Style Tips Received!

I asked my Japanese friend to look at yesterday's Bento. She was tickled I tried. She said 'Bento! Bonzai!' Of course, my first try had no method. I just threw things in. This is yesterday's breakfast for my hubby. Not bad, but no style.

Style tip (not quite stated this way): color + food = yum!

She said the more color you pack in with the food, the more 'wow factor' you'll have when you open the box. All of the pretty colors will make you want to eat your food.

Here is today's try at Bento for hubby. Breakfast is on the bottom. Lunch is on the top.

Breakfast (clockwise) = egg, grapes, orange slices, grapes, toast, ham, tomato

Lunch (clockwise) = crackers, tuna salad, celery sticks, orange slices, mustard, tomato, crackers and cheese, carrots

This looks a little bit better. At least, he'll have more choices and snacks to choose from.

Here's my lunch. This is much better for me. You can see I have pretty much everything he has between his two meals.

After work, yesterday, I went shopping for Bento stuff and foods with color. I bought the cupcake papers, the divided trays, the metal cups and the green silicone cups to hold rolly things like the egg. I bought apples, carrots, grapes, celery, tomatoes and oranges. I was running low on staple foods that hubby will eat.

Here's a pic of the cups I bought.

The green one on the left is called a 'pinch cup'. Supposedly for a pinch of this and a pinch of that. I like the little pedestal on the bottom of this. I like this so nothing will roll and you can actually put a lot of stuff into it. This comes two to a pack for under $2. See the Bento pics for size reference. The egg is a medium-sized egg.

The metal one on the right is a sauce cup. It holds 2.5 oz. This comes four to a pack for under a dollar. We can probably spread the tuna on 3 of the 4 plain crackers I put in our lunches.

Both of these cups fit nicely into the divided trays. They were cheap, too...all the better.

I can hardly wait to start using leftovers for more surprising lunches.

Now, I'll have to see what my friend says about this try at Bento.

Thanks, Yuri!

Happy Bento-ing!