Paula Deen

Hundreds of patrons line up everyday in front of The Lady and Sons restaurant in Savannah for just a glimpse of the owner. Paula Deen is the author of three best-selling cookbooks, and the host of the Food Network's Paula's Home Cooking.

Living with agoraphobia for 20 years and a crumbling marriage, Deen was left with two growing sons and no source of income. As a girl reared in the deep South, Southern cooking was in her heritage and the kitchen became her only hope. With only two hundred dollars and her sons, Deen launched a home-based lunch delivery service called The Bag Lady in June 1989. The business model was simple: she made the sandwiches and her sons went out and sold them.

Two years later, with The Bag Lady outgrowing her kitchen, Deen opened her first restaurant, The Lady, on Savannah's Southside. Within five years, The Lady also outgrew its small space and limited seating. In January 1996, Deen and her sons opened The Lady and Sons in Savannah's downtown City Market.

Deen self published her first cookbook in 1997, The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook. A major publishing house quickly picked it up after a literary agent unexpectedly came into the restaurant for lunch to escape a thunderstorm. She bought the book and immediately saw its potential. Deen began down the road to national recognition in 1998 by promoting the book's sale on QVC television. In 1999, she published her second bestseller, The Lady and Sons, Too!, and her third, The Lady and Sons Just Desserts, in 2002. Simon & Schuster published Paula Deen & Friends in April.

Paula's Home Cooking aired on Food Network on November 16, 2002, to rave reviews and was immediately embraced by the public.

In 1999, USA TODAY awarded The Lady and Sons restaurant the "International Meal of the Year," and a guest appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show triggered hundreds of letters from women who took charge of their lives after watching Deen tell her story.

Deen's deft hand in the kitchen and flair for dramatic touches set her restaurants and cookbooks apart. Her determination, hard work and innate warm Southern charm have done the rest.


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