Why Paula Deen sucks.

I'm from the south. I eat grits. I can cook some of the best greens you ever had. I can make cornbread like it's going out of style. My husband is from the north. He is rather infatuated with my ability to cook, because it's no secret, food is better in the south. It really is.

Now, The Food Network got ahold of this well known fact, and decided to capitalize on it. Business is business, after all, and food is a rather lucrative business to be in. Enter at stage right, Paula Deen, with her way exaggerated Savannah accent (Trust me, I lived in that part of GA for five years. NOBODY talks like that.) and her disgusting food that contains so much fat and sugar that she gave herself Type 2 diabetes through a lifetime of eating the crap she cooks.

Paula Deen is a walking stereotype. She's the embodiment of every crappy misconception that northerners hold of us, trotted out on national TV, for all to behold. Thank you, food network, for making every misinformed individual I encounter, automatically assume that since I hail from below the Mason Dixon (WAY below it) that I fry all my foods, have never met a vegetable, and put butter in everything. Thank you, Paula Deen for selling out, and basically becoming a caricature, in the name of earning a few bucks.

I do not like her cookware. I do not like her restaurant. (Seriously, go there. Better yet, don't. The food is awful. If you think that's southern cooking, you obviously have no idea what it's supposed to taste like. Plus, a friend of mine who knows one of the cooks there told me most of the food served there is canned.) I definitely do not like her TV show. I do not like her fake accent, or the way she speaks in cliches. Frankly, she reminds me of the fake women in the beauty salon who are so nice while you're there, but say the most awful things about you the minute you walk out. I love being from the south, but Paula Deen is the living, breathing (although not sugar metabolizing), embodiment of all the worst parts of being southern.

OK, so I'll admit something. This is for my in-laws. I also apologize to Thak's aunt, whom I totally chewed out over this. I get it. You people live up north. You really do think southern people are like Paula Deen. We're not, though, well, most of us anyway. I'm not like the stereotypes you have seen. I do cook with butter, but that's because it's better for you than margarine. I use olive oil far more. I take care to feed my kids organic and GMO-free foods. I won't touch mayonnaise with a 10 foot pole. I also would not eat most of the stuff Paula Deen cooks, for the precise reason she shouldn't. It's extremely unhealthy, and also, because most of it tastes awful, and is a complete bastardization of southern food.

Real southern foods can be found in small restaurants which are owned by chefs whose names you probably don't know, who are part of the "farm-to-table" movement that's growing throughout the south in an effort to reclaim our cuisine, as it is meant to be. In South Carolina, it's particularly popular. You may find purple hull peas over tidal rice, seasoned with bacon from a pastured hog raised just up the road. You may eat fried green heirloom tomatoes, alongside roasted free-range chicken. Maybe you will have my personal favorite, collard greens, boiled with smoked pork knuckles, and drizzled with a bit of habanero vinegar, and served alongside a delicious buttermilk cornbread, and pork chops. (Ask Thak about this meal. It's one of his favorites.) It's nothing like what Paula Deen is putting out there. It's a million times better.

Tell you what. When we get back to Georgia, why not come see for yourself? I'm tired of being pigeon holed because I'm southern. You can try Paula Deen's food, and then you can try mine. I think mine is better. At least it won't give you diabetes, even if you did eat it every day. Ask Thak how much his health has improved since he's been married to me. And you know what else? My food is every bit as southern as Paula Deen's is.

I guess I'm just sick of the Paula Deen comparisons because she's not representative of anything that I'm proud of about the south. It would be like me comparing life up north to the movie Fargo. I know how much that annoys people from up that way. This is like that. The guys in Fargo were a total caricature of people from that part of the country. That's what Paula Deen is like to us. Most people I know think she's completely ridiculous. The only thing I have in common with her is a gender and a state, and that's just how I like it.