Returning to My Father’s Kitchen: Essays

A young Filipino writer’s odyssey toward home, in the wake of the loss of her poet father

Feeling untethered after her beloved poet father passes away while she is living abroad, Monica Macansantos decides to return to the Philippines to regain her bearings. But with her father gone and her adult life rooted in the United States and New Zealand, can the land of her birth still serve as a place of healing?

In fifteen richly felt essays, Macansantos considers her family’s history in the Philippines, her own experiences as an exile, and the parent who was the heart of her family’s kitchen, whether standing at the stove to prepare dinner or sitting at the table to scribble in his notebook. Macansantos finds herself remaking her father’s chicken adobo, but also closely rereading his poems. As she reckons with his identity as an artist, she also comes into her own as a writer, and she invites us to consider whether it is possible to carry our homes with us wherever we go.

MONICA MACANSANTOS is the author of the story collection Love and Other Rituals, and her work has appeared in Colorado Review, The Hopkins Review, Bennington Review, and Lit Hub, among others. She is a 2024-2025 Shearing Fellow with the Black Mountain Institute.