Coming up on Kentucky Life.

Learn about the phenomenon that is Cincinnati-style chili and see the place where it all started.

A painter taps into skills from his career in Emergency Medicine to capture the beauty of Kentucky's natural landscapes.

We'll learn more about the historic White Hall mansion in Richmond, Kentucky and we'll meet a painter and dancer in Lexington who aims to tell stories through her art.

All that and more, coming up next on Kentucky Life.

Hey everybody, and welcome to another great edition of Kentucky Life.

I'm your host, Chip Polston, and today we are back here at White Hall in Richmond.

Now there are so many great stories to be told inside the walls of this historic mansion and coming up in a bit, we're going to share a few of them with you but right now, let's go ahead and dive into our first story.

With its unique blend of spices, there is really nothing quite like Cincinnati-style chili, a regional favorite in the Tri-State area for more than 100 years.

Some swear up and down, it's the best thing you'll ever eat, I can certainly see where they're coming from and recently, I got to take a trip to Empress Chili in Alexandria, Kentucky, the restaurant that started it all, way back in 1922.

Chip: Cincinnati-style chili, a uniquely American creation with strong Mediterranean roots and humble beginnings, thanks to Tom and John Kiradjieff.

Two brothers that emigrated from North Macedonia in search of a better life.

Their idea, a special sauce served over hot dogs.

The story of the two brothers from Macedonia that land in Cincinnati and start this big phenomenon, how did all this come together?

Well, a lot of the immigrants seen opportunities to come to the United States and start their own business and they had an older brother came ahead of them that got into the grocery store business and had his own grocery store.

They came over and started their own chili sauce, -is what they'd call.

-Chip: Okay.

And did they sell that in the grocery store -or how did that go on?

-No, they just...

I think with the brother coming over, kind of brought some of the spices and whatnot - from Macedonia.

-Chip: Right.

Chip: What are some of the things in there that really gives it that different taste and that different appeal?

Steve: Well, cinnamon is definitely one of them that they recognize.

They originally called it a sauce and what they did is they brought it over and put it on a hot dog and they had a hot dog stand outside of the Empress Burlesque Theatre and that's where they originated from.

And it started to get cold, and the burlesque theater had a front room that was being used for storage and it was getting cold outside, the weather was being nasty, so they thought, well, they asked them if they could just move inside for the winter.

They moved inside, set up a couple of bar stools and it took off and that's how it originated there.

They wanted their homeland comfort food, that's something that they're used to, the old spices and stuff that came from the motherland.

So, when they came over and there was kind of a concentrated area of Greek immigrants, they felt that this is a food that they knew, so that's why I think that it took off.

Chip: And boy, did it ever.

These days Cincinnati-chili is everywhere with numerous parlors dotting the map around Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana and it's shipped to dedicated fans around the country.

But the one that started it all, Empress, can now only be found south of the river in Alexandria, Kentucky.

Steve Martin is the owner and he's running his restaurant the same way the Kiradjieff brothers did way back when.

It was fascinating to me that it was basically a family business for these two brothers that came over and in meeting folks here today, this is really a family business for you it seems like as well, family is really incorporated into that.

How important is that to you?

It's very important.

Throughout the years, I attribute my success to the community and through our family, I have 29 nieces and nephews with six brothers and sisters, or five siblings and they've been tremendous working through the whole.

This was the first job for many of them.

What's some of the initial reactions you get from people who have never tried it before?

They kind of surprised when it comes out to see what it looks like, what is that like?

They're not expecting it to be on spaghetti.

Traditionally, their chili comes in a bowl.

It's got beans and maybe chunks of tomatoes and stuff, I call it a Texas-style chili.

This is not like that, a lot of the similar ingredients besides the spices are in it, but they're ground up and they're fine.

Chip: So, let's recap.

Chili is almost a misnomer, this is a Mediterranean sauce made to be served over hot dogs or conies or on a bed of spaghetti with your choice of toppings.

Now, if you go all in, it's called a Five Way with spaghetti, beans, chili, onions and finally a mountain of cheese.

All right, Steve, I'm gonna make a Five Way here, okay?

And you're gonna walk me through it.

So, we start with the base, obviously, which is spaghetti.

Do you just eyeball this or how much do you usually put on here?

Yes, we generally just eyeball, the spaghetti.

Okay, and that's not easy to get out.

How's that?

Is that good there?

Because it's a Five Way I go with beans here now, is that right?

And go through there, okay.

Chip: All right, more than that, or... Steve: Yes, still a little more than that.

How much spaghetti do you go through in a day, do you think?

Steve: Oh, it all depends on how cold it is?

-How cold it is?

-Steve: Yeah.

