Serious Eats Visual Director Vicky Wasik's Favorite Images of 2016

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Updated August 10, 2018

For all the writers and editors you come to know and love on this site, there's someone else you don't hear from as often—at least not in written form. From shooting every recipe developed in our New York offices, to coordinating (and often executing) the visual treatments for feature stories, to leading our new video initiatives, Visual Director Vicky Wasik is one of the biggest, most visible presences on Serious Eats. Today, we've asked her to run through some of her favorite images of 2016. Here's what she had to say.

Recipe Photos

Recipe photos all share one goal: to make you hungry. If you don't want to lick the screen, I'm sorry, we've failed you. It's no surprise that a lot of my favorite recipe images from the last year are of sweets—when I just have to make blueberry pie or angel food cake look good, my job pretty much does itself. But don't worry, few photos of savory items made it onto my list, too—Daniel's golden tortilla española and his crusty oven-baked ribs really popped on camera. Meanwhile, Kenji had some awesome shots from his San Mateo kitchen this year. I love the warmth and styling in his photo of channa masala, but the real stand-out is the close-up of his take on our office favorite, the Spicy Spring pizza.

Pantry Essentials Stories

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Herringbone Lattice Pie

Oven Barbecue Pork Ribs

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Buttermilk Vanilla Waffles

Effortless Angel Food Cake

Extra-Dirty Martinis

Channa Masala

Sicilian Pizza With Pepperoni and Spicy Tomato Sauce

Illustrations

It was really exciting to feature some amazing illustrations on the site this year. We dabbled in watercolors (I even tried my hand at it!) and had a lot of fun with the graphics for the Comfort Food Diaries.

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The Comfort Food Diaries: Movie Theater Popcorn, A New Hope

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So Hot Right Now: 11 Chilies You Should Know

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Dining Out Photos

I get to hire a lot of great photographers around the country for dining out features, and some of my favorite images of the year came out of those stories. Not to mention all of Fiona Reilly's jealousy-inducing shots of her travels around Asia. I also need to give a shout-out to the close-up of the pastrami sandwich from Carnegie Deli that I took, because...MEATS.

What to Eat in China: A Traveler's Guide

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Salt Lake Spirit: How Utah's Liquor Laws Foster Creativity Behind the Bar

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How Pastrami Really Arrived in New York City

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Videos

We've been playing around with video a bit this year (exciting things to come in the new year) so I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite projects to work on. The first of these was born out of a late night shooting pies at the office. Over a bottle of wine, Stella and I somehow came up with the idea of creating a herringbone pie lattice crust even though we—and apparently the entire internet—had never done one before. We watched a chair-weaving video and voilà, the herringbone crust (and our friendship) was born. Doing a stop-motion video of it weaving itself was the only obvious course of action. Oh, and I can't forget the haunted gingerbread house. My favorite part? The stop-motion animation of the house being built.