bento#33 Calvin and Hobbes

EDIT: I just realized that this bento was featured on reddit, and getting a lot of traffic to this page from different sites. I noticed that one editor in particular praising my bento on their site said that the potato salad “is probably spoiled.” I usually ignore any negative comments, especially if it’s someone else’s page, but this is a bit different. Not just assuming my bento is spoiled, but to actually write it out is uncalled for. It’s freedom of speech, I know. So I decided to defend myself on my blog.
For the people who are coming to this site from the website I’m talking about, I want you to know that my bento isn’t “only for the looks” and everything on my bento is definitely not spoiled. (Yes, not “probably” but “definitely”) If you read my “about” page, you’ll know I keep all my food in the fridge while I make different food for my bento.
For me taste is just as important appearance, after all I’m giving it to my boyfriend to eat for lunch, and he’d be the FIRST to know if anything was wrong with the food. 😛
Now to my actual post…

The last bento in 2008 was “Where The Wild Things Are.” I enjoyed making it, but it was more for me than for my boyfriend… so I wanted to make a bento of something he grew up with.

Bento #33: Calvin and Hobbes
Created and eaten on: 1/15/2009

I knew he loved Calvin and Hobbes, but I didn’t grow up with it, so it was not easy for me to decide what kind of bento I’d make. When I’m making bento of what I’m familiar with, I know what “element” to pick for bento, but I really didn’t know with this one. So, I google-searched images, and picked the iconic image where Calvin and Hobbes were on a wagon. I drew a sketch, and wrote down what food I was going to use.

In the morning, I put lettuce in the bento box, and rice mixed with black sesame seed and salt on it as background, and string beans on the rice.I put plastic sheet over my drawing, and mixed rice with ketchup to create Hobbes’ orange body, and shaped it. On the first try, I tried to make Hobbes’ white part (his face, stomach, hand and feet) with rice, but didn’t turn out well… So I decided to make it again, and this time using cheese for the white part on Hobbes. I had to be really careful not to tear the cheese out but I think it came out okay.

I used potato salad I’d made the night before and shaped it for Calvin’s head and body. I cut ham for his face and arms, fake crab meat for his shirt, and seaweed on cheese for his shoes. Actually, the most difficult part for Calvin was his hair. I thought I would just cut seaweed, put cheese over it and cut it around the seaweed, but for some reason it ended up looking  like a buzzcut…

I used red pepper for his wagon, cheese on rice for the wheels, and seaweed on kamaboko (fish cake) for the handle.

After everything was done, I put seaweed stripes on Hobbes’ body, and put face pieces that I had cut out of seaweed on. Like I mentioned before, moisture can ruin seaweed. So I try to put small seaweed pieces in the very end. To finish up, I sliced carrot and cut it into star-shape and sprinkled around Calvin and Hobbes.

Regardless of what people told me, I think I could’ve made this bento a lot better… Bill Watterson’s drawing was a lot harder to make it into bento than I anticipated.
Someone sent me a link to a site that had various snowman comic strips from Calvin and Hobbes after my boyfriend posted this on his flickr… Darn it! I totally could’ve done it instead of Totoro snowman! Oh well, there’s always next time…

Anyway, to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised that may of my co-workers were very happy to see this bento as well as my boyfriend. They all told me that Calvin and Hobbes were their favorite childhood comic when they were young. Maybe I’ll come back to this someday…

Calvin:
– potato salad
– fake fish crab meat
– seaweed on cheese
– cheese on ham

Hobbes:
– rice mixed with ketchup
– seaweed for the stripes and face
– cheese for the white par

Other food:
– rice mixed with black sesame seed and salt
– lettuce
– broccoli
– string bean
– carrot
– potato croquette

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.