My almost eleven year old daughter has revealed a new bento creating challenge for me. Although she is technically still a junior for another year, at their school the last year of juniors is incorporated into the senior school. She informs me after her senior department taster day that her lunch break will be a little shorter than she's been used to, and the lunch culture of the department is a lot more serious. This means that really complex looking food art creations might be out and needing to be replaced with simpler fare. I'm hoping that this doesn't mean I need to completely avoid a little touch of cuteness here and there, but I'll see how it goes. Since she still wants to take in bento style lunches, 'serious' ones or otherwise, I'm just pleased she'll be having her usual nutritionally balanced lunch.
As well as back-to-school bento, I'm going to be making my office bento a more regular thing. I will often go to great lengths to create healthy bento for the children and then let myself down with a lunch of a quite unnecessarily huge pot of leftover pasta or rice. All carbohydrate. It usually leaves me sleepy and unable to concentrate after lunch on those bento-tardy days.
Here is an example of one of my office bento over the summer. Leftover thai red vegetable curry and sticky rice. Not terribly attractive, but it was a controlled portion size and quite nutritious.
