Today marks the debut of a feature that I’ve been tossing around in my head for over a year now. I doubt I’ve ever mentioned it here on the site, but my love for good food almost matches my passion for all things music, and over the past few years I’ve been discovering the pleasures of cooking. In addition to the various ingredients and spices, you’ll also find two indispensable items in my kitchen while I’m preparing a meal: an alcoholic beverage and a stereo. The first is pretty obvious, but the second holds a certain fascination with me. Wine and beer connoisseurs have been pairing food and drink together for centuries, but what about food and music? I’ve been experimenting with musical compliments to my meals almost as long as I’ve been cooking, and I’ve found that there is something deeply rewarding in choosing the perfect aural counterpart to a favorite dish. Why not satiate the ears as well as the hungry stomach?

“Modern Audiac Cuisine” is a nod to the Stereolab album of a similar name and will serve as a place to share some of my favorite culinary and musical pairings. I’ll try to steer away from the obvious (ex. enchiladas and mariachi music or Italian food and a Morricone soundtrack) and will always provide a (hopefully insightful) context for each selection. Novice cooks fear not, as you won’t find any exotic emulsions or fragrant infusions in any of the recipes. My tastes tend to lean more towards the simple, clean, and fast. And by all means, use the comments board to offer alternative ingredients or other ideas and suggestions for musical pairings.

Let’s start with an easy one first: a seriously gourmet-ass dish that tastes more complex than it is, which also happens to be the best homemade mac and cheese I’ve ever tasted.

Gruyère Macaroni and Cheese with Prosciutto
Serves four

10 oz cavatappi or other corkscrew pasta
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 cups grated Gruyère cheese (about 8 oz.), divided
3/4 cup whole milk
4 oz. Prosciutto di Parma, roughly chopped
3 tbsp. grated parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Butter 9” x 9” baking dish. Cook pasta as directed in a large pot of boiling salted water and drain well.

While pasta is cooking, whip cream in large mixing bowl. Whisk in 1 cup of Gruyère, milk, prosciutto, parmesan, and nutmeg. Add pasta and toss to coat, then season with salt and pepper. Transfer to prepared baking dish and sprinkle remaining 1 cup Gruyere on top.

Bake uncovered for 25 minutes or until cheese has melted. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Notes:

For an appropriate side, steam some fresh green beans with a tablespoon of butter for about 5 minutes, then sprinkle with toasted almonds. You can’t beat that with a bat.

“It was good, but it was too runny.” This is the standard response from many first-timers, and it’s usually because they overcooked the pasta or served the mac and cheese immediately once it came out of the oven. There are three ways to prevent your mac and cheese from leaking all over the plate when served:

• Whip the hell out of the cream until it’s thick and fluffy. Don’t stir it lightly with the whisk a few times then add the other ingredients. Your arm and wrist should be tired by the time you’re done whisking.

• Cook the pasta just shy of al dente; for example, if the box says 8 minutes, cook it for 6. The pasta will absorb more of the milk while it’s baking in the oven.

• Let the mac and cheese sit for 5 full minutes before serving. It’s going to be too hot to eat immediately anyway, so let some of the moisture escape.

I prefer corkscrew pasta (cavatappi and cellentani, or even rotini and fusilli would work), but common elbow macaroni is fine as well – just add another ounce or two to even out the volume.

Remember to take it easy on the salt when seasoning – the prosciutto adds a sweet saltiness to the mix already.

Whole Foods sells a tangy, buttery Gruyère that’s delicious and cheaper than most Gruyères I’ve seen elsewhere.

To keep the prosciutto from clumping, add one little piece at a time to the milk and cheese mixture. Yeah, it’s tedious, but it’s worth it.

I prefer my mac and cheese with a nutty spiciness by adding 1/2 tsp. of nutmeg and freshly ground black pepper. If you’re feeling adventurous you could add a dash of white truffle oil just before serving, but I attempted this once and found the dish better without it.

If Prosciutto di Parma isn’t in your budget, don’t bother with domestic or Canadian prosciutto as a substitute. Add a few links of sliced and cooked andouille sausage instead.

I suppose you could save any leftovers here, but I’ve found from experience that this particular mac and cheese recipe doesn’t hold up in the microwave.

Pinetop Seven “The Palm Acres Parade” Bringing Home the Last Great Strike Atavistic 2000

For most, mac and cheese is the very definition of comfort food. For the aural pairing, it’s natural that one would wish for the same warm coziness to highlight and not work against the dish. The hugely underrated Chicago collective Pinetop Seven, and particularly their shining hour, Bringing Home the Last Great Strike (2000), are the kind of band to curl up with on a frigid January evening and make a wonderful complement to the meal here. The drugged waltz feel and soft melancholy of “The Palm Acres Parade” encourages, almost begs the listener to savor every bite: the delicate tenor of Darren Richard mirrors the rich silkiness of the Gruyère while the clarinets emphasize the dominant French influence in the dish, and the expansive, widescreen atmosphere present in the recording resonates with the inherent heartiness of the mac and cheese. It’s immensely satisfying to the point of tranquility. Cue this up on the hi-fi before serving and watch your diners bring a new definition to the phrase “food coma” at the conclusion of dinner.

