All About Bento

During my high school and college years I had really wanted to become and animator or comic book artist, sadly that was not to be :/ However,  after becoming a mom I finally realized my artistic calling in life must actually be to make adorable lunches.  For those whoaren't familiar with bento believe me when I say I'm not exaggerating about it being an artform all its own.  Google 'chara ben' and you'll come up with some photos of some pretty amazing boxed lunches. 
I've been making my husband's bento every day for quite some time now; but he doesn't want cute, that's way too embarrassing.  So its always something functional not too fancy for him, half the box filled with rice topped with a pickled plum or furikake and the other side filled with a few little side dished to go along with the rice. Boring...

A pretty typical example of what my husband gets for lunch every day



Thankfully Yosei has saved me from bento boredome by entering preschool.  He only needs a bento 3 imes a week as Mondays they have a school lunch and Wenesdays are only a half day so we eat lunch at home.  As far as I know I'm the only mom in the entire preschool that actually enjoys making bento.  All the other moms say its a pain in the ass and they wish every day was school lunch.  Needless to say they think I'm insane ;) 

I had been using a blue plastic Thomas the Tank Engine bento box that I gought at the 100 yen shop (Japanese equivalent of the dollar store) But last week had to purchase a new aluminum box as it was announced the kids would be having their lunches heated starting December 1st and they didn't want us to use anything that might melt in the lunch warmers.  I will just say that the aluminum box cost about 14x more than the plastic box I had been using.   Today is going to be his first heated bento day since yesterday (the day after the feild trip) he came down with a fever and had to stay home. 

Posted below are some of my bento creations for Yosei.

 Elmo bento not very pretty, one of my first creations 

 Supposed to be a train but looks more like a bus bento

 Shinkansen (Bullet Train) Bento - This was his firstday of preschool lunch

 Adorable polar bear bento

Todays bento made in his new aluminum Cars bento box.  Made especially with being heated in mind.  Lots of cheese to get nice and melty, even the rice ball is filled with cheese :)