Sunday, September 07, 2008

tiny boxes

Preschool starts on Monday, so I've been thinking about boxed lunches. For both of us, really, since I'll be commuting this year. Although Dr. S will eat a wide variety of foods, we're still struggle on the vegetable front so I've decided to try presenting lunches as bento boxes to see if cute equals edible.

I spent some time on Flickr last night looking at other people's Bento photos for inspiration. Wow, they can get elaborate! LuckySundae is making some adorable bento. Like this one. Or this one:



Do check out her blog and flickr photos to see more.

Bento is all about the little boxes, which we already had. But after looking at all that cuteness I thought we needed a few additional accessories to really make the food fun, so we stopped at the Japanese grocery today for little rice molds and a set of vegetable cutters that make cute flower shapes.



I can't possibly do the three-hour prep time thing for really elaborate bento, but I think I can do small portions of a wide variety of colorful items and just generally make the presentation a little more exciting. Tomorrow's lunch has star-shaped sticky rice, broccoli, apple sauce, flower-shaped beets and cucumbers, and a few other little goodies. I'll try to snap a photo if our first-day-of-school morning isn't too chaotic.

And speaking of tiny boxes, Todd and I spent last weekend watching a marathon three seasons of Weeds. Brilliant, dark humor if you haven't seen it. I love how, for each episode, a different artist sings the theme "Little Boxes" song. And I quickly took note that we're living in a little box, ourselves. It's just stacked on top of lots of other little boxes.

Maybe I'll start thinking of our apartment as a tiny bento box.

8 comments:

  1. i am shocked that you can get your kid to eat beets! wow! i have a hard time getting my child to eat. . .well. . .any kind of veggi! even the carrots we picked out of the garden tonight. i mean really, it doesn't get more fun than picking your own food from the garden! oh well. congrats to healthy little S!

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  2. Good luck with the bento boxes. A friend introduced me to Weeds and I love it. Its dark and twisty but great. Oh, and I just learned about Dexter on HBO, just started second season I think. Its about a serial killer who has a "code" about who he'll kill. He also happens to be a forensics guy in charge of blood spatter at the police department. Its even better than weeds.

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  3. There are some great ideas for veggies in kid's lunches at Vegan Lunchbox, even if your family isn't vegan. Also from her site, a nifty bento-style lunchbox.

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  4. Liz, I'm not saying she'll actually EAT the beets. But I thought it was worth a try, right? Especially if they're shaped like little flowers? And Angela and Lisa, thanks for the tips!

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  5. The molds are great! I've been using bento boxes with my daughter, and she loves them. Only if she would stop loosing the tops...

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  6. Bento? What's Bento? Not heard of it here...

    Is it the 'food'? or the box? or both?

    Cooked beets are very, very good - Daughter likes them with butter.

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  7. I, too, love Weeds. Isn't Mary Louise Parker fabulous? When I'm a mom I'll definitely be coming back to look at your post on Bento. Lunchbox art is a splendid thing.

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  8. I love the idea, but I think spending that much time on a lunch box is CRAZY!

    Agreed, Weeds is great {and greatly shocking, but funny}. Although, I have to say I miss the old opening with Agrestic/Majestic in the background and the whole song run-through. Makes me sad when I don't hear it!

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