Nancy Matsumoto

nmatsumoto

Nancy Matsumoto is a freelance writer and editor who covers agroecology, food and drink, the arts, and Japanese and Japanese American culture. She has been a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, Time, People, The Toronto Globe and Mail, Civil Eats, NPR’s The Salt, TheAtlantic.com, and the online Densho Encyclopedia of the Japanese American Incarceration, among other publications. Her book, Exploring the World of Japanese Craft Sake: Rice, Water, Earth, was published in May 2022. Another of her books, By the Shore of Lake Michigan, an English-language translation of Japanese tanka poetry written by her grandparents, is forthcoming from UCLA’s Asian American Studies Press. Twitter/Instagram: @nancymatsumoto

Updated August 2022

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Niki Nakayama: How a JA Angeleno Conquered the Rarefied World of Japanese Kaiseki Cuisine

By Nancy Matsumoto
29 Nov 2022

Niki Nakayama, who heads n/naka restaurant in Los Angeles, is the most famous kaiseki chef in America. You can watch her on 2015’s season one of Chef’s Table, surgically cutting open a prickly-skinned sea urchin with gloved hands and a big pair of scissors, then layering its mustard-colored lobes with ikura fish roe and garnishing it with a small, delicate square of edible gold foil and a red-veined sorrel leaf. Or you can read about her in the Michelin Guide to Los Angeles, which awarded her two stars in 2019. Based on the love that critics have lavished on her, you might not gu…

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Sitting Down with Writer Gil Asakawa to Talk Japanese Food and His New Book: Tabemasho! (Let’s Eat!): A Tasty History of Japanese Food in America

By Nancy Matsumoto
7 Oct 2022

“Let me microwave something real quick.” It seems fitting that this is the first thing Gil Asakawa says to me before we start our phone interview. His wife Erin has made him a soup of nori, tofu, ground turkey, and green onions from their garden. It’s only 10:30 a.m., but to him this is “lunch-ish.” Breakfast was some leftover ribs from the night before. “We have very eclectic dining patterns,” he explains unapologetically. This prologue to our conversation is fitting because we’re about to discuss Asakawa’s just published book, Tabema…

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Music at Work

By Nancy Matsumoto
1 Apr 2022

A feel-good, nostalgic genre of Japanese dance tunes called City Pop has become the kitchen soundtrack for a community of Toronto chefs—one that sets the tone for a kinder, brighter, kitchen culture. When Shori Imanishi opened Imanishi Japanese Kitchen, his izakaya at Dundas West and Lisgar in 2015, his goal was to create the perfect amalgam of Japanese food, music, and Tokyo street culture. “I wanted to give it that Tokyo vibe,” the chef-owner says. “It wasn’t just about the food, but that entire experience you get when you’re in Japan.” So he ou…

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Challenging Times at British Columbia's YK3 Brewery

By Nancy Matsumoto
7 May 2021

In February of 2018, I visited YK3, a small sake brewery in Victoria, British Columbia headed by veteran toji (master brewer) Yoshiaki Kasugai. He is the creator of a line of sake called Yu (悠), a dreamy name that can mean “quiet” or “calm,” but also “far off,” or “boundless.” The brewery is in fact far off the beaten path, due south of downtown Vancouver, close to where the Fraser River empties into the Strait of Georgia. Housed in a non-descript industrial mini-mall, it seemed to take a long time to get there in traffic from my Vancouver hot…

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Nikkei Chronicles #7—Nikkei Roots: Digging into Our Cultural Heritage

Pictures and Poetry: Deepening the Connection to my Japanese Roots

By Nancy Matsumoto
26 Oct 2018

Growing up Sansei in my part of California’s San Gabriel Valley meant you didn’t have to work very hard to stay connected to your Nikkei roots—they were all around you. Every family that lived on our South San Gabriel street was Japanese American. We shared Japanese food, holidays, and a mania for gift giving. Our most exotic neighbors were from Okinawa, which as a child I took to be a country separate from Japan. Our local Issei “fish man” would come by weekly his truck to sell the neighborhood moms sashimi-grade tuna and fresh tofu, and our favorite Botan ricec…

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Nikkei Chronicles #7—Nikkei Roots: Digging into Our Cultural Heritage

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書評：和泉真澄『日系カナダ人の移動と運動―知られざる日本人の越境生活史』

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Journal Entry #Lesson 3450: "Sharpen Your Pencils!"

Narumi Ogusuku Ubiquitous Nikkei Artist

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