Latte Art with Nicely Abel Alameda

Inside the world of latte art with one of the coffee community’s nicest baristas

A man who lives up to his nickname, Nicely Abel Alameda has dedicated himself to his career in coffee. So dedicated, in fact, that he sports coffee logo tattoos commemorating the three companies he has worked for. While working at Espresso Vivace in Seattle, Nicely’s competition-level latte art skills caught the attention of barista champion Kyle Glanville, resulting in Nicely heading south to Los Angeles …

Modernist Cuisine Baking Steel

An innovative and versatile baking steel turns everyday ovens into pizza kings

After Modernist Cuisine‘s first two books, their debut encyclopedia of kitchen knowledge and their lighter at home edition, the kitchen scientists at Washington’s Bellvue-based lab embarked on a new kind of adventure—creating products that “help people cook better,” says director of applied research Scott Heimendinger. “Our enemy is bad cooking whatever and wherever that might be.” Heimendinger and the Modernist Cuisine Lab’s first project is, …

Reinventing the Bottle

Three specially packaged white wines for warm-weather drinking

Sometimes a simple tweak to the classic wine bottle is all it takes to turn a chilled glass of white into an all-out warm weather celebration. Dressing up all kinds of leisure activities—from watching the playoffs on TV to attending baby or wedding showers—elements like fluid shapes, storied inspiration, and stopper alternatives offer at least more romantic compensations for cork than the now-common spongy plastic …