Sara Pepitone

Preakness Stakes and much more: Visit Baltimore

The Preakness Stakes takes places this Saturday at Baltimore’s Pimlico Racetrack. If you’re one of the 6,000 people inside the Corporate Village and Turfside Terrace, you’ll be part of the world’s largest farm-to-table event yet: Besides the traditional crab cakes and Chesapeake Gold Oysters, this year the Maryland Jockey Club asked chef Mike Isabella to create a menu with other state products like sheep’s milk and lemon thyme.
And overall, Baltimore has upped its game — from food to fun. So whether your money is on Orb or Oxbow, a trip here is a safe bet.

Read complete story on NYPost.com: Baltimore ravin': Charm City lives up to its name in these two neighborhoods

Here are some more photos by me...

Check out Wilmington, DE

That's how I do panorama (click it). It does Not do justice to the area surrounding the very cool + gorgeous DuPont Environmental Education Center (1400 Delmarva Ln, Wilmington, DE). But it's panoramaish.

That's the view from the other side - Riverfront Wilmington, and LoMa beyond (you can't see it). Read the story (travel) on NYPost.com: Where there’s a Wilmington, there’s a way.

I ♥ NY: Ingredients and Recipes by chef Daniel Humm and Will Guidara

Love food and love New York road trips? Your greatest inspiration yet hits bookstores nationwide Tuesday.

I ♥ NY: Ingredients and Recipes by chef Daniel Humm and Will Guidara of Eleven Madison Park and the NoMad, is a 511-page ode to more than 50 local ingredients (from apples to scallops to walnuts) and their respective producers, all within easy driving distance from New York City. It’s part cookbook, too (completely doable). Pick a recipe, grab a map and fill your reusable shopping bag.

Dublin down: Ireland wants to welcome you home

Worldwide, some 80 million people claim Irish ancestry. And this year the motherland is calling everyone home. “The Gathering” is a yearlong tourism promotion launched to encourage everyone of Irish descent to congregate with their kin.

Gatherings can be created and hosted by all kinds of folks, from corporations to McCarthys to red heads. Non-Irish welcome too, of course. But while you can go from coast to coast, my recent trip focused on gatherings (and more) that were city-based.

Established as a Viking settlement more than 1000 years ago, Dublin is home to 1.2-million of Ireland’s 6.4-million population. And if a few days of guided tours are any representation, just about all of them are entertaining. Subtle, dry humor reigns but there’s plenty of outright hilarity too, and it rounds out a travel itinerary like nothing else. Just don’t expect any story to be short.

If you missed it in print, read full story on NYPost.com: Dublin down: Ireland wants to welcome you home

Tour Cincinnati with The Mayor

This is what happens when I get to have coffee with the excellent Mayor of Cincinnati - Mark Mallory - and his city is cool:

Maybe you only think of Cincinnati on baseball’s Opening Day (the Reds are the only MLB team that always starts the season at home), or maybe you haven’t thought of the Queen City since Andy Travis tried to save the failing WKRP. Well, it’s time to start thinking.

The Cincinnati region, from southeast Indiana to northern Kentucky (the airport is there), and situated on the Ohio River, includes 2.1 million people. The Ohio city itself is properly home to about 300,000 (it’s Ohio’s third largest). And it’s invested $200 million (with some private help) in a revitalization that’s aimed to mirror its pre-WWI vitality.

Read complete story on NYPost.com: Exploring Cincinnati, mayoral-style: Mark Mallory shows off the city’s revival by taking us to his fave spots

Yankees Spring Training in Tampa

Spring! Training! I am delighted to be an expert in this field (pun!)...

The Yankees spring training home opener is this Sunday, against Toronto. Home meaning Tampa, Fla. Through March 28, the team will shape up for the regular season at Steinbrenner Field. And you’re invited.