Steve: The colder it is, the more Three Ways that people will eat and... -Chip: So, you can... -Steve: If it's sunny out, they'll eat more Cheese Coneys.

The temperature outside dictates what people order.

-Steve: A lot of times.

Yes.

-Chip: That's fascinating.

All right, so I got the beans on here now, -am I going to chili now?

- Yes, and then we can go -into this from there.

-Okay.

So, this is two scoops on here you were telling me, so.

And then just kind of ladle over evenly like that.

See, I've already messed up the plate here.

- You like... -Steve: No, you're good.

Chip: Some more chili through there.

Steve: So, we want to get a good ratio of chili to the spaghetti.

Chip: This does not look as good as what you do, Steve, I've watched you in action.

Okay, so now I'm gonna come down here.

-Steve: And we're gonna throw.

-Chip: We're gonna go with onions now, correct?

-Steve: Yes.

-Chip: Okay.

Spread those through and then getting the cheese just right, the visual is important.

Tell me about the visual that you go for here.

Steve: Well, everybody loves the cheese and the spaghetti and the chili, but we want them to make sure that they can see the chili when they're -- when you put it on, and they can drag the cheese in when they're eating.

Chip: You still want to see the chili on there.

-Steve: Yes.

Looks good.

-All right.

-Am I hired boss?

-You're hired.

Awesome.

So, it's hard to imagine what those two brothers from Macedonia who started a hot dog stand out in front of a Burlesque theater over in Cincinnati would think 100 years later, what they were able to grow with the originator being right here at Empress.

That's really good.

Oh, I love this stuff, man.

Kentucky has a very special place in my heart as I'm sure it does for many of you as well and there's something about the terrain and the country here that you just can't see anywhere else.

That leads us to our next story, contemporary landscape painter, Jon Gaddis, shares his love of Kentucky's natural wonders with a keen eye for scenery and a sense of calm and focus honed from a high intensity career in Emergency Medicine.

Jon: My name is Jon Gaddis and I'm a contemporary landscape painter with an affinity for Kentucky subjects.

As a child, I've always been artistic, I would draw and doodle and things like that and, you know, just I had a natural talent for it, and it wasn't until about 2019 that I actually tried to do something with it, which was just put intense focus on it and real effort.

I think a lot of my art stems from my love of the outdoors itself, especially Kentucky, you know, I grew up in Laurel County, so I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time in the Daniel Boone National Forest with my brother and I drew a lot of camper from those areas, you know, you just get outside, it's just a different world.

Then as a teenager, I got up here into the Red River Gorge and that just changed everything.

I do a couple of different methods.

I do my studio pieces, which is what you're seeing here at this exhibit where I'll take reference images, I'll go to these sites and when something strikes me and moves me, you know, those things that give you those moments of pause where you're just like wow, and just everything stops, and you're just focused in on that, I try to capture that, like I'll take multiple reference images and then during the cold winter months, I'll go in and paint it indoors.

What I'm getting into recently is called plein-air painting, it's just French for outdoor painting, you know, and less is more with outdoor painting.

So, I'll take a small panel and go on side and spend four hours or so and just knock out a small detail piece, stuff just sort of moves me.

I'm a paramedic at Clark Regional Emergency Department, in-hospital ER paramedic.

Graduated from Eastern Kentucky University in 2014 from the Emergency Medical Care Program.

I'm actually in school right now for nursing, that's what I'm studying.

I love helping people, I love medicine and I'm good at it.

I feel like I'm governed by a force that's beyond me almost, like just something else I listen to, you know, I pray about a lot of things and just sort of follow peace and energy about that.

One of my great mentors in EMS, he told me early on, you have got to adapt healthy coping skills, you know, and that's true, like, some people they'll drink, you know, they don't take care of themselves.

So, I knew that I had to do something kind of in an unrelated field to just sort of refocus myself and bring balance.

I think my art really complements my role as a paramedic, I do procedural stuff like ultrasound-guided vascular access that requires intense like fine motor coordination, you know.

So, I'm able to do that with a high skill level that I don't think that I'd otherwise be able to do.

Courtney: I was just really taken with the quality of the landscapes.

Kentucky is a beautiful, beautiful state every single season and to be able to see some of these places that I visited with my own family or have wanted to visit and even the Daniel Boone Forest sign, something that I've driven past multiple times, to see that captured in a way that just truly made me stop and look at it and say, "Wow!

That's beautiful," like that's worth pausing for.

The response has been amazing, patrons that come for shows, comment about it.

Artists have come out and then told the rest of their band to come out, to take a look at it and explained to them that this is all local and done by a local artist is really something we're very, very proud of.

