Returning Home with Chef Sara Bradley

Discussion post for November 26, 2024

Reminder: Our team is taking this week off to rest and spend time with our families. We will not be responding to comments or messages as promptly as usual. We’ll be back to our regular working schedule on Monday, December 4. Thanks for your understanding and patience.

Back in the spring, Sarah was featured on the cover of her hometown magazine, Paducah Life. As part of that cover story, she sat down with fellow Paducah native Chef Sara Bradley. They talked about leaving Paducah, coming back, and how they have worked to integrate personal and professional lives.

Resources:

• You can see a video version of this interview on YouTube.

• Pantsuit Politics Fan Gift Guide

• In Celebration of Award-Winning Podcaster Sarah Stewart Holland (Paducah Life Magazine)

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Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.

[00:00:29] Hello. Thank you so much for joining us today. Everyone on our team observes the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. And so we are taking this week off to be with our families. We hope that wherever you are and whatever you celebrate, you are getting some good time filled with rest and that you are surrounded by lots of love as we are this week. So instead of talking about Headline news or big current cultural stories, we're going to do something different today and share a conversation that Sarah had last spring with Top Chef runner up chef Sarah Bradley. Both of the Sarah's grew up in Paducah, Kentucky, and then they left to pursue career goals and they came back to raise their families and begin new chapters of their professional lives. So the two of them sat down together for Paducah Life magazine to talk about those journeys.

[00:01:19] And this week, as many of us are traveling to hometowns, we hope that this will be a fun and relevant conversation for you. Don't forget to check out our fan gift guide for the Pantsuit Politics fan in your life as we head into the Thanksgiving holiday. I know for me, the pressure to complete my gift giving is on. And so we've tried to make that easy for you and fun, and so at least put the link for that in our show notes. And we appreciate all of your support. I do want to make sure as we are in the Thanksgiving season that I say thank you for listening. Thank you for spending time with us. Thank you for allowing us to continue to do this work. And for all the ways in which you make it possible and better. And without further ado, Chef Sarah Bradley and our own Sarah Stewart Holland.

[00:02:01] Music Interlude.

Sarah [00:02:09] So thanks for doing this interview I roped you into.

Sara Bradley [00:02:10] Thank you. I was driving over here and I used to live like your house is just a couple blocks from where I grew up. And now I just live a couple of blocks even farther. And I was like, I wonder if Sarah, like, when she moved away, did she ever think she's going to come back? Did you plan to come back here?

Sarah [00:02:30] That's a very good question. Now, 18 year old Sarah would have told you absolutely not. I'm getting out of here. I'm never coming back. Just like I think every 18-year-old says when they leave their home town.

Sara Bradley [00:02:39] Did Sarah also?

Sarah [00:02:39] Yes, that makes sense. Synchronicity on the never coming back. I went to [inaudible]. I went to WCL. I think at a certain point when I was in D.C. because I still really wanted to run for office, I got there and realized I'm not going to want to run to be a representative from Maryland or Virginia. That's not what I want. That's not who I am. That's not what I want. I do want to run in Kentucky. So I guess at that point I started thinking like, okay, I'm going to go back to Paducah. And then when we started talking about having kids, that's when I was like okay. Because by that point I had worked enough around people who were having kids as staffers, having kids in D.C., and I was looking around going, this is not what I want. I do not want to have to get on a list for the Congressional daycare center five years in advance. I lived in a third floor walkup. I didn't know exactly how that was going to work with a child in a stroller in this tiny apartment. And Nicholas worked all the time, weekends, early in the morning, late at night. And I thought, no, I'm ready for the next phase of life and I do not want that phase to take place in Washington, D.C..

Sara Bradley [00:03:50] I never thought I was coming back. If you ask my parents, they will tell you of all of our children we thought that this one--

Sarah [00:03:58] This was definitely not coming back.

Sara Bradley [00:04:00] Was not coming back to Paducah. I don't know. I think Paducah is very different than it was 20 plus years ago.

Sarah [00:04:07] A hundred percent.

Sara Bradley [00:04:11] How old are you talking about when you lived in D.C.?

Sarah [00:04:14] I graduated from undergrad, so I'd been 21 that year we spent in North Carolina. I had Griffin when I was 28. So like 22 to 27 is when we were there.

Sara Bradley [00:04:26] At 22 years old I had no clue what I wanted. I still was like trying to figure that out. So wasn't even really probably until-- like and then I worked a few more years and I finished up college and then I went to culinary school. And so when you were turning 27, I was just starting to probably professionally think about cooking in that 26, 27. You're a little bit older than me. But I never thought I would come back to do Paducah.

Sarah [00:04:55] Well, and what's interesting I think is I thought I knew what I wanted to do and I did do that, but that's not what I do now. But I got a lot of advice in college from Theresa Isaacs, who was a Lexington mayor, and she'd gotten this advice from Sandra Day O'Connor in like a letter she'd written to her, which was go have your kids. Just go have your kids, knock them out [inaudible] and then figure out what you want to do. Which I don't think it was like a conscious plan, but that is what I ended up doing. I think part of that is because having kids clarifies. It's like is this actually worth spending time on. Instead of like floundering like I felt I was and for most of my 20s, like, what do I want to do? What makes me happy? What am I good at? What is my passion? I was told this enormous pressure from Oprah Winfrey to find my passion because I watched her every day at 4:00. But when you have kids, I think it's just is it worth it? It's like you go from being on offense to being on defense with your time. You know what I mean? Instead of filling it and trying to figure it out, you're like, what's worth pulling me away from this?

