Paula Deen [Kindle Edition]

Paula Deen (Author), Sherry Suib Cohen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Famed Savannah restaurateur Paula Deen, whose drive to create a better future for her two sons helped fuel a rags-to-riches entrepreneurial adventure, dispels the notion of herself as the model of motherly virtue, confessing to a nagging smoking habit and a less than wholesome workplace vocabulary. More seriously, she admits that chronic agoraphobia and an inability to come to terms with the effects of her first husband's drinking rendered her a less than ideal maternal figure. During the taping of an early episode of Deen's Food Network program, a meddlesome producer chided her to take only princess bites of on-air creations, advice that she wisely rejected. Admittedly, Deen may at times seem to sink her teeth into too many personal issues and cathartic experiences, at least for the most casual of listeners. Yet Deen's legions of fans will find themselves enthralled by the spunky, confessional tone and undeniable down-home charm of her audio performance. She addresses her listeners as ya'll with a grace and sincerity capable of winning hearts on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.
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Product Description

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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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 5146 KB
• Print Length: 322 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1439163359
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (April 3, 2007)
• Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000PAAH2Q
• Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (196 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,411 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Cooking, Food & Wine > Regional & International > U.S. Regional > South

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Deen holds nothing back in revealing her humor and her flaws -very inspiring!, May 27, 2007

By 

K. Corn "reviewer" (midwest, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin' (Hardcover)

First of all, if you have a high opinion of Paula Deen and don't want to know about her past, including lots of mistakes (by her own admission) and her bouts of agoraphobia (which left her housebound) and panic attacks, then this isn't the book for you. But there is lots to recommend here - not only are there wonderful recipes at the end of each chapter, some of which have become family favorites for us - try the chili or the ham salad sandwiches or one of her scrumptous desserts - but Deen holds nothing back and proves that a person who started out with nothing, had a low opinion of herself but lots of energy and gumption, was able to rise above her flaws and make it. It is inspiring and an amazing story, too!

I loved this book and found it VERY inspiring. Deen came from a rather modest background and she didn't have a lot of self-esteem. She married a handsome hunk of a guy, had two gorgeous boys and found herself in a mess of trouble, with a man who couldn't make ends meet and leading a hardscrabble existence. She lost her parents and felt lost, alone and very scared. Her home was repossessed. A lot of people would have given up at that point but she did not. Working nearly round the clock, she slowly built up her business.....very slowly, but steadily.


But out of her adversity, one step at a time, she learned to make it. Along the way, she made lots of mistakes but she kept persevering.

In all honesty, some readers may have trouble with some of values and decisions made by Deen but I didn't judge her a bit. We are all human and we all have our ups and downs. I find her indefatable resilience to be amazing.

72 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sassy Kitchen Truths Dear To Our Heart, April 27, 2007

By 

Shannon L. Yarbrough "Shannon L. Yarbrough" (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin' (Hardcover)

What is it that makes us all fall in love with Paula Deen, that Savannah queen in the kitchen with the recipes that ooze with butter and mayo? I can't find a reason not to love her. She's a slap in the face of honesty, with a cup full of love, a dash of humor, a sprinkle of wisdom, all rolled up into a pretty recipe loaf baked at 350 degrees of yumminess.

First, you have to appreciate that she is a true southern cook, and who doesn't like good ole southern food? Second of all, she has a background story of struggling to make ends meet with two sons, working 9 to 5 in a bank, scared to go out in public, and starting her own business in the kitchen in her middle-age years. Yeah, it's a story we've all heard before, but hers is 100% honest and true.

And lastly, she cooks up recipes that anyone can do, and they are recipes that you want to try, not a recipe you throw in a box and plan to cook some day (but probably never will). Remember those over-the-top chefs from years ago that used ingredients you had never even heard of, cooking up dishes that required hundreds of dollars, gallons of sweat, hours of nail biting, prep work, and probably lots of crying? Paula is definitely not one of those cooks. People appreciate her as a person because they can relate to her on all sides of her life. She's one of us.

If you are a Paula Fan, from her cookbooks to her shows, there's a lot in this book that you've read or seen before. But there is a lot that you will be learning for the first time on these very pages as Paula reveals more about herself and who she is, which will make you appreciate Paula even more. She is truly inspiring, in and out of the kitchen.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tell it All Sister!, December 3, 2007

By 

Dennis Phillips "The Book Friar" (Bulls Gap, Tennessee USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin' (Hardcover)

There is an old joke here in the South about a man who gets up during a fire and brimstone sermon at church and starts to confess all of his sins. The minister is pleased with the results of his sermon and is urging the subject on by saying, "Amen brother, tell it all." Finally the confessing backslider confesses something so horrible that the preacher's jaw drops and he says, "Whoa, I don't believe I would have told that!" A few times while I was reading this book I sort of felt like that preacher because Paula tells it ALL!

She starts out the book by saying that she is going to hide nothing and is going to be totally honest with her fans. She then proceeds to admit that she is a smoker and I thought that if this was her biggest darkest secret I was going to be bored before I got through with this book. Well in true Southern fashion she was just serving up a light appetizer because there was much more to come. The much more I'm not going to give away but take it from me, Paula has been cooking in more rooms than the kitchen.

Beyond the secrets though this is a warm and endearing book that is filled with Southern slang and humor. This is the story of the average Southern girl who grows up watching her mother and grandmother cook but never dreams that cooking will be her ticket to the big time. This is the story of a girl who marries too young, loses her parents not long after that and ends up in the having to find a way to support her family. There are dark times when she has to deal with family problems and mental illness and there are times when most people would have just given up but this is also a love story with a happy ending.

If you take this roller coaster ride with Paula you will laugh with her and you will cry with her but most of all you will be pulling for this Steel Magnolia from South Georgia. She had some help writing this book but for the most part these are obviously her words and her thoughts and both come at you with a deep drawl. She talks about her personal life, her family and her business adventures and from start to finish this is one fascinating book. The story of how she and her sons brought the Bag Lady to life and how together they built what amounts to a food empire is truly the stuff of legend and her reaction to Michael after their first meeting will have you rolling on the floor. This is quite frankly one of the best and most honest autobiographies that I have ever read and I have read more than my share of them. No fan of things Southern should miss this book.