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)