Face Food - Christopher D Salyers

"Face Food - The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes" 80 pages by Christopher D Salyers is as cute in size and presentation as the bentos are themselves.

This is the first book I found that deals with the actual philosphy and modern use of making lunch boxes. The book is a testimonial of many Moms (and one Dad) who prepare their kids some kind of lunch at least twice a week. It shows their work (and artwork) but more importantly it asks the real questions of why they make these fab lunches for their children.

I read for the first time the term "charaben" which refers to using manga or other characters in creating the bentos. There is no real explaination of technique but lots of images that give you a fantastic idea of the dedication and creativity behind the bentos. One mom even said her kid had become critical of her bentos when she makes some slight mistakes in the character representation. Another Mom described making the charaben for her kid as " A communication tool between my child and I and between my child and his classmates." It's not just an expression of love but also an attempt to improve the status of the child in school. There is actually competition between children for who would have the best o-bento. And strangely enough, according to the author, the moms are not competative. They actually have get togethers where they exchange methods and secrets on creating and executing the best charaben possible.

The author has his own blog spot as well (http://www.facefoodbento.blogspot.com/) which I suggest you check out as he is constantly on the look out for face food as well as reviews of his book. Overall, I enjoyed the book but I do have a few points on where the author could have improved it. For example, the format is great (quite small) and the actual material of the cover gives a feeling of an old household recipe book. But the pages are printed on some kind of paper which does not render justice to the intricate photos they present. It seems like recycled paper but I was unable to find anywhere which mentions if it is. (ok, I admit, if it were recycled then I guess it's ok that the images are grainy...) The typeset works fairly well (altho at times difficult to read) yet it gives the impression of reading someone's diary entries or their kitchen journal where they document their bentos. The ingredients lists for each bento are not accurate as far as I can guess. But that may be due to the fact that each Mom who filled out some kind of form had to summarise overall ingredients or the translation fell short.

Anyway, without a doubt, for a person who is just getting into charaben and bentos it's definately a book to check out. After reading this one you can probably convince yourself that making a bento is not just fun but possible.

Mona Lisa Bento

Today's book is quite extraordinary.

I don't even know what it's titled (お弁当アートの作り方 (単行本) ) which should stand for "Really Artistic Kick-ass Bento's" by Junko Terashima. It's 78 pages of sheer shock and surprise.

Different from my previous blog's book, this is less everyday bento and more extreme Bento. This is not to say it's better - only that you can go to a higher ground when creating bentos.

If you google images with her name, you will definately find an infinite number of images to check out. Here are some of the most amazing :

Here is one that uses food in the most amazing landscape. There is cabbage for the mountains, colored rice and egg for a setting sun. Not to mention the rolls and well organised food to give the entire bento not just visual content but nutritional as well. I don't know much about her. All I know is that she does alot of classes in bento-ing as she does this mostly for her kids. There are pics in her book of her kids eating the most intricate bentos like no big deal. I'd almost feel terrible to see hours worth of work go into their mouths. I guess the true testimonial to dedication to your children.

Here is another :

This one is great since it shows an incredible sense of humor. I don't suspect her kids ate this one. Or maybe they did. And here for your enjoyment :

I wonder whose stomachs would turn and who would eat it hungrily.

Check out the contents. Lots of seaweed but lots of pumpkin, egg rolls wrapping everything from imitation crab leg to okra, beans and carrots, there are strawberries, apple slices - basically the most balanced meal a kid could ask for. And they would eat it all up.

I wish I was able to read her book - also again in kanji - since there are sections devoted to how she transfers facial designs to the ham or bologne slices. I'll just have to wait until a friend of mine translates it for me.

And in closing....

Mozart (notes on an egg !!) and

A take-off from a famous woodblock print with Mount Fuji in the background.

I wish I could find her internet site but I couldn't. So, navigate....and let me know if you find something.

Bento Books

Over the past year or so, I have purchased a few books about bentos (as previously mentioned below for recipes) and bento making. But a few books have ended up being for inspiration more than anything also because I was able to find them only in Japanese (of which I cannot read). In any case, I am seeing that many of these types of books are becoming available as bento and lunch boxing becomes more popular in western cultures.

