Paula dean biography
Paula Deen
Paula Deen is a Savannah-based restaurateur, author, and television personality. Her cooking and businesses have won both praise and criticism, especially after her past use of racial slurs and promotion of high-sugar recipes while being diabetic became known.
Paula Ann Hiers was born in Albany on January 19, , to Corrie and Earl Hiers. She spent her early childhood at River Bend, a small resort in Dougherty County owned by her grandparents. Her father worked at a car dealership, and her mother and grandmother ran the restaurant at River Bend. Although the young Paula often wanted to help in the kitchen, her mother found the child&#;s presence disruptive due to Paula&#;s need to &#;be in control of [the] pots.&#; She graduated from Albany High School in and at age eighteen married Jimmy Deen, whom she met in high school. Her first son, Jamie, was born in , followed three years later by another son, Bobby.
Soon after the birth of her second son, Deen began to suffer from depression and fear of public places, and she often used cooking as a way to cope with her illness. In she and her husband divorced, and she moved with her sons to Savannah. There she opened a catering business called The Bag Lady, where Deen and her sons distributed bagged sandwiches and desserts in downtown Savannah. When this proved a successful venture, she chose to open a restaurant.
In Deen’s first restaurant, The Lady, opened in a Best Western hotel in Savannah. In she opened a larger restaurant, The Lady and Sons, after the lease for The Lady’s space expired. The restaurant proved successful, serving southern favorites like hoecakes, fried chicken, and fried green tomatoes. The following year she published her first cookbook and sold it on QVC, a home-shopping television network. While becoming well known outside the Southeast through her cookbook, her restaurant benefited from increased Savannah tourism resulting from John Berednt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and E Courage, hard work and a hefty dollop of good luck combined to move Paula Deen from delivering lunches to local businesses to owning Savannah's most famous restaurant, authoring three best selling cookbooks and starring on her own television show, "Paula's Home Cooking." Hers is the inspiring tale of a woman who, with the support and love of her family, took control of her life and discovered her destiny. It is about a woman who broke through 20 years locked in the nightmare of agoraphobia to find the courage to challenge her fears through actions that have propelled her into the national spotlight. In , an unhappy Paula Deen with a failing marriage took stock of her life to see how she might provide for herself and her two sons. The only thing she was sure of was that she was a good cook. As a girl reared in the Deep South, Paula had been taught culinary skills by women in her family. Southern cooking was her heritage, and it now became her hope. With an investment of $ and with her sons as helpers, on June 19, she launched a home-based lunch delivery service she called The Bag Lady. Two years later she rented a restaurant space on Savannah's Southside and opened "The Lady" restaurant. In January she gambled again and moved her business downtown to Savannah's City Market. She named her new place The Lady and Sons and opened her doors to her faithful customers, and to the thousands of tourists who visit Savannah's historic district every year. Paula's deft hand in the kitchen, combined with her flair for dramatic touches that have set her restaurant apart - like the outdoor ringing of the dinner bell, and the singing waiters and waitresses - together with her determination, hard work and innate southern charm, have done the rest. Her first self-published cookbook in was quickly picked up by a major publishing house after a literary agent ate at the restaurant, bought () From Paula’s Home Cooking to Top Chef, Paula Deen was a fixture on the Food Network for more than a decade. She has also written several books on Southern cooking, as well as a memoir, and has started her own magazine, Cooking with Paula Deen. Following a racially charged controversy that led to her departure from the Food Network, she returned to TV hosting in with Positively Paula. Born on January 19, , in Albany, Georgia, Paula Deen went to Albany High School and married her first husband after graduating in Her parents both died by the time she was 23, a loss that led Deen into panic attacks and chronic agoraphobia. She retreated into her cooking, eventually starting a home-based catering business, The Bag Lady, with her two sons serving as deliverymen. The Bag Lady was a hit, and its popularity forced Deen to expand beyond the confines of her kitchen. In January , she opened her own restaurant, The Lady and Sons, in downtown Savannah, which she ran with her two sons. By , USA Today had awarded The Lady and Sons its "International Meal of the Year" title. The restaurant, like Deen's catering company, was also wildly popular, and her first cookbook, The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook, soon followed; the book gave readers a chance to try Deen's recipes at home and, in turn, led to her first TV appearance, on the QVC shopping channel. After a few guest appearances on Food Network shows, Deen shot a pilot in early for the network, called Afternoon Tea. The network gave the show a thumbs-up, and Deen landed her own show in , Paula's Home Cooking. With the success of that series, the Food Network debuted Paula's Party in Her sons, Bobby and Jamie, began making appearances with Paula on both shows, and the network gave them their own show, Road Tasted, that same year. In , on the heels of her hit shows, Deen launched a lifestyle magazine called Cooking with American cook, restaurateur, author, and television personality For the silent-screen actress, see Paula Dean. Paula Ann Hiers Deen (born January 19, ) is an American chef, cookbook author, and TV personality. Deen resides in Savannah, Georgia, where she owns and operates The Lady & Sons restaurant with her sons, Jamie and Bobby Deen. She has published fifteen cookbooks. Deen was born Paula Ann Hiers in Albany, Georgia, the daughter of Corrie A. Hiers (née Paul) and Earl Wayne Hiers Sr. Deen was 19 when her father died unexpectedly aged 40, and her mother died four years later aged Prior to her father's death, Paula, aged 18, married Jimmy Deen and in they had their first son James ("Jamie"), and in a second son Robert ("Bobby") was born. In her 20s, Deen suffered from depression and agoraphobia and began to spend more time preparing food for her family, as it was something she could do without leaving her house. Deen's cooking style had been informed by her grandmother Irene Paul, who had taught her the art of Southern cooking that Deen described as "real farmhouse cooking, the kind that takes all day". In , Deen and her husband Jimmy divorced. Needing to support herself, her two sons, and her younger brother Earl ("Bubba"), Deen tried various enterprises before starting a catering service that she called The Bag Lady, making lunches for office workers, which her sons Jamie and Bobby delivered. Following the success of Deen's home–based business she took over the restaurant in the Best Western, Abercorn Street, Savannah in and called it The Lady. In January , after five years at the Best Western, Deen, together with her sons Jamie and Bobby, opened their own restaurant, The Lady & Sons, in downtown Savannah, on West Congress Street. Within a f
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Paula Deen
Early life
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