[00:05:55] And I think that clarified for me a lot. Like, what do I actually enjoy doing? What am I good at? By the time I ran for office, I just had my third son and I was watching the podcasts. They happened pretty simultaneously in about 2015. I decided to do the podcast and I decided run for office. And I think it was this moment where after having my first two sons and knowing this is my final kid, I was ready to go back in politics. That's what I worked in D.C. Obviously, there was not a big outlet for me to do political stuff when I moved back to Paducah, and so I kind of put it on the back burner. And I think once I realized like, okay, I'm coming up for air as far as being pregnant, having kids, this is what I love. This is what I still love, this is what I want to do. And I was trying to figure out what that was going to look like in Paducah. Even in Paducah it's not Frankfort, there's not a lot of super easy outfit outlets for politics. And so I think that's what I was just trying to piece together, consciously or subconsciously.

Sara Bradley [00:06:50] It's kind of interesting because I would say that [inaudible] that's a good advice. It's the worst advice.

Sarah [00:06:58] That's so interesting.

Sara Bradley [00:07:01] One of the best pieces of I someone ever gave me was a chef, and he said, "No one will care about your career as much as you do." That's what he told me.

Sarah [00:07:10] That's really good advice.

Sara Bradley [00:07:10] And I'll tell that to kids. I tell that to cooks or anybody when they come to talk to me and they're, like, I think I'm moving jobs. I'm not really sure. I'm like, listen, obviously I want you to stay here for selfish reasons. Like you're part of our team, but I'm never going to care about your career as much as you do. No one is. And it would be impossible for someone to do it. And so I got that advice early on in my career and I thought, okay, this is the time for me to focus on me. I don't want kids. I still wasn't in a relationship where I wanted kids. I mean, you were there. I wasn't there. But I would think like the exact opposite. And I also think that I do agree with you, though, that once you have children, it makes you be a lot more conscientious and aware of how you spend your time.

Sarah [00:07:58] Yeah, for sure.

Sara Bradley [00:07:59] And who to devote your time to.

Sarah [00:08:01] Yeah. I mean, Sandra Day O'Connor was offering this advice in the like 1950s [inaudible] which I follow more closely which is I got married to my college sweetheart right out of college. And so I've been with Nicholas since I was 19 years old, so it was definitely a lot of like that was already my-- I was sort of following what they call the success sequence where you get married, you have kids, you buy the house and you do the things. And I think what it made sense to me at the time when I heard her say it and maybe why I sort of subconsciously start away, it's because I definitely knew that was something I wanted. I knew I didn't want to do that way later in life, and I knew that I didn't-- I guess you could argue it was the same type of career. Because I definitely could have done the intensity that you would find in sort of the cooking field with staffing. I was advancing advance work for Hillary for a while. That's a very intense job. I did it for like two trips and thought, no. Even though I was just married and I didn't have kids yet, but it was just so high stress and it was so demanding. And I thought, no, something about this is not right for me. I'm glad I followed that voice instead of trying to just excel at it to prove I could. I think a lot of people do.

[00:09:12] But I think it became later I got lucky. So much of career success and finding yourself in a great place in life is luck and chance and hard work and those combination of features. But I think when I got here, because of the way the Internet-- like a lot of my trajectories sort of follows the Internet. I was a little late to blogging, so I couldn't break through. I was early enough to podcasting so we could. And so even what the commission writes, there was a lot of social media just coming up in local races and I was able to surf that wave and the newness of it in combination with knocking on a lot of doors. It was also very, very hard to sort of launch something with little kids. I think it's hard no matter what. It's hard to launch something whether you have little kids and it's clarifying. Whether you're footloose and fancy-free and you have no polls on your time to figure out what you want to do and to launch it and to problem solve it and to figure it out. It's this paradoxically very solo endeavor and also requires all these other people around you. You know what I mean?

Sara Bradley [00:10:22] Yeah.

Sarah [00:10:23] I think that's what I see looking back.

Sara Bradley [00:10:26] It's interesting because you can come to the restaurant, you can see exactly what I do every day. You can see everyone that works there. Our kitchen is open. It's like part of what I wanted in the space that I created. But in the space you've created, even though you're out there for everyone to see, even though it's so public, tell me, where did you do your podcast every day? Like picture a big open house. Because my creativity is on display and on a plate, where does that creative space occur for you?

Sarah [00:11:06] Yeah, it's very intense. Because I'm in a partnership with Beth, a lot of what we do is happening in real time while we're talking. So I would say especially in the beginning, we were literally like on the floor. She was on the floor of her closet. I would just do it in my bedroom late at night because we had little babies. It was our conversations. That's where the magic happened definitely in the beginning. I was not talking to anyone else but Beth. And I didn't really care what anybody else said but Beth. Our conversational chemistry in the beginning and still to this day is the secret sauce, the magic, the glue, whatever you want to call it, of what Pantsuit Politics is about. We do stuff individually now, but what people love and what they come back for is what happens when we're together. So I record the podcast now in a little home studio, same for her. So it's like, that's it. But then it's just this blossoms out from there.