Jon: That was sort of a childhood dream, you know, I never imagined my stuff would ever hang in a gallery, this is one of my dream venues.

Courtney had reached out to me, you know, the pandemic sort of let up and they were bringing more people in, and I think she had saw my stuff online.

She said, you know, you're EKU alumni and we really like your work and it's kind of a just nice Kentucky subject, so we want you to bring your work to the center and I was all about it.

Reception from all this was just kind of like mind blowing like it took everything off, I got messages from everywhere.

So, I had people like from across the US, like, "Hey, I grew up in Kentucky," and you know, "I saw that Cumberland Falls piece you did," or "That Daniel Boone piece," and I would just love to have that.

I think in my line of work, I get a lot of dark stuff, so I like to focus on just positive things.

My specialty is of course landscapes.

But uh I'm trying to strengthen my art skill set in portraits and pets and buildings and things like that.

You know, you have to step out of your comfort zone and what you know, and just try to tackle those things, like step into the unknown, it's the only way you're gonna learn about yourself and get better.

I definitely express myself through my work, I try to capture a mood, you know, and I will enunciate the colors, really try to like make something pop, like, I try to capture the feeling I got when I saw something, you know, those moments of pause where you're like, just to hear in this moment, "This is beautiful," like, you know, the Miguel's Pizza one I did with Ale81, that's just an iconic thing if you've been out to the Red River Gorge, like so many of my audience, like they have been there in that moment and like I just wanted to capture it.

You just have that moment where you're like, "I'm glad I'm out here," you know, and people have a lot of good memories tied to those things.

I think Kentucky gives me an unfair advantage because the state is so beautiful, you know what I mean?

Like just drive around in the summer and look around the horse farms, go to the Red River Gorge, just get outside and get moving, beauty is all around us, you know, and I think with my line of work, there are these moments of grief and everything and you know, I remember sitting in waiting rooms and just looking at a beautiful painting from like the Hudson River School of art movement and just getting lost in it, like, and you can deliver people from those terrible moments in their life, like with good art, like, I've got some of my work at the University of Kentucky that was part of their arts and healthcare program and some of it is on permanent display in the Roche Oncology Center.

And I love that idea, I love the fact that those people are just in there in those tough moments like cancer and everything and they can just get lost in my paintings, you know, if I can offer comfort in this world, it's just awesome.

Chip: We're having a great time here at White Hall.

We're in the drawing room right now of this absolutely amazing home.

And to tell us a little bit more about it right now we've got Stephanie Thurman who is the head tour guide and caretaker along with Mathew Parrish, who is the site coordinator, thank you all for being here with us.

Mathew to start with, so the home and the area was developed by General Green Clay, how did all this really come to be?

Correct.

So, very briefly, the house has quite a lot of history that goes back a long time.

Originally, before the Clays were even here, it was a station called Tanner started by a reverend, John Tanner, back in 1782.

Around that time, General Green Clay comes into the area, he had been born in Virginia in 1757 and had come into this area around the 1770s, and he actually bought the land from John Tanner, and he started basically a homestead here.

So, he had a cabin that he was living in for several years.

And then in 1789, he started building a brick home that he would call Clermont, which is still part of this building to this day.

Right, and Stephanie, you all are upfront about the fact that Green Clay was a slave holder here, but his son Cassius went the opposite direction, not only became an emancipationist but I read an account where he ran a newspaper in Lexington, he had to barricade his doors behind cannons at one point to keep the mobs out.

How did that come?

Well, a lot of it had to do with, you know, when you go to college, you start coming up with your own ideals and everything, a lot of that came to play when he went to Yale.

It was basically the first time he'd really been up north out of Kentucky, out of a pro-slavery estate, and he got to hear people like William Lloyd Garrison, a famous abolitionist speak, and you know, -it kind of started changing... -Right.

his viewpoint and everything.

Now, as far as the cannons at his newspaper office, he did have two cannons.

He also had guns, knives and spears in his office.

So, the family has quite a history behind it in and of itself.

And the home here, Mathew, at one point, it wasn't nearly this spectacular, it fell into disrepair.

How did it go from where it was a place where tenant farmers used to rent rooms to where you are right now?

Sure, well, the last Clay to live here was the one that we talked about the most, Cassius Marcellus Clay.

He dies in 1903, and after he dies, the home is basically rented out to farm tenants here in the area for a couple of decades.

Then basically by the 1950s and 1960s, the home was not lived in, it had become dilapidated and in very bad disrepair.

So, then around the 1960s, you get a lot of people interested in basically rebuilding the house and making it up to be its former glory.

So, Beulah Nunn was the wife of the Kentucky governor in the 1960s and she was really interested in preserving these historic homes.

So, she starts efforts to preserve White Hall, money is put together to start rebuilding the house, fixing things, and then by the early 1970s, we opened up as a place where people could come and take history tours.

A lot of old pieces of furniture were brought in, some of them are original here in the house.

A lot of work was done to make the house, you know, put electricity in... -Chip: Right.

- and make it comfortable.

So, a lot of effort was put forward by people in the community and by people in Kentucky's government like...

The Nunn administration that worked on it.

-Yes.

Yeah.

-Yeah, so... And let me ask you both this in closing, very, very quickly.

What does the home mean to the area?

What does it mean to folks around here?

Well, so it's a really amazing place.

There's so much history to learn here and we do history tours here.

Obviously, it's a great thing for people to do on a day off, or for school children but we're also always kind of changing things up, we have teas that happen out here.

We have different events, we've just started a lecture series where the two of us give lectures about things that are more in detail here in terms of the history of the site.

We also have events here too, like weddings, you know, baby showers and things like that.

So, we're very, very available to the community.

And Stephanie, quickly, to you what does the home mean to the community?

Honestly, it's just important to know your own history as cliché as that is to say, especially somebody like Cassius who quite frankly has some of the best stories I think you will ever hear.

Which I'm sure you can learn when you come check out the facility which we encourage folks to do.

Mathew, Stephanie, thank you so much... -Thank you.

-for letting us be here today.

We really are enjoying our time here.

For our last story, we'll journey to Lexington to learn about artist Lakshmi Sriraman.

Now, Sriraman is a multi-talented artist who specializes in painting, dance, and more.

Her primary technique is a form of pointillism which is painting in dots until she composes a larger image.

Now, on top of her painting, she also practices an Indian classical dance form.

We visited Lakshmi's studio to get a special look at her creative process.

Let's check it out.

Lakshmi: When I am dotting there is just that one dot for me at that time, there is really nothing else.

That point where the dot touches the canvas is like a complete experience for me, so every dot is a complete experience.

I was born in Chennai, India and I immigrated to this country when I was about 24 years old, many, many years ago and I came here to do my higher studies.

I got an MBA, and I worked as a management consultant for close to a decade, and then I had my son and I wanted to do something different because I wanted to spend more time with my son.

So, I took up dance as my professional career at that time.

Then later on a few years ago, I started painting, so here I am.

Let me tell you a story... At the heart of it all, I'm a storyteller.

I like telling stories of people to people, and I believe that storytelling is one of the most important parts of how a community is formed, a community is kept together, a community grows, and evolves, learns, adapts.

So, to me, my desire to be a storyteller comes up in a multitude of ways, whether I am dancing, whether I'm choreographing, and in more recent times, theater is a way I do it as well or through my paintings.

Painting, I really don't have any formal training.

I went to a workshop about five years ago, rock painting and then I came home, and I just couldn't stop painting.

Every large painting, dotted painting of mine starts with one dot and that one dot is one person, one idea, one thought and then it expands into a larger imagery, and I always think of it as a community of dots living together, you know.

So, for me, this idea of people coming together with a common vision, with a common focus, working for the highest and best of all people is very close to my heart, whether it's through my performing art or through my visual art.

Bharatanatyam is one of the art forms from India.

The grammar of Bharatanatyam can be traced back to writings 2000 years ago.

And so, the dance form that is now called the Bharatanatyam was called other things in the past and over time has evolved to integrate many different influences of the time.

So, the dance form as it exists now is the way it's expressed at this time.

There is a storytelling part and there is a pure dance part.

The storytelling is called Abhinaya where the whole body is engaged in the telling of a story.

One of the first hand gestures that's taught to students is called Patakam.

Patakam literally means a flag, like, you see a flag waving.

It's also meant for a lot of things in terms of the storytelling.

It is like, "no, stop," "ahh, stop," "them," "here," "you."

So, depending on where it's used, it's used to mean a lot of things.

I engage in stories of every woman, I engage in stories of what does it mean to be oppressed, I engage in stories of what does it mean to come together, you know, let's talk about stuff that matter to you and me.

I feel like at the stage that I am as an artist, I don't have that much time left to tell the stories that I want to tell and I want to tell the stories that matter, not for entertainment's sake, not to make somebody feel good, not to be this beautiful imagery on stage, but to invite us all into a space where we can think together, where we can reimagine, reactivate ourselves.

Thank you so much for joining us for another great episode of Kentucky Life and a big, big thank you to the terrific folks here at White Hall for having us, we've really enjoyed our time here.

For now, I'll leave you with this moment.

I'm Chip Polston, cherishing this Kentucky life.