Paula Deen biography

Synopsis

From Paula’s Home Cooking to Top Chef, Paula Deen has been a fixture on the Food Network for over 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.

Early Life

Born in Albany, Georgia, Paula Deen went to Albany High School and married her first husband after graduating in 1965. 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 Bad Lady was a hit, and its popularity forced Deen to expand beyond the confines of her kitchen. In January 1996, she opened her own restaurant, The Lady and Sons, in downtown Savannah, which she ran with her two sons. By 1999, USA Today had awarded The Lady and Sons with the "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 Paula's recipes at home, and in turn led to her first TV appearance, on the QVC shopping channel.

TV Stardom

After a few guest appearances on Food Network shows, Paula Deen shot a pilot in early 2001 for the network, called Afternoon Tea. The network gave the show a thumbs-up, and Deen landed her own show in 2002, Paula's Home Cooking. With the success of that series, the Food Network debuted Paula's Party in 2006. 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 2005, on the heels of her hit shows, Deen launched a lifestyle magazine called Cooking with Paula Deen, and in 2006 she published her third cookbook, Paula Deen Celebrates! Deen's memoirs, It Ain't All About the Cooking, were published in 2007, and The Deen Family Cookbook (2009) and Paula Deen's Southern Cooking Bible (2011) rounded out her writing efforts.

Not quite finished with her TV domination, Deen debuted yet another cooking show, Food Network's Paula's Best Dishes, in June 2008.

For her efforts, in June 2007 Deen won a Daytime Emmy Award (Outstanding Lifestyle Host) for Paula's Home Cooking. In October 2010, she was selected as the Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade.