Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin'
by Paula Deen, Sherry Suib Cohen
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Book Summary Information
Author: Paula Deen, Sherry Suib CohenEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-04-03
ISBN: 0743292855
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin'
Book Review: Complete Honesty
Summary: 5 Stars
I may have been the last one in America. When I sat down to read It Ain't All About the Cookin' I was a Paula Deen virgin. I'd never read one of her books; never seen her show. I've seen the line snaking down the block from Lady & Sons in Savannah, but I've never grabbed a place.
Now I feel like I'm about to get a new next door neighbor. Which would be great and not too surprising since I live about sixty miles south of Albany, Georgia where Paula grew up and spent the her early married years.
I understand Paula. We've got lots more than geography in common. I've written several times about how my grandmother used canned biscuits for dumplings--and didn't get caught. The first recipe in the book is for--no kidding--her mother's doughnuts made from canned biscuits. And in the next chapter she rhapsodizes over chicken and dumplings. She's great.
So is this book, and on many levels. Paula's a perfect candidate for Story Circle! She is completely honest. She tells it all, even when she doesn't have to, and we might not miss it.
"But suddenly, somehow, it's time to show and tell--warts and all. I plan to tell some hard secrets in the pages, but it's taken a long time to get up the nerve to do so," she tells us in the introduction. Her nerve holds for the entire book. When we shut it we know the whole woman. And she is a fine one.
Don't waste time being envious of Paula Deen because things have dropped into her lap; they haven't. She's earned every bit of the glory through a gritty nerve, a willingness (try eagerness) to take a risk, stick-to-itivness you won't believe, and, mostly, hard work. Really hard work.
Stick-to-it? For twenty-seven years this woman stuck to a marriage that she realized was doomed from the gitgo. Then the day came: "But I'm here to report that there's nothing like a little business success to lend a lady some personal courage." When the husband pocketed their son's car payments so many times that the car was repossessed, the camel's back snapped, and Paula showed him to the door.
Hard work? At that time she was making sack lunches out of her kitchen for her son to sell door-to-door or office-to-office in Savannah's businesses. A tough life.
And she toughed it out to reach the success she's most deservedly enjoying today.
Plus, she's a lot of fun, even when she's talking about the hard times, and especially when she's talking about the good ones. There have been plenty of those as well.
While this "ain't all about the cookin'," some of it is. With Paula Deen writing, how could it not be. She talks about cookin', and she shares recipes--many of them family treasures she's never shared before.
These days, I try to be a purist in the kitchen cooking from real scratch, but occasionally I recall that a can of mushroom soup can be a cook's best friend. Paula's convinced of this. No wonder her food is comfort food! Now this Texas girl may never add a can of French onion soup to her chili--or she might--but I'm going to give the Georgia Cracker (yes, it involves a whole sleeve of saltines) Salad a try, and the first crisis that brings on the comfort food craving, I'm for sure making Uncle Bubba's Crab and Shrimp au Gratin. Not only does it involve shrimp, crab, Tabasco and cheese, it calls for a healthy dose of Kraft Cheez Whiz. How can you not love it?
Or love this book?
Next time I'm in Savannah, I'll be in that line at Lady & Sons, no matter how long it is!
by Patricia Nordyke Pando
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
Summary of Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin'
Do you know the real Paula Deen? You may think you know the butter-loving, finger-licking, joke-cracking queen of melt-in-your-mouth Southern cuisine. You may have even visited The Lady & Sons to taste for yourself the down-home delicacies that made her famous and even heard some version of her Cinderella story (a single mom with two teenage sons started a brown-bag lunch business with $200 and wound up with a thriving restaurant, a fairy-tale second marriage, and wildly popular television shows), but you have never heard the intimate details of her often bumpy road to fame and fortune.Courageously honest, downright inspiring, and just a little bit saucy, Paula shares the highs and lows of her life in the inimitable charming and irreverent style that you know from her television shows and personal appearances. She talks about long childhood summers spent in a bathing suit and roller skates and hard years living in the back of her father's gas station; a buzzing high school social life of sleepovers, parties, cheerleading, and boys; and a difficult marriage. The death of her beloved parents precipitated a debilitating agoraphobia that crippled her for years. But even when the going got tough, Paula never lost the good grace and sense of humor that would eventually help carry her to success and stardom. Of course, you can't get by on charm alone: as Paula has learned, you need plenty of willpower, hard work, and, above all, the love and support of family and friends to finance, sustain, and run a successful restaurant.
In each chapter, Paula shares new recipes: there's serious comfort food like her momma's Chocolate-Dippy Doughnuts, Courage Chili for when you know life's going to get tough, Sexy Oxtails for seducing that special someone, and the recipe for her new mother-in-law's Banana Nut Delight Cake that Paula finally got just right. And you'll love the never-before-seen photos of her family.
In this memoir, Paula Deen speaks as frankly and intimately as few women in the public eye have ever dared. Whether she's telling tales of good times or bad, her story is proof that the old-fashioned American dream is alive and kicking, and there still is such a thing as a real-life happy ending.
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