I have always enjoyed getting bento in Japantown from any one of the local grocery stores. I’ve made Japanese food at home, mostly simple things I learned to make from my mom like riceballs or miso soup.
Making lunch for my husband and I, every day can be kind of blah at times. We get trapped in the sandwich and a bag of chips or indifferent leftovers languishing in a battered plastic container rut far too often. On occasion, my husband would pack a can of Saba and rice with some tsukemono, but I was thinking we could expand our horizons. I finally decided to looking in to making bento.
I came across this website whilst looking for information on bento. (I hesistated when showing my husband this website. I didn’t want his raise his expectations as far as his bento was concerned.)
It was just a run of the mill sandwich and Hawaiian Punch in my lunch bag when I was a kid. But this lady has done things with food I could never have imagined.
Mari Miyazawa is famous in Japan for making these elaborate bento for her child. She’s written several cookbooks and posts her magnificent creations at this website which is in Japanese: e-bento. When you see what can be done with rice, hotdogs and nori, lunch time will never be the same again.
As dazzled as I am by Ms. Miyazawa’s bento, I continued my search for every day lunch making ideas.
Lunch in a Box is a wonderful site for tips and inspiration when packing lunch for yourself and your family. Biggie’s directions and photos are very clear and easy to follow. For people with young children, she gives many tips on packing food with young kids in mind. I enjoy how she often shows the adult sized & kids sized versions of each lunch she makes. Another great feature of Biggie’s posts is timeframes. She lets you know how much time it took to make the meal so you can plan your schedule.
And if you really get in to the bento life, you can proudly display your culinary masterpieces here: Bento Lunches a LiveJournal community, filled with people who share what they’ve made for lunch every day.
