Letters to the Valley Book

In Letters to the Valley, David Mas Masumoto explores his personal memories of food and place, stories about how our food is grown, who grows it, and the suddenly changing context of family farms. These essays—in the form of letters to friends, his father, his daughter, and others—began as a monthly column for the Fresno Bee, and in them Masumoto tells us what it's like to sweat for a living; what happens when a lizard crawls up your pant leg; about holiday dinners of glazed ham and stuffed turkey, white rice and green tea; and what it means to be rooted—to be among those who have "addresses that will probably stay the same for the rest of our lives."