[00:12:04] So we have two full time employees, Maggie and at Alise. They're amazing. When we're in conversation with them, team managing, so much happens there. We have this incredible community of supporters, people who financially support our show, who we're always in conversation with and commenting with and creating content for. That's a huge source of creativity and ideas and conversation. And then of course, we have the public, the people who are emailing us who've been listening to our show since 2015, who tell us you missed this, or we think you need to hear this. And so that's a huge source. But then also a lot of it is just in my head. A lot of it is just this is something that I'm passionate about. It's something I've always been passionate about. I love the news. I love politics. And so it's like internal in partnership with her, external with our team, external with our listeners, external with our supporters. And then of course, we have interviews, we have guest on the show. A lot of creativity comes from them and being in conversation with them.

[00:13:02] I think you got a little piece of it when we came to Paducah and you saw all our listeners. I think a lot of people in Paducah got like a wait, what's going on? Which is really fun to watch because it is a hard thing to describe. It's a hard thing to tell people. I still get people that will say like, "What are you doing these days?" And I'm like, what? Let me tell you. And that's just the podcast. We have written two books. We do speaking. The speaking is incredible because we get to travel the country and land in a place and get them-- I mean, it's almost like I would think sort of like a Top Chef challenge. You're like landing and you're trying to figure out what's going on in this place. How can I take from it and how can I give back to it all at the same time? And that's what we're doing when we speak at a college campus or in a corporate event. Because we don't do canned speeches, we're trying to figure out what that community is struggling with, how we can help them, how we can have a conversation that leads them to new places in their lives. And so it's all this sort of very connective, very contributive creativity that is fabulous. It's a great gig. It's a really great gig.

Sara Bradley [00:14:04] So in the restaurant industry, I feel like a lot of times it's been really hard for women to move out. Especially when we talk about women who want to have a family, which is one of the reasons I originally thought, well, I'll never have a family because I want to be a chef. I want to work in all these great places and do all these good things.

Sarah [00:14:23] We all saw season two of The Bear. We get it.

Sara Bradley [00:14:26] Actually, I can't watch The Bear.

Sarah [00:14:30] I don't watch West Wing either, don't watch it.

Sara Bradley [00:14:34] It's too real for me with the chef that's mean and that is triggering for me. I can't do it. I've tried, but I couldn't. I also had times with women in my field, we have to decide-- and sometimes even men, but not as often, where we decide is this career or is it this family? We don't have banker hours. We're not there 9 to 5. I'm gone at night. So have you felt that in this industry that you've chosen, whether it's the politics or the podcast, pick one of them, do you feel like it's been harder to get there because you have been a woman or do you feel like maybe these spots, maybe politics and maybe podcasts are a little more receptive and the sexism is not there as much?

Sarah [00:15:20] Well, I think it's really interesting because I think part of what we encounter it's sexism tied up with geographic stereotypes, which I'm sure you are familiar with. You know what I mean? [Inaudible]. Actually, that was a really great interview. And I want to be like, actually, that's a backhanded compliment. Because they're surprised. They're surprised that we bring depth. They're surprised that we're like so in it with the news. When you're not on the coast, for better or for worse, especially surrounding anything with media, people make a lot of assumptions about what you're capable of or what kind of product you're producing. And we just did an interview with a big celebrity, and at the end he was like, "That was really good." You could hear the surprise in his voice, which is a compliment. I want people to think like that's the best interview I've done. In our interview with Hillary Clinton, her staffer was like that's the best question she's gotten around the middle East by far. No contest. And that felt amazing.

[00:16:19] It's like this weird combo of assumptions about because we're from Kentucky and because we're women. I think with podcasting it's more a geographic thing that people make a lot of assumptions because we're not on the coast. I think with politics, interestingly enough, I think because we started in 2015, around the 2016 cycle, we would have male listeners or we would have a man on the show say, I don't listen to this podcast to listen, there's all kinds of places I can listen to men talk about politics. I like your show because I get to hear women talk about politics, which was some very surprising and interesting feedback because there are not a lot of places that you can go except for, I guess, what, The View to hear women talk about politics. Just women share their perspective on politics. I think the other thing we add is that we are not in it. We're not pundits. We're not getting talking points from the parties. We don't care if we say we're wrong. We don't care if we say we disagree with Joe Biden because he did this. We're not beholden to anyone. We're not consultants who have to worry about who's going to hire us. There's a lot of freedom in that in both spaces, but I think particularly politics.

Sara Bradley [00:17:29] It's interesting you say that you're not beholden to anyone. I think what's so interesting about what you've chosen is that people are choosing to come to you. They have a million podcasts they can go to. Like literally a million podcast and they keep going back to you. When you brought all of those people to Paducah, I think that if you weren't in Paducah and you didn't get to see the impact that it had, those people chose to come here and be supportive of our community, our everything because of you. So I think it would be interesting like I am forward facing, I am Paducah. You are forward facing in a different way, you are Paducah. But we've both chosen to just champion this city.

Sarah [00:18:19] Yes, Big Quilts. My friend Leslie asked what kind of payments we're getting from Big Quilts because we bring up Big Quilts [inaudible] She's like do you to get payments from Big Quilts? We're like, we should.

Sara Bradley [00:18:30] Somebody said that exact same comment when I was like, you lay down a blanket and [inaudible]. You laid out a quilt [inaudible].

