Aug 04, 2021
Baking Her Recipes Keeps My Mother Near
Baking was solely Mom’s domain, I believed, and cooking for her was mine.
Matt Ortile is the author of the essay collection The Groom Will Keep His Name. He is also the managing editor of Catapult magazine, and a contributing writer at Condé Nast Traveler. Previously, he was the founding editor of BuzzFeed Philippines. He is a MacDowell Fellow and has written for Vogue, Self, Out, and BuzzFeed News, among others. He is a graduate of Vassar College, which means he now lives in Brooklyn. You can find more of his work on mattortile.com and on Twitter @ortile.
Baking was solely Mom’s domain, I believed, and cooking for her was mine.
In video games, dead parent storylines give a character depth. Their grief becomes a plot point, something to overcome.
It was the middle of a pandemic. Mom had just died of cancer. Why leave my home of four and a half years?
