A third generation farmer, Masumoto grows peaches, grapes and works with his 80 year old father on their organic 90 acre farm south of Fresno, Calif.

Masumoto has written for USA Today, Los Angeles Times and is currently a columnist for The Fresno Bee. His other books include Silent Strength (1984), Home Bound (1989) and Country Voices, The Oral History of a Japanese American Family Farm Community (1987). He received the James Clavell Japanese American National Literacy Award in 1986.

Epitaph for a Peach won the 1995 Julia Child Cookbook Award in the Literary Food Writing category and was a finalist for the 1996 James Beard Foundation Food Writing Award. It was also received the San Francisco Review of Books Critics' Choice Award 1995-96. A German translation edition of Epitaph for a Peach was published in 1997.

He has a bachelor’s degree in sociology from U.C. Berkeley and a master’s degree in community development from U.C. Davis and attended International University in Tokyo, Japan.

Feature articles about Masumoto have appeared in Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine and New York Times. His farm has been featured Sunset, Country Living and Glamour Magazines and on television as part of the California Heartland PBS series.

In 2002, Masumoto joined the Board of Directors of the Irvine Foundation, dedicated to enhancing the social, economic and physical quality of life throughout California and to enriching the state's intellectual and cultural environment.

Masumoto and his wife, Marcy have two children, Nikiko and Korio. They reside in a 90 year old farmhouse surrounded by their vineyards and orchards just outside of Del Rey, California, 20 miles south of Fresno.

More about Mas,,, www.masumoto.com