Spring training isn’t just for die-hard fans. Sure, you can check out the prospects and consider who might make the regular roster, but this is also about experiencing the national pastime on a smaller scale (in terms of seating: 11,026 versus 50,291; but the center-field wall is the same 408 feet). Yankee Stadium is awesome, but there’s nothing like hearing the crack of a bat and seeing what 195 pounds of Derek Jeter looks like when you’re crazy close to the field, something most of us rarely experience. Plus, it’s not freezing. Remember how good it feels to walk outside in a T-shirt?

If you missed it in print, check out the complete (mini) travel guide on NYPost.com: Earn your stripes at spring training: Yankees preseason fun in Florida

Touch of glass makes beer better

Spiegelau Beer Glass Tasting (aka this reporter's beer glass conversion)

Craft beer has never been more valued in this country than it is now. Fortunately, we New Yorkers have access to an impressive range of products. But tasting a brew at its source, following a tour of its preparation, is like tasting it for the first time. And now many brewers all over the US are ramping up this experience by pairing your favorite beer with a glass that perfectly showcases its best assets: look, aroma, taste. The right glass is a combination of ideal height, diameter and shape to showcase the good stuff.
Sound intimidating? Pretentious? Unnecessary? Fuggedaboudit.

Today, the first IPA-specific glasses, created by German glassmaker Spiegelau in collaboration with Sierra Nevada and Dogfish Head, are being unveiled at both breweries...

If you missed it in print, read complete story on NYPost.com: Touch of glass makes beer better: Where to find the best foam parties

Louisville's Urban Bourbon Trail

Van Winkle bourbon flight at The Hog and The Barrel Dinner @ Proof on Main, Louisville, KY.

Yes I am lucky and spoiled (see above photo). What a terrible assignment - drinking bourbon and bourbon cocktails with the folks who know it best...

The best way to get to the heart of Louisville (pronounced Lou-uh-vul — no “i” ’round here) is through one of the main arteries. Yes, racehorses (Churchill Downs) and baseball bats (Louisville Slugger) rate highly with visitors to Kentucky’s largest city, but it's bourbon that runs through everyone’s veins.

Through the 1800s and until Prohibition, a portion of SoHo-looking Main Street was known as Whiskey Row because of the sheer number of distillers (50!) in operation. The city is revitalizing this area now, bringing back the designation and celebrating the influences of “America’s Native Spirit.”

Bourbon, in case you’re confused, is whiskey with specific rules, the federally mandated kind. Namely — percentage of corn in the recipe, and aging in new, American white-oak barrels. Nearly all bourbon is made in Kentucky — mostly outside of cities these days, but the bourbon folks know a good bar crawl is as good a reason as any to stay in town. So they created the Urban Bourbon Trail...

If you missed it in print, read complete story on NYPost.com: Louisville's big on bourbon - A drinking crawl unlike no other is the best way to soak up Kentucky’s largest city

Rookwood’s Sexy Tiles Revive Cincinnati Landmark

Rookwood Pottery has a hand – or an ear – in the complete renovation of Cincinnati’s landmark Metropole hotel, reborn as a 156-room boutique called 21c Museum Hotel Cincinnati. The local studio, founded by Maria Longworth Nichols in 1880 as the first woman-owned manufacturer in the U.S., was tasked by design firm Deborah Berke Partners to produce eight types of bathroom tile mimicking ears, lips, breasts, noses and other human body parts.

Read story on Designwire: Rookwood’s Sexy Tiles Revive Cincinnati Landmark

Toronto is in the groove

The Natrel Rink, Harbourfront Centre

Toronto in winter! Go! Yes I took an ice skating lesson at this gorgeous (above) rink. No that white coated skater is not me...

Toronto is home to nearly 2.5 million people, the majority of whom seem to believe their city, Canada’s largest, runs at approximately the same temperature as ours.
They’re right if NYC life revolves around windy Battery Park — and you really don’t understand Celsius. But though it’s far from tropical up there on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario, there are plenty of reasons “El Toro” (in 2011, this nickname was floated) is hot. Toronto was sure-footed during the economic crisis, opening many hotels, restaurants and art galleries, with more in the works.

Read complete story at NYPost.com: Toronto is in the groove: From books to bacon, there’s a lot beyond ice in Toronto — but we like the ice, too