Sean Timberlake is the founder of Punk Domestics, a social network for the DIY food community.
What was the food highlight of your year?
Back in January, I brought a group to Italy for a week of hands-on DIY food classes in preserving, salumi, pasta, piadina and more. One day was dedicated entirely to fish. For lunch that day after visiting the town’s fish market, we ate at Ristorante San Marco, in the heart of Cesenatico, where we were based. The fish was unbelievably fresh. I’ll never forget the tiny clams the size of fingernails that burst with flavor, and the sweet cannocchie, or grey mantis shrimp. My organizer laughs that we all raved about the place, as it’s not fancy, but it was extraordinary.
What was the music highlight of your year?
I have been unreasonably obsessed with one album for a few months now: Look Around the Corner by Alice Russell and Quantic with his Combo Bárbaro. It’s a marvelous harkening to Latin pop of the 60s and 70s, infused with some funk and soul for good measure. I listed to it nearly every day.
Was there a moment when food and music came together in a memorable way?
In sort of a funny way, actually. We recently went to a restaurant here in San Francisco called Mozzeria. It’s an Italian place, unsurprisingly, but what makes it unique is that the owners, chef and all the staff are entirely deaf. Somewhat atypically, the staff, even the kitchen staff, were quiet as mice. (Deaf people often aren’t aware when they make noise, for obvious reasons.) Consequently, all the patrons in the restaurant were disproportionately quiet as well. As a result, you couldn’t help but hear the music, which was not inordinately loud, but there was just nothing to push it to the background. So we enjoyed our pizzas to a soundtrack of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and the Rolling Stones.