Hi, I am Erika. I was born and raised in the countryside of Japan where you can see Mt. Fuji from everywhere.

I run (and still do) mountains of bamboos and playing with bags and nature.

I spend most of my childhood with my great grandmother Yao, who was mainly looking after and feeding me with her magical hands. Her dish was always simple. miso and rice.

She used to say- "If I have those two then my meal is done.". 

By just following her, I learnt which grass we can eat, when and where we need to go to forests to get perfectly seasonal mushrooms, baby bamboos, and wild fruits. She told me to appreciate what we have.

 

My home was in the middle of rice fields, which created an amazing landscape every single day. 

Rice fields have many different faces, from mirrors of ponds, green grass with millions of singing frogs, golden carpets that blow by fall’s winds and dragonflies dance above it, then frozen soil that seemed to be dead but just preparing until they get kisses from spring’s sun again. I loved sitting on my grandad’s lap while he used tractor around the fields. I loved to follow my grandma when she was putting rice sprouts in muddy fields. 

No wonder why my first ever dream was to become a piece of rice! (I was too little to remember it, but my parents did)  

   

Most of my family are from this little town called Susono (裾野). It's nothing there but only pure nature lives, where all my roots are deeply bonded. 

 

Then I left Japan. I was most probably the first person to go outside of Japan to live in thousands of generation within my family tree. I’ve been traveling and living in many different places and countries for almost 15 years. Spending time with different people from everywhere in the world and learnt from them. 

 

I shared many meals with them too. As much as we have many differences in the choice of beliefs, appearance, languages, traditions...We have also many things in common.

And I haven’t met anybody who won’t get a smile on their face when they eat good food. Food connects us together, food can cross countries and religions and builds trust. We all know that.

 

 

I have been making miso over 10 years with only the traditional Japanese methods, now I'm based in Rotterdam / Netherlands and Susono / Japan, 

keep continuing new adventures.