Full steam ahead!

You've wowed your dinner guests with your pesto lasagna and warm spinach salad, and you're about to blow their minds with homemade strawberry pie. What would be better than topping off the accompanying freshly-brewed coffee with a frothy dollop of "steamed" milk?

There's no need to run to the nearest coffeehouse or purchase an expensive espresso maker--if you have a small-to-medium saucepan (obviously you do if you've already made that great lasagna sauce), a whisk, and some milk, you're well on your way to coming off like a barista to rival the busiest Starbucks employee in town.

Before you begin

Now that chi-chi coffee culture has hit its all-time high, it's not enough anymore to just decide between cream, sugar or black--even at home. Those puffy confections gulped by the neighborhood cafe dwellers (like caffe latte, cappuccini, and cafes au lait) usually feature a measure of fancy froth. This foam is, literally, steamed milk, made by a special hollow handle that injects a scalding steam into moo juice, filling it with tiny bubbles that create the foam on top.

Here is a method for reproducing this effect in your own kitchen without the elaborate contraptions. While nothing can quite mimic completely the taste of milk steamed in an old-fashioned copper espresso machine, our version comes pretty darn close. In a way, it's more authentic as well. Sure, the streets of Italy are littered with coffee bars whipping up wicked caffe espresso, but you're more likely to find a caffe latte at home, where your "nonna" (grandma) is pulling the milk off the stove as you stumble sleepy-eyed into the kitchen.