So, for a few posts, I will dedicate some time to the people who have dedicated their time to their kids and then to passing on ideas and advice to others when it comes to bento building.

First up is Mari Miyazawa who's internet blog e-obento was one of the first I came across. With the help of Babelfish, you can understand quite alot on her site. But more to the point I discovered she has written a few books. The one I purchased is called "Fantasic Lunchbox" (111 pages), and I found it only on amazon.jp (amazon Japan).

What makes this book fun is that even though I was unable to understand what has been written, I could easily get tons of ideas on how to create new and interesting combinations of food. Some are quite straight forward whereas others are almost impossibile to understand or replicate since not all kinds of food stuffs are available where I am (or maybe where you are).

The book is very well organised. It starts out by presenting bentos by season meaning first lunch boxes with a spring theme (for example certain flowers or events which take place in the spring time), then into summer (with a fantastic bridal bento), into fall with it's harvest themes then finally into winter with christmas symbols and santa too.

There are then sections dedicated to color and all the different foods used to achieve certain chromatic additions to the lunch boxes. Chopped up pickles and avocado for two different tones of green, chopped up ham for pink and scrambled egg for yellow and so on.

Then she divides the book into special events such as the first day of school complete with boys or girls in school uniforms and backpaks. Birthdays, sports events, anniversaries, arrival of a newborn, housewarming and holidays. Each is presented as an actual bento in that one part is often full of food with no particular design and the other half of the bento has the design or is the visual part of the presentation. As I've shown in previous posts, most bentos are two-tiered so it makes sense that the two parts are shown in the book to complete the idea of the entire lunch.

Part of the book is techniques and tools as well as particular ingredients. She shows how to use the same cookie cutters to achieve different shapes or animals. She has an entire section devoted to eggs, meat cutlets and another to fish paste. Here is one of those ingredients which is tough to find. Fish paste is usually white fish pressed into a block. It's sold in many shapes and sizes and even pre-prepared manga characters. Here is an example of Hello Kitty fish paste used in making sushi (thanks to Hello Kitty Hell - this guy really hates Hello Kitty)

The fish paste is pressed into blocks. When cut one way it will come out as the manga face or whatever the design is but if cut horizontally can be used for other color combinations. Mari shows many ways to use it - even as minature bento kimonos. Really fantastic.

An entire section is then dedicated to the most important staple of the japanese diet - rice. Even here the creativity in the presentation of mundane rice onigiri is amazing.

I highly reccommend purchasing this book and have high hopes that these books will be translated one day. A new book has come out and to be honest I'm quite tempted. Will have to wait till Christmas I suppose....

and here is today's bento (from Mari's site e-obento - please check it out !)

Nothing better than Halloween themes !!!!!!!! Boooo!

Sushi Party

Sushi Party April 2008 - Here is one of my spur of the moment sushi parties. Was put together last minute since I had found some excellent fresh tuna. We made tuna, shrimp and various rolls with even super hot thai sauce tuna rolls. Fabio, Rosella and Daniele ate to their full. Mini beer keg (japanese beer I believe) rounded it off. I love eating and preparing sushi. It may take a few hours to prepare a spread like this but it is sooo worth it !

Hope it inspires you to at least try something different.
It's always a pleasure to make sushi for Fabio and Rosella because they truly enjoy it. And so does their 6yr old son Daniele who shouts out for more "wasabi" every chance he gets.
Some deep fried anchovies in an inside out roll topped with Tobasco.
And some shrimp and tuna nigiri. I found these serving trays by chance at a supermarket and they work great for sushi presentation.

And the sushi vid with full presentation (in italian of course)
Sushi Party


And today's bento pic can only be of sushi :

Blog Update

It has been a while since I had put together a post so even tho the dates result the same, these blogs are actually taken from my myspace pages. So, they are not so recent. This one is from March of this year.

Well, back to some bentos. It’s been a while since I’ve updated the blog but it doesn’t mean I have been neglecting my bento making or purchases of bento material and boxes.
My latest purchase was made end last year where I found in one of my favorite sellers the nori punches I had been looking for for some time. While I bought those, I added in a few plastic food picks, some animal bottles and a new funky cheese burger bento.

