This is a topic we take seriously: what music to play while cooking, and what to play during dinner. They are two different stories.
Last year we put together a list for Apartment Therapy and Maxwell published it again today. That list considered cocktail music, dinner music, and dance music.
Here's the dinner list:
• Chris Connor: Sings Gershwin
• Miles Davis: Kinda Blue
• Dave Brubeck: Take Five
• Bebel Gilberto: Tanto Tempo
• John Coltrane: Ballads
• Sufjan Stevens: Seven Swans
• Chet Baker Sings
• Spain: Blue Moods of Spain
• Keith Jarrett: The Melody at Night, With You
But what about cooking? What do you like to listen to when you cook? What gets you in the mood? We'll publish the list next week, so write in before Monday.
Anything by Andres Segovia. His classical guitar just wisks me away to another place. Heavenly.
MARIA CALLAS
Early nineties hip hop. There's nothing like a little Tribe Called Quest to be bop to while you're slicing peppers.
I'm a big fan of Pink Marini while I cook. It makes me feel like my life is a movie.
I moved my Bose acoustic wave radio into the kitchen for just this purpose. I'll have to be honest here and admit that my taste is not nearly as refined as most of you. I generally go all-retro with some Fleetwood Mac or Bonnie Raitt.**
**Exception: on saturdays, football takes all precedent. Down here in the land of the SEC, it's a law.
Slayer.
okay, I'll be the music geek that I am.
I like Belle and Sebastian for breakfast, and Tinariwen "The Radio Tisdas Sessions" for dinner. There's something about the cool driving rhythms that's great for chopping and stirring and getting the spices right. Click my name for a link.
I also like "Kulanjan"
a collaboration of American bluesman Taj Mahal & Toumani Diabate from Mali. Then you get a little bit of the Southern vibe with your global groove.
Or old country music. Or the Scissor Sisters!
the fun stuff that we won't be playing during dinner comes out. like bon jovi. nothing gets me slicing and dicing like "Bad Medicine" and a glass of chianti...
:)
For some reason musicals always get me in the mood for cooking.
I like cooking to Federico Aubele's "Gran Hotel Buenos Aires" and Caia's "Magic Dragon".
When I cook it's 60's and 70's oldies, (K-Earth 101 FM here in LA)
For dinner it's classical, and for clean up, 80's heavy metal.
Depends on what's on the menu and how leisurely or rushed you are in what you're cooking.
When leisurely Nat King Cole's Mis Mejores Canciones (if you ever saw the movie In the Mood for Love - you've heard it).
When lively (and of course, cooking Italian), the Big Night soundtrack.
When rushed, I always like Bjork's Debut for a little extra energy.
Lots of stuff...
Mofro... North Mississippi All-stars... Galactic...
I need something with a groove. It helps the knifework and the pan timing.
When its time to eat, then its time for something a little more downtempo.
Aha... music for food prep. I like uptempo lounge when cooking and doing party prep. Tasty cuts available on: Dmitri from Paris "Sacrebleu", Pizzicato Five "Happy End of the World", "Pink Panther Penthouse Party" compilation (on Virgin), "Kinky Beats" compilation (Italian import on Lacerba Records).
But also great calls above with Tribe Called Quest, Nat King Cole music used in Wong Kar-Wai movies, and 70s oldies!
i agree with the pink martini comment -- makes life feel like a movie, with you driving in your kitchen.
i like almost anything by Luna, esp the peppier tunes, they all have good driving beats (great for making it through mounds of chopping) the songs, star spangled man, and the enabler come to mind. and i'm just nuts for this lemon jelly song, called "the fruity track" -- really fun, groovey and eventually starts singing an ode to peaches.
great question The Kitchen! can't wait to see the list.
"The Beatles" for baking, late 80's and early 90's pop for cooking. Everything else..."The Snatch" movie soundtrack.
I like to listen to Elliot Smith, Thievery Corporation, and RJD2. Dave Brubeck is also nice.
I'm particularly fond of having some good rocksteady on while I cook--maybe some Alton Ellis or The Ethiopians. Funny, Bebel Gilberto made it into the list of dinner music I posted on Slashfood in October: http://www.slashfood.com/2005/10/31/jazz-with-dinner/
Makes me wonder what cozy restaurants did before the Gilbertos.
Ottmar Liebert, Zero7, and Stereophonics.
Anything resembling house or disco. I need to get bouncing around while cooking so the new Madonna works great. So does the new Sarah mcLachlan remix album.
carla bruni should be played while cooking
my fave thing to listen to while cooking is NPR's sunday night lineup of "all things considered" and "this american life"
dunno why, but i find it soothing to hear the voices (as opposed to music)
it helps me focus, and yet not get too type-a on my dinner prep!
Particularly good while eating (i.e. not too intrusive) Magnetic Fields, soul, particularly Bettye Swann and Candi Staton. Billie Holliday. For cooking: Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, Johnny Cash, the Pixies, the Buzzcocks, the Clash.
Also for food prep, my boyfriend and I discovered two great musical stations on our digital cable--one called "retro-active" that plays 80s new wave and punk, and one that plays old school hip hop from the 80s and early 90s. it's fun to rediscover old songs we'd forgotten about, thankfully free of ads and DJ chatter.
Most weeknights I listen to "All things considered" too, while I'm cooking dinner and washing dishes. There is something so "comfort food" about Robert Siegal's voice.
Sub Rosa is a 'virtual' restaurant. You can download recipes and music but that's about it. Lots of sass and wit mixed with bawdy humor. Check out the dinner music.
http://www.subrosa.arbre.us/SubRosaMusicArchive.html as well as the reservation page. http://www.subrosa.arbre.us/SubRosaReservations.html
Great fun. Music selections change each month.