Our 52 Favorite Sights, Sips, Snacks & More in Lexington

This article—shared in partnership with our friends at VisitLex—is part of 52Cities, a column where we share editor-curated and community-loved recommendations for visiting our favorite places.

As a native Atlantan, I’m no stranger to visiting South…

This article—shared in partnership with our friends at VisitLex—is part of 52Cities, a column where we share editor-curated and community-loved recommendations for visiting our favorite places.


As a native Atlantan, I’m no stranger to visiting Southern cities—spring breaks spent in Florida beach towns, Girl Scouts trips to Savannah, an especially memorable New Year’s Eve in Nashville, and plenty of weekend getaways in the Carolinas. But up until recently, I’d never spent much time in Kentucky. Sure, there was the family pilgrimage to Mammoth Cave when I was a teenager, too cool to appreciate the wonders of eyeless fish (Google it) and the world’s largest underground cave system, but the Bluegrass State had yet to pull me in. After a recent trip to Lexington, all of that changed.

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20 Summery Recipes to Make the Most of California-Grown Produce

We’ve partnered with California Grown to celebrate all the ways you can cook with fresh, high-quality produce and ingredients (we’re talking fruits, vegetables, nuts, and more) from The Golden State.

Seasonal produce doesn’t get much better than in …

We've partnered with California Grown to celebrate all the ways you can cook with fresh, high-quality produce and ingredients (we're talking fruits, vegetables, nuts, and more) from The Golden State.


Seasonal produce doesn't get much better than in the perpetually sunny, Mediterranean climate that is California. Culinary greats like Alice Waters, Thomas Keller, and Dominique Crenn have long championed the local farmers responsible for said produce at their respective restaurants (Chez Panisse, The French Laundry, and Atelier Crenn), highlighting the natural beauty of each food through simple yet impactful cooking techniques. Despite growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, hundreds of miles from any of these establishments, I was lucky enough to have a mom who also valued sustainable, locally sourced food—and who loved hauling me and my sister across the country in search of incredible meals. This is how I found myself in the Chez Panisse dining room at the tender age of 13 with a plate of strikingly green veggies and beautifully coral Pacific king salmon in front of me.

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Chris Roelli’s Cheddar Has the Blues—But That’s a *Very* Good Thing

We’ve teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

Each type of cheese has a unique history, some lengthier than other…

We've teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.


Each type of cheese has a unique history, some lengthier than others, and many with layers of folklore woven in for good measure. Take, for instance, Camembert, allegedly invented by an 18th-century dairymaid named Marie Harel who was inspired by a French priest making Brie in the height of the French Revolution. Or, consider the more easily traced tale of Gorgonzola, most likely named for the town of Gorgonzola, Italy in which it was first produced around A.D. 879. And then, there's the decidedly straightforward story of cheddar with its first recorded making in Cheddar, England in the 12th century. Eventually, cheddar made its way stateside, and by the mid-19th century it was the most widely produced cheese in the United States.

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Pam Hodgson is Paving the Way for Wisconsin’s Women in Cheese

We’ve teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

I’ve been surrounded by women with a knack for cooking for as long …

We've teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.


I’ve been surrounded by women with a knack for cooking for as long as I can remember. My mom is a chef and caterer, and while her mother wasn’t exactly a gourmand (she loved a canned vegetable moment), Granbobbie made some really amazing dishes in her time, including her famous potato salad. On my dad’s side, I have an aunt who’s been responsible for the Thanksgiving sweet potatoes since before I was born—to be clear, they’re about 50 percent sweet potato, and the rest of the recipe is essentially butter and sugar. I’m told my dad’s mom, my Bestemama, could make a mean batch of lefse that she served with butter and jam. These women shaped me and my sister, and today we carry on their love for cooking in our own homes.

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Meet the Fourth-Generation Wisconsin Cheesemaker Churning Out Over 90 Types of Specialty Cheese

We’ve teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

As a kid, I associated Wisconsin with the Green Bay Packers and not…

We've teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.


As a kid, I associated Wisconsin with the Green Bay Packers and not much else, thanks to my mom's best friend Jamie, a Wisconsin native and a die-hard fan. Decades later, Jamie still loves the Packers, but I now know that there's much more to Wisconsin than just football: The state's dairy and cheesemaking industry happens to be one of the finest in the world (yes, world!). Makers like Sid Cook of Carr Valley Cheese have been shaping the region's cheesy story for over a century—in fact, Carr Valley's been in business since 1902. I sat down with Sid at their Mauston factory and retail store to learn more about their impressive lineup of cheeses, his journey to cheesemaking, and what the future holds for the Carr Valley crew.

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Cheesemaker Andy Hatch Is Dreaming Up New American Classics in Wisconsin

We’ve teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

The world of cheese is made up of many colorful characters. There a…

We've teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.


The world of cheese is made up of many colorful characters. There are the knowledgeable mongers who'll help you pick out your new favorite wedge while regaling you with more facts about the cheese in question than you knew existed. There are the cheese cave-dwelling affineurs whose precision and detail-oriented nature produces perfectly aged cheeses of all shapes and sizes. There are the dairy farmers, who are stewards of the land, masters of terrain, and typically have a herd in tow. There are the cheesemakers, who tend to be equal parts artist and scientist, harnessing the power of milk and cultures to craft each wheel. And then, there are the unicorns like Uplands Cheese who do it all—they milk the cows, make the cheese, age it on site, and ship directly to consumers. Farmstead operations like theirs are few and far between, even in America's Dairyland (aka Wisconsin). I sat down with Andy Hatch of Uplands Cheese to chat about what it's like to be a Wisconsin cheesemaker, their artisan cheeses, and camaraderie in the dairy community.