It may seem small, but inside it’s quite roomy. It only cost $7.99 so definately a keeper and has proven to be one of my favorite boxes. As soon as received, I packed up this lunch for work :

In the bottom we have some P&J sandwhiches cut into flower shapes. Some prosciutto and a hot pepper and olive mini-salid. In the "lettuce" part, I made some nori, cheese slice and prosciutto roll ups and divided it from my dessert which was orange slices. Little mini crackers finished it off. The "burger" section has a fork and spoon and enough space to put in a napkin as well. Pretty funky.

I had also made one day a nice Panda Bento. I like this bento box because it’s Panda shaped but I have to be careful not to use sauces or other red based products as they will stain the white plastic. No tobasco, no meat sauces or tomato sauce of any kind. So, I stuck with salmon for this one.

I have salmon with dill sprinkles, broccoli and a cup cake holder filled with philadelphia cheese. Then I made "pancakes" for the salmon. I had eaten once at a posh french restaurant "blini" with salmon. Basically, they make pancakes, then you put slices of smoked salmon on top of them and eat. I spread philadelphia on mine, then the salmon and then a sprinkle of dill (in the red container) on top of that. Really tasty. The pancakes were a blast to make :

I had seen this woman on TV use a squeeze bottle full of pancake mix (self rising flour and an egg will do if you don’t have real pancake mix like me) to squeeze out onto the pan and make all kinds of animal shapes. I added a twist. All you have to remember is that the first layer is the one to be seen. So I made the ears, eyes nose and mouth and then filled in the rest of the head. The form fits perfectly into the bento too. Very cool and yummy to eat.

Keeping on the Panda bento theme, I had made an "ode to the panda" in his bamboo thicket.

This was fun because I created the bamboo thicket using rice, carrots and zucchini thinly sliced with a potato slicer. I actually made the face before buying the face nori punchers. So believe it or not, I did use tweezers to position it. The salad is made with carrots and radishes sprinkled with lots of salt then squeezed out. The top part of the bento has turkey slices rolled around bamboo heart. And the fruit is figs ! Don’t get to eat those often out of season.

And the last bento was made after receiving the nori punchers. I made some hard boiled egg and decorated them.

Again tweezers helped but they are tough to position. It's easier if you punch the faces out, place them on a plate then press the egg over the plate. Some salami and turkey roll ups and cheese and nori with omlette roll ups too. Small side salad of carrots and olives. And the bottom of the bento had a bunch of flowers :

Some regular brown rice was the bottom and an omlette cut up into flower shapes. Celery stalks for the stems and carrots for the centers. I have little punches in the form of dragonflies and butterflies so added those in.

So, as you can see, I still make lots of stuff when I do have time and energy. Depending on what I make, I usually only need 30 minutes to an hour to prepare. And the pancakes are prepared the night before so no big deal. I have to remind myself to take pics of the bentos tho. I have made some nice ones (food wise more than designs) with some nice recipes so I have to remember to take pics. You never know who may get inspired by my bentos.

And here is a pic of a bento which I purchased recently :

Even though the chopsticks are too long for the bag, the bento is quite spacious and a very nice quality. So, here is today's bento :
Yuck ! EVIL CLOWN BENTO !!!!!!!!!

Bento Recipes 3 & 4

Back to the blogs!


Hopefully back to my diet program so I can get back to losing a few pounds too.
During Karen's visit, I hit a shop in Florence which sells lots of international foods and found a japanese tempura mix and breadcrumbs. So, we made some tempura the night before and the day after, I had a few veggies and seafood leftover.
Tempura isn't difficult but a few factors have to be controlled otherwise the batter and final lightly fried effect won't result. The beauty of tempura is that the food is not overfried. Veggies are still crunchy and seafood is cooked just right.
The batter is made a few ways but basically a super fine self-rising cake batter should do the trick if you can't find the real japanese tempura mix. The proportion of water to flour should be enough to leave the batter thickish and not too lumpy. The water must be very very cold. I usually throw a few icecubes into some water till it's super cold. Then it gets added to the flour and you start frying right away.
Regular frying oil is ok to use but be sure it's just hot enough to cook the pieces of food right away. This is not a deep frying kind of deal where you leave stuff in till it goes all brown and too crunchy.

