Pink Saturday - Bento box

Pink Saturday - Beverly at the blog "How Sweet the Sound" hosts Pink Saturday. Let the color pink inspire you!

Do you pack a lunch for work? In today's economy, everyone's trying to save money. It's cheaper to pack your lunch than it is to go out, and it's often healthier to bring food from home instead of eating at restaurants or fast food. I've been packing my lunch for a few months now, but it's not very glamorous carrying tupperware bins of leftovers in plastic shopping bags.

Recently,  I found some cute items to glam up my workday lunches, in L.A.'s Little Tokyo neighborhood.

In Japan, a "bento" is a box lunch, packed to take with you to school or to work. A "bento-bako" is the actual box that the lunch is packed in, and in Japan there is a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and styles of bento boxes.

There are elegant bento boxes made of lacquered wood painted in traditional designs, perfect for a professional woman's lunch. There are sleek, understated boxes made for gentlemen executives. There are larger, stacked boxes intended for family-sized picnics. But more frequently, bento boxes are clever little plastic cases, nested with compartments and decorated with cartoons or anime. They're perfect for kids, and cool for teens.

At the little variety stores in the Little Tokyo plazas, they had lots of bento boxes to choose from. I chose this pink box with snapping locks on the side - it can easily hold a sandwich, or here, last night's roasted potatoes and a slice of frittata.

This pale pink triangular box stacks two separate compartments. You can pack a serving of rice in one, and meat or vegetable in the other.

Bento boxes are reusable, so you can cut down on waste like plastic bags and foil. A bento box may seem small, but food is packed in tightly so it doesn't get messed up. Compartments keep food from mingling, and edible dividers, such as slices of cucumbers, are used to keep food separate. Some boxes have small internal containers, or you can use small silicone muffin cups to nest items.

Or pieces of fruit in one, and cookies below - the fruit stays fresh and the cookies stay dry.

Proper nutrition is so important that Japanese parents have perfected the art of making lunches attractive to tempt even the pickiest children. Food is styled to resemble toys, flowers, or even cute cartoon characters.  Vegetables are cut into decorative shapes, and everything is put together inside to be attractive as well as appetizing. HERE is a gallery of pictures of pretty bentos.

I can't quite achieve that yet, but perhaps as I get used to carrying a cute lunch box, I'll learn how to make what's inside look cuter too.

For now, though, it's nice just to be more stylish - at a good price. Each of my bento boxes cost about $3. There were other shapes to choose from - oval, slender, or cylindrical. If you want to see more varieties, you can browse at this website HERE .

This little tote is so simple it's just a step above the traditional Japanese furoshiki, a square of cloth wrapped and knotted to carry a bento box. It cost $2. Quite a bit nicer than a plastic grocery-store sack!

For dessert, I slipped in a couple of pieces of Japanese candy! Have a sweet pink treat for Pink Saturday.

 

Wouldn't you like to make your workday lunches prettier? You can read more about bento boxes at THIS LINK.