Sarah [00:18:38] Are they getting kickbacks? We should get kickbacks. That's true. I think with our audience there's an enormous amount of trust. In the same way it feels [inaudible] very intimate being in their ears and then like your voice in their ear for a couple hours a week is a pretty intense experience. They feel like they know us. In so many ways they really, really do. I always tell people when they're like, I don't want a parasocial relationship. And I'm like, relationship is still in that. Like, there is a relationship that I have with my listeners, even the ones who I don't know in 'real life' because they know me very well and to a certain extent I know a lot of them very well. So there's so much trust I think builds over that period of time. And they've heard me talk about Paducah for years. And I think the opportunity to finally come, they know you live here. It was so exciting to get to put the Sarahs together I think for so many people. I mean, the Top Chef-Pantsuit Politics, those crossover people, this was like their dream come true.

[00:19:38] You know what I mean? This is like, oh my God, you made an event just specifically for me because we do have a lot of Top Chef people in our audience. But I think that sense of trust and they were getting to see it for the first time, they get to be together. Our listeners really love opportunities to just hang out and be together because they share so much as far as like values and priorities. Because they've been listening to us for so many years, they can accelerate that bonding or getting to know each other. You know what I mean? They have a shared language; they have a shared experience that can kind of helped them skip to really knowing each other and getting together. And it was really fun. It was really amazing to bring everybody here. It was an incredibly emotional experience for me to see them, these people I love online see my real life in person, and these people I love in real life see my online people. It was really, really special and we're hoping to do it again.

Sara Bradley [00:20:33] I will say to that that one of the reasons I got into what I do is the hospitality aspect of it. And so I thrive on being at the pass. Have you ever been in the restaurant [inaudible] at the pass and looking out, checking everyone out, like, I love that. And I felt really cool to sit up there in front of everybody with you guys. And for just a moment I was like, they're like at their pass, looking out at everyone eating dinner. This is something that you guys have created. You birthed that. That group of women the same way that like I created my restaurant, you guys created this. And I felt it was so empowering to sit there with you guys and to be a part of that. If you really wanted to empower women with something to do, like, what is this one thing that you want women to take away and be able to change in their life? What is something you want us to learn?

Sarah [00:21:38] I think it's so hard because so much of the advice you hear, when you're hearing it-- I remember as a blogger people saying just find your niche and even if you would do it for free, you'd still do it. And you roll your eyes like what does that even mean? And then you find that niche and you find the thing that you really would do. And I did for free for several years that you're like, man, it's true. Because I think there was something about we were in the right place at the right time and we had a very easy pitch. Beth from the right, Sarah from the left. No shouting, no insults, plenty of nuance. That was our opener. And it just got people in quickly. It was a moment in time that we really captured. But I also think it took a lot of horsepower. It took a lot of headspace for us to decide-- especially Beth, I think about her working full time in a law firm and her deciding I'm going to be honest, I'm not going to guard my speech or what I say, even though I'm in this position in a very [inaudible] law firm. That was very brave of her. I had a lot less on the line as far as people already knew my politics. People already knew that I was a loud mouth. And that's why I got most talkative in Heath high school in 1999.

Sara Bradley [00:22:44] School spirit. School positive or maybe it was class clown.

Sarah [00:22:50] I wanted [inaudible] 60. It's fine. I'm not bitter. And so I think that there was an element of trusting ourselves, trusting that we had something to offer, that we had something valuable. I think that we had something for somebody else and that it was giving something to us. Because I think we intuited or felt that, like I said, when we were sitting down and talking to each other, it was life giving. I can tear up a little bit. It is still life giving to me to sit down with Beth twice a week. Because now she's one of my dearest friends. We were not friends when the podcast started. We weren't really enemies, but we were not close friends. But to have someone, especially in this moment in American history, where you can sit down and say I'm really upset about this, what do you think? Or this pisses me off, what do you think? And for somebody to not just sort of go, yeah-- because I think we've all been in spaces where everybody's just fueling each other's anger and that's not productive.

[00:23:49] Beth and I are very different personality wise. And so there was a sense, I think, always that there is this balance of if I was hot, she was seeing it from a calmer angle. If she was hot, I could see it from a different angle. And so I think that balance and that feeling like we were really getting something from each other was what we were chasing. And that just so happened to be something other people wanted to listen to as well, which surprised us both. Because I don't know what it would have happened if we hadn't been picked up by i-Tunes. I don't know how long we would have done it and pursued it without it making money because at a certain point you do have to watch the side hustles and say like, okay, what are we doing here? But I'm really glad that we looked around and said, okay, we really love this. People love this. What's going to be the next step? But everything was hard. Writing a book was hard. Her quitting her job was hard. Us deciding to hire a full time employee. We got to do it in baby steps. I can't imagine what you did. Were you like, okay, let me like, I don't know, take out a bigger loan and go build things.

Sara Bradley [00:24:55] And hire 25 people.

Sarah [00:24:56] That's terrifying to me. Our two employees I'm like, please, God, let us never need any more employees. I love them. They're perfect. I don't love being a boss. And so I just can't imagine sort of that leap.

[00:25:06] Music Interlude.

Sara Bradley [00:25:14] Many times I'll be out in Paducah and [inaudible] I'll go to Kroger and I'll be buying like eight things and bananas. And somebody will say "Banana pudding?" And I'll say yeah. And they'll say, "Well, what so much banana pudding for me?" And I'm like, "Well, the Freight House. It's a restaurant." And they're like, "Where is that?" Yeah.

Sarah [00:25:33] I believe that. I'm actually not surprised.

Sara Bradley [00:25:38] I have to imagine that even some of the people that are going to see Paducah life and are going to read this are going to be like, what is she talking about Pantsuit Politics? Because we live in our own world.

Sarah [00:25:48] It's so true.

Sara Bradley [00:25:49] And we surround ourselves with things that just specifically fit to us. So give me [crosstalk].

Sarah [00:25:55] And the Internet makes that so easy, too.

Sara Bradley [00:25:58] So easy. Everything about our lives makes it easy to just be around people who feel the same way you do. So give me the one minute, give me the elevator pitch. What is Pantsuit Politics?

Sarah [00:26:14] We say at Pantsuit Politics we take a different approach to the news. Really what we do is we're not journalist. So we're not bringing you some hard hitting investigations and we're not political pundits. What we try to do is process the news. Sometimes that's emotional processing. We just did a very emotional show on abortion. Sometimes it's more legal processing where we're just like what's going on with these lawsuits? Sometimes it is really political and we're talking about electoral. But it's always both of us we're not reporting, we're not making an argument. What we're doing is saying this is what's going on. This is what makes me mad. This is what's confusing that I can't really figure out how I feel about this. This is what surprised me. This is where I thought I knew what I felt about this and now I don't think I know what I feel about this. And so that's that processing is what we really do together. And because our personalities are so different, even though on paper we have a lot of similarities. We both have law degrees, we're both mothers, we're both white Kentucky girls.

Sara Bradley [00:27:12] Let me throw in this, when she says different, Sarah is to the left.

Sarah [00:27:16] Yes. Well, Beth is [inaudible] both. She started on the right. She changed her party ID to Democrat. And now because she wants to vote in the Republican primary, she's back to Republican. This is what I'm talking about. We do not fit in an easy box. And so that is what we try to do. We really try to bring a different process to the news. We do not want people to leave Pantsuit Politics stressed out, anxious or disempowered about our world or our country or our politics. Our goal is that you listen, you feel like, okay, they named some things for me. I feel a little bit better versed talking about this because it is important to talk about, and I feel like my presence in the conversation matters. That's what we want.

Sara Bradley [00:27:55] Okay, so 2018, 2019, I competed in Season 16 of Top Chef. And when that season was over, I was like, this is the year of yes. Everything people asked me to do, yes, yes, yes, I will do it. You want me to come there? I'll do it. You want me to do this? No problem. Just did a season four years later, two children in and I walked off and I said this is the year of no. This is the year I understand now that my time is valuable. I hate to say it, but part of my business is not just the restaurant, but it's the brand of Sara Bradley. It's the brand of-- I still have to call you Sarah Stewart.

Sarah [00:28:38] We have Sarah Stewart [inaudible].

Sara Bradley [00:28:40] And we have a mutual friend still named Sarah Stewart. I have to clarify which one. But what is 2024 for you? We're sitting here, it's like a week into the new year. Like, what is it this year? Is this year the yes? Is this year the no? What is this year going to bring for you?

Sarah [00:28:53] Well, my word of the year is cherish. It started as less, but I felt like less was too negative. But every time I think about it, less is still the word that comes to mind because I definitely did that 100 percent. Yes, we'll go. Yes, we'll do. And especially when you're building something from the ground up, every opportunity feels like-- well, I don't have a publicist, I don't have a marketing team. This is me and Beth building this brand, so any opportunity we get, we just have to grab it. But now we're at a place where we have a great team. We have a fabulous agent. We've proven our chops as far as legitimacy. We've had Secretary Pete on. We've had Hillary Clinton on. We've had big names on the podcast. We have enough legitimacy now to not feel like we're having to chase that all the time, which is a fantastic feeling. And so I think now what we're really trying to do is just do what we do well instead of thinking we have to do everything. And this was always Beth's wisdom. Like when we started writing the books and the speaking, she was like, we just always have to focus that the podcast is our North Star. That's what I'd like to ask you. Is Freight House always your North Star? It will always be your North Star?

Sara Bradley [00:30:01] One hundred percent.

Sarah [00:30:01] I think that's so helpful. When you know what it is you're doing, if it makes it easier to say yes or no because you're thinking does it serve Freight House? Does it serve Pantsuit Politics? If not, if this is just sounds fun and cool but if it does not bring me listeners, then I'm not going to do it.

Sara Bradley [00:30:16] I think it's interesting to say like we're sitting here in your home, we first got here your sons they're making ramen. [Inaudible] came in, he's like, what am I supposed to be doing? I see your dad [inaudible]. So yes, I see Freight House is my North Star. But I think what I've started to be able to do as a grown up, as I start a family, a husband and two kids, is be able to see all of the little stars around it. To see some of the people that have worked for me for like eight and a half-- longer than the restaurant has been there. I have a couple of employees that have been there before we actually even opened the doors. So yes, it's my North Star and a lot of times is this good for Freight House? Is this good for my children? Is this good for me. And if it doesn't really hit all three of those, it's really hard for me to do it. It's also really hard for me to do things for totally free now.

Sarah [00:31:09] No. I don't want it for free.

Sara Bradley [00:31:11] Do you remember that moment in your career where we knew-- and I think it starts there. Everybody starts there where you're going to get a job and you're going to work 1,000,000 hours for next to nothing or for free as interns, as stogies [sp] for many of them. But that's no longer what it's about. Because the North Star is financially how I build-- not an empire, but how I build something that sustains what is important to me. And that is Freight House. That is my employees. That is my family. That is my home. That is Paducah. It really is. A lot of times I do things now that and I think is this for Paducah?

