My mum died this year. And the glut of apples from her tree has brought with it a new kind of grief | Zoe Williams

My mom was essentially the most horrible cook dinner, unbelievably dangerous at it. Her umbrella crime was the shortage of self-knowledge – removed from being dangerous, she thought she was good – however beneath that, a set of discrete misapprehensions, any one among which might have been sufficient to make you not wish to eat at her home. She’d by no means take a recipe actually; every ingredient could possibly be swapped with one thing else of the same color, or the same measurement, or not comparable in any respect. She liked to throw in a rogue aspect. As I write this, I’m flicking by way of her journal cuttings, and she or he’s made a observe above an aubergine and potato casserole that claims: “Good, however wants one thing else. Lime?”She thought all the things, candy and savoury, could possibly be lifted by a dried apricot. She was extraordinarily experimental however eschewed primary rules, comparable to parboiling, or meat being roasted for a particular period of time, relative to its weight, somewhat than “for ever”. She liked cardamom.So when she died earlier this 12 months, I figured many issues would make me consider her, however not one of the issues could be edible. The one food-related thought I might conceivably have could be: “Thank God I by no means must eat that almond soup once more, which had an egg in it, but in addition an apricot.”I’d reckoned with out her apple tree. There’s one thing flawed with it. It’s only a regular-looking tree, but it surely produces sufficient apples to energy a military over a mountain. For 3 months of yearly, I might by no means go and see her with out her saying, “Please take some apples,” and handing me a crate too massive to get in a automotive, and I’d say, “No, no one in my household likes apples and I don’t even like fruit,” and she or he’d go, “How about simply these 37 apples on the high?”, and I’d go, “No.”After all, this autumn, I’ve been possessed by the necessity to end all of them. I’ve made crumbles large enough for a soccer workforce, I’ve been leaving flapjacks on folks’s doorsteps and hoping for the perfect, I’ve eaten huge quantities of issues which are apple-adjacent (pork, oats). Because the season attracts to an in depth and the tyranny lifts, I can’t stress sufficient: eat your mom’s apples whereas she’s nonetheless alive. They’re fairly tasty. Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist