If you follow Paula Deen’s cooking techniques, you get cooking secrets that give you mastery of some incredible dishes that you would never get anywhere. She has increased my cooking skills exponentially.
As a person who likes to cook, I watch many different cooking personalities including Emeril and Paula Deen.
As a rule, unless it is abslutely necessary, I rarely follow a recipe exactly as given. Instead, I use the recipe as a jumping off point for my own creations that are tailored to my particular tastes. That is what culinary artistry is really all about.
If I don't happen to like a particular ingredient in a recipe, I do not feel it incumbent upon myself to publicly trash and insult the person who wrote the recipe.
In my book, the only one who came out of this "peeing contest" looking like a jerk was Bourdain. Because in the last two years, Paula Deen and her partners have not been merely preening themselves in the mirror of some species of narcissistic celebrity status. They have fed more than 10 million hungry people by bringing meat to food banks.”
Doesn't that sound "dangerous!"
By the way, one of Paula Deen's most fascinating creations is her Turducken.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_ClzkHjrJc