Sarah [00:31:52] When you're chasing the dream, you don't want to try anything down. You'll definitely work for free. And I think you're right, the career feels like the focus. I definitely don't feel that way anymore. We've been talking about this a lot recently that we don't feel like we have some big-- when people are like what's your five-year goal? We're like, well, just keep doing this. Just keep doing it better. That's the goal. We want to keep doing what we're doing and keep getting better at it. That's about it. I mean, as we get older and our kids are getting into more intense phases, like we keep joking you think things are high stakes when they're little, but it doesn't matter. My new favorite tweet is the woman who said-- did you see it? This woman tweeted, "My son just got a face tattoo. Go ahead and bottle feed. Doesn't matter." And I loved that. It's so good. Because now we're talking about college admissions and them going out. And now they're going to be the ones thinking what do I want to do? What's my career? What should I say yes to? Which is so mind blowing. And we're definitely not anywhere close to off ramping yet, but it's not something that never comes up in our business. What does a retiring podcast look like? Heck, If I know.

Sara Bradley [00:33:04] You can do that from anywhere.

Sarah [00:33:05] I know. That's the thing.

Sara Bradley [00:33:07] I can't do Freight House from anywhere. I watched on social media you and your family travel.

Sarah [00:33:13] Yeah.

Sara Bradley [00:33:13] I've actually said to my husband and to my mother one time-- I'm watching you guys go to these national parks. I'm like, I want to go like Sarah. I want to travel like Sarah and her family. I was lucky that I got to do that when I was young. I look at you, it's something that I admire because I know a lot of people who don't just take their children, wherever. I want to be one of the people that just takes-- if I'm coming, most likely my kids are coming.

Sarah [00:33:39] When I'm somewhere and they're not there, it's just it's like a split experience. The truth is if I'm really going to fully enjoy it and never feel like a part of me is somewhere else, then they have to be with me. And so I think when the podcast took off and we just had more resources, I was [inaudible] a lot of resources to travel, especially with three kids. And I just thought the time where before they start having their own lives and they're busy and they can't come to everything, but they're also not so little it's a huge pain to travel with them, this is a very small window, guys. This is a very, very tight window. And so we are trying to take full advantage of that window. And my kids are amazing travelers. Now, part of that is because we love food just as much as you do. I was joke with them, like, I'm not dragging you and you have to eat chicken fingers.

[00:34:26] So we're eating [inaudible], we're eating raw oysters, we're eating snails, we're eating everything. We value that experience as a family. They're good travelers, but that's a skill, too. They weren't born that way. They've had to learn how to travel and learn that sometimes you won't really love where you're staying. You won’t want to share the bed with your brother. One time Griffin was like I learned that the first I never liked it, but by the end I'm happy we did it. And so he was like learn that skill of like it's kind of a pain at first, but then you're really glad you're there. And it's definitely some of the happiest memories over the last few years. I'm so grateful that we get to do that for our kids. We had so much fun with them. And did I tell you where we're going this summer?

Sara Bradley [00:35:06] No.

Sarah [00:35:06] We're going to Japan.

Sara Bradley [00:35:10] Morocco is number one on my list. I want to go to Morocco. I'm actually working on a trip where I will be I will be the chef host. This very bespoke travel group that take a very small, intimate group. And we're going to like start in Casablanca and [inaudible]. It's the whole thing. It's really amazing.

Sarah [00:35:31] Is I hope they do break a loaf in Morocco like they do in Tunisia. I bet they do.

Sara Bradley [00:35:35] Me too.

Sarah [00:35:36] Japan. I'm so excited. I want to eat so much stuff, just anything and everything. I can't even name what I'm going to eat because it's going to be so crazy. So we really love traveling with our kids. It's very important to us. And I'm sure you feel like this, too. When you're doing something creative, even though we really prioritize breaks at Pantsuit Politics, we take a month off in the summer, we take two weeks at Christmas. We take fall break. We take spring break. We really, really work because it's a very exhausting job. I know it doesn't sound exhausting to sit in a closet and have a conversation with somebody else, but when thousands of people are listening and you have to pick your words carefully about something like the conflict in Israel, believe me, it is very emotionally exhausting. And so prioritizing those breaks, it's a break and also it feeds everything else. I learn something everywhere we go that I think, I can't wait to tell Beth about this.

[00:36:26] I can't wait to talk about it. Because that part of that process is always trying to find metaphors and experiences that name what everybody's feeling that's not just another statistic or another policy stance or another sort of political gotcha. That is not generative in a way, that doesn't build the conversation, which is what we're really trying to do. And so it just feels like every book I read-- I'm watching The Crown, I'm going to the Taylor Swift Eras tour. Everything is a part of Pantsuit Politics because it's such a creative endeavor to try to have these conversations and to think of new ways to say things. I always tell people I'm like a ringer at taboo because that's the part of my brain that's highly developed. To say this without saying that. I'm like that neuro pathway is strong.

Sara Bradley [00:37:10] Yeah, I'm really good at codenames.

Sarah [00:37:13] That's like connections on New York Times. That's like the new...

Sara Bradley [00:37:16] I'm really good at Codenames.

Sarah [00:37:16] I believe you are.

Sara Bradley [00:37:17] Especially when I play with my mother.

Sarah [00:37:19] Yeah, if you know somebody really well.

Sara Bradley [00:37:23] Yeah. If you know, watch out. Because you can play a different game on my mom and it's like maybe not so much, but you play Codenames.

