Bento Break!

It is becoming summer here in Southern California so I looked to Japan for summer lunch ideas. Here we have....somen. Wonderful noodles, thin, light, easy, served cold and fast to cook (really, two minutes in boiling water!) I sprinkled them with some black sesame, sliced radish, a cherry blossom cucumber and chopped scallions. The little bottle holds ponzu, a soy type sauce with citrus flavors, just right for the somen. There is a tea dyed egg, little tomatoes, tangerine slices, snow peas, baby carrots, blueberries and more cucumber. This bento is not very big but it really holds a lot of food, all fresh, all delicious! eat it up!

Oh Bento!

I will forever be true to fiber, knitting, crochet, naalbinding and weaving but....I have a new little squeeze on the side, called BENTO. Bento boxes, bento lunches, bento bags, bento bottles, bento, Bento, Oh BENTO! Here are two photos of my first bento attempts and the lid of one (yes, one) of my bento boxes that a friend brought me from Japan. My life has been consumed by bento. Now a new aisle at Marukai has opened up for me, the bento aisle! sigh....There are entire Flickr groups dedicated to bento. There are bento blogs, bento competitions, bento yahoo groups. These little boxes are so cute, and they really speak to my organized side. Though they look small, you can fit quite a bit of food into them. A bento should hold at least 5 different colors of food (yipeee!) and every little bit of it should be filled (double yipeee!). My first bento pictured has rice with furikake, a sliced Mornigstar Farms chick patty, hardboiled egg, assorted vegi's and fruit and some hummus. The second one has cabbage, a sliced jack cheese and chili tamale, spinach, assorted vegi's and fruit......delicious!

$1.50!

I went to Marukai today! The Japanese dollar store in Cerritos. I thought the top of my head was going to fly off at all of the wonderful cute-ness I found. I could have bought five hundred dollars worth of Japanese fun. I restrained myself on this trip and took many photos instead. Here are some of my favorites:
The adorable animal headed soy sauce bottles (these are quite tiny, like miniature anime canopic jars). Next is part of the 'little things to put in a child's bento box lunch' section. This takes almost an entire aisle! After that is the stationary section....and I

do so adore paper! The teddy bear family notebook, the round apple-y hamster notes and....mushroom letter paper! Gads! It was all just so yummy. I bought a few things, snacks, chopsticks with their own little carry case to keep at work, a few paper things, a notepad and some tea.
Delicious! Gotta go to Marukai!