My First Bento Box (tm)

[constance]

I had a post all planned, a profound entry about blogging and motherhood and friendship and such, but I got my new Bento Box ^(TM) in the mail yesterday, and it was good, and so today's entry is all about lunch. Which in its way is also profound. Anyway, I will keep that other post in mind for a later date.

First of all, my Bento Box ^(TM)! It's black and shiny, and it has iridescent pink butterflies and waves of golden grass, which is frankly in itself enough to make me happy; but also, it's a miracle of good design, both stackable and nestable. And so I felt compelled to make my first lunch right away, despite the fact that once I wrote out my shopping list and went to the grocery and made the lunch--and friends, I had a most specific lunch in mind--it was going to be, like, midnight or so. But you know those compulsions. Or maybe you don't! And if you don't, how lucky you are!

So I did go to the grocery, and bought most everything on my list, and mastered my compulsion enough to make a couple of substitutions because (1) the seafood counter closed at 8pm and there was no lobster to be had and (2) there were no cherries in the whole store unless I was willing to eat pie filling with a spoon which I was not and (3) I really am not a fan of pudding. And came home and assembled my lunch with reckless abandon, and here it is:

Frances the Badger's lunch, from Bread and Jam for Frances



The next day, when the bell rang for lunch,
Albert said, "What do you have today?"
"Well," said Frances, laying a paper doily on her desk
and setting a tiny vase of violets in the middle of it,
"let me see." She arranged her lunch on the doily.
"I have a thermos bottle with cream of tomato soup," she said.
"And a lobster-salad sandwich on thin slices of white bread.
I have celery, carrot, sticks, and black olives,
and a little cardboard shaker of salt for the celery.
And two plums and a tiny basket of cherries.
And vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles
and a spoon to eat it with."
"That's a good lunch, said Albert.
"I think it's nice that there are all different kinds
of lunches and breakfasts and dinners and snacks.
I think eating is nice."
"So do I," said Frances,
and she made the lobster-salad sandwich, the celery,
the carrot sticks, and the olives come out even.

A few more notes:

• No doilies. No violets. I thought briefly about searching them down, but I think I'm going to have enough to explain at lunchtime without the vase and the violets.


• No extra salt. The tiny shaker does appeal, but do I really need extra salt in my diet? No.


• The sandwich is salmon salad with cream cheese and dill, cut out using a tiny apple-shaped cookie cutter.


• The pudding is not pudding at all but vanilla yogurt, with grated semisweet chocolate on top.


• The soup is tomato basil with a dollop of sour cream and grated parmesan cheese. No thermos; I do not own a thermos.


• Two plums is a hell of a lot of fruit. What you see is not even two plums--it wouldn't all fit in the box, and so I had three or four slices tonight for dessert.


• In fact, even with the soup and the yogurt in little four-ounce containers, this is altogether a veritable truckload of food. That Frances, she was a furry little bottomless pit.


• Also, Mrs. Badger must have done nothing but make lunches all the freaking livelong day, because Good Lord. I predict lots of leftovers in my future as a bento-er, or maybe nice little pre-made sushi rolls, because I can't be staying up every night till all hours making my lunch, no matter how satisfyingly purty it is when it's all done, and no matter how much extra time I have on my hands with my internet connection (temporarily) gone away.

Comments

[submarine.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOODNESS I'M SWOONING ALL OVER THE PLACE

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I remember thinking even as a kid that that was a hell of a lot of food. It's even stranger looking at it as an adult; I mean, I have an active seven-year-old, and her dinner last night was four strawberries, four cherry tomatoes, and half a cup of cottage cheese.

There are a lot of different kind of plums; I wonder if the ones Frances ate were those little tiny green ones that aren't a lot bigger than grapes? And her "basket of cherries" could have been only three or four cherries. One of those tapas- or dim sum-style lunches, just one or two perfect bites of each thing.

I still adore this project, though, and am so happy you posted photos.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

It's even more beautiful than I anticipated! And yes, a veritable truckload of food. The sandwiches- so darling! Is it a different box from the one you mentioned before? I somehow got in my head that that one was red.

I mailed you something commemorative yesterday, never imagining that your E-bay source would be so speedy and beat me to the punch. And arrgh- I don't have Bread and Jam for Frances, and when I googled the lunch, my source neglected to mention the thermos of soup, but oh, well. I got the rest right, anyway. /cryptic ;)

It's amazingly time-consuming, isn't it? I'm dying to know what your coworkers think/thought of it!

[jossish.livejournal.com]

Your lunch is perhaps the most beautiful lunch I have ever seen. And I am dying of bento box envy. So pretty!

[gmth.livejournal.com]

Heh, I see that and all I can think about is Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club. ;-)

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

It is a thing of beauty. I hope we get many lunch pics from here on out.

Can we also get a pic showing how it fits together? Where do the round containers go - are they part of the Bento Box?

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Pretty food pictures! And the lovely Bento Box is almost enough to make me wish I wasn't a telecommuter.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

This is a thing of beauty. I am eating a half-squashed pear at my desk as I read this, and beginning to think I need a Bento system of my own (as long as it can go flat into my briefcase). Actually, I think it also needs to contain my favorite RubberMaid sandwich boxes that I had to import from Arizona, because I could not find them in New York. I love that the Spanish name on the label calls this box a Sandwichero.

I am all up for a Bento comm.

[somniesperus.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOSH do you remember the Frances story when her unscrupulous friend got her to change her real beautiful china tea set with pink roses for the crappy plastic set with blue roses???

Also, that is one gorgeous lunchbox.

[leestone.livejournal.com]

So. excellent. My Cam is a true artisan. ♥ If I had a culinary bone in my body, I'd be all over this project.

Barring bento boxes, however, I am satisfied with my innumerable Zatarain's Red Beans & Rice boxes.