah,” I said. “I want you to put your feet under my table and let me feed y’all. I’ll protect you. I won’t let anybody know you’re here.” So far, she hasn’t come, but I’ll never forget my time with Oprah Winfrey.
Paula’s Home Cooking began very quietly. We just starting filming, with me cookin’ and chattin’, and from the beginning it was a huge success. People were incredibly receptive, I think because I was not a size 2, but instead a sassy, roundish, white-headed cook. Women could identify with me. I reminded them of their aunt or their mother or their grandmother or their best friend who lived next door. I could be them, and they could be me. I even ate like them, which brings me to the very first show that I taped.
We taped the show in Gordon Elliott’s home kitchen in Mill-brook, New York, for the first couple of years. Because it was my first show, I was rightly a little scared. I got through the first dish, and I pulled me out a fork to taste it. Of course, I tasted it with the same robustness that I would have done in my own kitchen. Maybe a little bit dripped down from the corner of my mouth onto my shirt. Usually does. So what?
Gordon jumps out of his director chair, his arms in the air. “Paula, dahling, dahling, dahling! You must take princess bites,” he directs.
“What the hell is a princess bite?” I asked.
“It’s that little, teeny, delicate bite that lets you taste the food but still allows you to talk coherently. You can’t take huge chunks of food in your mouth on television.”
“Get the hell out,” I answered him. “I ain’t takin’ no princess bites. I’m gonna do it just like I do it.”
And he turned around. It was so funny. He said like a little boy, “Oh, okay, so freak me and freak the Food Network.” And he went and climbed back into his director’s chair and never said another word about no princess bites. And it wasn’t freak he actually said.
Let me tell you something. I bet Oprah don’t take princess bites. She’s a real woman.
Now here it seems appropriate to say some more words on cursing, even though I briefly dealt with it right in the start of this book. I must admit I’m loose with four-letter words, not on television, of course, but in the privacy of my own home. Still, there’s one that I do not use in a curse. I never say GD. I try to never take my Lord’s name in vain unless like I stump a toe or somethin’. And then, possibly, I forget.
When you work in a kitchen in the restaurant business, you become the best curser in town because you’re constantly dealing with a tremendous amount of frustration. You get very, very, very good at four-letter words, and there’s even a chance that with the different cultures in your kitchen, all those diverse people coming together, you’ll even learn some new four-letter words. So, you burn your hand bad. You’re not gonna say “Shoot.” You’re not gonna say “Oh, my goodness.” You’re gonna say “Shit!” When you burn yourself or you drop this whole tray of food that you’ve got to get to the guests who are waiting in the restaurant, you’re not gonna say “Oh, my gumdrops.” You’re just not gonna do it. So, if you are offended by four-letter words, don’t ever get a job in a restaurant and certainly don’t own a restaurant.
Look, I understand how people can be offended by the particular kind of colorful language that usually employs some four-letter words. Sometimes, when I have been around people who are constantly using four-letter words in a mean-spirited way, I almost want to wipe myself down after being in their presence, because those words are said in a filthy or mean spirit. On the other hand, I can hear other people say the same thing with maybe a smile on their face and a lighter delivery, and I think nothing of it. So, a lot of times, the deliverer or the speaker of the bad words determines whether that word becomes dirty or not.
Still, I was the first Food Network host ever to get bleeped on TV, and that’s when I learned you can’t do the kinds of things on television that you can do in your home or when you’re writing a book. I understand that. If you come to my house, and you want to see the real Paula Deen, it would be stupid for me to say I never use four-letter words. But I do apologize to my fans who are shocked that their Paula has this part of her that maybe they never heard or saw before from me. I’m still the same me who loves you, everyone—just maybe a tad bawdier than you thought.
At the same time, I’m wanting to go after a big children’s audience for my show and I do want people to know that their children are safe with me. If a tray falls on my foot on television, you’ll never hear me say what I say in my own kitchen. I promise you that.
You know what I suspect? I think even the most ardent church lady, in the privacy of her own home, doesn’t say “Oh, my gumdrops” when she drops a tray on her foot.
My show is the best fun, second only to running a restaurant. Here are some little-known behind-the-scenes peeks at what goes on in a cooking show.
First of all, believe it or not, there’s no script on my show, no set plan for what I’m going to say. It’s totally ad-libbed. When you watch my little corner of the Food Network, you should know that of course I’ve thought about what I’m goin’ to cook for that show and what I want to tell viewers, and of course everyone else on the show is totally prepared for that meal, but there are no writers involved. It’s only me, Paula, talking to you as I would if you were sittin’ in my own kitchen—which explains the occasional silliness. I use my own dishes and my own pans in the cooking, and my own appliances as well. Maybe other hosts do different; I don’t know. I can only tell you about my show.
