Where’d Mother Go
Welcome!
This collection is about keeping close. For a while there, we thought we'd lost Mother! But being who we are, we busied ourselves, finding things of hers and ours that at best, we treasure, and at worst, don’t want to forget.
We invite you to page through and find a recipe that speaks to you. Follow the recipe and add your notes to ours. Or make a copy and get to it later (you'll find no judgment here). If you're feeling so moved, add a recipe of your own –we welcome your wisdom & sweet teeth– we are revitalized by our shared knowledge.
With all our love, M.L, N.S., & T.S.
Send recipes in most any format to wheredmothergo [AT] gmail.com
Where’d Mother Go is an assemblage of recipes in vibrant conversation, collectively calling out for lost relations. Tactile and multi-layered, it began as a response to the disappearance of Mother (captured in real-time via WhatsApp) after she consumed a mysterious heart-shaped confection made by her young daughter. Where'd Mother Go allows us to become privy to the domestic wisdom and inner worlds of three women and their loved ones, young&old, past&present, real&imagined. Readers are encouraged to make, comment on, and share their own recipes, contributing to the lifeblood of the collection before passing the book on to another.
Inspired by a beloved folktale, Where’d Mother Go offers a visceral exploration of the themes of flesh&blood, mothers&daughters, and secrets&spells.
As the physical book circulates throughout our community, we hold space here for additional recipes, rituals, and relations.
The oldest known version of Grimms’ Little Snow White, in it we learn the Queen is, in fact, Snow White’s mother.
Here’s the Blood Sausage recipe from the WhatsApp
The Artists
Megan Livingston
Megan is a Baltimore-based artist with a degree in peace studies. Her creative practices include acting and playwriting, songwriting and composing, recording and performing, nonfiction and poetics, and conceptualism and performance. mollygriot.com
Natalie Silk
Natalie lives between Hackney, East London and the Blackdown Hills in Devon and devises themed, cross-genre events. Co-founder of groundbreaking Field Day music festival, deviser of bespoke barter in The Good Food Swap: her “Village Mentality” approach has community exchange and creative health at its heart: freely blending tradition, performance and the domestic, with loads of nature; always!
Natalie’s passion for food, social history and the environment threads through all her work which criss-crosses the worlds of the arts, community building and urban regenerative farming. During lockdowns Natalie drew on her own reflective writing practice, learning more about reflexive and therapeutic writing approaches and trained to run writing for wellbeing workshops. Now she focuses even more on the creative health benefits of participatory events.
Natalie is also obsessed with plants and is a trained basketmaker.
Tracy Smith
Tracy is a scientist and artist who investigates complex interactions among organisms, be they microbial or human. Through This Yearning she designs restorative experiences using multisensory stimuli (smell- and sound-scapes). As the Collaboration & Outreach Coordinator with the New York Genome Center, Tracy uses experience design to guide holistic science communication. thisyearning.com