Cooking Class

I don't want y'all to be fooled by where I'm standing today or what you see around me

Because guess what? I'm not going to be cooking here today. I'm going to take you to a very, very special place that none of these cameras have ever been to

The only camera that's been in this place is an Instamatic. And it's in the basement of the Lady and Sons restaurant where Paula's Cooking School is held

I gather down in the basement along with about 50 people. We have a wonderful time

What we say and do there stays there. We cook together, but more importantly, we chat and chat and chat

And the bell's fixing to ring, and the first session is going to be on Duck Burgundy

Don't be scared. It's yummy and easy. And then I want to share with you my recipe for chocolate creme brulee

It'll keep you out of trouble with a teacher every time. And finally, I want to teach you how simple can mean satisfying with a wonderful summer broiled parmesan tomato

So I want y'all to come along with me today because you're fixing to see about 53 people have a real good time

Hey, y'all

Hey, y'all. Y'all are pretty. This looks like an Oprah audience. Did you

That's not where y'all came from, is it? So, I thought while I'm cooking, y'all can be talking and I'll talk back to you

Can we do that? Because a lot of y'all have come a long way and we have just a short time together

And I want us to visit. Okay? And y'all hold back your excitement

Well, today we're going to cook duck. And it's really simple, isn't it

You know, a lot of us are intimidated by things that we may not cook often

or we can't go to our regular grocery store and find. But duck is one of those simple, simple foods that's really kind of like roasting a chicken

So we've got our ducks. They've been washed. All right, now I'm going to come in here, and I'm going to trim up my duck just a little bit

because I don't like this thing right here. So I'm going to get rid of that

And there's like plugs of fat down here around the honey. And I'm going to get rid of that because I don't like those

But I'm going to leave his, like the last part to go over the fence

I'm going to leave that part on. All right. So I've got garlic powder

I've got salt. I've got black pepper, and I've got a poultry seasoning

All right, so I'm going to sprinkle him with salt. Now, y'all keep talking

You can talk amongst yourselves. Paula, does Mike cook with you? Michael does all the outside cooking

Let's pull all in there. All right, now I'm going to just start rubbing

All right, now I'm going to put a little bit of oil, no butter, just a little bit of oil

Well, I have a question. Okay. I thought that Duff was oily

He is real, real oily. That's why we're not using butter. That's why we're just using oil

Well, this will help his skin get crisp

So that's what we're doing right now. All right, now I'm going to take a little soy sauce and rub him with that so he'll have a nice tan

How much does the duck weigh? How big are those ducks? I would say four pounds, four and a half pounds is what it feels like to me

All right, I'm going to stuff a couple of pieces of apple. And these flavors are just going to go in there with all of that seasoning that we put in there

I'm going to stick a little orange. That orange is going to just be phenomenal up there

Paula? Yes? How did you get your idea to start the bag lady

Well I tell you what What your name Lisa Lisa I was in a point in my life where I knew I had to do something I was uneducated I had worked in a bank off and on most of my life when I was able to work because I suffered from agoraphobia So the only thing I knew anything about Lisa was cooking

So I would lay awake at night thinking, now how could I start a food business with no money

I had heard about this lady in Atlanta that served finger foods in beauty shops

And I thought, well, if she can do that, why can't I do meals

So that's how the bag lady was born. And I had two beautiful sons, and I said I can pimp them out

Send them out on the streets. And then they brought home two beautiful girlfriends

And I looked at them up and down, and I said, well, I believe the lawyer's offices would like these two

So I started another route. So that's how it all started, and I'm ever so grateful

So that's my serious moment. All right, now can everybody see those beautiful ducks

Look how pretty they are. Now, before I put them in the oven, I'm going to brush them with a burgundy wine

And then about every 10 minutes, brush these birds with that wine

All right. We're going to put them in a 350 preheated oven, and we're going to cook them about 10 to 15 minutes a pound

All right. In the oven, he goes. We've got to take a quick break, and when we come back

I'm going to show y'all how to make Uncle Bubba's chocolate creme brulee

Because y'all are watching today Paula's Cooking School, along with all my friends

