Charlotte's Bento Box Lunch!

Hello readers!
I was trying to think of something fun and/or interesting to write about by way of introducing myself to you, but in the end I decided Kim was right (as I usually do), and settled on food. Lunch, to be exact. Charlotte’s lunch.


In my quest to keep lunches interesting and edible for my dear daughter, I stumbled across the art of Bento. Typically this is a Japanese art, as many are probably familiar from trips to the Sushi bar. It is delightfully easy to adapt to any cuisine however, as I (and others before me) have done for the preschool set. How do you make a Bento box for a child's lunch? Keep in mind, a Bento is really just a lunch box, only way cuter. The idea is to make it as appealing to the eyes as it will be to the smell and to the taste. Variety is key; variety in food groups, in colors and textures, and even in shapes and sizes. The picture here is Charlotte’s lunch for tomorrow: half a mini-bagel, a piece of cheese, a boiled egg (rendered as Mr. H. Dumpty, tragic hero of the nursery rhyme), and fruit that was meant to spell out "love", but rather looks like "lovi". The fruit is stuck on with a bit of honey. I was tempted to use peanut butter, but Charlotte has no love for peanut butter, and that is, of course, the most important part of any school lunch -- The child should want to eat it.
Yama