William Doyle

Naomi Moriyama

Presents the Japanese approach to diet and nutrition in a guide to good eating that offers recipes with an easy approach to a healthier, slimmer, and longer life, without counting calories or carbohydrates.

Secrets of My Mother's Tokyo Kitchen

Japanese Women Don't Get Old Or Fat

What would happen if your culture and society were formed inside a foerst—where women were full partners in power. How would that shape the future? Take a journey deep into one of the world's last great wildernesses and join the sisterhood... After living for twenty-five years in New York—the ultimate roller-coaster ride of drama, competition, over-achievement, self-promotion, and sensory stimulation, Naomi Moriyama entered a life-altering zone of tranquility, peace, and beauty. Welcome to the vast and unspoiled forest of Karelia in Finland, the mysterious region on the Russo-Finnish border that inspired J.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth fantasies. The Karelian Forest is the spiritual heart of the nation ranked as one of the world’s “happiest nations,” and has the world's most empowered women. But to Naomi, the Finns didn’t look much happier than anyone else. In fact, the default facial expressions on most people seemed to be blank, bordering on morose. But Naomi quickly came to realized that their happiness wasn’t a boisterous, slap-happy exuberance. Rather, it was a sense of serenity and contentment, a feeling that comes from living in a society that is simultaneously super high-tech and profoundly connected to nature. Finland is the country with cleanest air and water, the lowest crime and the best schools. It is a country where motherhood is supported, childhood is revered, schoolchildren are required by law to play outdoors. There are no “soccer moms” or “mommy wars.” It was here in the Karelian forest that Naomi, always fascinated by food as a way of understanding a culture, found a culinary symphony of succulent wild edibles, herbs, berries, mushrooms and fish, all freshly plucked from the moss-carpeted forest and sparkling clear streams. She also found something even more nourishing that would help her begin to grasp the Finnish way of being—a tribe of invincible women who would become her soul-sisters. As an idyllic summer and gave way to a sub-Arctic winter of mind-bending darkness and cold, Naomi would face her fears and her future. Over the course of six unforgettable months with her new sisters, Naomi finds her life transformed, and discovers the power that lay within her all along.

A Memoir of Finland's Karelia

The Sisterhood of the Enchanted Forest

What would happen if you built one of the world’s most advanced societies inside a forest—and strove to make made women full partners in power? After living for twenty-five years in New York, Naomi Moriyama moved with her husband and co-author William Doyle and their seven-year-old child to the vast forest of Finland's Karelia, a mysterious region on the Russian border that helped inspire J.R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth fantasies. She entered a life-altering zone of tranquility, peace, and beauty, the spiritual heart of the nation ranked as the happiest nation on Earth, with among the world's most empowered women. Finland is also the country with cleanest air and water and the best schools, a country where motherhood and fatherhood are championed by law, childhood is revered, schoolchildren are required to play outdoors multiple times a day, and trains contain mini-libraries and mini-playgrounds for children to enjoy. It was here in the Karelian forest that Naomi found a culinary symphony of succulent wild edibles, herbs, berries, mushrooms and fish, all freshly plucked from the moss-carpeted forest and sparkling clear streams. She also found something that changed her life—a tribe of invincible women who became her soul-sisters. As an idyllic summer and fall gave way to a sub-Arctic winter of mind-bending darkness and cold, Naomi faced her fears and her future. Over the course of six unforgettable months with her family and her new “sisters”, she found her life transformed, and discovered the power that lay within her all along. Then she tried to leave. But she kept coming back. Come, take a journey deep into Europe's most distant, magical wilderness, and join the sisterhood of the enchanted forest.

Naomi Moriyama

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