More Savannah Vacation: Lady & Sons Restaurant

While in Savannah, we were fortunate to be able to eat at Paula Deen’s restaurant, The Lady & Sons. VIP, no waiting in line was one of the perks of going on the Paula Deen tour as long as you called ahead to make a reservation. Apparently her restaurant is hard to get into without a reservation. Since I’m a Southern gal who loves to throw down on some Southern cookin’ ya’ll know this was on my to-do list!

OMG! It was so good! You could order off the menu but Rob and I both tried the buffet. I’m a sampler so I like to get a little (or a lot!) of everything.

 On the menu was: fried chicken, baked chicken, maple glazed pork chops, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, collards, yams, lima beans, dirty rice, and macaroni and cheese. There was also a salad bar. I skipped that and went straight for the real food. We also got ho cakes and cheesy bread and dessert with the meal. And no, a ho cake is not a derogatory term! It’s the best tasting piece of fried bread you ever put in yo’ mouth!! For dessert I had the peach cobbler, da bomb!!! The waiter told us that Paula refers to her peach cobbler as "Slap Yo Momma Peach Cobbler." Now I’m not advocating violence against yo momma but that was some good peach cobbler.

My favorites were the fried chicken, ho cakes, yams, mac and cheese, and the creamed corn. The corn wasn’t really juicy but was a little more firm. Almost casserole like in a way, yet still creamy. Maybe like it was baked but pulled out of the oven right before it got too firm. If anyone comes across Paula’s recipe for her creamed corn ya’ll let me know! I looked on the internet but didn’t find what I thought was the right one.

Check out my pics!

Me and Rob. He is so excited to be going on the tour. :)

Totally unrelated sidenote: I cut my bangs. Do they make me look weird? Not that I need help with that....

Rob and Paula. Should I be worried??

My plate of yummy goodness. You can see a corner of the ho cake on the left. Sorry that the lighting is weird...

The Lady & Sons restaurant in Savannah, GA

The Lady & Sons sign. I just noticed that the top of the sign says "Hey Ya'll!"

Stay tuned for more!

Book Review: Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin'

So, ya'll know that I went to Savannah, GA last week on vacation and that we went on the Paula Deen tour. Well, I've always been a fan of Paula's from watching her shows on The Food Network. After all, I am a Southern gal and can relate to all that fabulousness that Paula is cookin' up in the kitchen!  She had me hooked when I saw a show where she deep fried a ham using a turkey fryer. It came out a little crispy on the outside (also how I like my hot dogs!) but so tender and juicy on the inside-at least that's how it looked on tv.  It must be lunchtime because I'm going off talking about food!

Anyhoo, I was intrigued by Paula's story so I purchased her biography, Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin' while we were in Savannah. Now, normally I don't really do biographies, I'm more of a popular fiction kinda gal, but I couldn't put this book down. I had it finished within three days!

(Did ya'll really click to look inside? Lol.)

Here's a summary of what it's all about written by Amazon reviewer Dennis Phillips. I figured what he said pretty much sums up what I thought so why rewrite it? :) See the whole review here.

"She starts out the book by saying that she is going to hide nothing and is going to be totally honest with her fans. She then proceeds to admit that she is a smoker and I thought that if this was her biggest darkest secret I was going to be bored before I got through with this book. Well in true Southern fashion she was just serving up a light appetizer because there was much more to come. The much more I'm not going to give away but take it from me, Paula has been cooking in more rooms than the kitchen.

Beyond the secrets though this is a warm and endearing book that is filled with Southern slang and humor. This is the story of the average Southern girl who grows up watching her mother and grandmother cook but never dreams that cooking will be her ticket to the big time. This is the story of a girl who marries too young, loses her parents not long after that and ends up having to find a way to support her family. There are dark times when she has to deal with family problems and mental illness and there are times when most people would have just given up but this is also a love story with a happy ending."

Now, back to my thoughts. I really enjoyed this book. Paula has a charm about her that reminds me of my own grandmothers. How can you not love a lady that says "Hey ya'll!"?

I love Paula's rags to riches story. Her story embodies all the stereotypical adages:

"You're never too old to follow your dreams."

"Hard work does pay off."

"You can start with nothin' and make somethin'."

...And so on...

If you're a fan-or even if you're not, maybe you will become one after reading-I recommend this book.

Now, with that being said, there are some things in the book that will make your jaw drop open and be like "What??????".  Seriously.

That's all I'm gonna say about that. Are you intrigued yet?

...And if you don't know the story of how Paula and Michael met...well, I just love it. It's so fun!

Vacation in Savannah, GA

Work has been crazier than usual the past few weeks so I was ecstatic when my vacation week finally rolled around. I took the week of Labor Day off and went down to see my fiancé, Rob. He lives four hours away from me in Aiken, SC. Oh, it was so good not only to be off of work but to just get the heck outta dodge for a whole glorious week.

We decided that we would go to Savannah, GA for a few days (Monday-Wednesday). This would be the first trip there for both of us. Are there any fans of Southern cookin’ reading? Well, what super famous Southern cooking guru is from GA???

Anyone….

Anyone???

Well, my pretties, none other than the super fabulous Mrs. Paula Deen, so of course we went on the Paula Deen tour of Savannah. We hopped on a mini-bus (ya know, the short one, lol) and were whisked off to various places around the city. It was nice to be able to sit back, relax and see the city with a chauffeur  (even though I swear our chauffeur had snuck a few too many sips off the bottle that morning-she was a looney tune!)

Some of the highlights were:

The chapel at Bethesda School for Boys where Paula Deen got married to her current husband, Michael.

The Byrd Cookie Company  We got to sample some of their cookies and lemonade. De-li-cious! Yes, I sampled every one.

We stopped at the Savannah Bee Company, where I bought this.

 It so creamy, and wonderful, and has the lightest, yet most yummy blackberry scent.

After all that shopping, we had lunch at Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House. In case ya’ll don’t know, Uncle Bubba is Paula’s little brother. Here they are breakin' bread together. :)

The lunch was a mini-buffet but it was my first time eating this:

Low country boil. The shrimp were huge! Guess that’s one ‘o the benefits of coastal living. The only thing I didn’t like is that my momma taught me not to play with my food and I figure that if I have to rip off the feet, shell, and tail of my shrimp before I eat it that’s akin to playing with my food….

Just sayin’…

But once I got past all that, the low country boil was super yummy!

More on my trip later!