By Brian Hart Hoffman
To all of you, she was “Mama BFS”—a reputation she gave herself—however to me and my twin brother, Eric, she was Mother. However greater than Mother, she was additionally my hero, mentor, boss, and finest good friend. Phyllis Norton (Hoffman) DePiano’s time with us got here to an finish on July 10, 2023, and my coronary heart was ceaselessly modified. I transfer ahead with an enormous gap that may’t be crammed—however it’s a reminder to rejoice her legacy and passions on daily basis.
She wrote on her weblog, The Ribbon in My Journal, that she didn’t wish to be remembered for her résumé {and professional} achievements. “It’s not about accomplishments or wealth; it’s about loving unconditionally, encouraging others, reaching out a hand to these in want, praying for and with buddies who’re hurting, and being an instance of dwelling our lives in such a means that our household and buddies know we’re at all times there for them.”
However I need you to know some about her skilled life so you’ll be able to higher perceive the lady I’m honoring. After changing into a licensed public accountant within the Nineteen Seventies and marrying my dad later that decade, she left the skilled world to meet her largest dream in life: changing into a mother. She prayed for twins, and in 1981, Eric and I received the most effective mother on the earth. Throughout this season of her life away from working, she realized easy methods to cross-stitch from her neighbor and finest good friend, Barbara Cockerham. This added yet one more expertise to her listing that already included stitching and taking part in the piano and organ. Artistic prowess led Mother, alongside along with her sister, Janice, Barbara, and one other good friend, to begin {a magazine} (with zero expertise doing such) referred to as Simply CrossStitch in 1983. That journal went on to be the biggest needlework journal on the earth, and many accolades got here with that impression. I’ll always remember our dad taking Eric and me to an trade commerce present in Charlotte, North Carolina, to shock Mother after she obtained a lifetime achievement award. I bear in mind pondering, “Wow, our mother actually is one thing particular to so many. I’m so glad she is mine.”
Over time, the enterprise went by change and development and was offered to a bigger craft firm in 1993 that took the model—and Mother—to a much bigger degree. Beneath the corporate’s possession, she began McCall’s Quilting and different manufacturers that aligned along with her skills and passions. In 1998, the corporate was prepared for different strikes and needed to relocate the Birmingham, Alabama, operation to Golden, Colorado. However as I informed you, being a mother was her dream in life, so she wasn’t about to take skilled development and transfer my brother and me throughout the nation to a brand new faculty for our senior 12 months of highschool. She and my dad took a second mortgage out on their residence so she might buy the journal manufacturers she’d offered. That buy reincorporated the enterprise as Hoffman Media, and we stayed in Birmingham. I want 17-year-old me knew the sacrifice and dedication that required, however that’s the lady she was. She by no means seemed again with remorse.
Within the years that adopted, Mother expanded the corporate’s choices to incorporate Southern life-style manufacturers, with Southern Woman, Style of the South, Southern Dwelling, and Cooking with Paula Deen, in addition to others devoted to her passions, like TeaTime, Basic Stitching, and running a blog at The Ribbon in My Journal.
I’m a “mama’s boy.” I at all times have been, usually asking her if I used to be her favourite. The reply was at all times, “No. I like each of my boys equally. You’re each so totally different, so there’s a lot to like!” My reply was at all times one thing centered round telling her that she was my favourite mother . . . my just one however nonetheless so deserving of the reward. Sixteen years in the past, and 6 months aside, in 2007, Eric and I left our careers—him on Wall Avenue and me as a flight attendant—to hitch our mother in enterprise. After going 5 years and not using a paycheck and dealing a second job to maintain the corporate afloat and ensure her staff nonetheless obtained paychecks, the corporate skilled nice development. She wanted assist. Her first thought was to ask if we had curiosity within the firm being generational or if she wanted to search for different plans to develop and put together the corporate to be offered at her retirement. Eric and I each took leaps of religion (right here we go, following her instance!) and gave up careers we liked solely to find careers we liked much more. And we received to do it alongside our mother.
