Y'all Hungry?

Let me paint you a picture. You're in the middle of Nowhere, Mississippi. The mosquitoes are so big they make a slurping sound when they hit your windshield as you drive to the beacon on the horizon known as Harrah's Casino, a behemoth in what is otherwise just a swamp. Harrah's is literally a boat--state law dictates that this type of gambling may only be done on water--but it is several city blocks long and doesn't make you motion sick at all. Smack dab in the middle of the Swamp Castle is a restaurant with every Southern-fried food ever created, with desserts for miles, with lots of round people, people with facial hair reminiscent of 1978, people wearing entirely too much make-up, men in plaid shorts, women with bra straps hanging out of dresses they've had for 15 years, and a few regular-looking visitors. All stuffing their faces. All smilin' BIG. Why? They are at Paula Deen's buffet. And so are we!

I decided I was going to make some big changes in the way I eat, using trusty ol' Weight Watchers. But Lord knows, I needed to splurge big before taking on the points system again. So I convinced my parents to wrangle the kidlets and I convinced my husband (never one to turn down a buffet) to drive me down for one last sweet-and-greasy hoorah.

I assume you are familiar with Paula. She is a Food Network superstar with a Southern drawl and an insistence that everything is better with butter. She has a restaurant in her hometown of Savannah, GA, and this buffet in Tunica, Mississippi.

First, I walked right on past the salad bar. No need to waste precious stomach space on fresh vegetables. Paula doesn't "do" lettuce any better than I do, so forget the salad. Move on to the fried goodness. The choices were truly overwhelming. Pile the plate high with corn bread casserole, fried shrimp, mounds of beans, mashed potatoes with choice of 3 greasy gravies, the best cheese biscuits on the planet. People were walking by me with buttery sauces dripping down their sleeves, crab legs jutting out in all directions, a real balancing act just to make it back to their tables. If it can be fried, Paula will fry it. And wow. Just wow. Prime rib with au jus, corn on the cob, sweet potatoes, a zillion varieties of casserole. Like Grandma's Thanksgiving Dinner on steroids. And I gotta tell ya, about the only thing green in the whole place was the sprig of mint leaves in Peter's sweet tea!

The second plate was a tiny bit less full, but no less satisfying. I had to leave room for dessert. I also had to come up for air! I seriously considered heading to the bathroom to purge some just to make room for more (I didn't). I hit the dessert table. The Ooey Gooey Butter Cake. The name says it all. I don't even need to tell you more. I also had a little chocolate cup with gelled fruit in it and some kind of super-sweet lemon bar. I'm fairly certain that Heaven will look a lot like the dessert buffet at Paula Deen's.

My first week on Weight Watchers will be spent losing the weight I no doubt gained in that Heavenly restaurant in the swamps of Mississippi. But it was worth every ooey gooey buttery bite.