美国国家公共电台 NPR--For 2 chefs in Detroit, music is a passion they can taste - literally

For 2 chefs in Detroit, music is a passion they can taste - literally¹

Transcript²

Jermond Booze is a chef. But when he first moved to Detroit after culinary school, he really moved for the music scene.

"I felt like this was the hip³ hop⁴ Mecca," he said.

Now, he's using his love for those beats and culinary talents for a new project called Vinyl Tasting. Once a month, Booze and Chef Amber⁵ Beckem host a three-hour, five-course dinner inspired by a favorite album.

Each dish on the menu matches a different song - and for an extra fee, a glass of wine.

"We pick an album that speaks to us," Beckem said. "We don't stick to one genre⁶, we just go all through our playlists."

So far they've covered everything from Frank Ocean's 2012 Channel Orange to Stevie Wonder's 1976 Songs in the Key of Life.

"We try to pay homage⁷ to whatever artists that we're doing," she said. "So that could be from like their backgrounds, their favorite foods or even like what lyrics⁸ they say in the songs."

Sometimes that means taking straight from lyrics. In the song "Big Poppa" from The Notorious B.I.G.'s 1994 album Ready to Die, one line references "A T-bone steak, cheese, eggs and Welch's grape."

"He tells you a whole meal right there," Booze said. "It's like, all right, let's do something a little bit elevated with it. Let's play with it."

That line itself became a dish: a black garlic rub on a strip steak with a Japanese omelet and smoked grape reduction.

Other times, Booze and Beckem draw inspiration from the artist's background, the feelings that music evokes⁹, or the production style.

For Frank Ocean's Channel Orange, their menu paid tribute to the artist's California roots with a spin off of In-n-Out's "animal style" fries.

In a nod to the song "Super Rich Kids," they dressed the dish up with high end ingredients like truffle cheese and braised onion caviar.

Last week, their dinner centered the late hip hop producer J Dilla, and his 2006 album, Donuts. Dilla was known for sampling songs to create new beats and died just three days after the album's release of Lupus complications.

The meal lined up with the city's annual Dilla Day, a festival that honors the Detroit-native.

For Booze, a longtime Dilla fan, it was a special menu.

"He was gifted with a talent that you had to be born with, almost," he said. "And that talent, that music touched me at 15, 16 years old."

Dilla's signature production style played a role in their inspiration for the menu, Booze said. For their first dish, which draws from the song "Gobstopper," they crisped up some chicken-wing-inspired brussel sprouts¹¹ - a throwback to the nightclub.

"So I'm going to do the Brussels sprout¹⁰ wings, but like Dilla, I'm gonna chop up the Brussels sprouts to find different ways to use them inside the same dish," he said.

The menu also includes dishes inspired by coney dogs, a Detroit staple¹², and donuts for dessert.

The food might be high end, but they like to keep the energy laid back, Beckem said. A DJ plays special mixes throughout the night.

"I feel like every dinner, it just gets better and better," she said. "We want the dinners to be fine dining, but we didn't want to make them, like, stuffy¹³."

In that way, the dinners are a way of paying tribute to musical icons¹⁴, but also of connecting with fans and foodies alike. Booze said he's been impressed by the diversity of the turn out.

"We have regulars who come every month now, but definitely people come out for their favorite album," Booze said.

"You realize how deeply music impacts and is tied into people's life, and you just never know what artist is going to connect to what person."

Tickets can be bought in advance via Eventbrite. Beckem said they've gotten requests to know the upcoming albums as much as three months in advance.

They haven't planned that far out, she laughs. But their next menu in March will honor Erykah Badu for Women's History Month.

1 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

4 hop   

n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过

参考例句：

• The children had a competition to see who could hop the fastest.孩子们举行比赛，看谁单足跳跃最快。
• How long can you hop on your right foot?你用右脚能跳多远？

5 amber   

n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的

参考例句：

• Would you like an amber necklace for your birthday?你过生日想要一条琥珀项链吗？
• This is a piece of little amber stones.这是一块小小的琥珀化石。

6 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

7 homage   

n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬

参考例句：

• We pay homage to the genius of Shakespeare.我们对莎士比亚的天才表示敬仰。
• The soldiers swore to pay their homage to the Queen.士兵们宣誓效忠于女王陛下。

8 lyrics   

n.歌词

参考例句：

• music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
• The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。

9 evokes   

产生，引起，唤起( evoke的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The film evokes chilling reminders of the war. 这部电影使人们回忆起战争的可怕场景。
• Each type evokes antibodies which protect against the homologous. 每一种类型都能产生抗同种病毒的抗体。

10 sprout   

n.芽，萌芽；vt.使发芽，摘去芽；vi.长芽，抽条

参考例句：

• When do deer first sprout horns?鹿在多大的时候开始长出角？
• It takes about a week for the seeds to sprout.这些种子大约要一周后才会发芽。

11 sprouts   

n.新芽，嫩枝( sprout的名词复数 )v.发芽( sprout的第三人称单数 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出

参考例句：

• The wheat sprouts grew perceptibly after the rain. 下了一场雨，麦苗立刻见长。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The sprouts have pushed up the earth. 嫩芽把土顶起来了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

12 staple   

n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类

参考例句：

• Tea is the staple crop here.本地产品以茶叶为大宗。
• Potatoes are the staple of their diet.土豆是他们的主要食品。

13 stuffy   

adj.不透气的，闷热的

参考例句：

• It's really hot and stuffy in here.这里实在太热太闷了。
• It was so stuffy in the tent that we could sense the air was heavy with moisture.帐篷里很闷热，我们感到空气都是潮的。

14 icons   

n.偶像( icon的名词复数 )；（计算机屏幕上表示命令、程序的）符号，图像

参考例句：

• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons. 用图标来区分重要的文本项。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Daemonic icons should only be employed persistently if they provide continuous, useful status information. 只有会连续地提供有用状态信息的情况下，后台应用程序才应该一直使用图标。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