Author. Journalist.

Nina writes about hungers
satisfied and elusive.
About communion,
conviviality, curiosities,
& locales.

Find her books at your favorite bookseller!

Pre-orders are available now for Astonishment of Seasons!

"Warm and wise, An Astonishment of Seasons is an
impassioned, beautifully observed homage to our planet’s natural rhythms. Nina Mukerjee Furstenau is a keen-eyed, -eared, and -nosed naturalist whose close study of her home place shows us how to better know and celebrate our own.”

—Ben Goldfarb, award-winning author
of Eager and Crossings"

More About Astonishment of Seasons

Humans have long simplified seasons: the Mayans had two, and people in India mark six. With a food writer’s eye for detail and a poet’s economy of words, Furstenau takes us on walks out her front door in central Missouri as she moves through a year of seventy-two microseasons. Rooted in an ancient Japanese calendar, An Astonishment of Seasons invites us into rapt attention to the habits of creatures, the cycles of plants, and the finespun shifts in weather.

As Furstenau ponders the Midwest’s many seasons—Morel Mushrooms Rise, Brown Thrashers Sing, Cloudscapes Peak, Mosses Glow—she invites us to find language for the microseasons in the place we live. Awe grows as we sense slight turns in flora and fauna, wind and sky. Short chapters—about a muskrat on a pond, tassels of wheat at summer solstice, a plague of grackles in November—immerse us in a world of teeming abundance. It’s a world of grief, too, as parents pass away and the cracks in our tenuous world appear; she mourns the many losses, the diminishments. Yet by holding onto stories about renewal of habitats and species’ return from the brink of extinction, Furstenau claims, we renew our love for the places we live and for each other.

With twenty-four exquisite illustrations by artist Kate Gray, An Astonishment of Seasons is full of pensive and ultimately hope-filled dispatches from the beating heart of America. Attending to the precise rhythms of nature, we begin to metabolize changes in our own lives—and maybe even become enchanted with the world.

Pre-orders are available now for American Peach!

Buttery cobblers. Refreshing Bellinis. The perfect summer snacks. More than just fruit, peaches connect people across generations and backgrounds.

Nina Mukerjee Furstenau's American Peach traces the fruit's origins to ancient China before chronicling the peach's journey from its introduction to Indigenous communities in North America, to its prominent place in military life for soldiers, and finally as a staple on tables nationwide. Beyond history, Furstenau offers tips for picking and preserving peaches, as well as recipes that range from sweet sips and treats to sauces, relishes, appetizers, and entrees. In dishes such as Peach, Hot Honey, and Brie Grilled Cheese and Peach Berry Bourbon Country Ribs, Furstenau captures the versatility of the fruit.

Combining storytelling with new creations and twists on classic recipes, American Peach will charm food lovers and cooks alike.

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VIEW PRESS

“

It should be noted that the recipe for the keema... had me combing the county for cardamom pods. Her food memoir, though, is less concerned with the proper amount of ginger in the dal than it is with the classic immigrant’s search for belonging.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

“

Lush and lyrical, Nina Mukerjee Furstenau’s memoir, Biting Through the Skin: An Indian Kitchen in America’s Heartland, blends food and childhood, cuisine and family into a story that resonates and lingers like the spices she lovingly describes.

KANSAS CITY STAR

“

A beautiful and sensitive memoir—with recipes!—about life in Kansas for a Bengali family. Furstenau found the balance between cultures not in language or religion or dress. Instead, it came through food.

STAR TRIBUNE

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BIO

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Nina Mukerjee Furstenau is a journalist and author of nine non fiction books. She was a Fulbright Global research scholar (2018-19), is on the board of directors for Media for Change, has won the MFK Fisher Book Award and the Grand Prize Award for Culture/Culinary Writing from Les Dames d'Escoffier International, a Kansas Notable Book award, and more. In 2023, she was awarded the Les Dames d'Escoffier International Woman of Purpose Award, one of the organization's highest honors which recognizes work in the complex realms of local/global sustainability, food justice, and public health. Nina continues to work towards re-framing how we think about food for the betterment of all.

Nina’s published work includes the award-winning Biting Through the Skin: An Indian Kitchen in America's Heartland, The Pocket Rhubarb Cookbook, and Green Chili & Other Impostors (Chilies, Chhana and Rasa in India). Her upcoming books include: American Peach: 75 Recipes with a Past, and An Astonishment of Seasons: Waking to the Wonder of Nature's Smallest Shifts. Her low-literacy Tasty! Mozambique focused on human nutrition in regions with depleting soil nutrients, and the textbook, Food and Culture, 8th Edition, edited by Nina and SeAnne Safaii-Waite (Cengage, 2023), is being released in its 9th edition in 2027. The textbook is focused on health professionals and others who hope to work effectively with members of different ethnic and religious groups in a culturally sensitive manner. Other published works include the low-literacy Tasty! Mozambique aimed at improving human nutrition in regions with depleting soil nutrients, Savor Missouri: River Hills Country Food and Wine, and numerous stories and essays for newspapers and magazines.

In other media, find Nina on Substack at Feasting Asia: the Secret Life of Asian Food in America, and at Wayward Readers. She hosts Canned Peaches, a podcast created with NPR affiliate station KBIA, The Missouri School of Journalism, The Missouri Humanities Council, and Harvest Public Media. The series focuses on the histories of iconic ingredients in the Midwest to reveal how we are already entwined on the plate. The series won two Edward R. Murrow Awards.

Nina is the retired director of Food Systems Communication for the University of Missouri's Science and Agricultural Journalism program (2010-2018), and completed food/nutrition projects in Ghana and Mozambique for USAID and the McKnight Foundation. She was editor, then publisher of three business magazines (1987-2001) that she and her husband launched, and she has served as a judge for national journalism competitions such as the James Beard Media Awards, the Lowell Thomas Travel Writing competition, and others. She served in the U.S. Peace Corps (1984-86) and was chosen as one of its seven delegates worldwide for the U.N. World Conference on Women in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1985. Nina received an M.A. in English/creative writing and a bachelor's in magazine journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism.

Bio