The first question people ask me when I meet them is, “That yellow house—it’s yours, right?” And, oh my gosh, I just hate telling them, “No, it’s not my house. It’s Gordon Elliott’s house.” We taped every show up to Thanksgiving 2005 in Gordon’s house, which he shares with a gorgeous, sweet wife named Sophie and three of the cutest little miniatures of Gordon Elliott you have ever seen.
Then people always ask whose dogs they’re seeing on the show. I usually stand behind Michael to answer that one because the viewers literally groan when I tell them those three dogs are Gordon’s as well and their names are Rennie, Gertie, and Harry. I fell in love with them from day one, especially Gertie, the yellow Lab who was a
lways the first one to greet me when I pulled up to Gordon’s driveway to start filming.
The Thanksgiving special of 2005 kicked off the filming of Paula’s Home Cooking in Michael’s and my new house, so if you’re watching shows filmed since then, it’s Otis, Sam, and Cody you’re seeing—our very own dogs. Cody is my stepson, a big old black Lab who came with Michael, but sometimes Michael walks Otis and Sam with their rhinestone collars, and if he runs into people who recognize him, which is always, he tells them they’re our huntin’ dogs—all eight ounces of them.
Then there are a whole lot of people who ask if we cooking show hosts really eat and swallow our own food during the taping. I don’t know what other people do, and I’ve also heard the rumors that some television chefs turn away from the camera for a moment and spit out into specially placed “spit bowls” what they’ve just tasted, or, even worse, force themselves to vomit afterward because they’re nervous about gaining weight. Maybe they think that if they eat everything, they’ll wind up looking like me. Let me tell you, honey, while there may indeed be spitters and swallowers on television cooking shows, I am definitely in the latter group. Those bites you see me taking—the definitely-not-princess bites—are truly and happily swallowed by Paula Deen. But me? I enjoy every mouthful of the food that’s prepared, especially the food that I actually get to cook.
Another secret (that I guess is not such a secret anymore): I don’t actually cook every morsel that’s featured on a show. In thirty minutes, you can’t produce a full meal—well, maybe if you’re Rachael Ray you can. But even she can’t cook a pot roast in a half-hour show. So, to me, that crew in the back kitchen is very, very important. I don’t know how much training they have, but they have my recipes and they’re out of sight, making three of each dish because we have to have the beauty shots for the start and finish. Then we have to have a backup, in case anything happens to the dish that I’ve prepared as you watch me on TV. Finally, we need what we call swap-out dishes ready for me on the set.
Look, the camera’s on me, I put the roast in, you see a commercial, and two minutes later I come back and say, “The roast is ready.” Did I fool anyone on the planet into thinking the roast I put in is the one that’s ready? I didn’t think so. Actually, by the time they get the commercials in, you have only twenty-two minutes to prepare all this food. So, you need the swap-outs.
Another thing: food temperature counts. I’m very easy to work with, but I insist that the food has to be hot if it’s supposed to be hot, or cold if it’s iced tea or watermelon, just as I’d serve it to Michael. I cannot fake the “yummy” look if I chunk down into cold mashed potatoes. Sometimes that happens. Once in a great while I’ll say, “Ooh, this is just delicious,” but I can’t help wrinkling my nose in horror because the swap-out dish is either seasoned poorly or the wrong temperature.
Invariably, there’s a great yell of “Cut!” from backstage and Gordon or someone else will run out and say, “You don’t like that dish. What’s wrong with it?” And we have to reshoot that piece of the show.
Who comes up with the show theme? Well, Follow Productions, owned by Gordon Elliott, will come up with themes like a summer brunch, a Valentine’s Day dinner, a birthday barbecue. Then my staff works on going through all my personal files to pick out just the right dishes for the themes.
I’m always asked what happens to the food we cook on the show. Usually, we all dig in and eat it right after the show. Sometimes, people who work backstage in the kitchen take the food home, especially if they live close by. But I’m telling you, I think nobody enjoys the food more than Gordon Elliott. I’ll never forget the day I was doing hamburgers, and I was cookin’ what ended up being called a Beau Burger, which was topped with a fried egg. Actually I wanted to call it a Sambo Burger. It came about when this motorcycle-driving, long-haired lawyer named Sam told me about his favorite little hamburger joint owned by a guy named Beau. When Sam was out tooling along on his cycle, he’d stop off for the best burger in town, topped with a fried egg, some melted cheese, a load of grilled onions—out of this world! One day, Sam was on my set because we were doing a show about motorcycles, and we were standin’ around talking about these burgers and I told him, “Sam, I am going to do that burger on the show. We’ll call it after you—the Sambo Burger. You know—Sam, Beau. Sounds great, doesn’t it?”
