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.

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