bento-mania

I think somewhere along the line I became one of those Japanophiles (or would the proper term for that be Nipponophile?) I'm note sure whether it is the insidious cuteness of consumer goods or the simple elegance of the more grown up design that's done me in. I like clean simplicity and minimalism, also cute renderings of furry creatures, it's well documented.

Anyway, lately I've been trying to find the perfect bento box. I wouldn't eat traditional bento lunches from it because I really just don't like sushi. I've tried, but just can't seem to like it. The eel was the only one I've ever had that didn't palatially gross me out, but eel is treyf and despite my quite lackadasical adherence to Jewish law, I do at least try to eat things that are kosher (ok if I do eat chicken, though these days I'm still almost entirely vegetarian, I won't avoid dairy, but I firmly maintain that I'm still technically correct because the letter of the Torah is that you can't eat an animal boiled in its mother's milk and since chickens don't produce milk it's a-ok to slap some cheese on them.) I want one because they seem like an efficient all in one lunch box. I'm having trouble finding one that is both microwave safe and aesthetically pleasing to me. So far all the microwave safe ones have been either too plain or full out cartoon-mania, I'm not so oppsed to cartoons, but I'd prefer something less in your face and less common than hello kitty. I want cute but grown up, I'm too near to 30 for a hello kitty lunch box since lunch boxes are definitely a work sort of thing.

I did run across this site on cute bento lunches the other day. Japanese mothers must have a lot of time on their hands to spend so much time, effort and creativity on something that's just going to be scarfed down at lunch time, but damn they're cute


the site I presume tells you what each visage is made out of, but I don't know Japanese so I just look at the photoes and think how cool it would be to open my lunch to that if I were 5. I'm also a little frightened by the large presence of sculpted hot dogs featured in the designs. Somehow in my mental image of the cool, healthy, efficient world of the Japan of my mind, I never imagined something as gross as cold hot dogs featuring into the diet.