Paula Deen's Thanksgiving special

I won't do a full recap because the special is an hour long but I have to make a few comments about it. The highlight of the whole thing for me was the homemade turducken. I nearly lost it when the teaser said she was going to make her own turducken. Turducken (I love saying that word!) aside, it was a kind of meh episode. She was laying it on thick with her corn pone antics and her sons were laying it thicker with their UGA frat routine. I was trying to figure out whether the two ladies at the poker game for Jamie and Bobby's wives or Michael's children.

Not including the turducken, the food was pretty meh. Paula made an oyster stuffing with oysters that were essentially harvested in her backyard. It was a fairly standard cornbread stuffing that I thought was way too wet. When it was taken out of the oven, it had a bread-pudding-like consistency. I like my stuffing to be breadier and more solid. While that was going on, fratty Boddy and Jaime were staying true to their Southern roots and frying a turkey. They essentially rubbed it with butter and spices and dunked it into a huge fryer. More fake hijinks of Paula trying to steal a drumstick from the boys.

When we get back from commercial Paula is putting together her turducken. It's a sight to behold. I'll leave it at that. She then makes a sweet potato ball that's a mound of sweet potato with a marshmallow surprise inside. I went into sugar shock just looking at it.

There's this whole fakety fake scene of poker playing that is just plain stagey. I google Jaime Deen (the bigger, doughier one), and it looks like Brooke is his wife. She looks like she could be a cheerleader, complete with heavy eyeliner, chunky highlights and a perky smile. She has the good sense to look a little embarassed at the fake poker cheating.

Jaime and Bobby retire to the kitchen to make some artery hardening snacks. Bobby wraps sesame pretzel sticks in bacon and Jaime makes a little hamburger and wraps it with puff pastry. They have an easygoing rapport and pal around while they cook.

They come back to the game with a plateful of snacks and fake accuse their mother of cheating in the fake poker game. Thankfully we leave that and go to Paula's gorgeous porch where she SAYS she set the table but we all know it was some poor production assistant working until 4:00 am. It is a fall fantasy of leaves, red and orange flowers, and pumpkins.

In her final demonstration she mixes cranberry juice and apple juice together with some cloves and cinnamon to make a cider. We leave the Deen/Groover household on the gorgeous porch hoping they don't drop dead from a heart attack.