Paula Deen Defends Southern Cuisine

In light of her new cookbook, Paula Deen's Southern Cooking Bible, the queen of comfort food sat down for an interview and defended the Southern stereotype. "I think sometimes the South gets a bad rap, but I've found over the last 10 years, in all my travels, there's nowhere in the U.S. that eats more vegetables more than us Southern folks," she said. "We love our fresh green beans and new potatoes and fresh butter beans, so I figure it's almost like a balance... OK, so what if it has a little ham hock in it?"

Oh Paula, didn't you hear? Potatoes don't count as vegetables. Luckily, a stick of butter isn't in all of her meals. "People ask me, 'Do you and your family eat like this everyday?' Well no we don't, of course we don't," she said. Whew! We were afraid she'd turn out like that SNL skit.

But on some occasions, she'll just happen to drop more cream into her food. "Sometimes I will accidentally trip when I'm walking across the kitchen with a block of cream cheese, and it falls in there," she said. "I hate it when that happens!"

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