If there’s one thing my friends know about me its that I love music…any kind of music (brownie points for guessing the song..hehe). My tastes are quite eclectic but almost never involve the Top 10 or Top 40 as most of that stuff is tripe. I think my affinity for good sounds originates from being raised in a home with a DJ (my bro), and a father who played and danced to his varied mix of LP’s every Saturday afternoon. (His music ranged from Tammy Wynette to Bob Marley to Otis Reading to Vanilla Ice – I kid you not..).
There are some tasks I cannot perform without music, and cooking is one of them. Most times I have my ipod attached to my hip and my big headphones, not dissimilar to ones like those pictured above. I think the music I listen to affects my cooking, if its a strong drum and bass tune I mix harder and faster – if its a melancholy ballad I am more deliberate in the layers of my dessert and so on and so forth.
I had been toying with the idea of getting a speaker for my kitchen/living room, but can’t really justify it. One thing’s for sure, indie music is fast becoming my fave to cook to – Postal Service, Kaiser Cartel, Bloc Party, Whitest Boy Alive, Nurses, Wintersleep, Two door cinema club etc with driving dance beats a close second – Miike Snow, Basement Jaxx, Massive Attack, Little Boots, The Ting Tings, SSPU, Moloko etc.
So what about you? What gets you whipping up that batter, slicing n dicing, flipping and frying with that much more finesse?
image by c goulao
Filed under: Kitchen Tools | Tagged: cooking, entertainment |
Craven Maven 
I have eclectic tastes too. My father was my music inspiration also, he taught us to love all the classics from the forties to sixties.
I can play just about anything, but when I’m cooking I prefer music that keeps me moving at an up pace. Last time I made a huge meal, within the 2 hours I spent cooking and prepping I played, Queen rock music and a Spanish/Latin dance mix, and I topped it off with uptempo, semi-techno versions of Classical music! I love those mixes, critics be darned-who say don’t mess with Bach and Beethoven originals. To me they are fun and quirky. One I recommend highly is Cafe Del Mar-delightful stuff.
I love Folk rock from the sixties/seventies, the Beatles, and doo-wop/R/B from the fifties/sixties, not to mention Elvis. And not to be discounted is some disco, though I can see how a lot of it was just 70’s tripe. There are still some good ones in the muck.
If I’m in the mood to be mellow and want peace while I’m cooking I’ll play some old time jazzy stuff like Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Helen O’Connell, Nina Simone and the like. Those can really put you in a mood though, and then you wish you weren’t just cooking for yourself or grubby family members. 😛 Those songs get you COOKING, as in, hey good looking, wanna try my cooking???
When I need to get things done fast, I can also throw on some big band swing, nothing like that to give you an industrialized production line feeling, heehee. (Thinks of those old Bugs Bunny cartoons)
wow – i can absolutely see you whipping up a frenzy in your great galley kitchen while big band is blaring in the background – makes a dish taste better i tell ya!
Not to mention, since I’m in the dark ages, and my gasp! Walkman (haha) is kinda broken, I’ll crank it all up. 😀
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I don’t cook a lot but it sounds a good idea, ill turn the music off while waiting for the food to be ready though, because i risk to forget it and burn it.
Wow u really get involved in ur music listening eh? I must say I dance a lot while I cook – I could quite get wrapped up in that also.
I love music when I’m cooking, although admittedly I rarely put any on. Some people sing in the shower, but not me…I’m a kitchen singer. I sing my favorite songs by Juanes, Elvis Costello, the Decemberists (of course), Flogging Molly, and Julieta Venegas. My dream is having a kitchen with a slight echo in it.
I love it. I must say I am also a kitchen singer over a shower singer. My neighbours remind me about it oft.