For my first seven years on the firm, I realized and labored in occasion administration and model administration and ultimately grew to become the chief inventive officer. Then my “Phyllis intuition” kicked in. I used to be a passionate residence baker (you already knew that), and I believed, “Why isn’t there a culinary journal all about baking?” I couldn’t wait to inform Mother about my concept and the well-thought-out plan that Brooke Bell and I scribbled in a notepad, solely to listen to that she wasn’t so certain this was going to work. However being Mother and an entrepreneur, she agreed to check a difficulty of this new journal. Within the autumn of 2015, the primary situation of Bake from Scratch hit the newsstands. That situation offered so nicely that our newsstand staff immediately requested if a second situation was on the best way. Mother was so proud.
The next 12 months on the MIN (Journal Trade Information) Awards for the Hottest 30 Launches of the earlier 12 months, she was honored because the Writer of the 12 months for the launch of Basic Stitching; Eric accepted an award for an additional new launch, Southern Solid Iron, that fires his ardour for savory cooking; and Bake from Scratch received Hottest Launch of the 12 months. Discuss a full circle flashback second for me once I joined Mother and my brother on stage to obtain an award for our profession achievements. Her lifetime achievement award from years again was means too quickly as a result of, in her lifetime, the achievements by no means stopped.
As our international baking group continued to develop, she coined herself “Mama BFS” in our workplace, Fb group, and weekly Baking Faculty with Williams Sonoma lessons. She by no means claimed to be the baker, only a supportive and inspiring mother. I had the pleasure of taking recipes that she liked and revamping them into from-scratch recipes that graced the pages of the journal, together with her beer rolls (we name them Beer-Cheddar Muffins), her mother’s (my Mimi) Black Backside Pie, and most lately, the Misplaced and Discovered redo of the Pizitz Bakery Cherry-Pecan Cake that graced the desk for her birthday annually as a toddler. She joined me within the kitchen for Baking Faculty this 12 months as we made that cake for our Mom’s Day class, and I’m so grateful it occurred. Surprises and gift-giving have been one in every of her love languages, and in the course of the class, she introduced me with an apron that she labored to design alongside Tracy Wooden-Franklin, one in every of our wonderful artwork administrators at Hoffman Media, to commemorate one in every of my favourite educating slogans for studying the folding approach, “12 o’clock, 6 o’clock, give 1 / 4 flip.”
Mother was additionally Gigi, proud grandmother to Eric’s youngsters, Hays and Amelia, and summer season was a particular time of the 12 months. For Amelia, summer season meant Camp Gigi, per week at Gigi’s home, crafted only for her and her finest good friend, Olivia. Actions included stitching, artwork, setting the desk, doing Gigi’s hair and make-up, and, after all, baking with Uncle Buzz (me!). Whereas not concerned about studying to bake, Hays was a proud recipient of Gigi’s Caramel Brownies any time he requested for them.
Throughout the previous couple of years, and particularly throughout COVID-19 occasions, I made weekly baking drop-offs to Mother of the recipes I baked, some in testing, some from Baking Faculty, and others simply because they have been her favorites. She liked fall flavors, and her face at all times lit up on the point out of something apple or pear.
Baking additionally discovered its means into Mother’s residence along with her husband Neal, the love of her life. Within the final 12 months, she loved her favourite pound cake, Jo’s Whipping Cream Pound Cake, with regularity as Neal mastered baking it to make sure she was at all times surrounded by her favourite issues. He additionally made biscuits, and I plan to bake banana bread with him quickly, too! In her reminiscence, we are going to bake these favorites collectively and know she is with us as we do.
My mother’s successes weren’t her aim, and so they didn’t outline her. They allowed her to be a benevolent gift-giver to so many. Since her passing, now we have realized of issues she did (typically anonymously) to make different’s lives higher. That’s how I wish to dwell my life, too, guaranteeing that others succeed, really feel love, and make it by powerful occasions. Even in case you don’t have monetary sources, it doesn’t imply you’ll be able to’t make a distinction. Baking is love, and presenting somebody with one thing you made can change their day. Might all of us proceed to honor her life and legacy by encouraging others, sharing in our successes, and being a beacon of affection. She at all times informed me that I might do powerful issues, and penning this remembrance has been one in every of them, however it’s an honor to share a sliver of what made Phyllis, my mother, such a spectacular particular person.
I can, the truth is, do powerful issues. I like you, Mother, and I at all times will.