It's important that you don't throw too many pieces of food into the oil at the same time otherwise you will lower the temperature of the oil and the food will not cook correctly. Another important thing to remember is to make the food pretty much the same size so that it all cooks evenly. For example, don't cut your eggplant slices too thick or they won't cook inside and be overcooked on the outside. I found also that seafood is very easy but that scallops, if bought frozen, are best cooked semi-frozen still. That way they don't reduce much during cooking. Certainly, anyone living near the seaside doesn't have to worry about finding fresh sea scallops. They are excellent in tempura.
Shrimp can be shelled (with end bit of the tail remaining) and then butterflied to give them a nice appearance on the plate.
A nice dipping sauce can be made to serve with tempura. Mix a little water with vinegar and red pepper (fresh is best but flakes will do) a bit of sesame oil and seeds to top off. If you don't have a dipping sauce, soy sauce will do.
The above tempura bento has eggplant slices, scallops and shrimp.
The lower portion is chopped fresh baby shrimp, spinach with sesame seeds and sesame oil, and scrambled eggs (adding a bit of sugar, soy and mirin into the eggs before cooking them). A few grapes finish off the bento.
Just a short note on bento bags. I recently shopped at Ikea and found them selling velvet type bags in the children's department. They are intended for putting kid's toys and such but I found they are pretty good as bento bags too. I just sewed across the bottom to square them off and I can fit even my largest bento plus my utensils without trouble.


This bento contains more fish. During the summer time I can't resist using fresh fish when possible. Once the winter arrives, we return to mostly meat or veggies and the fish is always frozen.
I cooked up some chinese noodles and tossed them with just a dash of soy sauce to stop them from sticking. I topped them with fish fillets marinated in oil and parsley. Then just a sprinkle of rice seasoning on top to taste.
The main portion is sweet green peppers filled with philadelphia cheese and shrimp. The peppers are cooked over a grill or, in this case, on a grill plate over a gas stove. The cheese is used just to cover the bottom and inside of the pepper which has been slit and cleaned of it's seeds and white ribs. I've packed two sauces too – tobasco for the peppers and soy for the fish fillets. Also here a few grapes for dessert.
I have more fun and eating pleasure creating these bentos. Since every day I eat at my desk (we have no cafeteria or lunch room to speak of) and I can't go home since it's too far to get there, eat and get back in time and furthermore, there are really no places you can buy a lunch where I work, at least I look forward to lunch time knowing I have made an effort to create a tasty dish that's nice to look at too.

Here is today's bento pic :

Bento Recipe 2

This bento contains lots of things that were easy to prepare the nite before and pack up the morning after.
The top part of the bento has blanched asparagus spears sprinkled with sesame seeds and a little oil. The right hand side has some guacamole (not so much garlic since it will be eaten during lunch time at work and we don't want to kill anyone with garlic breath) sprinkled with hot habenaro pepper. And a big fat hot green pepper. I purchased small mini-pringles for dipping which didn't make it into the picture but worked out great for the guacamole.
The bottom part of the bento has Sesame chicken and ketchup for dipping. The chicken is easy to prepare. Just make a marinade of :

1 egg white
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1 inch piece of fresh ginger grated
1 small garlic clove crushed or chopped
1 tsp of sesame oil
sesame seeds

Mix all the ingredients except the seeds until you get a frothy mixture. Cut the chicken breast into bite-size chunks and throw them into the marinade. Mix well and let stand in the fridge for an hour at least.
Heat some oil in a pan (about 1/4 inch of oil) and pour the seeds into a bowl. Remove the chicken pieces and let them drip off any excess marinade, roll them around in the sesame seeds and place in the oil to cook. Cook on both sides until crispy brown. Take them from the oil and place on blotting paper to remove the excess cooking oil. Let the pieces cool down before placing them into your bento. Salt to taste.

Pretty easy if you prepare the chicken for dinner the nite before and just take a few pieces to use for your lunch the day after. Most lunches are made from left-overs or from dinners the nite before. Just make a little extra for the day after !
And here is today's bento :