American-born Sonoko Kondo’s cookbook offers easy Japanese recipes

Sonoko Kondo had what sounds like an idyllic childhood. Born in New York, in the United States, Kondo moved with her Japanese parents to her grandmother’s house in Kamakura, near Tokyo, at the age of four.In the introduction to The Poetical Pursuit of Food (1986), she writes, “There were wonders to explore in Kamakura – its forests and mountains, its famous 40-foot-high Buddha, its very old Zen temples and Shinto shrines. White cranes flew down from the north. The local fishermen drew in their…