“The Palm Acres Parade” – Pinetop Seven 3:56 (Bringing Home the Last Great Strike, Atavistic 2000)

Michael Jackson “Get on the Floor” Off the Wall Epic 1979

Let me skip the introductory formalities and get the obvious of the way: this post isn’t about Michael Jackson. It’s about the technique of electric bass playing loosely known as “slapping and popping,” an approach that, nine times out of ten, tends to trigger a look resembling my reaction to a particularly stubborn gnat buzzing around my face. I can admire the skill, sure, but as a devout student of the Less Is More School of Modern Bass Playing, the skittering blitz of notes that accosts my ears from this technique goes against every one of my principles. Add to this the fact that 95% of all bass players who do insist on “thumpin’ and plucking” just don’t do it right; chances are, these are the guys who wish they had the ability to play the guitar or drums, the kind of insolent asshole musician who continually looks for every available opportunity to pick up your instrument and “show you how it’s done.” Spanking the strings of the bass like you’re teaching it a hard lesson has its place, but overall, it simply doesn’t jive with me – like country music, rappers who pose shirtless, Deadheads and Phish phans, or the vocal stylings of Neil Diamond.

With that established, there are occasions when I’m forced to make exceptions, and Louis “Thunder Thumbs” Johnson’s bass line that propels “Get on the Floor” from Off the Wall (1979) is a monument of rhythmic perfection. It struts and wiggles inside the beat, in lockstep synchronization with the drums yet still remaining fluid and independent. It’s the kind of musical brilliance that begs the question, “How would he think to play that?” until a glance through the liners reveals that Johnson co-wrote the song with MJ, so everything here likely originated from the chunky figure he constructed on his bass. Jackson uses it to entice a wallflower he has his eyes on, insisting that she dance with him, knowing that it’s impossible to resist Johnson’s low-end funkiness. Quincy Jones dresses up the track with fluffy disco strings, succinct horn spasms, and even an “Apache”-like Latin percussion breakdown before the last chorus – it’s all arranged wonderfully, but still the bass remains the star of the show. To all aspiring bassists who are incapable of plucking their strings without clobbering them with their thumbs or violently yanking them from the fretboard: study this track diligently, commit it to memory, and walk in its footsteps, then maybe I won’t immediately search for the nearest exit the next time you want to “funk it up a little.”

“Get on the Floor” – Michael Jackson 4:38 (Off the Wall, Epic 1979)

No other Soul outfit during the ’70s wrote ballads like The Isley Brothers; hell, the band used to dedicate entire halves of their records to the slow jam. The “3 + 3″ lineup that the group solidified in 1973 – Ernie and Marvin Isley and Chris Jasper, backed by O’Kelly, Rudolph, and Ronald Isley – were simply incomparable when they were exploring the lower ends of the tempo spectrum. This isn’t a slight on their musicality or to suggest a limited ability in the songwriting (”Harvest for the World” is one of the most breathtaking four minutes in pop music history and still gives me chills), but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve wanted to hear funk workouts like “Fight the Power” or “The Pride,” while the amount of listens I’ve given black-light ballad “Make Me Say It Again Girl” must near two hundred. During their ’70s heyday and up until 1983’s Between the Sheets the group wrote enough bedroom serenades to be single-handedly responsible for the conception of an entire generation of babies (”Generation Isley”), but here are the five that I believe hold the most potency.

5. “Voyage to Atlantis”
from Go for Your Guns (1977)

Based strictly on cheese factor alone, no other ballad in the Isley catalogue comes close to “Voyage to Atlantis.” Dated psychedelic phaser effect on Jasper’s electric piano? Check. Ernie Isley’s wailing electric guitar threatening to scorch right through the analog tape? Check. Ronald constructing a metaphor for lovemaking that comprises nautical activities and underwater kingdoms of yore? Check. As the only ballad on the funk-dominated Go for Your Guns (1977), “Voyage to Atlantis” had a sizable weight on its shoulders to deliver the seductive goods, but damn, did it deliver in spades. This one has glitter ball, sequins, and platforms shamelessly written all over it, and in anyone else’s hands it would be revered with the same amount of historical merit as Nazareth’s “Love Hurts.” In the gentle clutches of the Isleys, however, it’s transformed into a thing of rolling, oceanic beauty. A note of caution to the fellas – attempting the phrase “misty lady” as seduction patter will garner, at best, a roll of the eyes followed by an excuse involving a magical headache that inexplicably appears at the moment of the highest inconvenience. Don’t bother.

