Do you Bento?

I'm about to start, and I can't wait! Bento are, simply put, boxed lunches. There's more to it, though. Much more.

The versions that are showing up more and more around America are based on boxed lunches from Japan. Healthy foods, visually pleasing and colorful arrangement, appropriate serving size and reuse of containers are stressed. And cuteness. Oh yes... the cuteness. Cheese cut into flower shapes, picks that make cups of chicken salad look like, well.. a chicken, colorful stacking bento boxes secured with Hello Kitty flavored elastics, etc.

I think I first ran into bento boxes via this flickr account. Go ahead, have a peek. :)

Wow. I was in love. At first I didn't seriously think about doing them, they were just so fun to see. I loved the extra steps people took to make these lunches look so nice, and CUTE! As I kept coming back and browsing and seeing all the wonderful lunches for kids, I decided that maybe I should start doing them for Janie.

Janie takes her lunch to school, on average, four times a week. We peruse the lunch menu for the month and mark which days she wants to buy "hot lunch" on our monthly calendar in the kitchen. Last semester I did an ok job of providing her with fairly healthy, appropriate sized lunches. But, man they got B-O-R-I-N-G, and I was doing them last minute as the kids ate breakfast in the morning. No extra thought went into her lunches at all. And now bento has come along...

I don't have the proper gear yet, not much anyway. I bought a three pack of Lock and Lock containers at Wal-Mart last week and will use them as I can with what I have until I can find more containers that will work with them. Have you tried Lock and Lock? Even if you're not into bento boxes, they are awesome food storage containers for home use.

I want to find a bento bag, more containers, dividers, picks, molds, cups, etc... I could really, really get into this.

Tonight I packed my first quasi-bento... for lunch tomorrow she has:

1) a container of cashews and a cheese stick (for snack)
2) a container of grape tomatoes and sliced red peppers
3) a prepackaged container of apple sauce
4) another cheese stick
5) a baggie of sliced pears (I only have two small L&L containers so far)
6) four Triscuit crackers in a baggie
7) a Dove chocolate for dessert

Now all of the above is completely devoid of the bento cuteness that I so deisre, but I'll get there and Janie is going to love it! I need to get a few things before I can do a true bento box. A major thing is an insulated bag to carry the containers in. Among other things, what I'd love to find is this awesome little L&L set.

So that's my current obsession.
Bento boxes.
Sigh.