my bento

I have no kyaraben/charaben to blog today!

But today, I’m going to post something that some people are probably wondering about…

My bento.

My bento #1 (not planning on doing this again, but who knows…): Left-over from Bento #39 Mechazawa bento
Created and eaten on: 2/26/2009

One of my friends has asked me before, “How much food do you throw out when you make kyaraben/charaben?” I told him “I don’t” but he didn’t seem like he believed me, until he took a glance at my bento one day.

I usually have the same food as my boyfriend has, but whatever I didn’t use for his bento will be added to my bento. Scraps of veggies, kamaboko (fish cake), seaweed, cheese, rice… pretty much everything. I finish my boyfriend’s bento first, then while he takes pictures of the bento, I just dump everything in my bento box. That’s how I pack my lunch. I don’t even bother putting it in neatly, because I’m the one who’s eating it and I really don’t care. 😛

Meat balls and plain rice had been put into the bento box in the beginning. Then after Mechazawa bento was done…
– Left-over rice with black sesame seed from Mechazawa’s body.
– Left-over konnyaku (yam cake, gray jello looking thing) from Mechazawa’s hands.
– Left-over sliced carrots from star shaped carrot.
– Left-over sliced radish pieces from Mechazawa’s cigarette.
– Left-over fake crab meat (used for Mechazawa’s shirt) and broccoli

The only thing that’s different was that chopped up egg sheet. Because I tried to use it for Mechazawa’s buttons and eyes, but it didn’t come out too well. (I miss my old gas range…)

As you can see, my bento usually ends up bigger than my boyfriend’s bento.

So there you have it.

I don’t care how my bento looks. I’ve seen comments on my bento on different sites that say something like “Well, you’re gonna just eat it… Why does she make it?” And that’s exactly why my bento looks like this. It’s just not fun making bento for my own pleasure. (I’m way too lazy for that)

With almost exactly the same ingredients, you can make this...

...or this.

It’s pretty amazing to see how a presentation makes a big difference, huh?

It seems like I’m getting a lot traffic from reddit again, so I thought I’d embarrass myself. 😛

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