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March 07, 2010

Midwinter Midcentury Musical Theme Dining

I get so bored with routines in general, that this time of year just kills me. Not much going on, cold outside, grey and rainy. We needed a little something to look forward to around here so I combined the task of making dinner with my renewed obsession with exotica/space age pop music blogs and now cook a weekly supper inspired by (and set to) thrifted LPs. I get the tunes either from our collection of thrifted vinyl or I download from some of the awesome Exotica sites out there (links to follow).

The first one we did was actually late last fall. Andrew and I scored this LP of German beer drinking music - aptly titled, "German Beer Drinking Music" and I made Sausages, Sauerkraut and Apple Strudel.

More recently we had our usual Valentine's Day Tiki Festival with "Polynesian Fondue", a flaming Scorpion bowl and then the little girls did a hula dance around the dining room in their grass skirts to the enchanting sounds of Les Baxter.

[An amazing collection of free Les Baxter and Martin Denny LP rips can be found here, at Xtabay's World blog. Yes you could get them on iTunes or CD but they sound so much better with those little pops and hisses!]

Even foster pug Miri got into the act:

Last week it was Italian night. I waxed nostalgic about my Italian grandmother's red and white checkered tablecloth, the basket covered chianti bottles, the 1960's Cinzano ashtray... oh wait, that was all stuff I saw on this album cover, wasn't it?

[In case you have trouble, right there in the "O" it says "Pronounced 'CHOW'" Thank goodness.] Available for download here

We threw in a little Dean Martin for good measure. And he genuinely did remind me of my wonderful Italian grandmother. Though she never owned this Cinzano ashtray.

Next theme: Space night! I have this LP on vinyl. Download it here

Theremin Music, Star Trek (TOS, natch), Tang and vodka and something wrapped in tinfoil for dinner. I was so sad to see that TV dinners don't come in foil anymore. Because I would serve my family this - but only once.

Posted by jenna at March 7, 2010 09:48 PM