So I know I promised earlier this column would focus on campus life, but this little Shapiro spent her spring break down in Dixie. It was a week-long, whirlwind road trip filled with barbeque, gators and arguments about abortion rights at gas stations. I have nearly endless silly Southern tropes to discuss, but I will stick to the most important part of the trip. I am talking about the Duchess of Butter herself: Mrs. Paula Deen.
Now, I have a complex, imagined relationship with Paula. She frightens me. Truly. Her magnificent snow-white fortress of a hairdo, the fact that she fries cheesecakes and the way her eyes bug out of her skull at the mention of butter, it is all pretty terrifying. My fear is made worse by my brother’s insistence on having her show playing in our kitchen all the time. But holy hell the lady can cook! So when my road trip compatriots and I found out that her flagship restaurant was in Savannah, a stop already on the itinerary, we jumped at the chance, arteries be damned.
However, one does not simply waltz into The Lady and Sons—her buttery establishment. You need to show up in person at the ass-crack of dawn (9:30 a.m., same diff) to put your name in for the night of. If they took reservations in advance, nobody would get a table ever and there would be riots in the painstakingly-preserved streets of Savannah with shouts of “give me fried chicken, or give me DEATH!” Oh, and the place has a buffet. A Paula Deen buffet. Cue “Ride of the Valkyries.”
By the time my caravan and I show up, we were pretty stoked. Hungry, sunburned and snippy, but still quite excited. I spent the whole week emotionally preparing for this dinner. This would be, had to be, the single greatest eating experience of my entire life. When the waiter gave us the go ahead to attack the buffet, and we were off like freaking Seabiscuit.
There was shoving and growls over dominance of the mashed potato server. The buffet itself is a glorious and terrible sight. Creamed potatoes, pork stew, candied yams, stuffing and truly endless fried chicken. Oh, and there were some vegetables or something, but that is irrelevant. It was like Thanksgiving in hell, if hell is as “The Twilight Zone” depicted it: a place where you can get anything you could possibly want. When we finally found our way back to the table, there were biscuits and hoecakes waiting for us. For reference, a hoecake is like a pancake, except thicker, made of cornmeal and fried in bacon grease. Yeah.
Oh, the carnage. I will not go into the gorgefest that followed because I assume you want to avoid gagging in class (or maybe you don’t, I don’t know your life). I will say that after round two we were all affected in our own unique way. Jenna was actually delirious with some fruitful combination of happiness and nausea. Jacqueline was yelling at us (read: me) to eat more. Sam said she could have another go, but a few bites of banana pudding later and you could tell by the wounded look in her eyes that it was an act of hubris. I sat there in a near-existential crisis, unable to comprehend what I just ate and how I would attack the rest, while actually shrieking at the waiter when he tried to take my plate away. Welcome to the madhouse, kids.
The walk back to the hotel was one of pain, indigestion and unladylike bodily functions. Paula had officially pawned us, and then sucked us back in to buy butter-themed knickknacks at her gift shop. I walked away with about five butter-flavored lip balms and a lighter bearing her name. It made so much sense at the time. But I think, in the end, Paula wanted to teach us a valuable lesson: Don’t fly too close to the sun.
Have you feasted at The Lady and Sons? Commiserate with Ariel at arshapiro@dailycardinal.com.