Well, my producers said no—I had to find another name, because some people associated the name with an old children’s book that was insulting to black people. So we called it a Beau Burger after the guy who owned the joint, and I made that hamburger on the set during the cooking show, took one bite out of it, and my eyes rolled back in my head, it was so stinkin’ good. All of a sudden, Gordon yells “Cut!” and he runs up there with his big old size 15 shoes, those big old feet just clomp, clomp, clomp running up there, and he snatches that burger out of my hand and says, “You don’t need that, Paula,” and he gobbles down the whole thing.
Sam, I haven’t seen ya since that day, but I just got to tell you, if you’re reading this book, you were right on with that burger.
Lots of things can go wrong in a shoot, but you usually don’t see them. Sometimes, if you’re working with as loony and brilliant a director as Gordon Elliott, some mistakes don’t even get cut because he thinks they’re funny—and they probably will embarrass you forever. For example, when I was a kid, I used to love Creamsicles, a confection of vanilla ice cream covered with orange ice on a stick. One day, I told my crew that for a great dessert we could reproduce the flavor of Creamsicles by layering orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream in a dish, freezing it, and then slicing it. We’d call it dreamsicles. Well, this was just going to be so simple because I was using store-bought sherbet and store-bought vanilla cream. I told the kitchen staff, “You will need to line the dish with parchment paper to come up on the sides before you put in the cream and sherbet. That way I’ll be able to grab that parchment paper and just flip out the dreamsicles.”
On camera I pull my backup dish out of the freezer—the one that had already been frozen and set—and to my horror I see that the crew had cut the parchment paper just to fit the bottom.
“All right, I can do this,” I tell myself, and with a fixed smile I take a knife and run it around the edges. I flip this thing over, and it ain’t budging. And I have no paper to grab on to. There is a monitor in the back kitchen so that the kitchen staff can see what’s going on and run in with what I need if something happens. So, I’m looking at the camera and I’m saying, “We’ll try that one more time …” No one is running in to help me. I’m struggling with this ice cream, trying to keep cool and trying to figure out how I’m going to get it out of the pan. I take a warm rag and rub the bottom, just trying to get out this damn dreamsicle in one take so we don’t waste footage. I struggle for probably three minutes, trying to make small talk and work this dreamsicle out of the container, and all of a sudden I hear the kitchen staff just giggling because they’re standing back there watching me struggle.
So I say, “You buncha son of a bitches! Y’all didn’t leave me no paper to grab, on purpose!” And everybody was laughing, and of course Gordon was telling the cameras to keep rolling. And it made it to the air that way, with “bitches” bleeped out.
People are so into the shows. They think every speck they see is real, just as it happens. Of course, the food is real, but there are so many cuts and edits in there to make it flow smoothly, make the time work out and give the poor cook some paper to grab to get her dreamsicles free.
When my show first aired, I was told that there was a fan board that people could go to on Foodnetwork.com, and they could open up viewer conversations about the show they’d just seen. Well, I was just amazed, and a little insulted and hurt, when people would make comments like “Did you see Paula lick her fingers while she was seasoning that meat? How nasty!”
Listen, if there’s a person out there who works in her kitchen that doesn’t lick her fingers while she’s cooking, I�
��ll lick yo’ heinie!
Someone would write, “Did you see that? She didn’t wash her hands.” Or once I read, “She walked in with those herbs from the garden and didn’t wash them—did you see that? How could they let this woman behave that way in a restaurant?”
My answer? This show is called Paula’s Home Cooking. It is not called Paula’s Restaurant Cooking, and there’s a big difference. Rest assured, I do not feed the folks in my restaurant what’s been cooked on my show. On television, I’m representing a woman in her home, not in a restaurant kitchen. Even so, there are edits that you don’t see when I’m out back there, washing my hands. There are edits after I taste something, when I’m changing spoons, or washing herbs that you don’t see.
Every now and then, someone will say she’s so upset that I’m wearing my diamond engagement ring on television. I once read, “Why does she have to show off that bling when she’s cooking—it’s so unsanitary!”
Well, you know what? That ring was a gift from the love of my life and I’ve never before had anything like it. I’m not going to have it sittin’ in someone’s pocket even for thirty minutes. If I were home cooking in my kitchen, it’d be on my finger, just like ya own ring doesn’t leave ya finger when you’re cookin’ up eggs. Right?
What makes it all okay in the end is that, in contrast, I have so many people come on that fan board sayin’, “Paula, don’t ever stop licking your fingers. Don’t ever stop enjoying your food. I love seeing that big old ring shining on your finger.” Most people get it, they know me.
Every now and then, we have a special on Paula’s Home Cooking. The most incredible special of all time was filmed in March 2004.
Michael and I hadn’t yet set a date and one day I received a phone call that forced us to get moving. The Food Network was asking if we’d consider getting married on television. Would we invite America to the wedding of my dreams?