SAVANNAH, Ga. Southern cooking diva Paula Deen, alone and unplugged in her big country house on Turner Creek, is looking for something to feed you.
She and second husband Michael Groover, the bearded tugboat captain she loves to drag onto her Food Network show, just got off a private plane from a trade show in Atlanta, where a Paula Deen line of outdoor rugs was launched.
''I'm so excited over those rugs,'' she says in that down-home drawl. ``I'll tell you what, they look like these fancy rugs in my house. But you can take a hose to 'em.''
To make the rollout, Deen had to drag herself out of bed after a nasty bug ``kept me on the toilet the whole day, honey.''
But just 24 hours later, she's her perky self, ambling around her famous kitchen in a navy blue running suit. She hands you homemade pralines a fan in Atlanta had stuffed in her purse the day before.
She'll be on the road again this week, taking to the tables Thursday at Paula Deen's Poker Party & Casino Night at the seventh annual South Beach Wine & Food Festival, the weekend bacchanal that brings some of the hottest names in the industry to town. It's the first time Deen has had her own festival event, and the $150 tickets sold out in a heartbeat. More than 750 people are expected.
''Paula Deen is as big as it gets for us,'' says Lee Brian Schrager, festival founder and director. ``And she is a poker fanatic. In the past when she has come down, we have lost her in the evenings to the casinos. We have sent a car to take her to Hard Rock. This time, rather than lose her, we built an event around her.''
Who doesn't know Deen's story? She had lost her parents by the time she was 23. She was nearly done in by 20 years of agoraphobia. She just about suffocated in a bad marriage. And she was so broke she barely managed to put food on the table for her boys Jamie and Bobby. Down and out by 40, she somehow turned things around.
'My daddy died when he was 40. My momma when she was 44. I was raised Baptist, where we were told God has a plan, and everything happens for a reason. I decided, `Well, I'm gonna die, and God took my daddy so he didn't have to watch me die.' It made perfect sense to me.
``By 19, I started coughing, trying to get some blood up. I was checking my heart, thinking, today is the day. Eventually, I couldn't set foot outside the house.''
She moved to Savannah from her native Albany, Ga., in the late 1980s with her first husband. By then, she was barely getting out of bed.
FINDING STRENGTH
Then one day, on her own, she managed to tap into a dormant strength.
'I said, `You know what, Paula? You're 40 years old. If you don't change your ways, you really are gonna die.' And on this particular morning, the Serenity Prayer went through my head, and it was like a revelation.
'Right then, I accepted my death. I accepted my parents' death. I accepted the death of my children and everybody I loved. I said, 'Ain't none of us getting outta here alive. But God has given us today.' ''
If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was cook. So from home, with $200 in capital, she began making sandwiches her boys sold to the Savannah office crowd at lunchtime. That success led to her opening a small restaurant, which brought in crowds, which led to Oprah calling, which led to everything else, which Deen is still trying to wrap her brain around.
''I didn't have that good of an imagination,'' she says, sitting at a small wooden table in the kitchen where she tapes Paula's Home Cooking. A gleaming set of Paula Deen pots and pans sits on the stove. They're cold and empty, but she loves to look at them.
'There's fixin' to be dishes soon, too,'' she says.
She never meant to be a TV star, never meant to write bestselling cookbooks and publish a magazine (Cooking With Paula Dean), never meant to put her name on products from marinades to frozen dinners.
''Sometimes I pinch myself so much I'm black and blue,'' she whispers.
REGULAR FOLK
And perhaps that's why she is so beloved. She's regular folk, a woman with no connections and little hope who beat her demons and, at an age when most women are considered past their prime, managed to soar.
Hard as it is to believe now, the Food Network didn't see her potential at first, says Deen's agent, Barry Weiner.
``She was Southern, she wasn't 28 and she wasn't a size 2. They said, `She has gray hair and she fries chicken. That won't work with our audience on the Upper West Side.'
``But once they put her in a couple of spots, they came around. She is magical. And her magic comes from the fact that she tells the truth.''
It's the day before her 61st birthday. And by way of celebrating, Deen is going to do ``nothing at all.''
'What more could I need? I was well supposed to be dead. See, that's the power and the determination of a woman. I mean, I didn't expect all of this. I just envied people that got paid on a Friday but could still go to the grocery store the next Tuesday or Wednesday. I made a commitment to work hard so I could go to the grocery store for my kids any ol' day of the week.''
She has made millions, which isn't to say she signs every endorsement deal that comes her way.
''The margarine people, they had some money. But I'm known as the butter lady, so I wasn't gonna do that,'' Deen says. ``I think hard before I put my name on something.''
She was happy to make a deal with Harrah's Casino in Tunica, Miss., where a 560-seat Paula Deen Buffet is slated to open this spring.
``My daddy was a card player, and I have his blood running through my veins. And I'm a slot slut. If you don't believe me, walk in my pantry and you'll find a machine. I got another one in the garage.''
She is so big these days that, much as she'd like to, she can't show up at her downtown Savannah restaurant, The Lady & Sons. The crowd perpetually wrapped around the block treats a Paula sighting like it's Elvis come back for fried pork chops.
``I just love to go in and talk to folks, take pictures with them. And I do sometimes go next door to the Paula Deen Store. But I had to pass the torch on running the restaurant.''
Her sons are in charge now, and her younger brother Bubba handles Uncle Bubba's Oyster House, also part of the Paula Deen empire in Savannah.
ON THE MENU
She is famous for pushing real butter and fried everything, but she can't possibly eat that way every day, can she? She must be a closet micro-greens and seared-tuna eater, you say. And she starts with her infectious cackle.
``I don't eat healthy at all. I love the foods I was raised on. I mean, they did kill my grandmother. At 91.''
Deen laughs some more. ``But really, I have to be true to myself. I love fried pork chops and rice with gravy and hoe cakes, honey. But I'm getting older, I guess. I just had to start on Zocor because my cholesterol had crept up over 200.''
She'll talk to you about her dental issues, too.
'I just got me some new teeth, honey, and they are driving me freaking nuts. I'm getting some porcelain veneers, and the top ones are still temporaries. I could just about go in and chisel 'em out. You can't floss 'em, and I feel like I'm just a-chompin' trying to talk to you.''
She's got such a familiar way, it's no wonder fans cross the line. She has lost count of how many times folks have shown up at her house.
'They'll holler over the fence, `Paula, it's my birthday, I wouldn't ask if it wasn't my birthday!' But my fans are sweet people. I'm not unsettled by it. Maybe that's because I'm not real bright. I know all it takes is one nut who thinks I killed his momma. You know, encouraging butter and all.''
Deen takes you out back to see Turner Creek and the marsh grass beyond it. Her famous shih tzus run down to the dock.
'The otters come up and poop, so the dogs are always going out a-sniffin'. Sometimes those otters can look like big ole rats. But in the summer, the sun sets right over the marsh grass, and the dolphins swim around, and it's the most beautiful place there is.''
Still, Deen is moving out soon, leaving behind the 5,000-square-foot house she and Groover have outgrown in just three years. They're building a much bigger, Caribbean-style home in another part of Wilmington Island, with wrap-around porches, an outdoor kitchen by the pool, a media room, a play room and ``the most precious little boat house you ever saw.''
It's a dream come true, she says.
``And here I am, gray-headed and with two chins. It just proves you just gotta know you have something people want, whether it's your writing or your fried chicken and biscuits. And then you have to believe in that so strong, nothing can stop you.''