Sarah [00:37:29] Well, it's like my tabby moment with my best friend from law school is it was like milliseconds left and the last word and the clue was watch; and she looked to me and goes Madonna gave one to Oprah. And I went, watch. I was like, done. I got it. If you know the person well, you could just lean back. But I love what I do. I love when people figure out that we're both from Paducah. I think it's so fun. I think our work is so weirdly aligned in so many ways and could not be different in other ways. That I think is really fun.

Sara Bradley [00:38:02] Yeah.

[00:38:03] Music Interlude.

I cook food that is a lot of times regionally derived, but with touches of wherever I am. And you get out there and you are talking a lot about like the region that you said people expect something from your region.

Sarah [00:38:24] Well, listen, I said we're doing this for free, but I've been in New York Times, I've been on Good Morning America. And when [inaudible] was like, we're thinking about the cover, I started crying because Sarah from 1995 that was the coolest thing to be on the cover of a Paducah Live, and still is, to feel like you're recognized. Because I had a very disjointed experience when I started Pantsuit Politics. I was a commissioner. I was taking a lot of heat. A lot of people were displeased with me. A lot of people were mean to me. And it was hard. It was hard to love a place, to do something for that place and have your motives doubted all the time. It was heartbreaking. And so to finally come back to this space where I feel like my love of Paducah and Paducah itself and my work and everything is aligned and I don't feel like I'm on the defensive all the time has been-- I feel like healing is a little dramatic, but it has been very positive. I feel like when everybody came to Paducah and it just felt like the synchronicity that wasn't, like I said, the super disjointed experience from when the podcast started. It felt I felt really good. So I love Paducah, obviously. Well, I came back here, I raised all my kids here. My kids know that it is legally required that they also live in Paducah. Makes them sign contracts.

Sara Bradley [00:39:37] Until they're 18.

Sarah [00:39:38] No, always. Now, I want them to go away.

Sara Bradley [00:39:41] You want them to boomerang?

Sarah [00:39:42] I want them to come back, of course. Don't you want yours to come back? I want mine to come back and live right next door, maybe.

Sara Bradley [00:39:47] Okay, so you're talking about your kids getting into the thick of it. I have four and two. Right now the thick of it for me is that my two year old she wanted pink socks, and then I got all the pink socks and none of them are the right pink socks.

Sarah [00:40:01] Not those pink socks.

Sara Bradley [00:40:03] Pink socks. [Crosstalk]. So she went to school today with no socks on because I couldn't find...

Sarah [00:40:10] And you're like, whatever.

Sara Bradley [00:40:11] Whatever. But she did wear her pink sparkle boots that she wore to Dolly Parton's stampede.

Sarah [00:40:16] Beautiful.

Sara Bradley [00:40:16] And then the four year old I'm realizing even at that young age like how intuitive they are and how I can see her little personality developing. I want my kids to-- I don't want them to be in Paducah. I want them to graduate high school and I want them to go far away. I want them to go become their own person. Yes, I would love it if they moved [inaudible]. I want them to move home and take care of Austin and I and do everything we need. But I want them gone for a good 15 years minimum. Go and figure out, go become your own person and learn and create and find what is beautiful and bring it back to Paducah. And that is what makes Paducah so cool right now. So many people are coming home and bringing all this wonderful stuff with them.

Sarah [00:41:06] Well, and listen, let me just be abundantly clear about Paducah and Pantsuit Politics. There would not have been Pantsuit Politics if I had not lived at home with my family in this village that helps take care of my kids and helps take care of me. I have a work that's enormously flexible, but also I have work that requires me to leave town for periods of time. And so it would not have been doable. I couldn't have done it. First of all, if we'd stayed in Washington, D.C., I couldn't have done something for free for two years. We couldn't have afforded it. And so just the ability to have the support to call my mom and say, I have this interview at 3:00 or tell my husband that I have to do this thing with Sarah Bradley and you have to take them to the eye doctor. He has flexible work and we have my parents here and I have friends that if something happens I can call them and they'll grab a kid. And just the ease of moving around here and being somewhere in seven minutes or three minutes, all of that was so contributive to our success.

[00:42:06] I think if I had not had that flexibility, if I had not had just the ability to go pay to go to the DNC at the very beginning of the show when we were making no money because I wasn't living in a place where my rent was $2,500 a month, that was just huge. And there were parts of the way where I was making money doing social media. I worked for Paducah Life for a while. It always felt like there was someone in Paducah be it a family friend or in the wider community who was like, do you need help with this? Always kind of offering me a leg up, offering me some help, offering me some insight that I just wouldn't have gotten elsewhere. That's what I mean like it's a weird thing where it's your creative energy, but it stands on this foundation of this entire village and community supporting you and helping you and rooting for you. And I would not have been able to do it otherwise. There's no doubt in my mind.

Sara Bradley [00:42:59] Yeah, life is easy in Paducah.

Sarah [00:43:02] Life is easy. That should be our tagline. Except we don't actually want everyone to know that because if everybody lives here life won't be easy anymore.

Sara Bradley [00:43:11] I know.

Sarah [00:43:11] It's a tough one. It's a tough balance. Beth lives outside Cincinnati and The Axios like number two Rust Belt growing cities was Cincinnati. And I was like, condolences to be on those lists. That's why it means so much because I think it's not hard to get to Paducah. But we don't have some big major airport. So when all the people from Pantsuit Politics came, it was such a compliment that they went to the trouble to get here and be in the town and get to know the community. And all the people who live in like California would go back and they're like, "I miss Paducah. Somebody honked at me today." It was hilarious. I'm like, I know. It's great here, guys. I've been telling you for years. I've been telling you. Thank you for doing this for free.

