Thursday, May 26, 2011

Bento Quest

This post is a cry for help. For the past couple of months, I have been on a quest for the perfect bento box. If you do not know what a bento box is, look here. Normally, I am immune to this sort of Martha Mom activity. Normally, I don't even make lunch for my daughter. Hot lunch is $1.75 at the cafeteria, and if not nutritionally ideal, probably not much worse than the PB&J she'd end up with everyday if I packed her lunch.
But poor Rose Red is tired of living with the stigma of hot lunch. While all of her friends with moms who love them get to sit down and eat right away, she has to stand in line for food. By the time she gets her food, her friends' table is full, so she has to sit with, gasp, strangers. Then her friends finish their food about the time she sits down. She must choose between eating hot food among strangers or tossing said hot food and going out to play with her friends, hungry. Every day, Rose Red comes home starving and eats a snack the size of dinner.
So now I try to pack a lunch sometimes. And for some reason, I believe this will be easier if I have the perfect bento box. She already has a phthalate leaching vinyl lunchbox, and a tiny, single compartment bento I bought at Daiso, in the International District. But these are not perfect. I want a perfect bento box.
What is a perfect bento? It is many things:
1. More than one compartment so juicy things don't make dry things soggy.
2. Has a place to store silverware (chopstick holders are cute, but impractical for my Americanized first grader.)
3. Has a seal that won't leak. This is surprisingly uncommon. Most bento just have lids that lift right off. I have adjusted my requirements to allow one of this kind if it comes with a band to keep it shut. But I'd rather have the same kind of click lock that her undivided Daiso box has.
4. Is dishwasher safe.
5. Ideally, has a place to put a water bottle. I might be able to ignore this one, if all other requirements were met.
6. Is cute. This is not unimportant.
Of course, my first thought was Hello Kitty (ok, actually BatzMaru) but they were pricey at Uwajimaya and not quite right.
I have found cute, impractical bento. I found a couple of nearly perfect, boring American bento. (I'm still tempted on this one. The whiteboard nearly makes up for the lack of cute.) So close!
I know that I will never create bento masterpieces or master the art of cute food, despite the helpful how-to instructions from folks like Bento for Kidlet. But especially now that I'm working again, I really like the idea of Rose Red sitting down with her friends at lunch, hours since she's seen me and hours before we'll meet again, and opening up her lunch box to find something special that I made just for her. Something cute, and sweet, and tasty, that says I love you like a hug in the middle of the day.
So, if anyone stumbles onto the Perfect Bento Box, please send me the link. Thanks.

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