In Kitchen's finest passage, in a quiet moment of reflection, Mikage muses to herself:
Yet at its core lies a delectable morsel of heartfelt pathos and insight into the depths of the human soul. Its light outer layer is a casual, straight-forward narrative, dusted with a sprinkle of self-deprecating humor. Though brief, at only a little over a hundred pages, Kitchen, is a literary truffle composed of many subtle and delicate ingredients. Yet, all this she does with what can only be defined as an unassuming economy of words. And Banana Yoshimoto's unaffected descriptions of time and place render them positively palpable. Mysticism and metaphor do not go missing, amid shared dreams and kismet moons. Hair that rustled like silk to her shoulders, the deep sparkle of her long, narrow eyes well-formed lips, a nose with a high, straight bridge-the whole of her gave off a marvelous light that seemed to vibrate with life force. I think I heard a spirit call my name."Īnd of Eriko, she says, "Dumbfounded, I couldn't take my eyes off her.
Upon first meeting Yuichi, Mikage remarks, "His smile was so bright as he stood in my doorway that I zoomed in for a closeup on his pupils. Kitchen's first-person perspective allows the reader full access into the mind and heart of Mikage as she paints her fellow characters with empathic observations of them throughout the story. Mikage nevertheless continues to grapple with repressed grief and existential angst, until an unexpected turn of events sets her heart on the path to love. While preparing meals for Yuichi and Eriko as a means of justifying her existence and reciprocating for their generosity, she soon discovers that, not only is cooking a therapeutic and nourishing pastime, but that it has truly become her raison d'etre. Still bereaved by her grandmother's death, Mikage is emotionally and academically adrift, finding what little comfort and distraction she can in the kitchen.
Concerned that Mikage may be depressed and in need of a surrogate family, Yuichi and Eriko, his transsexual father-turned-mother, take her in until she can find a place of her own. Mikage is soon befriended by Yuichi Tanabe, a college classmate who knew her grandmother as a customer at the flower shop where he works part time after school. The chef du cuisine et amour is Mikage Sakurai, a fetching young Japanese woman, barely more than a girl really, who suddenly finds herself all alone in the world after the death of her grandmother, the last of her remaining relatives. So begins Kitchen, award-winning author Banana Yoshimoto's culinary love story. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it's a kitchen, if it's a place where they make food, it's fine with me." "The place I like best in this world is the kitchen.
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