Birthplace: Albany, Georgia
Best Known As: Southern host of TV's Paula's Home Cooking
Name at birth: Paula Ann Hiers
Paula Deen is a restaurateur from Savannah, Georgia who hosts the cable TV cooking shows Paula's Home Cooking and Paula's Party. Hers is a rags-to-riches kind of story -- right out of high school she married and had two kids. After her husband left her, she started a business in Savannah that sold sack-lunches to office workers. That led to a restaurant in early 1990, and by the end of the decade her home-style southern cooking had gained national attention. With an assist from Food Network's Gordon Elliot, she landed her own show on the cable network in 2003, followed by a more relaxed (and flirtatious) addition, Paula's Party in 2006. She's the anti-chef of the Food Network, a self-taught cook and advocate of the butter-n-bacon approach, with an empire that includes her Savannah restaurant (The Lady & Sons), a magazine (Cooking With Paula Deen), several cookbooks and a memoir (It Ain't All About the Cookin').
Her sons, Jamie and Bobby Deen, run the family's Savannah restaurant and have their own line of cookbooks, as well as a Food Network show, Road Tasted... Before she got into the food business, Deen suffered from anxiety attacks that kept her housebound for years... Her younger brother runs Uncle Bubba's Oyster House in Savannah, Georgia... Deen appeared in the feature film Elizabethtown (2005, starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst).A Hard Start:
Born in Albany, Georgia, Paula Deen was a homemaker and bank teller before entering professional cooking. She divorced her first husband in 1989 shortly after moving to Savannah. She was left with only $200 and her two teenage sons.
The Bag Lady:
Paula was considered a good Southern cook, so she started a small catering company called The Bag Lady. She would make sandwiches and other meals, then her sons would deliver the food. Paula avoided going out herself because she suffered from agoraphobia, a fear of public places. Paula believes this fear comes from an incident in which she was held at gunpoint during a bank robbery.
The Bag Lady was very successful and soon outgrew her kitchen.
Her Own Place:
Paula was then hired by a Best Western Hotel in Savannah to cook. She worked there five years before opening her own restaurant, The Lady and Sons, in downtown Savannah. Paula was able to overcome her agoraphobia with her constant contact with guests. The restaurant was a success and later moved into a larger building in Savannah’s Historic District.
A Cookbook or Two:
In 1997, Paula self-published her first cookbook, The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cooking (Compare Prices). The book was noticed by a literary agent of a major publishing house, who happened to be dining in the restaurant to escape a thunderstorm.
Paula increased her success and national recognition by promoting her book on QVC, where it became one of the best selling cookbooks. She has since written three more cookbooks: The Lady & Sons, Too! : A Whole New Batch of Recipes from Savannah (Compare Prices), The Lady & Sons Just Desserts (Compare Prices), and Paula Deen & Friends: Living It Up, Southern Style (Compare Prices).
Television Star:
Paula began her relationship with the Food Network in 1999 when her friend introduced her to Gordon Elliot. Paula appeared on the show Doorknock Dinners where several episodes were filmed in Savannah. Paula also appeared on Ready, Set, Cook! and finally got her own show in 2003, Paula’s Home Cooking.
Movie Star:
Paula appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2002. Her appearance brought hundreds of letters from women who took control of their lives after watching Paula tell her story. Paula made her film debut in 2005 in Elizabethtown starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. In the movie, she plays the aunt of Orlando’s character. Her cooking is heavily featured in the movie.
A Happy Ending:
In 2004, Paula married Michael Groover, a tugboat captain. Biography and Career:
Paula Deen remained all alone when she was 19, because her parents died in an accident. She had an early marriage that ended in an ugly divorce. In 1986, she hired as a bank teller and moved to Savannah, shortly after he left the job, along with her two sons. In 1989 she indented the divorce against her husband, after 24 years of marriage. Than she started a catering cook business, having as employees her sons.
On 8 January 1996, Paula Deen opened a restaurant and named it Lady & Sons in Savannah, on West Congress Street., that soon became a bigger business and was named as the International Meal of the Year. In 1
997 she published a cooking book named The Lady & Sins Savannah Country Cooking. Short after, she released a sequel of it.
Because of the entire success that came after this, she wrote other 2 cooking books, with Martha Nesbit as a co- author. She was invited in 2002 and in 2007 to appear in Oprah Winfrey Show and on QVC. Her story is told in 201 Inspiring Stories of Courage, Triumph, and Success, book published in 2007.
Currently, Paula Deen is remarried to Michael Groover and has two step sons from him. She has also a grandchild, named Jack Linton, from Jamie.
General appearance
Birth Name: Paula Ann Hiers
Nick Name: Paula Deen
Why do we like Paula Deen?
We like Paula Deen because she succeeded to remain in the american top preferences in front of other younger television personalities and because she loves kids.
Why is Paula Deen famous?
Paula Deen is famous because she appears in television shows and because she cooks. She is an american television personality and cooker, author and restaurateur.
Paula Deen is a self-made success story who learned the secrets of Southern cooking from her Grandmother some 30 years ago. She had no idea at the time that the love for Southern cooking her grandmother instilled in her would lead to a life-long career.
Newly divorced and with only $200 to her name, Paula packed up her two sons and moved from Albany, Ga., to Savannah. There she started her own catering business called The Bag Lady, where she prepared fresh lunches to sell to downtown businesses and doctors' offices.
Most days Paula rose in the early morning to grill chicken for her popular chicken salad. Every Thursday night she cooked until the wee hours to create a mouthwatering Friday barbecue special, Boston Butt. Her local specialties, such as chicken pot pies, barbecue sandwiches, lasagna and banana pudding, caught on with the Savannah business crowd and quickly became the talk of the town.
In 1990, Paula opened her own restaurant in the south side Savannah Best Western. Called The Lady and Sons, it served breakfast, lunch and dinner in a small space that could seat 42 people maximum. The restaurant remained in that location for four years, where Paula and her sons built their business with a core of faithful patrons. In 1995, Paula jumped on the opportunity to relocate to downtown Savannah, where The Lady and Sons has been ever since.
The Lady and Sons has gathered accolades from critics and media alike. The most important honor for Paula was when the food writer for USA Today recognized The Lady and Sons as having the Most Memorable Meal of the Year for 1999.
Paula's business continues to flourish with a series of successful cookbooks: Paula Deen and Friends: Living It Up, Southern Style, The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook, The Lady and Sons Too and The Lady and Sons Just Desserts.
Paula brought a southern touch to Food Network with her show, Paula's Home Cooking. She also surprised the owner of a century-old home with a kitchen makeover in a style all her own on the 2005 Food Network special, All-Star Kitchen Makeover.
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