Coming up on Kentucky Life, we'll check out the food scene of Paducah and meet a popular Top Chef contestant who may be its biggest advocate.

We'll go to the Opportunity Center in Owensboro, a training and support organization for adults with disabilities.

And we'll channel our inner Vogue at the Art Walks the Runway event in Louisville.

All that's next on Kentucky Life!

[music playing] Hey, everybody, and welcome to Kentucky Life.

I'm your host, Chip Polston, where we are back again this week at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort.

There is so much here to take in.

From the signature A Kentucky Journey exhibition with more than 3,000 items, to an extensive genealogical research library where you can dig for your family roots.

You can even learn about Kentucky's leaders in the Hall of Governors.

We'll be showing you around the facility, but you may want to grab a snack before our first story.

With its deep ties to the quilting arts, Paducah, which is Kentucky's only certified UNESCO Creative City, is putting itself on the map for excellence in another medium, food.

This is thanks in large part to homegrown hero and Top Chef contestant, Sara Bradley.

Come along with me as I experience new and creative flavors along with reimagined Kentucky favorites.

[music playing] Located at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, Paducah has long been the transportation hub and cultural crossroads of Western Kentucky, a natural stopover between river towns like Cincinnati, St.Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans, each with unique flavors all their own, flavors that came ashore here and stayed.

In Western Kentucky, our cuisine is very interesting.

It's very comforting.

It feels like you're getting a bite of home because of all of those different influences.

You've got the Delta region, Appalachia, Midwestern.

It wouldn't surprise me to get a plate of food that had catfish, had some smoked meat on it, and then some collard greens all here.

You'll see red beans and rice on several menus locally and gumbo because, you know, those were kind of affordable dishes to make.

And now Paducah has become a culinary destination all its own, with a little help from a local chef turned TV star who shared a unique blend of traditional Southern, Appalachian, and Jewish influences with audiences far and wide.

When we talk about that this is a river town, we have had people coming as long as they've been on the rivers.

They're coming up and down and they're bringing with them food and culture and cuisine from other areas.

So Paducah is really kind of the middle of everywhere as opposed to, Paducah doesn't have this cuisine that radiates.

It's where they all meet.

And so we have Midwestern cuisine, you know, like we do on our menu here.

We do like a ghetto-style meatloaf, Cincinnati, right?

Right.

The way my father grew up with a little bit of cinnamon.

So you know, we make our meatloaf with oats in it because that's how they're making ghetto in Cincinnati.

But we're doing this kind of glaze, we do a lot of like Midwestern food, you know, we're bringing down stuff like Bouya, which is kind of very similar to a Kentucky burgoo, but with a lot of potatoes.

You know, but then we cook Creol cuisine and kind of Cajun cuisine because we've got coming up from New Orleans, you know, and then we've got Southern food, we've got Jewish food, we've got epaulette, we can bring it all together.

And it doesn't have to be one specific style of cuisine.

What's beautiful about Paducah is that so many things exist here.

You know, I think that's what makes it this really interesting spot, you know.

So, it's like this culinary melting pot.

Exactly.

That is developed here.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Is this kind of Paducah's moment right now?

I think so.

I think that, you know, it's always hard to say that you think you've been part of impact or change, but I think that you can recognize it, but you have to remain humble, you have to continue to push.

Just the other night, we had some people fly in from Japan to sit at the chef's table and do the tasting.

Flew right to Charlotte, direct into Paducah, you know, we have people that are traveling from all over to come and to eat here and to partake in our, like, beautiful downtown.

So I think it's having this moment.

I think Western Kentucky as a whole is, I think that this is what people are looking for during this time is farm-to-table, right?

Not that is not a new concept, but, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, somebody decided that farm-to-table was the new way to dine.

It's not.

It is -- we are just going back to the way we have been for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, which is eating food that is local and that is seasonal.

Of course, we couldn't leave without stepping into the kitchen to see Sara work some of her magic, a dessert with a surprising ingredient.

I really thought you were pulling my leg.

I'm going to be honest with you, but this is a cake made with peas.

Yes.

And you say that people love it.

I served it when I was on TV and I'll shift to all these Michelin Guide director, all this stuff.

And it was like the best thing that on the show.

I love it.

It is definitely a very loved and beloved dessert.

But so essentially, this is our cake.

We like to do like half butter and half oil because butter can make a cake kind of dense and oil can make a cake kind of dry.

So we do a little bit of both.

We're going to go a little butter milk icing, which is how my mother would have done it.

This is not the way the cake would have looked when my mother made it.

Right, right, right.

