Empire of Deens

Hello, neglected blog that used to be about recipes! You disappeared for a few days, a casualty of BLOGGER migration, but it appears that you are back among the blogoverse.

Last week, thanks to my friend J-Goose, I saw Paula Deen & Family at the BORDERS in the Columbus Circle Mall -- a place I almost never go to.

Deen was promoting her new autobiography and the store had a stack of pre-signed copies. The place got pretty packed and the crowd embraced Paula like she were royalty. Approachable royalty.

To sweeten the pot, Paula had her husband Michael with her. And Jamie and Bobby even made a surprise appearance.

All right, I'm so jaded, it's appalling. And yet, it's a testament to Paula Deen that I still found her incredibly disarming. If it's an act, it's a hell of an act. She can emote Damien Rice off a stage. She's charismatic, her kids are charismatic. It's more than that sheen of celebrity. That's part of it. But they just seem... genuine. They just seem like good people, and you're inclined to feel happy for their success.

DVR ALERT -- after years of turning it down, Paula says she finally agreed to participate in an Iron Chef competition. For cookies. Wonder who she'd be going up against? (I'm praying it's Nigella Lawson.)

While we're talking Food Network (and I hate for this to degenerate into a Food Network Commentary blog, because I haven't even been watching much of Food Network lately -- but I don't have any damn recipes to share, so what the fuck am I going to do here?), I been going to the Chelsea Market recently because I've had to be around there due to a project I've been working on. Anyway, it's the strangest place because it always seems like a bit of a ghost town, but there's a lot of cool foodie shit there. Even though I've got no real need for any of it as -- if I 'aven't a'ready mentioned -- I'm not much of a cooker lately, guv!

Jesus Christ, this is a good blog entry.