bento #26

We had friends over for a living room picnic bento party this afternoon. I made inari-zushi for the first time. It took us forever to find the abura-age (deep fried tofu pockets), but find them we did, and these little morsels were a hit, I think. I’m definitely making them again. The dumplings turned out yummy, as usual, thank goodness. I’d hate for people to come over and have them turn out yucky. I made three types of maki: carrot, red pepper, and baked tofu. There were all sorts of veggies and fruits and other sweets for people to eat, as well as cheeze and fauxlogne (that’s veggie bologne), and nori for garnishing.

Everyone seemed to enjoy filling their bento boxes and decorating their food (and eating it, of course). We made our lunches for tomorrow out of the leftovers. I’m sure there will be comments from my coworkers about it. Of course I love showing off my food, but there have been a couple of comments that have been really confusing. Not annoying or anything, just odd. Friday, for example, I was working in a different building than the one I usually work in, and so had lunch with different people. One person asked, “where’d you get that?” And I told them which store, to which she replied, “you buy your lunch their every day?” And on Thursday, another person asked, “Is it reusable?” This question really confused me, because, why would I buy a lunch box and not reuse it. People keep assuming that I buy the boxes with the food already in it, which I suppose would be really flattering (they must look good, eh?), if I understood right away that’s what they were asking. Instead, I just sort of look at them with a confused expression, until it dawns on me that I should probably explain that I pack my own lunches the night before.

Anyway, it was very fun to have people over to have lunch with us, bento style. Thank you all for eating with us, and I hope you all will enjoy your bento boxes and make yummy (and cute) lunches for yourself.