Field Notes 4.25.21

Origin of fish & chips in the UK + How Barnes & Noble Made a Comeback

Music has played a big part in my life for as long as I can remember. When I was little we’d often sleep over at my nana's house. Her bed felt huge to me. My sister and I would both curl up with her, with plenty of room to move, but then again, everything feels monument in size when you’re a kid. On two occasions, I remember her alarm radio going off while it was still quite dark outside.

Was she waking for work, and if so, what is a school day for me? Was she just waking early to do some work from home? She’d often sit at the kitchen table bundling batches of tickets from her work at the factory. I don’t remember most of the details, but what has stuck with me almost 40+ years later are two songs that played on two such occasions–Still the One by Orleans and Saturday in the Park by Chicago.

My current music collection, made up mostly of Michael’s old albums and a combination of both our CDs, has grown way beyond those songs on the radio, and some might say for the better. It runs the gamut from Lou Reed to Vivaldi. There’s not a Chicago album to be found in the mix, but when one of those two songs comes on the radio, usually when I’m in the car, I don’t rush to change the station. Instead, a part of me immediately rushes back to those pre-dawn mornings, tucked under my nana’s white cotton blanket in her apartment on Union Street in Brooklyn.

That little girl had no idea how life would unfold. She had no idea that 40-something years later she'd be sorting through her deceased husband’s albums and CDs, deciding which ones get to stay and which are destined for a garage sale. I wrote late at first, but why do we use that term to relate to dead people. Michael is not late. He didn’t go out to run an errand and get lost. He died. Late would suggest he will come back one day. But, while he’s gone physically, he lives on in so much of the music I listen to now.

I bring this up because I spent most of the weekend sorting through all our old music, or what’s left of it. When I made the move from Brooklyn, I downsized his almost 800 album collection, and heaven knows how many cds, taking about 400 albums and 400 cds with me. The albums were housed in custom made wooden cabinets. For the last few years, I’ve found myself listening to them less and less, partly because streaming music is so easy but mostly because I can’t stand having to sit on the floor to browse through the record cabinet.

Nothing can replace the act of choosing an album or cd. It’s such a conscious choice as the album ends, to look back through the collection and decide which one is up next. I’d been wanting to buy a new bookcase for a couple of years now to reorganize the albums and cds, and books to get everything at eye-level. The problem is the old bookcase had sentimental value–it was a matching piece to the record cabinet. They were both custom pieces Michael had made when he moved into his apartment in Astoria, Queens.

The bookcase was impractical, with shelves so deep, books were stacked behind one another, inevitably making it impossible to really see what you had. It was also a behemoth, taking up a good portion of the living room. Emotionally, it also took up too much space. It was his bookcase. His record cabinet. With his books, albums and cds. How could I get rid of it?

Well, I’m not quite rid of it yet. It’s sitting on its side in the front porch, too tall for me to stand it upright. I’m not sure if I’ll get rid of it, move it to the garage where it will surely get ruined from moisture, or maybe figure out how to take it apart and repurpose the wood to make something new. I wish I was much handier to take on those kinds of projects.

One thing I can say is that as I moved that bookcase out of the living room and onto the porch, I felt a tiny bit of the weight of my grief lift. Unseen to the naked eye, that bookcase had me trapped beneath it, convinced keeping it was keeping a part of Michael alive. It’s taken more than 10 years to realize it wasn’t a magician’s box where he was hidden only to reappear one day.

I love the new setup and after seven years of living here, the living room really feels like my own space, not a mini shrine to Michael. The records and CDs now sit on the new bookcase, and the record cabinet cubbies are extra storage with bins for my linens, camera equipment, some oversized books and family memory books. This morning after walking the dog, I went up to the bookshelf, took out a Sam Cooke album and listened while boiling water for tea.

The bookcase was just a piece of furniture but my memories of everything that filled it, and where it stood in all the apartments we lived together are real. Now it’s time to make new memories.

Hope your week is filled with pockets of peace. Remember to be kind. –xo-j.

Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Things of Interest This Week

How Barnes & Noble Went From Villian to Hero was a very interesting read this weekend. While I usually prefer to support small, local shops as much as possible, we often go to the Barnes & Noble in Kingston because they have a great manga section, which the kids read passionately whereas our local bookstore carries none. I try to give both stores equal time, usually always ordering books I’m interested in from The Golden Notebook since they have a very tiny, limited selection of books, and tend to go to B&N when I want to browse a larger selection and hope for a book in stock that I can buy on the spot. I almost never buy books online, except for instances where I want the European print edition.

Heidi’s Homemade Bouillon Powder Unlike the homemade bouillon I make that needs refrigeration, this shelf-stable mixture is intriguing. I have most of the ingredients on hand, and have also been on the search for freeze-dried carrots and tomatoes to add a vegetable component to the powder. 

How Fish & Chips Migrated To Great Britain from Gastro Obscura tells the story of who really brought this classic pub food to the UK. You may be quite surprised, as it was definitely news to me!

New Reels on Instagram Have you seen my reels for How To Poach Eggs and an easy trick for cleaning your oven with just lemons, vinegar and baking soda?