I'm baking some brownies for Cody's party this weekend, and I was feeling particularly ambitious, so I grabbed Paula Deen's Kitchen Classics from the bookshelf and began to peruse recipes. However, I've become distracted by her prose, which thank Butter (Paula's God), she added into her cookbook. I have now learned she met her husband because her two unruly dogs kept running into his yard, and that her two adorable sons dressed in drag and acted as bridesmaids at her wedding. ("Adorable" might give you the idea that they're like, 7 and 10 years-old, but they are fully grown men who just happen to be cute.)
But what I'd really like to share is a paragraph entitled, "The Journey Continues . . ." My comments are in bold, because they're important, duh.
"When I look back over my life, I get filled with so much emotion. (This sounds an 11th grader taking the English Regents in a sweaty gym wrote this, but we will forgive that because we love Paula.) My early childhood years were so wonderful and safe. My brother, Bubba (seriously?) and I were protected, guided, and watched over by wonderful parents. (Sudden urge to adopt two french bulldogs and name them Paula and Bubba.) You get so secure that you begin to think life is made up of only peaks and almost no valleys. I was nineteen and Bubba was twelve when our father, who was our hero, died unexpectedly at the age of 40. ( :( Paulaaaa girl.) This was the beginning of my broken spirit. (I feel like that should've been capitalized. Or that she's talking about her Native American soul in a past life. Regardless, I wanna give her a hug.) When our beautiful, sweet and loving mother died four years later at the age of 44, I felt impending doom hanging over me. I thought this valley would last for years. (I just called my mom to make sure she was okay. She's at Costco, safe and sound, you guys.)
(This is still me talking, I stopped the bold because I'm about to ramble. Go get some popcorn.) But seriously, she was 23 when this all went down, and baby Bubs was 16. And she doesn't go into much detail about it, but by this time she had also been married and birthed the two sons I spoke about. I cannot picture the 23 year-old me having three people to look after and no parents. I don't want to. I owe my life to my parents. My brain tells me that every time my heart pumps blood to it lately. (How quickly these posts turn sappy.)
To make a long, southern woman's story short, Paula opened up a restaurant, got divorced, raised her sons by herself, fell in love like a teenager and married the guy, gained mega success and is now rolling in it. ("It" meaning breadcrumbs after she gets out of her daily bath of melted butter before going to lay outside in the pool on a float made of pound cake.)
I've been trying to eat more healthily lately because it helps with the symptoms of chemo, but if you're looking for a new recipe book chock full of food that is decidedly not good for you but tastes bangin', go for the Kitchen Classics one.
(Also..Halloween costume.)
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