Holiday Gift Guide: Lost in the Supermarket: The Indie Rock Cookbook by Kay Bozich Owens and Lynn Owens

The whole premise behind Lost in the Supermarket: The Indie Rock Cookbook (Soft Skull Press) is so bizarre, it just has to be explored. “Moments, whether momentous or quotidian,” the authors tell us in their introduction, “are marked by how they combine music and food.”

Oh-kay.

And then later, “One of the initial draws of this project … was the hope that creativity was not limited to music and a recipe book might seem like an unlikely combination.”

You think? And yet how delicious (!) to have a recipe for Belle and Sebastian’s Thai Sweet Potato Soup or Bliss Blood’s Guacamole? How about an apple pie recipe from USAISAMONSTER? (Like a contradiction in terms, right?) or lemon curd tart from Bunny Brains? Never heard of Bunny Brains? I certainly hadn’t. But the authors set the whole thing up for us in this regard, as well, telling us that “their music is a shambling mess of noisy nihilism.”

Lost in the Supermarket is a lot of fun. More: it’s completely stuffed with really creative interpretations of food you might actually like to eat. “Use the recipes in this book to eat out less,” the authors advise. “Save your money for CDs, shows, books, a trip, whatever …. stay at home and cook, where you can serve and indulge yourself …. Save your cash, and rock out in your kitchen!”

Good advice from an innovative and surprisingly good cookbook. A must for the rock lover in your life.