Thank you. So welcome back, y'all

For those that have just joined me, we're fixing to leave to go back to a very special little kitchen

that's tucked away in the basement of the restaurant at the Lady and Sons

And we're going to be joining our friends and learning more about each other, maybe, than we do about the cooking

I'm so glad you could join us. And guess what, y'all, we're fixing to make next

Chocolate creme brulee. I'm going to put a quart of heavy cream

Who makes creme brulee? Why don't y'all make creme brulee? Scared of it

Scared of it. Don't be scared. It ain't nothing to be scared about

All right, I'm going to add some sugar, and I'm going to add, mmm, some chocolate. Mmm. Mmm

I'm going to come over here because I need some yolks. All right, now I'm just going to bust these real quick-like

Anything y'all want to talk about? Of everything that you've ever cooked, what is the most challenging recipe

You know, I can't think of anything being a real challenge because one of the reasons I'm able to get in the kitchen and have such a good time

is because everything is simple. Your simple preparations, your simple flavors, to me, are the best. So..

All right, I really am going to show y'all how to do it

There ain't nothing to be afraid of. Oh, that's so funny. Y'all got my mind off my cooking now

All right, so now I'm going to come over here, and I'm going to add some vanilla

And we're gonna add our cocoa. Oh, my goodness, y'all got me sweating now

Alright, a square of chocolate. Paula, is that sweetened or unsweetened chocolate that you put in

I use a semi. I don't like unsweet. Can't imagine anybody liking an unsweet

Now, what we're gonna do now is I'm gonna slowly temper my eggs

eggs with my hot whipping cream. Do y'all know what I mean when I say temper? Well, you

want to slowly, slowly add your heat to your yolks so we won't have scrambled eggs brulee

All right, so now what we're going to do now is run this through the strainer because we're

going to have chocolate that didn't completely melt. So I'm just going to kind of go like this

So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to pour this into a measuring cup

so I'll have a little bit more control when I put it over here in our custard cups

Our pan has been lined with paper towels so that our custard bowls won slip and slide on us

All right, now I'm going to take this over and I'm going to put it in a preheated 350 degree oven

and I'm going to get my pitcher of water and you want to be very careful that you don't slosh that

water in there. And then I'm going to bake it until it's just set. All right, so we're going to bake

that off. And when those are done, we're going to take them out and let them cool. We're

going to put them in the refrigerator and let them sit for probably a couple of hours because your brulee needs to be really cold. And I happen to have some already ready. Maybe

I can get somebody to come up here and help me. Come up here. How are y'all doing? Good

How are you? What's y'all's names? Beth. Julie. Beth and Julie. I'm Paula

Hi. How are y'all doing? Just fun. Great. So y'all have never made a creme brulee

Never. Do you know how to get the caramelized topping on it? It's with a torch, but I've never done it

It's so, so simple. You've never torched anything. Well, not perfectly. All right, now what we're going to do is we're going to coat the tops of our creme brulee

with just a granulated sugar. Now, you can use raw sugar. You could use brown sugar

But I think this white sugar just works fine. Now, the one thing you'll want to make sure

is that you don't get too much sugar, and you want to make sure that they're even

All right, I'm going to do this first one, and then y'all can do the next ones. How about that

Now, the thing we want to do is make nice, even strokes

until that sugar melts. You see it melting, and it's going to get like a hard crack

Okay, who wants to go first? I will. Okay. Don't be scared

I'm not. Now, do y'all see how easy that creme brulee wants to make

Yeah. There's no reason to be scared, is it? Okay, doll baby, you're next

All right. That was fun. Let's get a fire. Isn't that cold

Yeah, it is cold. I think yours was just about wonderfully perfect

Woo-hoo! All right, y'all ready to dig in? We're ready. Let's eat this one right here

Y'all want to? Let's do it. You can hear it cracking. Oh, yum. Yum

Mmm. Mmm. Mm. Smells good. Oh, that's delicious. Mm. Mm-hmm. We'll eat some more. OK

Yeah, you eat. Good. Because we're going to take a quick break. OK

And we'll come back to y'all in just a minute. We're going to do raw, on the time, tomatoes

Hey, y'all, welcome back. I'm so glad that it worked out that you could be with me today

