Archives for "Paula Deen"

Last week, rumors started recirculating that Paula Deen had Type 2 diabetes, and that she was going to be teaming up with a drug company to promote their diabetes drug.

I didn’t post the gossip here on FNH.  I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I actually said to myself: “There is no way Paula Deen would do this. Surely even she must have her limits. Some morals. Some basic decency.”

I WAS WRONG.

In a Today Show interview thismorning, Paula Deen announced she’s had diabetes for years. She said she’s also teaming up with Novo Nordisk to promote their drug.

Paula Deen’s got her name on everything from cookware and hams to eyeglasses and mattresses, but this is ridiculous. To get rich promoting fried butter balls and Krispy Kreme donut burgers – and to continue doing so knowing you have diabetes – and then to get even richer promoting a diabetes drug – is a new low, even for the Deens.

Paula’s spent the morning giving quotes about the benefits of exercising, and posting “lighter” recipes on her Twitter page. Seriously? If Paula Deen thinks she can build an empire on fat people – and then simply snap a finger and try positioning herself as an authority on “lighter food”, girlfriend has another thing coming. She should use some of her money to buy herself a clue.

My phone and email inbox have been blowing up all morning with media outlets searching for quotes. I haven’t said anything to anyone.

For those of you looking for a quote, here’s one you can print:

In the future, when you ask me why I’m so cynical and jaded about the Food Network and celebrities in general, the answer is: “it’s shit like this.”

Well, it’s happened. PR people have started reaching out, begging food writers and bloggers to cover Bobby Deen’s new Cooking Channel show, Not My Mama’s Meals. According to his publicist: “Each week on Not My Mama’s Meals, Bobby Deen will recreate some of his mother’s famous meals with healthy substitutions that cut down on calories and fat, but still deliver on taste.”  The show premieres on January 4th.

Maybe not his mama’s meals, but his mama’s coattails, for sure.

[Written and submitted by George Webber. Note to Guy Fieri: it is a heavier piece, so don't even try to read or comprehend it.]

During a recent shopping excursion to Walmart – and by excursion I mean a series of brilliant tactical manoeuvres to avoid the wall of eight listless Mexicans in the ill-fitting, food stained Hello Kitty t-shirt and worn out slippers meandering slowly abreast and pushing one cart with a case of Tecate – I happened to make a break for safety through their newly re-modelled and irritatingly relocated housewares section where, to my chagrin, I noticed a series of Paula Deen signature products.

I’m not typically enamoured with such pricey novelties and ‘Celebrity Chef’ style gear no matter how smooth and round Giada’s hefty stockpots are, but it is nice to know even the small people with Walmart-centric subsistence level income lifestyles such as myself can enjoy a lesser quality representation of the opulent post-prison Martha Stewart empire by getting doily cutters for $14.88 after price rollbacks. So, despite the fact that Miss Paula was smiling her best chemically enhanced 3D White Strips smile at me from the glossy wrapper of a French Rolling Pin and offering up a friendly ‘Hey Y’all!’, I was perfectly inclined to continue on my way, undeterred, when part of the fine print caught my attention:

‘Manufactured in Thailand.’

And it occurred to me what an absolutely brilliant and cunning plan this was. My admittedly limited exposure to Paula Deen is, of course, entirely self-inflicted. I’ve heard Y’all more times in 9 minutes of Paula’s Home Cooking With Heaping Great Wads of Butter than I ever did in 9 years of The Beverly Hillbillies and the department store Santa guy she’s married to creeps me out more than Ina Garten’s subservient houseboy Jeffrey, so I tend to avoid her at all costs. But I never would have thought that our jovial and portly Miss Paula could be so ruthless.

Continue Reading