It’s 1987, I am standing at the kitchen counter with a large steel mixing bowl and a wooden paddle in my hand, creaming that butter and sugar until fluffy while Madonna’s La Isla Bonita is playing in the background. My father has left the LP on so that he doesn’t have to listen to me clanking in the kitchen. By the time the record reaches my favorite song – Live to Tell, the batch of brownies is ready to be popped into the oven.
It’s exactly this song that pops into my head every time I set myself to bake a batch of brownies. Perhaps I learnt the association young, perhaps music and food just went hand in hand for me.
As a food consultant and a blogger, I am always in the kitchen. There’s always some new idea that needs to be made immediately or a recipe that needs a bit of tweaking or just a dinner party that needs to be thrown. Despite a little bit of help in the mise en place, I often like to work alone, making a few dishes at a go with just some music to keep me company.
As much as I like to listen to other things, I go weak-kneed for popular music. You read that right – pop music and I have a bond that nothing in the world can break. It’s the Billboard Top 100 that keeps me up at night and Top of the Pops is a channel that I can’t help tuning into no matter how blue I am feeling.
I may love Leonard Cohen most days but Ed Sheeran has my heart right now. Air Supply might get me in the mood, but it’s Tove-Lo who makes me want to break into a dance.
I don’t do a lot of solo meals, only because if I have to cook for just myself, I’d much rather make an omelette or a baked egg than plan an elaborate meal. But a meal for two, now that’s something I am ace at. I normally connect speakers to my phone and crank up the volume on the Radio Tunes App and listen to some Chainsmokers and make a three-course meal in under 30 minutes.
It’s odd but most of the times I am prepping for a bigger meal, I always have Darude’s Sandstorm running in my head. Odd because I can barely ever recall having to chop vegetables to Electronic music. Perhaps it’s a thing about pace at which I have to work that makes it such an appropriate song.
One of things I love throwing are brunches. I feel they actually make me happy – something about the flour, sugar, butter ritual makes me a happy camper. So what then would be the kind of music that would put me in that mood? I have to admit, it’s music from the 2000s that actually makes me a wee bit nostalgic but also gets my creative juices flowing. For example, Atomic Kitten’s Whole Again and iiO’s Rapture are two songs that I can listen to on loop endlessly while I am cooking. They make the best songs to knead dough to or even flip those pancakes to.
I am not much for melancholy – so Adele isn’t someone I turn to. Instead give me a bit of Bruno Mars and you’ll find me sautéing those onions with so much gusto that they’d be brown in no time. But you get the drift – for me both music and ingredients have to be fun – because that’s the only way I make my food fun.
And so, here are the top 5 songs I love cooking to currently:
- The Chainsmokers & Coldplay – Something Just Like This
- OMI – Cheerleader
- Steve Aoki & Louis – Just Hold On
- Danelle & Salda – Nobody
- Akcent – My Passion
Ruchira Hoon Philip does everything and anything that involves food – cook, write, eat, picture, blog, review, tweet…you get the drift. One of the earliest DSSC members, Ruchira is a key contributor to the rich food landscape of the capital city. She’s been on MasterChef India and now develops menus for restaurants + heads content at a recipe aggregator website.
