The Shaman of Ramen

Photography by Todd Wright

Animal, vegetable, mineral: Kevin Ordonez melds them in ways that keep Alkaline packed. (Try the tater tots.) Kevin Ordonez knows noodles. He knows broth and bones and aromatics, and how to cook pig feet at a ripping boil for days, until the calcium and marrow break down to create the milky white stock that is…

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Ain’t It Grand

Photography by KEITH LANPHER

Small restaurant. Big taste. So worth the wait. Steve Marsh holds an octopus by its head cavity and lowers its body into boiling water, blanching the legs to make them tender before he cuts them off and cooks them sous vide in olive oil. Later he’ll throw each on the grill for a quick char…

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A Sacred Sound

photography by Rich-Joseph Facun

Dramatic classical music soars and swells through the neo-Gothic arches of Norfolk’s Christ and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. Kevin Kwan’s hands range over the three levels of its organ’s keyboards, pulling out a knob to make the notes ring like trumpets, another to make them trill like flutes, his leather-soled shoes heel-and-toeing over the foot pedals.…

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Mike Jabbur

Slider_photo_Jabbur

Mike Jabbur’s hands slide over the column of clay, compressing here, pulling there, his fingers scissoring to stretch open the top, the clay contorting in its spinning dance. He pulls a disc of plastic from his rack of tidy tools and presses in the swooping swirl that makes his mugs bend and twist like bodies…

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Farming Of The Future

photography by ROBERTO WESTBROOK

Inside an arched and insulated 60-foot-long building down a dirt road behind Hunt Club Farm in southern Virginia Beach, 8,000 heads of lettuce grow in what its owners call a “plant spa.” John Pierce and Jacob Gold shuffle their feet through a low tray of disinfectant before entering a control room where a computer controls…

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