Tasha Cabrera

“And there was something else too, something far more important to Sentaro: Tokue’s sweet bean paste. He was determined to carry on making it, because if he did not, it would disappear from the world. Apart from its merits as bean paste, Sentaro thought of it as testimony to the life of a remarkable woman called Tokue Yoshii.”
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste

“If all you ever see is reality, you just want to die. The only way to get over barriers, she said, is to live in the spirit of already being over them.”
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste

“That's why I made confectionery. I made sweet things for all those who lived with the sadness of loss. And that's how I was able to live out my life.”
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste

“Hers was tougher than tough love. It was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It was a love that saw what was best for you ten steps ahead, and didn't care if it hurt like hell in the meantime. When I got hurt, she felt it so deeply, it was as though it were her own affliction. She was guilty only of caring too much. I realize this now, only in retrospect. No one in this would would ever love me as much as my mother, and she would never let me forget it.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart