The pairing of food and music is a partnership for the ages. Classical composers like Mozart wrote music specifically intended to be what we would come to call “dinner music”. Entertainment and dining were synonymous with each other; Royalty and the uber wealthy would have in-house minstrels and orchestras, on call and tuned up and ready to crank out hits for whatever decadent feast was being prepared. Think about it…eating in complete silence just hits different, and not in the good way, like Sprite from the McDonalds fountain as opposed to the can. There have been very few instances where I’ve enjoyed a meal without accompaniment of some kind, from the dollar slice corner joint blasting EDM at 1am, to the authentic Mexican taqueria and their abuelita’s staticky AM/FM radio blaring mariachi music, to the ever-upscale Michaelin starred Alinea or Per Se playing delicate contemporary tunes. Music and food go together like peanut butter and jelly…so let’s make some sandwiches.

What defines home? The general description of a home encompasses the physical structure, made of lumber or brick or other such materials to shelter one from the harsh elements. But home is so much more than that. Home is subjective; It is – in large part – feelings of security, stability, comfort, and love. You can stay in any one building long enough and start to become attached. Case in point: how many hours do a lot of you readers spend in an office building? Chances are that you wouldn’t jump at the chance to define your office as “home”, but I’m willing to bet that the cumulative hours spent there have embedded feelings of familiarity that feel very much like home. That one coffee machine that sputters at the end of a brew cycle, that fluorescent bulb that facilities keeps forgetting to fix, the conference table at which you might have pitched some of your best (and worst) ideas…I’m almost certain that these memories will all stick with you subconsciously, so much so that when you eventually leave that job, you might just sigh with longing as you push through the revolving doors of the marble lobby one last time.