Music To Cook By (A Meme)

First, my mix. Click the following and find yourself transported to the iTunes music store where you can sample and study my master mix: The Amateur Gourmet’s Music To Cook By.

Bach, at the start, gives us a moment to breath as we survey our ingredients and then, when we’re ready, the Arctic Monkeys come along to pump us up and get us moving. We chop to Prince’s “Dirty Mind,” peel to “Is This Love?” from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and dice to “The Big Guns” from Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins. The Band cheers us to the stove with “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and the Black Eyed Peas–a bit dated, I know, but still fun–have us swiveling our hips as we turn the heat up and add the oil. We reflect as it heats to Rufus’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel” (a song, incidentally, about Janis Joplin) and then sizzle and sear with “Testament to Youth in Verse” by The New Pornographers. We continue to brown with Kanye’s “Hey Mama” and then we do the robot to “Who’s Johnny?” from “Short Circuit.” Joanna Newson’s “Peach, Plum, Pear” is perfect for deglazing: her high pitched-voice matches the sizzle of alcohol on heat. And now we’re ready to plate to Ryan Adams’s “English Girls Approximately.” We garnish to “The Seed” and then we realize we forget to buy wine so we’re “Totally F***ed” (cue the only show tune, from Spring Awakening). Luckily Craig brought Oregon wine so let’s rock out to “Portland Oregon” from Loretta Lynne and Jack White. Now we’re eating to the haunting sounds of Antony as he covers Leonard Cohen’s “If It Be Your Will.” The meal is over and Richard and Linda Thompson reassure me there are even better meals to come, “When I Get To The Border.”

Hey you, food blogger, this is meme! Now you make a mix on your iTunes of songs you like to cook to and then upload it as an iMix. Post the iMix on your site and write a little something about it. Put a link to it in the comments here and let’s all share the songs that make cooking fun.

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