Dharma Initiative Bento

Yesterday I received in the mail a surprise package from my editor, which contained a copy of Cooking Mama 3: Shop & Chop. I dusted off my Nintendo DS and decided to play for a bit while putting Buddy to bed. Turns out he’s a born DS player. After watching me for a bit, he asked if he could do things and was able to flour a shrimp, dip it in egg wash, and coat it in panko all by himself.

This morning I had to take him to school early and he asked if he could play on the way to school. Once I set it up for him, he only had one or two questions about how to make it louder or how to get to the main menu. At age four. *boggle*

I found this to be a very nice way to avoid the usual extremely-hard-to-answer-while-driving questions such as, “Mommy, why are there trees?” or “Mommy, who makes air?”

When I did the Guitar case bento, I mentioned that the Japanese leader dude has probably been dying for a bento. Today I make something that he’d probably love to steal from the barracks.

Credit for this LOST bento idea goes completely to my cousin Jenn. I told her last week that I was completely stumped for ideas for this week and she suggested I just do a Dharma “brand” bento. This morning, I went online and found a bunch of Dharma food labels already ready to print, but obviously there weren’t any for bentos. It actually took me longer to make the label than the bento itself.

For this lunch, I decided to make it more traditional and used some leftover fish patties that my sister-in-law bought for dinner last night. I cooked rice as soon as I got up and as soon as it was done, I put some into the box to cool. Hot rice in a metal tiffin is really dangerous, especially if you aren’t aware, pick up your bento, and drop it to the floor like a hot potato.

Don’t worry, I didn’t do this, but the likelihood of me doing it was very high, so I felt I should mention it for any other accident prone bentists out there.

I cut a fish patty in half and laid it on top of the rice. Since I didn’t have shiso leaves and can never seem to remember my shiso leaves until they’re wilted anyway, I used some leaf baran. Maki left these with me when she came here in September. I put a piece of takuan on one half, then a wedge of clementine. Next to that I have cucumber and eggplant pickles in a paper food cup. The last touch was a big, fat ume in the middle of my rice.

I used the bento box I reviewed last week sold by ECO Lunchboxes, though I only used the top tier. (don’t forget that you can get 15% off by using the code ECOBENTO15 and the expiration date 3/31!) It’s a really nice size for a smaller bento. Normally you’d probably wrap it in furoshiki since the clasp is on the bottom tier, but my Dharma label was enough. A 8 1/2 x 11″ sheet wasn’t long enough to go around it, so I taped a little tab to connect the two ends on the bottom.

Tonight’s episode is called “Sundown”, and I have no idea whose episode it will be. Maybe Sun? I’m waiting for a Desmond episode!! What’s taking so long?? Anyway, happy LOST viewing!