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10 Food & Wine Pairings That Will Transport You to France

We’ve teamed up with La Vielle Ferme to curate a lineup of French-inspired food and wine pairings, featuring five of their sippable selections made in the Rhône Valley. From light, crispy Blanc to fruity Sparkling Rosé, their award-winning wines pair p…

We've teamed up with La Vielle Ferme to curate a lineup of French-inspired food and wine pairings, featuring five of their sippable selections made in the Rhône Valley. From light, crispy Blanc to fruity Sparkling Rosé, their award-winning wines pair perfectly with regional dishes.


It's hard to think of anywhere more idyllic than the Rhône Valley. Its rolling hills are dotted with lavender fields, olive trees, and of course, so many vineyards. One of the largest and most historic winemaking regions in France, this is where the Perrin family—owners of the famous Château de Beaucastel—has made their home for generations. For the past 50 years, generation after generation, the family has searched for the most suitable terroirs to produce the fresh, unpretentious wines of La Vieille Ferme.

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Our Best Recipes for the Vitamix, From Breakfast to Dinner

We’ve teamed up with Vitamix to bring you a bevy of blender-friendly recipes that you can whip up morning, noon, and night. Even better? Their A3500 Gourmet SmartPrep Kitchen System does double duty thanks to the food processor attachment, leaving you …

We've teamed up with Vitamix to bring you a bevy of blender-friendly recipes that you can whip up morning, noon, and night. Even better? Their A3500 Gourmet SmartPrep Kitchen System does double duty thanks to the food processor attachment, leaving you with even more delicious possibilities.


As a general rule, I try to cook about 70 percent of the meals I eat. This means a lot of recipe planning, which happens like clockwork every Sunday in a version of groundhog day that's sometimes easy, but more often...not. Some weeks, I rely on my prized collection of cookbooks to help me out, other times I call my mom for help, and then there are times when I get my cooking inspo from the handiest gadgets in my kitchen: my blender and my food processor. Extra fluffy scrambled eggs? Please and thank you. Soup in a cinch? Yes please. Dessert that practically makes itself? Twist my arm!

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10 Test Kitchen-Approved Cannabis Recipes

Of all the made-up holidays (lookin’ at you, No Sock Day, which falls on May 8 for those curious), April 20 aka 4/20 is one I can get behind. With rumored roots in police code and Bob Dylan songs, a 2017 Time article finally set the record straight: 4:…

Of all the made-up holidays (lookin' at you, No Sock Day, which falls on May 8 for those curious), April 20 aka 4/20 is one I can get behind. With rumored roots in police code and Bob Dylan songs, a 2017 Time article finally set the record straight: 4:20 p.m. was the time that a group of California high schoolers (shocker!) known as the "Waldos" would meet to "smoke a doobie," says Dave Reddix, one of the group's members.

Today, their extracurricular of choice lives on in the form of festivals, documentaries, indie magazines, and of course, plenty of snacks. Over the years, we've teamed up with edibles expert Vanessa Lavorato—founder of Marigold Sweets—to dream up cannabis-infused drinks, apps, main dishes, and desserts that are perfect for 4/20 snacking and beyond. While we love to make and enjoy these treats, it's also important to address the complicated relationship the U.S. has with cannabis and incarceration. To read more on the topic, check out the articles below:

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Rachel Antonoff’s Obsession With Baking the *Perfect* Key Lime Pie Inspired Her Latest Designs

This article is part of an interview series called Ladies Who (Wear) Lunch, an exploration of the intersection of food and fashion.

When I think of my favorite food memories, my mind goes a million different directions at once. There’s the green Shr…

This article is part of an interview series called Ladies Who (Wear) Lunch, an exploration of the intersection of food and fashion.


When I think of my favorite food memories, my mind goes a million different directions at once. There’s the green Shrek-themed ketchup that my sister begged my dad to buy on one of our family shopping trips. I was maybe 9, she was maybe 6, and whenever we were at his house for the week, he’d let us pick out one junk food item each. It was thrilling to say the least. (My sister ate that ketchup exactly one time and then it was banished to the back of the fridge for entirely too long.) There’s the unparalleled experience of eating a fresh batch of Fisher’s Popcorn after spending a morning playing in the waves in Rehoboth Beach, Del., fingers pruny and salted from the ocean, mind at ease because summer vacation was in full swing. There’s my grandma’s potato salad that she made whenever we had a crab boil, birthday, or other family gathering, forever insisting on Helman’s over Duke’s. There’s the beautifully charred, impossibly flavorful flank steak my mom would grill and serve alongside a too-big salad and plenty of other fixin’s when the weather was nice and she had time to cook dinner after a full day in her catering kitchen. These memories are a blend of low-brow and (occasional) high-brow foods that make up the whole of my gustatory past—a thrilling culinary joy ride, if you will.

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