Archive | Classical Gourmet

When we’re not listening to or writing about recordings–or, actually, sometimes when we are–Dave Hurwitz and I can usually be found in the kitchen, cooking, cutting, baking, frying, curing, proofing, stewing, or, well, you get the picture. For the past 15 years we’ve used our own kitchens as virtual test kitchens, trying all sorts of […]

ONION, CHEESE, AND CHORIZO FRITTATA BEETHOVEN This rustic dish evokes the flavors of the countryside: farm fresh eggs, spicy Spanish chorizo sausage, onions, and a pinch of thyme. The secret ingredient here is Idiazábal, a delicious smoked hard cheese, also from Spain, that gives the whole dish a depth and richness that belies its simplicity. […]

LENTIL SOUP NIELSEN Lentil soups all have a rugged, earthy quality that calls to mind the sinewy, wholesome symphonies of Danish composer Carl Nielsen. You may find it strange to see a recipe containing Mexican salsa pared with Scandinavian music: but that’s the point. We want to get away from cheap automatic assumptions of national […]

RED PRIEST PUTTANESCA VIVALDI Sacrilege you say? How could this sauce of such notorious origin (“puttana” in Italian means “hooker”–and legend has it that when the ladies needed something quick and hearty between appointments Puttanesca was born) be in any way associated not only with one of the 18th century’s greatest composers but with a […]

REJOICE IN THE LAMB-SHANKS BRITTEN What more appropriate dish to associate with Benjamin Britten, a composer who centered many of his works around themes related to the sacrifice of innocence? Of course, the center of this easy-to-prepare recipe is lamb, whose universal image of tender, sweet innocence is transformed into a rich, assertively aromatic, intensely […]

“If music be the food of love, then why not combine them?” Everyone accepts the fact that music makes an excellent accompaniment to cooking and dining, but here at ClassicsToday.com we look at this phenomenon from a slightly different perspective. Over the years it transpires that just about all of us, editors and writers alike, […]