Some Soothing Sunday Sounds

Jam Master Jay (Run DMC), Mix Master Mike (The Beastie Boys), Geoff Barrow (Portishead), DJ Swamp (Beck), A-Trak (Kanye West) . . . There’s a reason that those big name acts are parenthesized and the links point to DMC championships instead of Coachella fashion articles.

It’s because this is a blog about DJ’s.

More specifically, our DJ, J-Squared (The Wooden Table, etc.). Our friendly neighborhood crate digger has been kind enough to donate some time and energy in crafting the sounds of The Wooden Table so we thought we’d thank him with a little blog love and show off some of his flavor.

For our Sunday Supper meal (pictures coming soon), the uncanny astonishing J-Squared took up the challenge of creating a soundtrack to specifically accompany each of the courses that we were serving. Yup, music pairings! Below is the playlist he came up with (listed by course 5 songs per) followed by the notes that I sent him. (some content may have been censored modified for clarity/accuracy and because we have potty mouths)

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yo yo [jj] here are my thoughts on the sunday supper menu.

smoked salmon roe, crema, queso fresco, pupusa (tracks 1-5)

  • japanese/latin, up beat
  • this dish has a couple of different influences.
  • the whole thing is a riff on the classic bagel with cream cheese and lox.
  • the salmon roe is a japanese ingredient, we add liquid smoke to it to mimic the smokiness of lox.
  • the crema, queso fresco and pupusa are all latin ingredients.

soup, salad, sandwich (tracks 6-10)

  • japanese/french, mellow and funky, rushmore? amelie? japanese reggae?
  • this is a classic lunch combination with a few twists.
  • the soup is actually a japanese custard but is flavored with bacon stock (not traditional japanese)
  • the salad is an herb salad made with parsley, shallots, a vietnemese herb called rom rau and celery leaves (tangy and acidic, bright to cut through the fattyness of the sandwich)
  • the sandwich is a hardcore classic thing, the filling is marrow, except i use pan de sal for the bread

roast chicken and arroz caldo (tracks 11-15)

  • comforting, bright, happy
  • everyone will get this dish, the textures might not be familiar but the flavors are
  • this dish blends two classics.
  • it’s really mellow with bright notes that pop.
  • the diners will add lemon, green onion, to add freshness/acidity and fried chicken skin for texture
  • roast chicken is an american classic
  • rice porridge (arroz caldo) is an asian staple

pot roast (tracks 16-20)

  • a cover of a classic or maybe the original version of a familiar sample
  • this is another spin on a sunday supper classic.
  • we’ll be using an atypical cut of meat (shank)
  • we’re going to play with the textures using asian veggies instead of the standards

fennel/strawberry pie with homemade mint mate tea ice cream (tracks 20-32)

  • funky reggae, sweet, funky, playful
  • i’m using fennel root puree in this dessert to add complexity to the strawberry flavor.
  • i’m making a tea ice cream but instead of like a green tea, i’m using a mint tea that i brought back from argentina called mate.

hope that’s enough for you to go on. don’t trip if you can’t get to soundtracks for each course, one long list will be cool too. lemme know if you have any questions.

thanks man!

p.s. i know you love to [make babies] on sundays but remember they’ll be guys there too not just girlies. haha jk. but seriously man not too much [baby making] music. you wild and crazy guy.

Haha ok so that last part wasn’t in the og e-mail which is probably why Prince made it to the list. Needless to say, our DJ can beat up your DJ.

Music pairings . . . the next big thing.

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