She always cut such a distinctive figure, with the Dolly Parton hairdo and those Technicolor-blue eyes and that smile a yard wide, emanating a vibe that suggested biscuits were baking in the oven and y’all should come on in now. A single mother with two boys who opened up a restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, and stumbled into becoming a TV star with a Southern-comfort-food empire, Paula Deen represented the bootstrap fairy tale of the American Dream: Work hard, keep your chin up, maximize your market value, and you too can become friends with Oprah and Michelle Obama. “Her brand is excess without guilt,” Anthony Bourdain once noted of Deen’s across-the-board appeal. It was one of the few kind things he ever said about her.

The Food Network icon then became an unwilling representative of a l

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