"paula deen" news and stories

Men like Alton Brown sink their big manly teeth into a bone-in chop; women like Nigella Lawson get to lick an ice-cream cone. Or maybe, like Paula Deen, just poise a forkful of cream pie in front of their open mouths, with just an eensy dab of cream clinging to their lower lip. Are photos of women with food just plain soft-core, and can we make it stop? Or at least have Tony Bourdain nuzzling up to an oyster? We love you, man. Head over to Serious Eats to get the full story.

Sick of dressing as the same old hot-dog, Halloween after Halloween? That may qualify you for a Chipotle contest. But isn't it time you worked your top-chef look? From a Crocs-toting Mario Batali (using a prosthetic belly if you don't happen to be molto-shaped), to a pearl-sportin' Paula Deen, the folks at Chow show you how, with six hilarious how-tos and photos. Here's a thought: How about Sam Mason from "Dinner with the Band?" Head down to the local tattoo parlor right now, and you might have a decent copy of Sam's fish tat by Halloween.

New York Times food writer Kim Severson recently published "Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life." In this touching and witty food memoir Severson serves up the lessons that an octet of female cooks and writers -- Marion Cunningham, Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, Marcella Hazan, Rachael Ray, Edna Lewis, Leah Chase and her own mother, Ane Marie Zappa Severson -- taught her about sobriety, fulfillment and happiness.

Slashfood: How did you come up with the idea for the book?
Kim Severson: I was thinking about older women cooks who were really the home cooks of that generation who would research cookbooks and write them, like Marion Cunningham. An agent called me and we went out for lunch. I was telling her some funny stories and she said, "Why don't you write more about that?" So I looked at women I had written about for the San Francisco Chronicle or the New York Times and why I was attracted to them. And I realized I was interested in these women at different times because they taught me something or something was going on my life that I needed to figure out. So I decided to hang a structure on these women.

Things right now aren't so Savannah sunny for Paula Deen. The doyenne of the Food Network, who has yet to meet a stick of butter that she didn't like, has been robbed of more than $10,000 in jewelry and other items.

According to the TMZ website, Paula's belongings were lifted by her maid, Mary Alice White.

A police report filed by Michael Groover (Paula's hirsute hubby) claims that White pinched the loot between August 2009 to May 2010. When the pair discovered some of the missing baubles in their employee's possession, they fired her.

White was arrested on May 5 and has been charged with felony theft.

Two of the South's most famous chefs, New Orleans's native son John Besh and Food Network's Grande Dame Paula Deen who hails from Albany, Georgia, are teaming up this Saturday to co-host an event called 'Shrimp and Grits.'

The cooking demonstration and tasting is part of The New Orleans Wine and Food Experience, an annual culinary celebration of the city's celebrated fare paired with wines from all over the globe.

But Besh and Deen are not just cooking for the usual culinary fun of it. After 'Shrimp and Grits,' the duo will join other chefs to serve up Louisiana seafood at a $300-a-plate dinner at August, one of Besh's restaurants, to help raise money to help those affected by the recent oil spill. Proceeds will benefit the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Foundation, specifically a wetlands foundation that will help mitigate the long term effects on the fertile marshlands, and a fund that is being set up to help the shrimpers who are unable to make a living right now.

Besh is passionate about getting the word out there that Louisiana seafood is safe to eat.