Full Belly Files | The Lost (and Found) Notebook

Winemaker and agave grower Ryan Carr (left) and Matt with his notebook on the day he lost it. | Credit: Macduff Everton

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The panic should have set in immediately, but I remained surprisingly calm on Tuesday after getting home from a full day of reporting, only to realize that my notebook was missing.

I’d just left a ranch up Glen Annie Road, where I’d been taking notes right up until I departed. I must have set the pitch black notebook on the pitch black cover of my truck bed when I was showing the farmers my wine book, and left it there when I sped away.

It was a direct drive from there to my house off of Patterson Avenue, traveling along Cathedral Oaks almost the whole way, so it had to be along that route. And who would want someone else’s notebook anyway, especially when the notes are mostly illegible to anyone but me? I guess those factors gave me hope that I’d find it somewhere.

But worry was brewing because there was a ton of value already crammed on those pages — observations of mine and quotations of others about vineyards, farms, distilleries, and restaurants that I’d never be able to replicate. I’d only started using it last Friday, but it was scribbled nearly full of notes from an overnight Paso Robles trip, four separate farm visits for a forthcoming cover story that’s due soon, and my eating assignments for our first-ever Sandwich Week, which is coming on June 26.

Valentino’s is in Sandwich Week, and their notes were in the book.

The disappearance reminded me of how risky it can be to put so much information into a physical device that can easily be misplaced forever. When a notebook is lost, you can literally lose hours, if not days, of work.

That intense value is also why I’ve saved all of them from my career, scattered across my desk as I write this, stuffed into cabinets, and packed into boxes in my garage. I can see my handwriting get worse from 1999 until today, my interests evolve, my storytelling strategies change.

There is a remedy of sorts for a lost notebook: Simply call everyone back everyone and interview them again, but that’s a major hassle and utter waste of time for all involved. With the world seemingly at peak busy-ness all the time these days, that’s not a cool thing to request.

At best, that’s a bandaid, not a cure. Because when you lose your notes, you lose all the details of the place where the interview took place, and that’s the color that gives journalism depth. You lose all of the more casual, offhand comments that make articles more true-to-life. You just lose the spirit of that visit.

Just as well, when I’m scribbling away when someone talks, I’m not always writing down what they’re saying. I’m writing down what they’re wearing, what their mannerisms are, how they talk. And I’m recording my own thoughts as well, developing potential story angles while out there reporting the story.

My kids later suggested that I should be taking voice memos or typing notes on my phone instead of a notebook — at least then there’d be the cloud if the phone went missing. There are very practical reasons why that wouldn’t work for me, but they weren’t the first to imply that I was old-school in my reporting approach.

A half-dozen or so years ago when I was in Miami, reporting a travel story that I wrote but never got published (COVID is an easy though not perfectly accurate excuse), I bellied up to the bar at an Asian flavor-meets-Austin barbecue place called KYU. I was interviewing the bartender about his rather revolutionary drinks, including a gin-laced play on Thai soup and one that paired cognac with duck jus. As I scribbled away, he said something like, “Whoa, a notebook — cool.”

That was the first time I realized that notebooks were becoming a thing of the past for reporters, but it wasn’t the last. “Oh, pen and paper,” I’ve heard, but more often see a look of surprise when the paper comes out.

I don’t know how many other reporters use notebooks anymore. Decades ago, when I was a news reporter covering government meetings and press conferences alongside other reporters, I had a better sense of what other journalists do. Back then, they almost exclusively used notebooks, aside from the few recorders floating in the sky. But today, almost all of my stories are based on one-on-one interviews, making me the only writer around, so I’ve lost track of note-taking trends.

Certainly, many more use digital tools today. I too will very occasionally record conversations, especially since the transcription services are so quick and reliable now. (Thanks AI!) I used to reserve the recordings for famous or controversial sources; the former just to have for posterity (my Jon Stewart interview, for instance), the latter to cover my back if needed. But now I use recordings for more casual conversations, when I’d rather focus on the person I’m talking to, or the meal we’re eating, instead of spending most of my time writing at a furious pace.

Matt had notes about this Validation Ale entry for Sandwich Week.

When I started out, I even wrote in notebooks while talking to people on the phone. I’d watch as my former news department colleague — and future Santa Barbara mayor — Cathy Murillo typed away while interviewing people on the phone. I thought it must have been distracting for the other end of the line.

But I came to appreciate that the typing is, one, way more efficient and, two, alerts the people being interviewed that they are indeed being interviewed, which is helpful for all involved. That, in some ways, is the good part of using a notebook in person: There’s no doubt that you’re on the record, unless of course you explicitly ask not to be, which happens all the time.

When I realized the black notebook was gone, I immediately called the people I’d been interviewing, Stan and Stephanie Giorgi. I told them the dilemma — “That’s a pretty valuable notebook at this point,” I made clear — and they jumped into action, kindly searching their ranch for my notes about them and many others.

I drove back the same route, eyeing the other side of Cathedral Oaks the whole way. Coming up Glen Annie, I saw Stan — no luck. Then I reached the ranch and saw Stephanie — no luck.

My anxiety increased as I retraced my path out of the ranch, even looking over the bridge down into the creek. I was becoming reserved to the reality that it may be gone, even asking the strawberry man at the corner of Glen Annie and Cathedral Oaks if he’d seen anything. No luck either.

My last chance was the drive home, so I headed back down Cathedral Oaks, spotting a black shirt of some sort in the gutter that was briefly exciting. And then, there it was: My black notebook, teetering on the sidewalk curb between the bike path and Bishop Ranch. I nearly screeched to a halt on the side of the road, hit the hazard lights, ran back in my boots, and snagged the notebook. It was scratched up but totally intact.

When I got back to the car, I realized that, while I’d put the parking brake on, I left the engine in drive. Luckily, it was uphill enough so that the truck didn’t drive away. Then I’d probably be telling a whole different story.

I called the Giorgis with the good news, and there was a lot of genuine excitement in their car. I went home, told my daughter the news, to which she gave a “yea!”, and tossed the notebook on my desk.

The next day, when I was about to go visit Fred Brander and taste through a couple decades of cabernet sauvignon, I hesitated briefly in bringing it. But it came along, like always, and it’s back on my desk again.