Wandering among the artisanal shops of Kamakura, Japan, with her grandmother, a young Sonoko Sakai used to watch with fascination as tofu makers, tea roasters and rice millers crafted their products by hand. There was a fishmonger who delicately sliced and dried his fish on wire mesh screens, and a senbei (rice cracker) maker who sat on a tatami mat turning over each crisp, aromatic disc with chopsticks above a charcoal grill.
As the Queens-born daughter of an executive with Japan Airlines, Sakai, now a cookbook author, teacher and food activist, also spent plenty of time familiarizing herself with other