Now, did you get this recipe from your mom?

This is my mother's recipe.

Oh, wow.

But I mean, the cake is her recipe.

Right, so when you made this on Top Chef and it did so well, was your mom over the moon?

Of course.

[Laughs] What a great moment for her.

yeah.

Something that she had passed along to you to to see get such praise like that.

How cool is that?

A little lemon curd, you know, peas, lemon, strawberry, what's on top of that kind of like butter milky, buttercream, a little whipped cream on top of that.

Essentially, how you would eat a cake, just a little different.

And peas, that's nothing I ever in a million years would have imagined.

What are these?

So, these are white chocolate meringues.

Have you ever had, you know, the meringue is on your finger, Right, right, right.

yeah.

But you crumble it on top.

Crumble it on top.

We need a little texture.

Nothing in there is really that crispy right now, you know, it's cake and strawberries.

So we need a little bit of texture.

So we put a little white.

So, it just needs a little crunch.

It just needs a little crunch, a little.

And pistachios on top of that.

Pistachios on top of that.

And this is a big, big deal on your restaurant.

People love this.

I'm going to give you that one.

Yeah, they love this.

I love this.

Pea cake.

Cheers.

[music playing] I got a lot of the lemon there, but peas, I never in a million years would have thought of this.

Peas are sweet.

English peas, you know, they're sweet and they have such a short growing season.

When you get them early on, they're really starchy, but a little bit later in the season they become very sweet because all of that starch in there, that carbohydrates have converted to sugar.

So they inherently have like a sweetness to them.

This is wonderful.

Can I be honest with you about something?

I hate peas.

Really?

I love this cake.

My mother also doesn't like peas.

[laughs] That's like what it came from.

It's like not liking something and trying to figure out how to -- So she didn't like it, so she thought, let's put it in a cake.

Let's put it in a cake.

[laughs] You can put enough sugar on anything.

And it's gonna be good.

Right.

Yeah.

It's amazing.

Thank you for coming down here and seeing us.

Thank you.

This has been so much fun.

This is great.

[music playing] When you think about Owensboro, Kentucky, things like bluegrass music and fantastic barbecue probably come to mind.

But for a lot of folks, they probably have no idea that for nearly 70 years, this river city has been home to a very special place.

The Opportunity Center of Owensboro trains and supports adults with disabilities.

And it's an integral part of a community of caring there that deserves attention.

[music playing] If you're from this area, you've probably driven past the Opportunity Center of Owensboro hundreds of times, and you might not have ever noticed it.

But what you would have been missing out on is a place with a long history of supporting people with disabilities.

The mission of the Opportunity Center of Owensboro is to serve and support persons with disabilities in helping them achieve their life goals and helping them thrive.

We have an amazing team of direct support professionals that support our clients every single day.

They provide them with a lot of life skills and work skills.

And then they're also the people that take them out in the community and help guide them with money management and shopping and just that socialization.

The nonprofit center has grown into a day training facility for adults that focuses on life skills and occupational readiness.

But it didn't start out that way.

With a long history, nearly 70 years, it started in 1956 by a group of concerned local parents whose children with disabilities were not allowed to go to public school.

So they felt like they deserved an education, and they came together with a group of local business leaders and started a school that was actually called the Opportunity Center.

As the children at the Opportunity Center grew, their needs changed, and the school began exploring job opportunities and life plans after graduation.

They came up with different projects and programs, and then they partnered with the business community.

They had a program where they put nuts and bolts in bags for manufacturers.

And then they even evolved to where they built wooden pallets for different companies.

And then the center took an enormous leap forward when they opened a full-service restaurant called Pinocchio's.

Pinocchio's is a really unique story because it started back in the 70s just as an extension of the services we provided.

And they didn't realize at the time that that was unique to the nation, so they were recognized nationally.

It was around for quite some time, I believe in the early 2000s, due to some changes in leadership and things of that nature, it did close.

And within the last year, we've actually brought Pinocchio's back in a series of monthly pop-ups.

The monthly pop-ups allow the center's clients to learn all aspects of the restaurant business, which will prepare them to join the workforce.

But there's so much more than just that.

It is social interaction.

It's that feeling confident and feeling proud of what you do.

And I think that's what we've seen the most, is how they've just blossomed in learning these skills and how much the community has embraced it.

With the Opportunity Center focused on adults, you might wonder who's looking after the kids with disabilities.

The answer is across town at Owensboro Public Schools.

We believe three things.

Our students are going to be college-ready, career-ready, or independent living-ready, or a combination of those.

