Dora Charles who worked for Paula Deen for over twenty years is finally getting her due with her first cookbook, A Real Southern Cook In Her Savannah Kitchen.
I got a copy of the cookbook and it’s a great primer for real southern/soul food cooking. I was talking about the cookbook last week with Erika who is the Yelp Savannah Community Ambassador, and she said,
“Why does soul food have to be elevated?! It’s from the soul, so it is already elevated.”
I agree. Soul food does not have to elevated. The family recipes in Dora Charles’ cookbook will remind you what your Mudear or Auntie made for Sunday dinners. The book comes out September 8th. The New York Times’ Kim Severson interviewed Dora Charles, and she’s doing press at the Decatur Book Festival this weekend. Hugh Acheson blurbed her book, but I’m not sure how much promotion the book is getting in Savannah.
Savannah is still Paula Deen’s town. Coincidentally Paula Deen has a cookbook coming on September 8th as well, and it was announced that she will be one of the celebrities on Dancing With The Stars. It was ONLY two years ago that Paula Deen got in hot water for saying the “N-word”. More disgraceful is that she grossly underpaid the employees at her restaurant. Dora Charles was reportedly making only $10 an hour. Why is Paula Deen allowed to be on TV? Did she go to racial slur rehab? I don’t know Paula Deen. I don’t know what’s in her heart, but I do know what’s in her wallet-wads of CASH.