Paula Deen by Paula Deen

Author:Paula Deen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: SOC035000
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2007-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

HOW I GOT MY OWN TELEVISION SHOW, AND IT WASN’T NO DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES

They wanted me to wear an apron on television. It made me look fat, well, fatter than usual. I told them I was going to drop that apron crap.

Now I had it all: a fiancé, a popular restaurant, cookbooks, workin’ kids, money in my pocket, and three dogs. At least, I thought I had it all. I’d had a run of bad luck and it was one for the records, but, been there, done that. Now I was finally in a run of great luck, and it wasn’t over yet. This gray-haired over-fifty lady with an ample and over-fifty bod, this formerly agoraphobic, algebra-flunking cheerleader from Albany High School, was about to become a television star. God works in mysterious ways.

Carol Perkins was a Victoria’s Secret model in her day. She lived in New York, and she traveled in business circles—circles that never crossed my path. After a certain age where no perky-breasted Victoria’s Secret model ever tread, she moved to Savannah to make a new home and start a designer-dog-accessories business she called Harry Barkers. She’d often come into The Lady & Sons to get her balanced meal without the hassle of cookin’ it.

Naturally, anyone who’d been a Victoria’s Secret model and ended up with dogs was a woman after my own heart, and when she’d come in, I’d go over, sit at her table, and we’d talk and laugh. One day in 1999, she said, “Paula, do you know Gordon Elliott?”

I knew of Gordon Elliott: he was that Australian television star and I remembered seeing him on different American shows, like A Current Affair, To Tell the Truth, and a crazy breakfast show called Good Day New York in which, on live television, Gordon barged into New York homes before the sleeping occupants had opened their eyes to the light of day. I remember seeing the one in which he surprised Bill Cosby with what I later learned were the 101 voices of the New York Choral Society singing the Hallelujah Chorus. He made me laugh big-time, that Gordon Elliott, and now Carol tells me he’s her dear friend and is coming to Charleston to shoot an episode of the Food Network’s Door Knock Dinners.

“I’ve told Gordon that there’s a woman here in Savannah that he really needs to meet,” said my friend. “Would it be all right if I asked him to come over for lunch so you two can chat?”

I told her I’d adore it, thinking it was the last I’d hear of Gordon Elliott.

In a week, Carol comes in and says, “Gordon is going to be here tomorrow. Are we on for lunch?”

Were we! I’m game for anything fun! Well, my Aunt Peggy and Bubba were here visiting and I got a table up in the corner for us all to sit at. Of course, lunchtime was so busy I couldn’t sit, but I’d keep going back and forth to the table because the moment that Gordon walked in, he and I looked at each other and we laughed and clicked.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.