Bentomania

Well, though I am exhausted and have too much on plate and just survived the first day of kids at school, I am actually writing an entry here. I am doing this because I have fun show-and-tell and I am excited--as excited as someone who has had their windpipe squeezed by a tantruming child can be. I guess I am a little shell-shocked as well as excited.

Recently I began reading a blog called VeganYumYum. It has lovely photos of beautiful food and I have enjoyed looking at the vegan fare even though I am not a vegan myself. Somehow, through this site I ended up at another food site called Vegan Lunch Box. This site has very sweet lunches featured and also shows the Laptop Lunch system in action as well as other bento-like containers. I already had a little bento fetish and had purchased a laquered bento box for my own uses a while ago. From this site, however, I found myself wandering into unknown lands of incredible cuteness as I stumbled upon not only adorable implements but photos of them in use in bento lunches created by Japanese mothers for their preschoolers.

It must be said that as a Montessorian this is not what I hope will be happening at home. I would like to see children packing their own lunches. On the other hand, I want to eat lunches like this (all the ones on this site are incredible) so I have greatly enjoyed perusing all of the Bento-related sites I have found so far. I ended up going to this site to look at what is for sale and discovered that it is up the street from me so now I actually own many of the cute things you may see, though they generally cost me about $1.25 per item. I hope to send one to my young nieces and cousins (no pressure parents) to make their food more fun. I would hope the children could make their own lunches...

So here are some very weak photos of my last second lunch this morning. We made the rice balls (onigiri) Monday night with some rice flavorings I had found. A little overkill on the flavor but delicious and I used a bird shaped onigiri press. The meatballs are Aidell's but I wanted to use my cute mini forks and leg bone picks. All of this was in the top bento container. The yogurt was in the bottom of the two-tiered bento and then the granola mix-in was in a separate "tight" bento. I had a Bento box elastic around the pink boxes to keep everything together and then put it in a little lunch bag along with a plum. I aspire to buying a Bento wrap from this ebay store to tie my bento box in someday. Please do not compare these photos to the ones I am linking too--that would be unfair as I did this five minutes before leaving the house and I don't have any side dish silicone holders yet :(

I have added some sites to the side in case you wish to become obsessed like I have and hope to purchase your own stuff or learn about the bento tradition. I will add more photos as I go along and let you know about what I prepare. I am not committed to using only Japanese food in my lunch by any means but I do hope to try some new cooking. I bought a sushi book and a book with Chinese snacks like dim sum. I also hope to include Vietnamese spring rolls. We are blessed to be near a large Asian community in El Cerrito where we can get groceries and bento stuff. Yay for bento lunches at my new school!