While growing up in Versailles, an Indiana farm
community, Furiya tried to balance the outside world of Midwestern America with the Japanese traditions of her home life. As the only Asian family in a tiny township, her life revolved around Japanese food and the extraordinary lengths her parents went to in order to gather the ingredients needed to prepare the meals.

As immigrants, her parents approached the challenges of living in America and maintaining their Japanese diets – with optimism and gusto. Meanwhile, Furiya was acutely aware of how food set her apart from her peers: she spent her first day of school hiding in the girls’ restroom, examining the rice balls and chopsticks her mom packed in her lunchbox and longed for a PB&J.

The setting of Furiya’s rural Indiana childhood took place during the early 1970s. Idyllically American as a homemade quilt beneath the surface of the bucolic grain silos and cornfields ran the thread of self-discovery of living in a traditional Japanese home. Furiya’s story begins with her first memorable meal as a kindergartener and concludes when she graduated from high school. Her story revolves around food. The preparing of it, the eating, and congregation surrounding sustenance serves not only as a backdrop, but demonstrates how it comforts an immigrant’s homesickness and aids the family through their challenges. Distanced by culture, generational experiences, and language, the story delves into Furiya’s parent’s past history – their immigration to the US, their mutual desire for the American dream, and how they cope in to a new culture, which ultimately enhances and inspires a lifelong appreciation of cooking, eating and writing.