Celebrity TV cook Paula Deen (the Southern belle of butter and heavy cream, as the Associated Press called her) is rightfully taking her lumps (of gravy, as it were) for waiting three years to announce that she has diabetes, while still serving up her fat and sugar-laden recipes, and working out an agreement to promote a diabetes treatment as a paid spokesperson for a pharmaceutical company.

It’s a quintessentially American story, combining as it does celebrity, obesity, denial of reality, and a new drug.

Deen said not much would change on her Food Network show, “Paula’s Home Cooking.” Because, apparently, comfort food just isn’t comfort food without a good deal of butter and deep-frying.

So Deen’s fans, enemies, health advocates and upset others are calling her a hypocrite. Her admonition, “everything in moderation,” doesn’t quite make up for recipes such as “Paula Deen’s Cheesy Ham and Banana Casserole” — a combination of ham, bananas, bacon, cheese and potato chips sandwiched between soggy, eggy slices of white bread, according to a website dedicated to making fun of the Food Network.

Other Deenian concoctions, AP reported, include deep-fried cheesecake covered in chocolate and powdered sugar, and a quiche that calls for a pound of bacon.

Celebrities don’t have an obligation to become a spokesperson for whatever disease may afflict them, but they often end up doing so. Since Deen’s calorie-laden celebrity and excercise-less lifestyle is tied to some of the risks that cause type 2 diabetes, it seems natural she take on the cause. But instead of announcing changes in diet and lifestyle, Deen announced … her drug endorsement.

As the criticism continued to pour over her like a heavy cheese sauce, Deen said Wednesday that she would donate a portion of her earnings from her lucrative endorsement deal to the nonprofit American Diabetes Association.

Explaining the delay in announcing her diagnosis, Deen said: “I really sat on this information for a few years because I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, what am I going to do about this? Is my life fixing to change? Am I no longer going to like my life?” she asked. “I had to have time to adjust and soak it all in and get up all the information that I could.”

Since her critics are Good ‘n’ Plenty, we’ll just give Deen credit for serving up a folksy phrase that anyone can employ to lessen the fear posed by so many situations — from medical diagnoses, to job firings, to divorces, to marriage, etc:

“Is my life fixing to change?”

Yes, your life is fixing to change.