Marla Camp
\nPublisher, Edible Austin<\/p>\n
My baby\u2019s got me cranky, in a terrible mood The Beat Divas write songs about food\u2014and life\u2014and sing them as they cook, often for a paying audience. It\u2019s a chilly March evening, but the sold-out Central Market Cooking School classroom is warm and fragrant with the recipes-in-progress, and the mostly middle-aged crowd is entranced.<\/p>\n As the class moves seamlessly from appetizer (spanakopita) to dessert (lemon-strawberry mousse), singer\/cooks Mady Kaye, Beth Ullman and Dianne Donovan serve up equal tidbits of cooking advice and confessional along with their music. We learn not just how to cool quinoa, but why some marriages cool off into nothing at all. And somehow it\u2019s all fun and informative and delicious. Not only that, the songs, stories and recipes are all 100 percent original.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Beat Divas phenomenon grew out of something called Austin Music on the Menu, a series I started in 2003,\u201d says Central Market\u2019s cooking school director Kelly Ann Hargrove. \u201cA couple of weeks prior to South by Southwest, I decided to invite musicians to hang out in our kitchen, prepare a favorite meal and play an acoustic set. And now we do it throughout the year because they\u2019re just fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Tonight the trio takes turns demonstrating their seasonal menu from behind the counter separating the kitchen from a room packed with long rows of narrow tables where students sit elbow-to-elbow, sipping wine and savoring the food. After each turn in the kitchen, the apron-clad divas unite in front of the counter singing and swinging\u2014their voices blending in tight, jazzy harmonies.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been Divas since 2000, really, and Dianne joined us in 2002,\u201d explains Mady. \u201cWe were a somewhat going concern, but we had not yet gotten into the cooking\/food song aspect of our group until Dianne joined us.\u00a0 She\u2019s the perfect alto complement for Beth and myself\u2014the voice we really needed.\u201d The Divas also have successful solo performing careers and lives steeped in music. Beth and Mady are voice teachers; Dianne has a background in jazz radio and is queen of the classical airwaves at KMFA Radio. They are practiced improvisers, both in and out of their kitchens. But it was their shared passion for cooking that inspired their current foray into the new milieu of singing culinary classes.<\/p>\n Back to class, where the Divas dish their cooking know-how. \u201cCow\u2019s milk feta is drier than sheep,\u201d says Dianne, as she puts together her spanakopita. She crumbles the cheese into a gooey green mix of spinach, eggs, green onions, parsley, dill, mint and spices.<\/p>\n \u201cSesame oil has a lower heating point than olive oil\u2014be careful when you heat it up,\u201d cautions Mady, as she prepares her delectable gingered haricots verts.<\/p>\n And so on. But the narrative always circles back toward the personal.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first time I made this,\u201d Beth says, while adding rice noodles to her caramelized-chicken salad with chile-garlic vinaigrette, \u201cmy husband said, \u2018what\u2019s in this, worms?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, he\u2019s now an ex-husband, and the shining inspiration for the song \u201cSweet Potato Jive,\u201d co-written by Beth and Mady, who also arranged it.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought about that song for a long, long time,\u201d recounts Beth. \u201cI was in the Arboretum Mall parking lot when I came up with the chorus. Then I called up Mady and said, \u2018I\u2019ve got the chorus to that song. You wanna help me write the verses\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen we just hammered it out,\u201d Mady remembers. \u201cThat\u2019s a great song. It was a true collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n Chorus: The divas are unabashed vamps, but often they come across as wholesome and nostalgic as some of the dishes they cook, a style they credit to the women who raised them. In my mother\u2019s house, the air was cool and sweet \u201cThere\u2019s nothing better than that stained cookbook of your mother\u2019s,\u201d says Beth. And there\u2019s little better than a trio of cooking instructors with the right priorities\u2014Dianne starts each morning with a bite of chocolate and ends each night in bed with a pile of recipe books. Beth balances her scathing critiques of exes with the \u201cdeep and soulful\u201d act of baking bread, \u201cone of the most spiritual things I think you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n Consider \u201cCooking in the Kitchen,\u201d one of Mady\u2019s original tunes, with its joyful Cajun beat. On the surface, it extols romance in the kitchen, but it also captures the cooking chemistry of the Divas:<\/p>\n Cookin\u2019 in the kitchen on a Saturday night So what is the relationship between music and cooking? \u201cCreativity and preparation,\u201d says Mady. The Beat Divas use approximately the same methods, whether they\u2019re making food or music.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have the right ingredients, the right voices to make a blend,\u201d says Beth.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then, of course, since we keep practicing,\u201d says Dianne, \u201cit gets better each time we do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Marla Camp Publisher, Edible Austin My baby\u2019s got me cranky, in a terrible mood He\u2019s swearin\u2019 that he loves me, but I think it\u2019s my cuisine He wouldn\u2019t be so ornery if I fed him rice and beans. \u2014Sweet Potato Jive The Beat Divas write songs about food\u2014and life\u2014and sing \u2026 Continue reading
\nHe\u2019s swearin\u2019 that he loves me, but I think it\u2019s my cuisine
\nHe wouldn\u2019t be so ornery if I fed him rice and beans.
\n\u2014Sweet Potato Jive<\/em><\/p>\n
\nGet out my kitchen (go on get on outta here)
\nGet out my kitchen (thought I\u2019d made it really clear)
\nGet out my kitchen while you\u2019re still alive
\nYou\u2019re wearin\u2019 out your welcome with your sweet potato jive.
\n[Vamp]<\/em><\/p>\n
\n\u201cMy mother always cooked dinner for the whole family,\u201d Mady recalls. \u201cShe taught us that food is the most loving way of sharing.\u201d Tonight, she mesmerizes the audience with her song \u201cIn My Mother\u2019s House\u201d:<\/p>\n
\nAnd the kitchen caught the morning sun,
\neven when it rained
\nIn my mother\u2019s house, life never came undone
\nAnd our blessing was the food and love in my mother\u2019s house.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nCookin\u2019 with my baby, everything is just right
\nTurnin\u2019 up the burner, a-cookin\u2019 it hot
\nThrow in a little spice better show me what you got
\nSpoonin\u2019 up love into every bite \u2018cause tonight\u2026
\nWe\u2019re cookin\u2019 in the kitchen\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n