Paul Prudhomme changed his recipes over a decade ago, and I tried watching his revised show, but he took it to an extreme that I thought was unnecessary. However, he is a good comparison and is what I thought of first. I have fond associations with Southern accents - it reminds me of some of my roommates at Rice. I no longer live in "Y'all" country, and I never used that word much even when I did, but I do not find it nearly as annoying as when people say, "What I'm going to do next is I'm going to..." instead of saying "Next I'm going to..." Or when people say "actually" twice or more in one sentence. There was a woman on the Steven and Chris Show that did that last week, and I had the change the channel because of her. Another word (not a real word) that annoys me no end is "vinegar-ette". It seems that chefs are deliberately taught improper English, and I think they should be made to take speech classes (or get speech therapy) like the class I had to take for my Interior Design degree. I do like Paula Deen, but I revise her recipes when I make them. I think her cheesecake recipe is fine as is, but I would not make it very often. I find it endearing that Paula calls her son "Son". To me, it shows motherly love. It's better than using "DS" on a forum, as "DS" can mean "son" or "sister", and it always gets me confused. Giving children numbers is even worse since pseudonymns are always an option. I had an uncle who had pseudonymns for everyone, but then he was rich, eccentric, and childless and could get away with it. Annie, I love the olive wood Paula Deen spoons you sent me!!! Larry the Cable Guy has made a career using a fake southern accent - he was born in Nebraska and has a midwestern accent in his normal voice. I wish Paula the best and hope she will be able to get this under control. Lars

Olychick, you are right, that is the best explanation for how I feel and how I want to reply to Magglepuss. I am taking the liberty of copying and pasting here. By Janus Adams, Emmy Award-winning journalist, historian and producer When news first broke of Paula Deen's indelicate turns of phrase, I ignored it. C'mon. What American hasn't used the word [the N word]? We teach children the word each time Mark Twain's Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are assigned in class. After the initial headlines, there came anecdotes so salacious that she was a no-show on The Today Show, where she'd been scheduled to give a mea culpa and get on with her life. Through it all, my admiration never waned for her along with Martha Stewart and B. Smith, women who'd turned housework into home-making, built empires and given millions of women immense pride in the work they do for their families. Then, I heard Ms. Deen speak of her great-grandfather's having gone into a barn and shot himself because the Civil War had been lost and "he didn't know how to deal with life with no one to help operate his plantation." "There was 30-something people on his books and the next year's census it's like zero," she told a live audience. "He couldn't deal with those kinds of changes." Never did she mention the price paid by Blacks, pre- and post-change, over centuries of enslavement and segregation. She did say that "Black folks were such an integral part of our lives; they were like family." She even called a Black male employee, Hollis Johnson, "black as a board" onstage. "We can't see you standing against that dark board," she joked. To Matt Lauer on The Today Show, she offered her critics a self-serving monologue and a defiant "I is what I is, and I'm not changing!" Hence, this open letter: Dear Ms. Deen, I know that you're in great pain at this time. Your world -- and everything you've worked for -- has been rocked. Much as it was for your great-grandfather, it must seem that life has brought "terrific changes." I cannot, however, sympathize with the plight of your great-grandfathers who, for centuries, victimized mine. I will not mourn the "way of life" lost to those who joined the Ku Klux Klan, lynch mobs and "picnics" where white families spread blankets, shared baskets and "picked [n-word]" to dangle as "strange fruit" from their hanging-trees. You are suffering because you refuse to understand that lives have been lost to the "I is what I is" mentality in which you take such pride. Given a forum, you gave a diatribe. "Someone evil out there saw what I had worked for and they wanted it." Do you understand that millions of hard-working people only want to hear you say: "I said the things I said. I was wrong. I'm willing to learn and to grow?" Given a lifeline, you chose a lie when you said the only time in 30 years you used the word [n-word] was when a Black man had you at gunpoint in a bank robbery. Playing to stereotypes instead of humility, you sought to justify bigotry. Forget worrying that what some say about you isn't true; it's what you're saying about you that's causing outrage. Do you know what it means to me, a dark-skinned person, to watch a man who looks like me publicly humiliated for his skin tone? His family had to see that. What were you thinking? Should you tolerate being "white as puss?" If you won't, should I sneer at you for being politically correct? Your laugh-line was the work denied me for being "dark enough to offend." "Were you 5' 9" and blonde, I would've hired you in a minute," said one network news executive. Your employee's humiliation was my first day of college. A white dorm mother had me stand for inspection -- as if on an auction block -- to give my assigned white roommate's parents the option of having me removed from "their daughter's room." My family paid the same tuition with no such option. And, do you really think a wedding celebrating the heyday of plantation life is a good idea? No, Ms. Deen, this isn't just about the N-word. It's about the picnics of your youth. It's about your lack of remorse -- or compassion -- today. It's about your timing. You misused your platform for self-pity two days after George Zimmerman's defense attorney opened a murder trial in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed, dark-skinned teen, with a knock-knock joke. This is about what you're willing to do for yourself, for the millions of people who've believed in you and the thousands whose livelihoods depend on your "brand." And, it's about your caring enough about them to use your pain to move others toward the healing our nation so desperately needs and rightly deserves. Sincerely, Janus Adams

Excuse me Tina, are you implying we don't celebrate the "meaning" of Christmas because we enjoy giving to each other? My DIL's father is considered a "Pillar" of the Church (Babtist) they attend, and I can assure you we do celebrate the meaning. All year long. We all look forward to the Christmas Prayer he prepares. He leaves out no family member who may be ill or in pain or not with us. We've always celebrated the meaning of Christmas. Giving gifts is part of the meaning. Three Wise Men? :) I do remember last year around Christmas it seemed that the majority of this board didn't like to exchange Christmas gifts & I found that kind of odd. That's okay though, I have no problem with it. But please don't make me feel like Christmas is only commercial to me. And f/t/r, my son's write me short letters/notes all during the year, each and every year, mostly in cards, even though they live near me. They're the most beautiful words I've ever read. I cherish them and have saved each and every letter/card. I watch my grandson every week during the school year, and about every few weeks I go into my son's office and set a note on his keyboard that always says, "Mommy loves you," or "If you were little I'd rock you." Now my son tells his 2 year old, "When you're old and gray, I'll rock you." I end all my letters and cards to them by saying, "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as you're living, my baby you'll be." So we have PLENTY of love and we also love to GIVE to each other at Christmas. What's so wrong with that? And how did this thread end up about whether we should or should not give to those we love at Christmas time?

I don't really like Paula Deen either...I hate the way she portrays the southern woman. Many people will look at her (idiot acting) ways and think that all southern women act and talk like her. orie I think the same thing especially when I see food on her chin or coming out the corner of her mouth. Glenda I think I saw on the food network a show about the waffles and fried chicken...seems like a restaurant that stayed open late for the late night crowd invented the chicken and waffle meal. Their two big meals that people ordered were waffles or fried chicken after a night out and lots of partying (drinking. Gladys Knight and Ron Winans have a place in Atlanta but I don't think they were the original ...I'll have to check that out. Here is a link that might be useful: Chicken and Waffles