And so how do we prepare our kids to go out into the workforce, because these students, these now adults, deserve the right to do what everybody else does, and they have the skills to do what everybody else does.

They just do it differently.

Embracing a skills-based system was a huge step forward for special education.

For years, disabled students have had to struggle in what's known as a deficit model of learning.

Our job is to teach you how to read, to teach you how to do math, to write, all of those academic skills.

And a lot of times our kids with disabilities, those are their deficits.

So we work a lot in a deficit model, where you are constantly working on something you're really not very good at.

And so our program here, especially at the high school, works on those transition skills.

So we teach them, hey, you have these great strengths, and it's really a strengths-based model.

Owensboro senior Zach Bartlett is part of the school's Community Work Transition Program, where he's learning to build on his strengths to prepare for a career in the food service industry.

And what happens to students like Zach after graduation is what brings us back to the Opportunity Center.

There's a lot of families that aren't aware of the resources that are available.

Our school system is incredible in offering support for persons with disabilities.

But then once those children begin to age out of school and graduate, the families are kind of at a loss of what's next, what do we do?

For families like Zach's, the Opportunity Center is a godsend.

He will be able to continue his occupational training at the newly revamped Pinocchio's, and he'll be in great company.

A lot of our guys, Emily included, want to go out into the workforce.

They want to work at a restaurant, or they want to work at a cafeteria.

And here at Pinocchio's, we're giving them that opportunity to learn those job skills.

Emily Burks has been coming to the Opportunity Center for three years, and she is one of the stars on the Pinocchio's team.

I cook, and serve the people, and bake cakes, cookies, that's about it.

You help prep the food also.

And prep the food.

And I really love interacting with the people too.

You've learned a lot.

And I learned a lot from Tiffany.

[people cheering] As incredible as the Opportunity Center's successes are, the achievements don't come without challenges.

I would say our biggest challenge is helping the community get over the stigma of being around, and working with, and socializing with persons with disabilities.

I know when we used to talk about inclusion a lot in our community, it never crossed my mind until I came here that, that meant everyone.

And getting everyone together for a fantastic meal at one of Pinocchio's pop-ups is a great way to break the ice and start building trust and understanding.

It's a really great way to get the public to come in and see us, and visit our clients, and just kind of continue to push towards that more inclusive world that we all want.

When it comes to pushing towards a more inclusive world, the Opportunity Center has a not-so-secret weapon in client Joey Newton.

A lot of people don't understand that cerebral palsy is not hereditary, that usually it's a birth injury, and that even though Joey has some physical limitations, he is completely super intelligent and able to function in the world as any of us want him to be.

And see with the cerebral palsy, I just don't want to give you down.

I just keep on living life to the fullest.

He is such an inspiration to me, and I've only been director for about 30 years, and so when I came here, every day I would see Joey and I would say, how are you doing?

And he'd say, I'm fantastic.

And I would walk away like, how is that possible?

You know.

So one day I said, I need to know, how do you have that attitude?

And he shared with me that he used to be really bitter and sad and angry at life, and that the person that is his caregiver now, and he gives her full credit, kind of challenged him one day to just look at life in a different perspective, and he said a light came on, and I realized it was up to me to choose what kind of day I was going to have.

Since then, Joey's positive outlook has led him to become an advocate for people with disabilities.

A story about his roommate's challenges and the need for adult changing tables caught the attention of state and local officials.

My caretaker, Mary, would have to get him out of his chair and place him on the floor, and I just thought being placed on the floor is a health hazard.

Joey's efforts found a partner in Owensboro Health Regional Hospital, and before long, it opened the state's first adult changing table in a public facility.

I feel that it is super important for not just my voice to be heard, but everybody's voice to be heard.

Empowering clients like Joey and Emily is what the Opportunity Center of Owensboro has been doing for decades.

Their stories are inspiring, and their example, a lesson for us all.

[music playing] Next up is Art Walks the Runway at KMAC Couture.

Curated by the Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts Contemporary Art Museum, this wearable live art show features one-of-a-kind looks by designers from diverse regions and backgrounds.

The event gives opportunities to emerging and established artists to display their work in the heart of downtown Louisville, while also benefiting the museum.

Every year, hundreds of guests dress in all white to witness this showcase, tailor-made to turn heads.

Couture means made for you.

It's something that is completely unique and styled for your body, your complexion.

It's something that is fitting and unique to the person who's going to be wearing it.

KMAC is a contemporary art museum.

We've been in Louisville, Kentucky, since 1981, featuring art that is being made right now.

[music playing] KMAC Couture is a wearable art runway show.

It's our biggest fundraiser.

