Q. Valley?
A. Valley, yes. So you’d drive down to Valley, and then you’d make a turn one block further south down the hill, and there was the little tiny parking lot and, um, the Chicken Nest. And they came to know me…they’d say, “Hello, Mrs. Leyner!” and, uh…you went to summer camp with one of their children, one of the owner’s children…
Q. Oh, that’s right. I remember…I remember him.
A. And you could get all kinds of poultry there, and you could get chicken soups, and their potato salad was great, and on holidays, and maybe other times too, they had, um…yams. Do you remember the yams from there? Your sister adored them. They were mashed yams and they were wonderful, and they also had, uh…people in those days used as side dishes, things like a cranberry mold or a, uh, uh…there was one mold that looked like green Jell-O.
Q. Oh yeah. What was in that green Jell-O mold?
A. They must have put either cottage cheese or, uh, cream cheese, and then pulverized it, so it was that lovely sort of lime-green color. It was a lime mold and it had, I think, some pineapple in it as well…And they also barbecued chickens and barbecued ducks…you could get ducks quartered. And I used to take those, those ducks, and cook them again with a sauce like a…like a cherry sauce or an orange Grand Marnier sauce for entertaining…because then they were nice and tender on the inside and extra-crispy on the outside, but I didn’t have to put up with all the fat from cooking duck from the beginning. So there were lots of specialty stores — Jewish delicatessens where you could get lox and bagels — and I used all of them…but my go-to people if I was either in a hurry or somebody wasn’t feeling well and we couldn’t go out or just because it was comfortable and warm, I would use the Rolli brothers. And when I moved away from West Orange, and then even when I sold the house in Maplewood and moved away, I would get an occasional call…in the beginning it was fairly frequent, and after a while sometimes it would be like even once a year…and it would be Joe. And he’d say, “I was thinking about you. I was thinking about your great smile. I was thinking about…”—it was funny because he’d say “your beautiful blue eyes.” Well, he might have liked them, but they’re not blue. They’re green, and they’re still green. Nevertheless, I thought it was very funny and very cute…I learned a little bit about his family…I think I learned more about his family after the fact, y’know, when he used to make these calls. It turned out that one of his children, one of his daughters, married the man who became governor for a while in New Jersey…um, took over the governorship…I’m not even sure…was that when McGreevey had to leave or resign?
Q. Oh, this was recent?
A. Yeah…But I know…I can’t remember his name…but he’s still in government, Joe’s son-in-law. So…they both had nice families, they were nice men…the place was as clean as could be…and, uh, it’s the kind of shopping, the kind of transaction that I used to watch, I now realize, my mother make all the time…She’d walk on Jackson Avenue in Jersey City and go to her greengrocer and go to her butcher and stop and pass the time of day with all the other people. They knew her well, she knew them. They knew all about our family, we knew, a little less I would think, about their families…but enough to ask how their son was doing in medical school, and so on and so forth…and it was that very human contact, I think, that I learned from my mom, and that, without realizing it at the time, was so important to me and, in fact, is still important to me. I guess in my dealings with markets, I’ll find one that has good-quality things but also gives that feeling…that if I really needed something on a dark and snowy night, they’d bring it over. Just as the nice young man over at Palisade Bagel…when it first opened…a Korean mother and son…for all I know they own lots of other things too…but I could see how hard they were working and it wasn’t busy in the beginning, at all…all the people in the high-rise buildings, I’m sure they raised an eyebrow and said, sort of, Show me that you know what this stuff is, what do you know about this? And I went in and saw this woman who rarely smiles…who gives this very minimal little smile…and I watched her interaction with her son, who is very American and is as nice a boy as you could meet…and if the subject ever came up or if it was possible for me to say to people, Y’know I was just across the street at the market — I would say as I was coming up from the downstairs hallway, or in the elevator — and the things they have are really excellent, their bagels are really good bagels and the tuna salad is the best tuna salad, and your sister calls me from Weehawken about buying tuna salad and bringing it over to her — that’s how good it is. My fussy, fussy daughter. I mean, I’m not claiming that I made their success — that would be rather self-aggrandizing and I don’t mean that…but I think that they understood, and I think they understood very early on…and the son in particular…I could see that when I got home, that there was an extra bagel thrown in, or if they were covering everything up and closing up…I always used to forget that they closed at four thirty…that he would wait and unlock the door for me and say, “Don’t you worry, Mrs. Leyner, it’s no problem at all.” And it’s really lovely, it’s really nice to have that, and, uh…I’ve called once or twice…I called when I had the flu a couple of years ago, I called when I had the bursitis in my hip and I wasn’t supposed to move around…and I would say who I was and ask if it would be possible for someone to bring something over…and they’d say, “Of course!” And maybe they do that for everybody, but it’s the feeling I like and the feeling I have with them…and it’s very nice. So, I think I automatically end up trying to re-create that kind of thing for myself. You remember…I don’t know if you do…that we had what they called a chicken-and-egg man who used to deliver to us in Jersey City. From Lakewood. He used to come in his little truck.
Q. Where’s Lakewood?
A. Lakewood is near the seashore. And at this point in time it has, I think, an enormous, very, very orthodox Jewish community. There are many, many very orthodox young families…a young woman who looks like she can’t be more than twenty-five or twenty-eight years old with about five or six children and pregnant again…But it was always known as a rural, farming area, where, uh, eggs, butter…I used to buy sweet butter from him, fresh eggs and chicken. And one day your dog, Shadow, almost ate him alive.
Q. What happened?
A. I had Shadow on the leash…on Westminster Lane…when I had walked out the front door just as his little panel truck pulled up, and he asked what I wanted and I told him, and we talked about one thing or another — I don’t remember what it was — and he started to explain something to me and he went like this, in explanation, he sort of put his arm out, “Well, you know, you know how that is”…as he did that, the dog, being as overly protective as he was, he threw his body through the hedge that was in front of the house, rammed right through the hedge, snapping his teeth and growling, and this poor young man just about got into the truck and slid the panel closed before he had something bitten off. But, yeah…he used to come a couple of times a week, and that was terrific. And I probably learned about him through my mom, who was the world’s champion at all of this kind of thing.
Q. Did you know that bats’ laryngeal muscles can contract up to two hundred times per second?
A. No, I didn’t know that.