For me cooking and music go hand in hand.

Unless I get seriously side-tracked by a recipe, the first thing I do before tying up my apron is to pick out enough tunes to see me through the cooking process.

This used to be a more complicated affair with extension speakers from an amplifier in another room and even the ghastly prospect of washing hands and changing CDs at times!

For the past year our house has been treated to sounds from a player linked to our computer music files and various online music streamers.

I’ve wanted to share my sonic tastes for some time. Deciding to offer you a set of nine tracks is down to the fact that most cooking sessions should be catered for in the space of forty to fifty minutes. Being that selective has been fairly purgatorial but, being honest, you and I know that we’ll start deleting or bunging in a few tracks of our own pretty soon! I hope that my offerings will at least get you toe-tapping, moving your body, shaking your head in disgust or reacting in some way.

If any of you would like to comment on my choices and perhaps suggest favourite content, here are a few ready-made responses for you to copy and paste:

 “A monkey hitting keys at random on a computer keyboard for an infinite amount of time will surely come up with these playlists.”

“I had no idea that Beethoven’s complete symphonies could make my pulled pork so tasty!”

 “Track four curdled my mayonnaise.”

“Please, just give us a constant stream of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band.”

I hope I’ve understood the basics of the technology involved. If so, without further ado, I give you a link to my first 'Cookers'

I'll soon put up further musical nine-pins for you to knock down in critical flames - enjoy!

Apologies to anyone without Spotify... but we all have Spotify... don’t we! ;)