What Urban Living Means to Your Refrigerator

I thought readers might enjoy a photograph of my refrigerator. You’ll notice it looks more like the one you had in college (except with more vegetables), than the “American-style” refrigerator you have now (that’s how they are known in Europe – my half height fridge is more common in Europe). You’ll also notice that I have no freezer.

Newly renovated urban kitchen, 2009. My fridge is opposite the cupboard next to the stove.

When I moved out of my parents’ house, I cooked as if I was feeding a family of four with chest freezer in the garage. I now cook like a city person: shop every day on the way home from work. I pay more for smaller portions. I get bent out of shape when Agata & Valentina resizes their vinegar bottles so they have a larger footprint and take up more room in the cupboard.

The result is that I eat fresher and lighter. I probably cook a bit more. But the extra counter space in my 24 sq. foot kitchen is worth my small fridge.

A city fridge.  Small bottles and fridge dishes count. That’s a homemade pizza hiding under the foil, causing fridge max-out. RL Fifield 2012.

About Becky Fifield

Becky Fifield is a cultural heritage professional with 25 years experience in institutions large and small. She is currently Head of Collection Management for the Special Collections of the New York Public Library. An advocate for preventive conservation, Ms. Fifield is a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation, Chair of the AIC Collection Care Network, and former Chair of Alliance for Response NYC. She is also a scholar of 18th century female unfree labor and dress. There's a bit of pun in the title The Still Room, delineating a quiet space brimming with the ingredients of memory, where consideration, analysis, and wordcraft can take place. Ms. Fifield’s interests include museum practice, dress history, historic preservation, transit, social and women’s history, food, current events, geneaology, roadtrips, and considerations on general sense of place. Becky and her husband, Dr. V, live in the Hudson Valley.

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