Omelet with a side of Bach: Kenji López-Alt’s experimental cooking performance

At first glance, making music and cooking may not seem to have much in common. But Friday evening, Seattle Chamber Music Society musicians and local chefs will take center stage for a one-of-kind event that demonstrates the connection between the two creation processes.

I

nside his Eastlake houseboat, Kenji López-Alt, a cookbook author, New York Times food columnist, and chef is beating eggs with a pair of chopsticks to make a French omelet. He pauses to show the eggs’ frothy consistency.

“Basically, I want it to be mostly homogenous,” says López-Alt. “No gloppy chunks of egg white and yolk.”

Within minutes, the mixture is transformed into something light, luxurious, and comforting.

This is a preview of Friday’s show, Tasting Notes. López-Alt will be making an omelet live and in front of the audience.

“There’s an immediacy to food, and there’s a certain ephemeralness to both food and music that parallel each other,” he says.

López-Alt grew up playing the violin and even considered going to a music conservatory. He chose a different path, but music has always been in the background. In his home, a mandolin and a ukulele hang above the fireplace.

After he moved to Seattle in 2020, López-Alt connected with childhood friends who are now musicians with the Seattle Chamber Music Society. He started attending their sight-reading parties and other events.

Over time, López-Alt says, he saw an opportunity to explore the connections between food and music.

“The idea was to come up with a stage show that can demonstrate these parallels,” he says.

López-Alt will share the stage Friday night with Seattle Chamber Music Society’s artistic director James Ehnes. When he’s not making music, Ehnes says he likes to cook and to explore other food cultures while traveling. For him, he adds, one of the connections between music and food is in the preparation, which means having basic skills.

He and López-Alt will talk about how those skillsets are foundational.

“He doesn’t have to put a whole lot of thought into chopping an onion, and I don’t have to put a lot of thought into playing a C major scale,” Ehnes says.

“You don’t want to have someone on the line who doesn’t know how to chop an onion; that’ll mess up the entire meal the way that if you have a weak link in a chamber music group, that will mess up the group,” he adds.

Both music and food tap into our senses and can elicit certain emotions. They also evoke a desire to share something of value with others, Ehnes says.

“People want to share something special of themselves or share something that has meaning to them … and it builds this sense of friendship and community,” he says.

That also rings true for López-Alt. He practices music every day with his 7-year-old daughter. Soon, his son, who’s almost 3, will start learning music.

Tasting Notes will include demonstrations from local chefs that incorporate stories about their food and creativity.

“Creativity comes down to finding ways to be expressive within the constraints of a medium, the [constraints] of the physical reality,” López-Alt says. “That interaction between what you’re trying to express and those constraints are sort of where creativity shines."

There’s no one way to describe this experimental show. López-Alt says it’s not going to be entirely a concert or a dinner show. But it will certainly engage each of the senses.

Tasting Notes starts at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Benaroya Hall. Ticket prices range from $20 to $125 based on seating.