Biography of Paula Deen

Living with agoraphobia for twenty years and a crumbling marriage, Paula 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, Paula 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 growing too large for a home-based operation, Paula opened her first restaurant on Savannah’s Southside called The Lady and within five years, it also became too successful for such a small space with limited seating. On January 1996, Paula and her sons went from selling tuna fish sandwiches in saran wrap to running their own downtown restaurant in Savannah’s City Market. The Lady and Sons opened her doors to faithful customers, celebrity clientele, and thousands of Savannah visitors seeking out Paula's famous fried chicken.

Paula 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. Paula began her road to national recognition in 1998 by promoting its sale on QVC television where it became one of the best selling cookbooks. In 1999, she published her second best seller The Lady and Sons, Too! and her third The Lady and Sons Just Desserts in 2002.

Paula’s Home Cooking aired on the 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 Paula tell her story. .

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.

Paula’s deft hand in the kitchen, combined with her flair for dramatic touches, have set her restaurants and cookbooks apart from the others . Her determination, hard work, and innate warm Southern charm have done the rest.