In Paula Deen's kitchen, no one is a stranger and she likes to keep it that way.
Her story is a unique one, and is forged from the ultimate American Dream. Growing up in Albany, Georgia she learned early in life that it takes a woman of substance to make it in this world. As a young girl, she spent countless hours in her Grandmother Paul's kitchen, learning and memorizing the same recipes that still line her dinner table today. They are the kind of recipes that only grandmothers can teach- a pinch of this, a dash of that, and a whole lot of love. Little did she know that it would be these self-same recipes that would turn her into the Queen of Southern Cuisine!
Her story isn't all peach cobbler and sweet tea, though. At a young age, she faced a terrible tragedy: the loss of both of her parents. Just barely in her early twenties, she found herself in a rocky marriage, impoverished, the mother of two young boys, Jamie and Bobby, and the victim of a debilitating disorder known as agoraphobia as a result of the trauma she suffered from the loss of her parents. She felt helpless, trapped and like she had nowhere to turn. Confined to her home, Paula took to the only place where she felt truly comfortable, her kitchen. She found solace in making her grandmother's recipes from her childhood and cooked her way through her misfortune and years of depression.
She and the rest of her family finally conjured up enough courage to move to Savannah, Georgia. It was a move that would forever change her and her sons' lives.
Against the nay saying of all her family and friends, Paula had a dream that she wanted to make a reality. While she was not a formal chef, she knew that she had a gift for making good food and bringing comfort to folks through the dinner table. She desired to start using her Southern know-how and country cooking to open a small, home-based catering business. With only two hundred dollars and a lot of hope, she did just that, and thus The Bag Lady was born.
With Paula manning the kitchen, and Bobby and Jamie peddling sandwiches, their popularity quickly blossomed and soon she was able to open a full-fledged restaurant in a Best Western, The Lady, where she and her boys worked around the clock. As fate would have it, eventually the trio would be able to move to the heart of Savannah's historic district, making the family a staple for Sunday supper.
Paula renamed the restaurant to The Lady & Sons and began serving thousands of locals and tourists alike; one of which was a publishing representative who serendipitously wandered into the restaurant on a rainy day for lunch. Needless to say, her first cookbook, with a forward by John Berendt, hit the market soon thereafter and planted the seed for her rise to fame.
At present, Paula shows no sign of stopping. With multiple television shows, countless cookbooks, a bi-monthly magazine, an ever-expanding product line and several Southern-style restaurants, her kitchen just keeps getting hotter, and hotter. Despite her success, however, Paula knows the meaning of good friends, good family, and of course- good food!
