Dialogue - Millet Juri Sumioka -

The origin of the joy of cooking

The store's name, "MILLET," means "miscellaneous grains." "When you plant one grain of miscellaneous grain, it produces many grains. That's because each grain contains energy. It's the same with people, each one of us has energy, and I wanted to convey that if you believe in what you feel, there is possibility."

Juri says she grew up in an environment rich in nature from a young age and has always loved cooking.

"My father took pinhole photographs and taught at Kyoto University of Art and Design. We often had visitors on weekends, and I met some really interesting adults during my childhood. Since people gathered in our house, I often helped my mother make a lot of food. Everyone enjoyed eating the things I made. That made me really happy."

Being able to enjoy something wholeheartedly is what has shaped Juri into the person she is today.

What is it to live beautifully?

"When you reach a point where you feel stuck and ask yourself, 'Why was I born?', somewhere along the line you decide to live a life that makes the Earth happy."

Juri made this decision during her impressionable junior high school years, when she had just graduated from elementary school and found herself surrounded by a few classmates who were like family, and the number of people she was surrounded by suddenly increased.

"I had a hard time talking to people at school, and although I tried hard to join a group, I spent a lot of time alone. I was also bullied, and from then on I gradually lost confidence in myself and began to hate myself, and before long I developed an eating disorder.

During my junior high school years, the mother of a childhood friend invited me to a meeting to talk about the future of the Earth and ascension, and when I was in high school, she gave me a presentation on a book about vegetarianism written by Tsuruta Shizuka, the wife of a pinhole photographer who was an acquaintance of my father, and I read it."

"The content really suited me. It wasn't just about "eating vegetables," but about humans living in connection with nature and all kinds of life. I was able to learn about that kind of worldview, and I thought, 'That's really cool.'

When I became conscious of what I was eating, I was able to see my surroundings with a broader perspective than before. If I'm going to the trouble of cooking and making people happy, then I think it would be great if I could make food that puts no strain on people's bodies or the earth, and I think that's what has led to the cooking I do now. My family isn't vegetarian, so we use fish and meat, but I feel that this is also a learning experience for me within the society that is my family."
Around the same time, Juri filled an order to make a birthday cake for a mother of a child with allergies. "After much trial and error, I created a cake that the mother was very happy with. The child's mother was involved in a group for children with allergies, and word spread. I delivered cakes to various places, and later I received letters of thanks saying, 'Oh, I'm so glad.' It was a difficult time, but the pain and worries that had been bothering me melted away with joy. With the help of people like that, I thought, 'this is the only thing I can do,' and continued cooking."

Deliciousness that your body will love

He first wanted to open a shop when he was in high school. Towards that goal, he worked in an organic food restaurant and a cafe, and before opening his own shop, he started building a stone oven to bake bread. "I had never made bread before, but I decided that I wanted to bake bread in an environmentally friendly way. I met someone who made stone ovens, so I built one and started holding bread-making workshops together."

Millet opened in 2006 in the Satoyama area of ​​Shizuhara, Kyoto.

The dishes served are free of eggs, dairy products, meat and sugar.

The ingredients are mainly vegetables and grains. They mainly use vegetables harvested from the fields, and what they cannot harvest is purchased fresh and safe.

"Deliciousness is something that you feel with your body, not just your tongue. Humans are equipped with the ability to sense the life in ingredients, and I believe that this is what true deliciousness is. Freshly picked vegetables have a different vitality, so I feel like I can receive that vitality just by preparing them."

Don't forget to imagine a prosperous future

Juri says that whatever she does, it starts with imagination.

"At the shop, we hold workshops thanks to connections with various people. They are all driven by encounters. I was approached by Earth Market when I was around 20 years old. I was the youngest person there and was inspired by all the different people there. One of the family who ran a shop there gave us some chapatis they had baked using wheat they had grown themselves.

I felt that this was a very rich way of life, and the thought occurred to me that if I opened a shop, I would like to build a stone oven and bake bread. Then I found out that there was an old man nearby who baked bread in a stone oven, so I went to visit him and listen to what he had to say, and that's how I started making a stone oven.

When I imagine what I want to do and put it into words, I inevitably meet people, people who support me appear nearby, and one by one, it all starts to take shape."

"I think that each person can imagine something different. If we enrich our imaginations and cherish the things that make our souls happy, I think that everyone's imaginations can surely transform the future into a richer world. When we eat vegetables grown in sunlight, humans receive the energy of that light from the vegetables, and it is humans who give shape to the message of light. I think that the role of humans may be to create.

But it's impossible to imagine it alone. I think about the wonderful future I can imagine among the lives I've encountered now. I think encounters are the joy of living. It's because of the lives that we encounter that we are able to bring joy and imagination, so I think encounters are treasures. I think living is about imagining and creating such a wonderful world."
Juri served as the teacher at the 2nd Learning Space, held in May 2021. "I feel that people will continue to learn as long as they live," she said, expressing her feelings at the time. The contents of her thoughts can be viewed on " Rakugaku ."