Rainy day, the kitchen windows all fugged up with steam, Lily Allen singing while I chop and stir. Could a cook's life get any better? Well, yes, the rain could stop and allow me to open up the kitchen doors and cook outside, but the rest wouldn't change. Some people insist they drive better when there is music in the car, others say they make more relaxed gardeners with the radio by the knees, but I do like a bit a music on when I cook. I'm honestly not sure I can actually prove a pinch of Jamie Cullum or Chet Baker makes the meal taste any more delicious but it certainly takes the task of preparing a meal to a different level. Could it be that so many people treat cooking as a chore because they fail to make the experience as pleasurable as possible? Maybe they could change the whole business of getting a meal on the table into something altogether more positive if they had something musical going on at the same time.

This is our music issue and we have gathered a shopping list of talent from Beth Ditto and Amelie to Wynton Marsalis and TamsinLittle to play to you while Food Monthly does its highly original brand of chopping and stirring. We go down on the farm with John Eliot Gardiner, to the Hard Rock Cafe with McFly and to Soho with Emma Bunton. Sadly, the charms of London's oldest rock and roll cafe have always evaded me in the same way that country and western music has. Both manage to give this cook a serious case of indigestion.

Yet it is inevitably drink that goes hand in hand with musicians just as much as good food which brings me neatly to Amy Winehouse. Listening to her is like drinking a bottle of exceptionally velvety Rioja, which as she explains in her interview, is hardly surprising. All of which makes me think what fun it might be to match the music not to your mood but to the food you are cooking. Françoise Hardy to a French bistro classic; Bryan Ferry to a soothing blanquette de veau; Kaiser Chiefs to a nice bit of sushi and presumably a cream cake with pink icing for something by James Blunt. And what I am stirring up while the sound of Lily fills my kitchen? I'm not exactly sure yet, but you can bet it will be the hottest thing around.