I'm Katie, 17, live in Germany, and I'm going to tell you about my first attempts at "lunch in a box" or, to use the original term, Bento.
As Wikipedia puts it, Bento (å¼å½“ bentÅ)is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine.
For some more general information on bento, see http://lunchinabox.net/ (they have a great forum, too), and http://justbento.com/
I started reading about bento on the sites linked above just yesterday, and I'm not embarrassed to admit I spent hours reading every single post and browsing bento stores online
![Embarassed :oops:](./images/smilies/icon_redface.gif)
So I thought this was a great way of taking food with me - especially since I'm on No S - when I know I won't get home until late in the afternoon, but unfortunately, I'm never home later than 4:20 pm or so, so that's when I have lunch (you may think that's late, but it's common for seniors in Gernany to just bring their own breakfast to school and eat it there, and not have lunch until they get home in the afternoon). But I just remembered that this semester's schedule will be different - I'll have school until 5:30 pm on mondays, and won't be able to go home in between classes. The good thing about this is that I'll have a 45 minute break at 3:10 pm, so that's perfect for lunch. I don't want to buy fast food every week, though - it's expensive, and not very healthy, either. The solution for this? BENTO.
That's right, I'll start making bento at least once a week from now on. And if you want to, you can read all about it right here.
I started by figuring out what size bento box I need (if you're interested, check out this chart from lunchinabox.net). It's 600 ml, and I happened to find a Tupperware container in our pantry that has that capacity and is square and shallow - perfect for bento!
![Image](http://up.picr.de/6054595.jpg)
And being the girly girl that I am, I just had to jazz it up a little bit, using this equipment:
![Image](http://up.picr.de/6054596.jpg)
First I cleaned the lid (there's our family name written on there in Sharpie) with nail polish remover. Then I put stickers with my mom's address on the inside of the lid, and on the box itself:
![Image](http://up.picr.de/6054597.jpg)
Lastly, I added some cute stickers:
![Image](http://up.picr.de/6054598.jpg)
Et voilà - my bento box. And it didn't even cost me a fortune
![Cool 8)](./images/smilies/icon_cool.gif)
So my plan for tonight is to cook something for my family - rice, perhaps? - and then put the leftovers in the box, leave it in the fridge over night, and just add some fruit in the morning.
Questions, comments, feedback?