It started 13 years ago in 2012.

We featured the work of several student artists, and models walked through the museum.

The crowd was here, and people went wild.

And so every year since then, it's grown bigger.

There's been more people in the community that want to come and see it.

There's more artists that want to participate.

We had 1,500 people on Main Street Downtown.

We closed off the street.

We had a white tent, a 196-foot runway.

Eighty looks, I believe, walked the runway.

There were 99 artists participating.

So it's kind of two things in one.

It's a great art experience for the guests, as far as it's not your typical chicken dinner fundraiser, because art is actually being created for the event.

And at the same time, for the artists and models, it's just a life-changing experience.

It's a beautiful display of creativity and craftsmanship.

Some of the most incredible designs that I've ever seen have walked that runway.

I sort of liken it to the Met Gala.

It's very different than what we normally do.

You can't beat the excitement and the energy.

And when people come for the first time, they're like Wow, I had no idea.

The best thing about KMAC Couture is the diversity of the artists, because you will have seasoned, professional fashion designers, and there are also students, teenagers, and then people who've been creating art well into their 60s and 70s, some that come from other states and other countries.

So it's not just artists creating anything they want.

The idea is that there is a theme every year.

With it being our 13th anniversary, it was Lucky 13, and all about superstition and luck that goes with that number.

The buzz of KMAC Couture is just unmatched.

Everyone is so excited, and the energy of that runway, when the crowd is just hollering and shouting for you, it's really incredible.

I wanted to get involved with KMAC to challenge myself as an artist.

There are designs that I like to make that are avant-garde or strange.

I work with vintage and recycled materials.

In 2024, I created what has been called the duffle bag dress.

So I used a Christmas tree Santa sack that I found for $4, and I created this three-dimensional rose mantle, which is supposed to represent the winning mantle that goes on the horse at the Kentucky Derby.

I felt magnificent wearing that piece.

It felt royal and regal and like a winner, but it was just made out of a duffle bag.

It is incredible to see the ingenuity of artists and what they come up with.

You never know what you're going to get.

We have artists that use raw fruits and vegetables, and then they weave into a garment.

[rattling] I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for KMAC, that's for sure.

Working with pressing fruits and vegetables is a very old technique.

It's a material that is difficult to use, and for it to work right, it's taken a lot of experimentation.

The colors I use are really, really bright and intense.

I feel like that's my other personality coming out.

Certainly, I never thought of myself as a designer.

I've learned from this unique material over the years how to work it into multiple designs on how it can flow down the runway, can walk on a live model.

This is just like what I just put into the press, where I layered them.

You can see them stick together.

The first time I submitted my work, I only was making hats, and so now I had to learn how to make a whole garment.

Each piece has a lot of meaning to me.

In 2016, that was a dedication to my mom.

I called it Butterfly Muse.

The second favorite was this one that I did this last year, 2025 Lady Lotus Good Karma.

I keep coming back to the KMAC Couture Show because it challenges me every year.

I challenge myself to do better work.

They gave me that platform to help me learn how to be a designer.

I think there's a great art movement in this state, and I don't think that's going to stop.

Kentucky has always had such a history of great artists.

I mean, going back 200 years.

And so, but I do feel like this show certainly is helping to create new artists.

This year, I believe our youngest was a second-grade student, and she had one of her teachers wear her look.

If you're a first-time artist or a high school artist, we pair you with a mentor, and so that is usually a creative professional.

With a mentorship program, it's important just to build confidence and support in your artist, but it really is about sometimes just keeping those deadlines, making sure that you're on track.

Artists have said to us that this is a transformational experience, not just for themselves and the quality and enthusiasm they have for their work, but their ability to connect with other artists and learn and grow.

We've had several students come through our program that were in high school and then went on to go to art school.

I feel that KMAC Couture is an extremely unique experience in Kentucky.

I wish that there were more opportunities for artists to express themselves in this way.

I really think it's important to keep celebrating art and have a place and a space for it, because, again, it's not just about the art, it's what are the ideas and the things that come from that.

It's vital to have a place where the community can come together and be creative.

[music playing] We've really enjoyed our time here at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort.

Managed by the great folks at the Kentucky Historical Society, this building captures everything you could ever imagine about our great state.

If you've never checked it out, I highly encourage you to do so.

Now, if you've enjoyed our show, be sure to like the Kentucky Life Facebook page or subscribe to the KET YouTube channel for more of what we like to call Kentucky Life Extras, where you'll have access to lots of other great videos.

Until next time, I'll leave you with this moment.

I'm Chip Polston, cherishing this Kentucky life.

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