Food Network Southern Food and Wine Fest Part II

Friday night I had tickets to a cooking demo done by Jamie and Bobby Deen as well as tickets to the chef’s reception, which followed. Now I am not a huge fan of Paula Deen, I don’t dislike her but would not really cook any of her food. I don’t want a cholesterol count of 900 and would prefer not to have an ass the size of Alaska. I also find her to be a a caricature of herself with all those y’alls and loud cackling, but I guess that’s what you need to be in order to have a wildly successful career as she does. In fact the only reason I had the tickets is because I purchased a whole package for the festival and given that it is the southern festival, I suppose they wanted to highlight southern cooks from their lineup. Why they didn’t just have Paula is a mystery to me.

Suffice to say I wasn’t hugely excited to see the cooking demo but there were tons of people who were. I needn’t have worried since very little cooking actually took place. They made coleslaw some tilapia and a few burnt buns.

The Deen boys arrived late and disheveled as they explained they had flight delays and lost luggage but they came out with great spirits. They spent at least the first 40 minutes just talking to the audience like we had stopped by their home for an evening chat but they didn’t even offer us any sweet tea.

They mostly talked about their famous mother and I still am hard pressed to figure out just how they are riding those coattails. They told stories of Paula and “Aunt Peggy” wearing underwear on their heads in lieu of hairnets when they started their sandwich business. They told of selling sandwiches door to door as children and of finally opening their restaurant. They also told of how Paula is quite the task master with the boys all liberally peppered with “Mama”. Bobby only slipped up once by calling her “Mom”. I think that may be a breach of his contracts.

In fairness they were very entertaining and for one pathetic loser of a fan who kept shouting throughout, they were the top. We all thought that ‘Michelle’ – the pathetic fan – appeared to be desperate to be noticed by Bobby, who was apparently named most eligible bachelor in some publication or other…maybe the hillbilly journal but I could be mistaken. Jamie had a couple of bites of the coleslaw proclaiming it to be his first food all day and then they distributed some food to the audience. I had a single limp spear of sweet potato – which was never even mentioned in the demo.

Since the pair was so chatty, they never had time to cook all the dishes that were promised, Jamie went on to show us the magic of TV cooking, wherein he had the camera man focus on his face while a chef brought in the finished goods. It was actually quite comical to watch. Oh I should mention that the cameras were for the benefit of the large screens they had mounted for the audience. I was sitting at a table in the front row so didn’t have to rely on them.

Afterwards there was a chef’s reception, which I thought, in my naïveté, was a party with food and drink. I thought that mostly because that’s what the schedule said. So I took my time and moseyed on over to the reception only to find a very long line. OK, I waited because I expected there to be FN quality food at the end of the wait. After 2 and a half hours, I was grumpy and hungry and had a whole new set of friends. I found that what was taking so long was that we had to go through a line to meet Jamie and Bobby and have a photo/autograph opportunity. I would have gone straight for the food.

I must say that they were very friendly and when I asked about the lack of food, Bobby said “Aren’t you a sweet thang”. So I guess it was worth it. Seriously, the are very nice individuals

and very entertaining but something tells me that they should leave the cooking to Mama.

Next up is a recap of Alton Brown's cooking demo.