So what you say, let's slip back down in the basement, do a little bit more chatting and a little bit more cooking

See you in the basement. All right, hey, I want to welcome y'all back

We've had the best time while we were on break. We talked about all kind of good stuff

but now it's time to cook again. All right, now y'all, look at these ducks

Oh, look at that. And I'm going to let them just kind of sit over here and just rest

And his little legs are moving. You know how to test a bird, don't you

Move his little leg and see if it moves freely. He's ready

But, oh, I can't wait to cut that one for y'all. Now, who has never eaten duck

Well, we're going to change that. All right. So I want to move down now to the next side dish

This dish is unbelievably delicious, and it's something that you keep in your pantry

It's a can of just whole tomatoes, and we're going to just take these tomatoes and drain them

Don't throw away the juice in these because you can use it for a Bloody Mary

or throw it in with some rice or some gravy. We're going to have a lot of juice, so just don't throw that away

So we're just going to lay these out. Paula, what was your grandmother Paul like

Oh, honey. I wish that everybody had the opportunity to have had a grandmother like I did

In fact, both of my grandmothers I just adored. My father mother was about 4 She was the finest Christian woman that you ever met She had like a fourth grade education and could recite the whole Bible You know and I said I just couldn believe that this

little woman that knew so little about everything could do that. And my grandmother Paul was about 5'10

or 5'11 and where my grandmother, Iris had little halos, Grandma Paul had little horns

And she was just wonderful. I remember my granddaddy was aggravating me

And it was like in the afternoon, and he had had a little toddy

And he was just really entertaining himself by trying to upset me

And so I went to my grandmother like three times. And so finally the last time she came out, she said

John Paul, I told you to leave that girl alone. And she was left-handed, and my granddaddy was standing there by the sofa

She balled up that fist. She sent him sailing over that sofa

And he went over the sofa. the sofa went with him, and I walked around there, and I said, I told you to leave me

alone. And I know he was probably calling me ugly names, but he left me alone. But my

grandmother was a piece of work. She was just strong. She was what I hoped to be one day

I've said since I was 25 years old, I said, Lord, just let me live long enough because

I want to become a woman of substance. And that's what my grandmothers were

And I hope one day I can say, well, I think you made it, Paul

Alright, do y'all want to know what I'm doing with these tomatoes? Okay. I put a pat of butter on every

one of them. And I put salt and pepper. And I've put some

grated Parmesan cheese. And we're going to run these under the broiler

and we're just going to cook them till the cheese melts, and they're going to be so yummy

All right, so we're going to put these tomatoes in here, and those won't take but just a minute

So I want somebody that's never eaten duck to come up here and taste this duck with me

Come on, honey. Just bite into it. Well, however you eat your legs

That's really good. Isn't it yummy? It's very tender. Come on over here and get you some

In fact, we're going to take a quick break, and I want anybody that wants to taste the duck to come on up here

So anybody that wants the duck, come on up. I'm so glad y'all could join me today

As you know, we're in the basement of the Lady and Sons restaurant, and we're having fun in Paula's cooking school

So we got some friends down there in the basement waiting on us. So what you say, let's creep back down

Oh, and did I forget to tell you? They say the basement's haunted, that there's a ghost living in the cellar

But I didn't tell them that. Well, have y'all had a good time today

Yes! I've had so much fun being with y'all. What a fun group y'all are

And before we start playing games, this is my tip today. Have fun

Have fun. Because it concerns me that maybe we're getting too far away from our childhood

So I've selected a game for y'all. Do you want to know what we're going to do

Yes. Today's game is musical chairs. So y'all get up. We're fixing to play a game. I've got the winning package here. So get up, y'all

While y'all are doing that, think about that fabulous duck burgundy and the parmesan tomatoes

and the creme brulee. You saw how quickly and easily that we made all of them. I want to thank

all y'all for joining me today for Paula's Cooking School. I've had so much fun being with y'all

And I appreciate all y'all out there watching. And hopefully one day you can come to Savannah and join us

So when I count to three and say, one, two, three, go, I want y'all to scrounge for a chair

Make your circle scrounge for a chair. Y'all pretend like y'all are racing to get that chocolate creme brulee

So one, two, three, go! Go! Go! Bye