Chanda ranga: Gourmet Ready Meals

Tuesday 7 August 2012

Gourmet Ready Meals

Born in Albany, Georgia, Paula Deen was a homemaker and bank teller before entering professional cooking. She divorced her first husband in 1989 shortly after moving to Savannah. She was left with only $200 and her two teenage sons.

Paula was considered a good Southern cook, so she started a small catering company called The Bag Lady. She would make sandwiches and other meals, then her sons would deliver the food. Paula avoided going out herself because she suffered from agoraphobia, a fear of public places. Paula believes this fear comes from an incident in which she was held at gunpoint during a bank robbery.

The Bag Lady was very successful and soon outgrew her kitchen.

Paula was then hired by a Best Western Hotel in Savannah to cook. She worked there five years before opening her own restaurant, , in downtown Savannah. Paula was able to overcome her agoraphobia with her constant contact with guests. The restaurant was a success and later moved into a larger building in Savannah’s Historic District.

In 1997, Paula self-published her first cookbook, The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cooking (). The book was noticed by a literary agent of a major publishing house, who happened to be dining in the restaurant to escape a thunderstorm.

Paula increased her success and national recognition by promoting her book on QVC, where it became one of the best selling cookbooks. She has since written three more cookbooks: The Lady & Sons, Too! : A Whole New Batch of Recipes from Savannah (), The Lady & Sons Just Desserts (), and Paula Deen & Friends: Living It Up, Southern Style ().