“Voyage to Atlantis” – The Isley Brothers 4:30 (Go for Your Guns, T-Neck 1977)

4. “At Your Best (You Are Love)”
from Harvest for the World (1976)

A hugely underrated item in the Isley’s ballad canon and the strongest argument on record that Ernie should have dusted off the old wah pedal more often. His double-tracked cooing is the highlight of this delicate quiet stormer, with Ronald’s heavenly falsetto bridge coming in a close second. While the line, “you’re the positive motivating force within my life” veers a little more toward sacred than secular, you’d be hard-pressed to find a woman who wouldn’t completely melt by the end of the first chorus. In a perfect world, some part-time studio intern at Epic would stumble upon an extended twenty-plus minute version of “At Your Best (You Are Love),” which would be greeted by the public with the same fervency as when the group debuted “Shout!” nearly fifty years ago. Seriously, this could seemingly go on for hours, or, to be more direct, however long your bedroom stamina will allow.

“At Your Best (You Are Love)” – The Isley Brothers 5:23 (Harvest for the World, T-Neck 1976)

3. “Groove with You”
from Showdown (1978)

One could substitute the title “Afternoon Delight” in place of “Groove with You” and the difference would be negligible; with its welcoming, sunny temperament and a detectable bounce in the tempo, few other selections in the Isley discography are as conducive to the occasional weekend afternoon romp. What the group does with the relatively simple groove here is astonishing, with Ernie adding layers of bright guitar while Jasper answers him, Marvin connecting the conversation with a snaky bass line, and Ronald blessing the proceedings with his silky tenor. Note how there is no climactic bridge of ecstasy, fiery guitar solo, or hushed breakdown during the course of the song, just a gorgeous, mid-tempo swing that the band seems in no hurry to rush. My guess is that the Isleys had their formula down to such exactitude back then that “Groove with You” took about as long to write as it did to record it. What draws the ladies to this one is Ronald’s rather disarming inclination to put his mack game aside and just hang with his girl, enjoying the pleasantries of conversation; at one point in the track he even encourages his woman to “speak [her] mind.”

“Groove with You” – The Isley Brothers 4:44 (Showdown, T-Neck 1978)

2. “Don’t Say Goodnight (It’s Time for Love)”
from Go All the Way (1980)

“Don’t Say Goodnight” was one of the Isleys’ last charting hits, and in hindsight the song seems the perfect final touch on their run of extraordinary singles during the 1970s. It’s also the group’s most explicit plea for intimacy, from Ronald expressing his desire to “see what you’re like in bed” to the object of his affection in the first verse alone to shifting into the time-honored “thrill/feel” and “caress/undress” rhyme routine of R&B balladry. The production on the track gives the impression that it was recorded live, with an arena-like reverb on the snare and a slightly overcompressed vocal, but the lack of a piercing wall of female shrieks in the background dispels the notion right off the bat. The key to the song’s effectiveness is the amount of breathing room the group gives the sleepy 6/8 tempo, with Jasper providing some especially tasteful synthetic strings and a mysterious blip of a chord that echoes off into space. If “Don’t Say Goodnight” isn’t enough to arouse the dormant libidos in even the most distant of couples, it’s safe to say that no amount of therapy or counseling will either.

“Don’t Say Goodnight (It’s Time for Love)” – The Isley Brothers 5:47 (Go All the Way, T-Neck 1980)

1. “For the Love of You”
from The Heat Is On (1975)

Short of a front-row ticket to one of Teddy Pendergrass‘ “Ladies Only” concerts, nothing during the mid to late ’70s was as guaranteed to magically remove ladies’ undergarments quicker than a bottle of wine, some incense, and the Isley’s “For the Love of You” playing at a soft level in the background. While the tempo is well above accepted ballad standards, this minor quibble becomes moot within the first ten seconds of the song. Ernie dons his acoustic guitar to outline the chord changes while Marvin thumbs out one of his most animated bass lines, teasing you to dance along with him. Ronald sounds like he’s been waiting his entire life to lay down his vocal here, and despite the countless interpretations the song has been privy to, not one has been able to hold a candle to his original (sorry, Whitney). And with Jasper at the helm, the Moog analog synthesizer has never sounded sexier, like a warm breeze through an open window brushing the skin. In the right mood, the listener could hardly be faulted into thinking that “For the Love of You” could somehow solve all of the world’s problems with the mere press of the play button. It’s pure perfection and absolutely timeless. And of course, it’s a mutha in the bedroom.

“For the Love of You” – The Isley Brothers 5:38 (The Heat Is On, T-Neck 1975)