When your brother is a world-class chef, you make the most of it. On Sunday, Aug. 16, San Jose music promoter Barbara Wahli and her sibling, Marco Baudenbacher, will host the first annual Rock-N-Cook, a 10-course gourmet tapa feast accompanied by a live performance from local bluesy rockers, The Go Ahead.

“People definitely want the unique experience of eating delicious food together with music,” Wahli says. “It puts the best of two worlds into one.”

Wahli and Baudenbacher had been toying with the idea for a while. When they were brought together recently to mourn their mother’s passing, they decided to stop talking and start doing.

“Out of situations like that, you start thinking,” Baudenbacher says. “So I said, ‘This is our chance. I know our mother would have loved it if we did something together.'”

The evening, hosted for up to 100 people ($50-$75) at Wahli’s home, will be filmed and split into two episodes for YouTube. The siblings hope to pitch the event as a cooking show, where bands assist the chef with the meal before the members are interviewed and put on a live show.

Wahli represents the rising talents Fritz Montana amongst several other Bay Area bands. She and Baudenbacher split their childhood between Switzerland and California. Baudenbacher returned to Europe to begin his formal culinary training at 16. He’s been the CEO of a five-star grill, a professor at the prestigious Belvoirpark Hotel Management School in Zurich and the owner of a European restaurant and catering service, Goodies.

“There’s not a lot of difference between great rock musicians and a chef,” he says. “You have to feel the food. You have to have it in your blood to produce a great dish. Musicians are the same thing. They are virtuosos on their instruments. They feel the music. They are living their dream.”

The menu is still in the works, but Baudenbacher hints at a “California style” gazpacho with raspberries and olive oil, a creamy risotto infused with parmigiano, and handmade potato gnocchi simmered in a six-hour tomato sauce.

“California is a heaven of produce, of great meat and dairy products,” Baudenbacher says. “So that’s the idea: to implement European ideas with Californian ingredients. It’s gonna be a combination of freaky, out-of-this-world with down-to-the roots, 200-year-old tradition.”

Rock-N-Cook
Aug. 16, 3-8pm. $50-75. Campbell.