Bento Boxes

Every since visiting Little Tokyo in L.A. and visiting my family in Portland, I have been thinking about bento lunch boxes. Since September means back to school for grown up grads too, I decided to try packing these myself. But before investing in authentic bento boxes, I wanted to make sure that this was something that I could actually do without too much trouble and that we would actually enjoy. I purchased four inexpensive plastic containers and sewed up two chopstick covers and two bento bands from Japanese scrap fabric.

There is an asian market near our house and while the selection isn't amazing, there is enough to make packing bento lunches much easier. Some items like frozen fish cake and assorted dumplings, tofu, and furikake are nice to have on hand. I have also been enjoying this blog http://justbento.com/ and recently purchased Makiko's The Just Bento Cookbook.