Music in the Kitchen

 

When I was in Culinary school there was no music in our classroom kitchens. Then when I went to my first job at a large resort on the Oregon Coast I worked in a bunch of different departments and the only one that played music was when I was in the bake shop. I’m not sure if it was because we were placed farther away from where guests could have come across us but the Head Baker once told me she couldn’t work with out Marvin Gaye or Al Green playing. She told me her baked goods were better with music playing. I would say it has been about 50/50 in the different restaurants that I worked in on whether there was music playing. When I had my own place I kept the music low during business hours but it was always playing.

Even now when I cook I turn music on. It’s almost like a part of my mis en place. Turn on my iPod or Pandora, then pull out the ingredients I’m going to make. The time of day and the food I’m making play a part in my music choices I’ve noticed recently. For instance last Sunday when I was making brunch and working with the ingredients I purchased from the Farmers Market I had on the America Channel on Pandora. It is more of an easy going 70’s light rock kind of vibe. Bands like Crosby, Stills and Nash, Bread, America and singers like Christopher Cross, Gordon Lightfoot come up on the channel. Just easy going music I can sing to while I am chopping and cooking. Now if I’m making dinner in the evening and its been a long day at work I might need something to get me energized so I could put on Old School Hip Hop or 90’s music. Something with beat and a bit more energy to it. I don’t particularly like to do any major cooking or baking without music because I find myself less focused. I think music helps center me and has always been a big part of my life.

I remember music being a big part of my time with my Dad. He liked to listen to music when driving and I find some of the choices I go back to in my life are songs I remember from times with him. He played softball a lot on the weekend during the summer and anytime I hear a Fleetwood Mac song, especially Tusk, it will take me right back to that time. If we were just at his house he would allow me to listen to his records and I would sit in the corner comfy chair with the headphones on listening to his Stevie Wonder albums or the Bill Cosby comedy records he had. Those memories all intertwine with my memories of him cooking in the kitchen. My grandparents had a radio right in the middle of their kitchen and while it wasn’t always music on, there are very few times in my memory that I remember that radio being off. Maybe only at dinner.

I was thinking the other day when I was cooking about how I’ve shared my love of all types of music with my son and wonder if he will do the same thing with the child he is expecting in the fall. I was always willing to listen to whatever music he wanted to listen to and made sure he at least listened to the music I wanted to listen to as well. If he ended up wanting something different I let him choose and kept an open mind while listening with him. The two of us sometimes would just get into the car, roll the windows down and turn the music up loud. If I needed to talk to him about something important we would drive, listen to music together for a while and then talk. For a while we even shared an iTunes account and could download what the one other purchased. I have a lot of different music because of that. He loves all types of music and I hope he can share that with his child.

It always strikes me how many memories are wrapped up in either food or music. You can taste a dish and go back to when you first had it and know what you were doing or who you were with and I feel like music does the same thing. I can hear a certain song and a memory will play in my mind like an old movie. It doesn’t surprise me that there is some research happening with patients suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s where they are played music and served certain types of food in order to possibly trigger happy memories. Seems music and food just go hand and hand in forming positive memories and I think we could all use more positives in our lives. ♥♥♥