Sara Bradley [00:43:59] You're welcome. I do have to say that there's free and then there's free. Because nothing is ever free. Is it? The fact that we are lucky to get to be on the cover of something that represents and stands so much for what we are proud of. Like I am a proud Paducan. I just became a Kentucky colonel.

Sarah [00:44:24] Nice.

Sara Bradley [00:44:25] I think being the duchess of Paducah is a little bit cooler.

Sarah [00:44:28] It's better. I agree.

Sara Bradley [00:44:31] I get to say to I'm a duchess.

Sarah [00:44:33] I'm a duchess. It's better. It's definitely better.

Sara Bradley [00:44:37] It's wonderful. And so cheers to you. Cheers to doing this. Cheers to everything you've done.

Sarah [00:44:42] Same.

Sara Bradley [00:44:43] I never would have thought in high school that you and I would be sitting down talking about all the wonderful stuff we've done. I actually thought probably it'd be the exact opposite. But who know?

Sarah [00:44:56] I don't think anybody at Heath high school would have put money on you and me sitting down for a Paducah Life interview with both of us la chef and a podcaster. I definitely know nobody would have guessed podcaster because that wasn't even a thing or a job in 1999. But definitely no. And that's the beauty. That's why it's so hard when someone says, like, "What would you say to somebody," I want to be like, "I don't know." It's not like I can major in podcasting or I pursued this in this way. You didn't go to college to be a chef. I think so much of it is taking life where it takes you, like letting life take you in new directions and trusting that you have something to offer once you get there. And I think the Sarahs have a lot to offer still.

Sara Bradley [00:45:36] Still. I've known you for 35 years.

Sarah [00:45:40] Thirty five years, I'd say.

Sara Bradley [00:45:42] I feel like podcasting was created for you. Let's create a job where someone gets to talk about-- and I don't mean this in like... Let's create a job where someone gets to talk about something they are passionate about. They literally could not have created something more perfect for you because you have a lot of really interesting things to say.

Sarah [00:46:07] Thank you.

Sara Bradley [00:46:08] You have a lot of really important topics and also not important topics.

Sarah [00:46:12] Exactly.

Sara Bradley [00:46:13] You have to have like the mix.

Sarah [00:46:15] You do.

Sara Bradley [00:46:16] And I feel like this job was perfect. And you're a strong, powerful woman. So I love to see you out there representing all of us.

Sarah [00:46:24] Thank you. Same for you. I think the thread that probably if you looked back and think then on Sarah and Sara at Heath high school, you would have seen two people very, very energized and motivated by other people and a love of other people. And I think that is the connective tissue. That's what you do in your job. That's what I do in my job, and that's what you see that we get energy from. You can see when you walk around the restaurant, you can watch the energy come and you hype up and you can just see it. And that's the same way for us. The more people we talk to and the more ideas we hear. The other thing that's so great about the creative work that you and I do, is in so many ways, it's like we always say we get to just respond to the world. We're just taking what the world gives us and finding a way to create from it. And so it's a really, really fun job. So maybe somebody who is maybe like [inaudible] who was really dialed in to the personalities of Heath high school would have seen that connection between the two of us.

Sara Bradley [00:47:27] I was to tell you a good story [inaudible].

Sarah [00:47:30] [Inaudible]

Beth [00:47:34] Thanks again to Chef Sara Bradley and our Sarah for that conversation. And we hope that wherever you are, you're having the best week and Thanksgiving available to you. We'll see you back here next week.

[00:47:44] Music Interlude.

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.

Beth: Alise Napp is our Managing Director. Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers: Ali Edwards, Nick and Alysa Vilelli, Amy & Derek Starr Redwine, Amy Whited, Anya Binsacca, Ashley Rene, Ashley Terry, Barry Kaufman, Becca Dorval, Beth Loy, Brandon & Jessica Krausse, Catherine Kniss, Chelsea Gaarder, Christi Matthews, Christian Campbell, Christie Johnson, Christina Quartararo, Connie Peruchietti, Crystal Kemp, The Adair Family, Ellen Burnes, Emily Holladay, Emily Helen Olson, Gabrielle McDonald and Wren, Genny Francis, The Charney Family, Heather Ericacae, Jacque Earp, Jan Feltz, Janice Elliott, Jeff Davis, Jen Ross, Jeremy Sequoia, Jessica Whitehead, Jessica Boro, Jill Bisignano, Julie Haller, Julie Hough, Karin True, Katherine Vollmer, Katie Johnson, Katy Stigers, Kimberley Ludwig, Kristen Redford Hydinger, Kristina Wener, Krysten Wendell, Laura Martin, Laurie LaDow, Lee Chaix McDonough, Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen, Lily McClure, Linda Daniel, Linsey Sauer, Bookshelf on Church, Martha Bronitsky, Megan Hart, Michelle Palacios, Michelle Wood, Morgan McHugh, Onica Ulveling, Paula Bremer, The Villanueva Family, Sabrina Drago, Samantha Chalmers, Sasha Egolf, Sarah Greenup, Sarah Ralph, Shannon Frawley, Stephanie Elms, Susanne Dickinson, The Lebo Family, The Munene Family, Tiffany Hassler, Tracey Puthoff, Veronica Samoulides, Vicki Jackman