It's warm inside Lacey Griffey's home.

Old blue Mason jars outline a window, and a collection of different kinds of bottles, special only to her, sit atop shelves. An antique iron bed, dug out of an abandoned house, lays refinished and poised with linens shimmering gold. The antique buffet in the dining room was bought way back when with the table, the chairs and a couple other pieces of furniture for $200 "before anybody knew what it was all worth."

All the knick-knacks, which give way to Griffey's personality, came from "here and there" some old, some new, some given, some bought.

"Country with character," she says, "just the way I like it."

But off from her living room is the place in Griffey's house where character clamors the artist's studio. In here, you won't find brushes, a canvas or a dirty smock, but you will find fresh chicken, Granny Smith apples and butter ... lots of butter.

The warm scent of home-cooked food is the constant theme in her canvas.

For decades, Benham's Lacey Griffey has built her reputation as one of the finest cooks in this part of the world on her sweet potato pie, fried chicken and pinto beans.

This weekend, the world will get a little taste of her skills, a look at the canvas, when Griffey is featured on KET's "Kentucky Life" series.

The program, which airs tonight at 8:30 p.m. and on Sunday at 4:30 p.m., takes a look at unique Kentuckians and how they work for the betterment of the commonwealth.

Griffey's segment spotlights her art as an Appalachian cook and caterer.

Although some people become great cooks out of necessity, Griffey said she always wanted to work in the kitchen even as a child.

"I had to learn on my own," Griffey said. "My older sister always cooked and would never let me in there. They said they would let me cook if they had something to waste."

Raising a family of eight children and one husband, Griffey discovered and refined her art of the perfect Appalachian dinner.

"Where you find a lot of kids, you'll usually find a lot of food," Griffey said. "I always served a full-course meal for my family including dessert. Every day, the kids would come in and ask