bento#35 Tingle

I was going to do this bento when I made Toon Link bento, but I ended up not putting him because I ran out of the time. When my boyfriend was going around in the office to show his bento to co-workers, I was telling my friend that I was going to put this guy in the same bento. That friend, a huge gamer, said “No, he deserves his own bento.”

"Tingle, Tingle, Kooloo-Limpah!"

Bento #35: Tingle bento!
Created and eaten on: 1/23/2009

Tingle first appeared in “the Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask”, and since then he’s been making appearance in the Legend of Zelda series. I’ve played some newer series, but the graphic looked too modern and not appealing to me who is a fan of 8bit/16bit video games. To be honest, I’ve “really played” the Legend of Zelda part 2, which came out in 1987 for Famicon System in Japan. I’m Japanese, thus I love RPGs. My most favorite RPG of all time is NOT Final Fantasy series (a.k.a. “FF”), but it’s Dragon Quest. (a.k.a. “DQ.” “Dragon Warrior” for the U.S. release) What is DQ? It’s the greatest old school RPG ever created in Japan! Why not FF? Because DQ came out in 1986, and FF and Zelda came out in 1987! No, I’m not saying DQ is better because it came out before FF or Zelda. It’s so much more than that. But this post is about Tingle, so I’ll save my “Why Dragon Quest is so much superior to the Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy” for later…

Anyway, since my boyfriend loves the Zelda series, I knew he’d love Tingle bento. I also knew what I was going to make Tingle with. I was looking for other images related to Tingle, and I found a picture of Tingle’s siblings, which reminded me of dyed eggs from “how to dye an egg naturally.” So I decided to make Tingle with his siblings in forest.

I sliced purple cabbage, put it in a bowl with water and microwaved it. Then poured half of the dyed water into a glass and put a quail egg to make blue Tingle, and poured the other half of the dyed water into a different glass and mixed it with a little bit of vinegar to make purple/pink Tingle.

While I dyed the eggs, I put lettuce down in a bento box, and put rice mixed with black sesame seed and salt for the background. (see “how to dye rice naturally”)I put soboro (ground beef cooked in soy sauce, sugar and cooking sake) I had made the night before at the bottom part of the bento for ground.

I microwaved lettuce leaves and dried them well with a paper towel. I put plastic wrap on my drawing of Tingle and put potato salad over it, and shaped it for Tingle’s head, body, arms and legs. I made his red shorts with red pepper, and cut cheese and seaweed for his belt. I cut fake sausage (fish cake) for Tingle’s hands and for his boots, and put seaweed over the boots. I did a very sloppy job on this. Seaweed absorbed the moisture from the fake sausage and shrank while I was making other stuff… I should’ve waited in the last minute. T_T

Just look at his boots! This is unacceptable.

I took out the quail eggs out of dyed water, and washed them off. I then put broccoli and asparagus around Tingle, and placed the two dyed quail eggs and a plain quail egg in the bento box. I put cut ham for Tingle’s face, and the quail egg Tingle faces. To make Tingle’s big nose more 3D, I made a separate piece for Tingle. Nothing was difficult up to this point. (except the seaweed shrinking)

It's hard to see in this picture but the quail egg is light pink.

Then I started cutting seaweed for the face parts. I knew it’d probably a tedious job, but it was not just a tedious job, it was a tedious job x 4. Every piece was so darn tiny! I was using normal scissors, so it was almost impossible to cut the mouth. If I had known, I would’ve cut it using an exacto knife the night before… I cut a tiny piece of kamaboko (fish cake) for Tingle’s teeth, and fake sausage for his pink cheeks. I put snow peas underneath Tingle’s head for his ears. (I could’ve done this sooner, but I had totally forgotten about them until the last minute :P)

I placed black sesame seeds for the mole on quail egg Tingles, and put a bit of ketchup on Tingle’s nose in the end. I was going to finish it right here. I was pretty bummed that I couldn’t make flowers to put around Tingle I wanted, because I just ran out of time.

I revealed the bento to my boyfriend and he went “awwwwwww!” and he started setting up the bento to take pictures. Then I thought “Tingle can be without flowers, but he has to have a clock around his neck!! He must!!” So, I cut fake sausage, cheese and seaweed in a lighting speed and made him a clock. That’s why the seaweed band had come off while my boyfriend was taking pictures… That’s also why the clock is stuck at 3 o’clock and not 4 o’clock… I still think the clock made a huge difference though. But because I couldn’t make any flowers, the bento totally lacked the color.

1 hour before the magic happens...

People seem to love his little crossed legs. I agree that they’re pretty cute and sexy, but I wish I could’ve made the boots a bit better, so you couldn’t see the sausage underneath.

Tingle:
– potato salad wrapped with lettuce, snow peas for his ears
– red pepper, seaweed and cheese for his shorts
– fake sausage for his hands
– seaweed on fake sausage for his boots
– seaweed on ham for his face, ketchup on his nose, fake sausage for his cheeks, kamaboko (fish cake) for his teeth

Tingle’s siblings: (see “how to dye an egg naturally”)
– quail egg dyed with red cabbage juice (with vinegar), ham and seaweed
– quail egg dyed with red cabbage juice, ham, seaweed

Other food:
– rice with ground up black sesame seeds (see “how to dye rice naturally”)
– soboro for the ground (ground beef with soy sauce, cooking sake, and sugar)
– lettuce
– broccoli
– asparagus

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