telophase | (no subject)

Entry tags:

bento,
poll

(no subject)

Tiny boring poll not crossposted to DW as the polls don't crosspost. :) Mostly, I'm going to be clearing out a decent part of my stash of bento boxes and accessories - not because I'm no longer doing bento, but because after a couple of years of this, I've got definite preferences for the types of boxes and accessories that I use, and thus have a lot of unused stuff hanging out taking up space ~~that I could use for other bento junk~~.

With the debut of the $1.50 bento box and other accessories at Ichiban Kan USA, eBay is no longer a decent place to dump unused bento stuff, so it's either sell it to you guys for a pittance plus shipping or throw it away. :)

So, just to gauge if it's even going to be worth my taking photos and posting them and going through the hassle of shipping them ... anyone here think they might be interested?

[Poll #1387530]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Been thinking about buying Bento supplies but haven't made it to the Asian grocery yet, so I'd at least look ...

Cool. :D I also recommend Ichiban Kan USA, especially for starting off, since they carry a lot of very low-cost supplies. As befits $1.50 bento boxes, the ones with clips tend to be fragile, but I stopped breaking the clips once I stopped washing them in the dishwasher. I've got, like, 5 bento boxes from them ~~and may have just purchased a $13 one, but I'm not admitting it~~.

I think the one thing to be aware of, if you haven't run across this already, is how very small the boxes are. :D They're often made for kids, and for Japanese women who (a) have huge societal pressure to be thin and (b) pack them differently than we in the West tend to. If you follow a basic 3 parts starch/ 2 parts veg/ 1 part protein, provided they're not soaked in oils and fats, you can pretty much assume that 1 mL = 1 calorie, so that a 560 mL box would hold about 560 calories, which is a small-to-decent size lunch for an average not-athletic woman. There's lots of different side containers for adding extra stuff, though.

Not that I stick to that ratio, so I often end up throwing extra pretzels in or something. :D

(If you *have* run across that info already, then sorry for the repetition!)

...this would all be good, since I'd be packing them for me & boys. We'd already started the whole re-using containers thing, but better containers would be great!

In that case, if you haven't found them yet, the blogs you want to read are http://lunchinabox.net/ and http://www.adventuresinbentomaking.com/. :D

Lunch in a Box is primarily the owner, Biggie, packing for her preschool/kindergarten-age son, so there's lots of tips and lunches from that viewpoint. She focuses on speed bento - lunches she can prepare quickly in the morning, rather than making them cute.

Pikko at Adventures in Bentomaking makes bentos for herself, and she tends to like the cute, but she's got lots of ideas that are useful.

Not repetition at all--I know very little about this other than that I've enjoyed Bento meals in restaurants and think it'd be fun to replicate (and play with) the basic concept on my own. :-)

Going to Japan made me realize how Japanese bento, with lots of tiny little things, replicated the traditional Japanese meal in miniature. In the U.S., we're used to a meal consisting of large portions of 2 or 3 items, while over there a meal tends to consist of small portions of many different things - Rachel and I counted up to 13 or 14 items a couple of times. (8 or 9 was a bit more normal.)

And that's a really hard hurdle for me to jump - I'd like to, because it gives variety in small lunches and helps you pack them well - because it requires more frequent trips to the grocery store, and a little bit more work ahead of time preparing 2 or 3 servings of each item for use in lunches. The weeks I do bento best are the ones that I spend some time on the weekend boiling eggs, chopping vegetables, etc. so I can assemble a lunch in less than 10 minutes in the morning.

Same here!

Let me know, because I might be able to use them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only