Due in part to the lovely @goblinbox’s frequent mentions of bento boxes and their awesomeness, and especially because of a recent post which she put together on Bento strategery, I’ve taken the plunge!

Here’s what Wikipedia says about Bento:

Bento (弁当, bentō) is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables, usually in a box-shaped container. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware. Although bento are readily available in many places throughout Japan, including convenience stores, bento shops (弁当屋, bentō-ya), train stations, and department stores, it is still common for Japanese homemakers to spend time and energy for their spouse, child, or themselves producing a carefully prepared lunch box.

I get fresh vegetables and various other foods delivered to my home by Spud, but I rarely wind up using everything, because I don’t eat breakfast and I’m never home for lunch. My mornings are far too rushed (get up earlier? Are you effin’ keeding me?) to make lunches, and that means I wind up spending unnecessary dollars on a downtown Seattle lunch when I could be bringing something delicious from home instead. (And eating out on a regular basis completely ruins the whole notion of portion control.) But I’m an adult, and my hope is that the fun element of bento will help motivate me to assemble lunches the night before and just stick them in the fridge so I can just grab them in the morning. Healthier, cheaper, cuter, and yummier. That’s my goal.

I’m also not really an adult, and squee slightly at the lovely pictures of Kyaraben that float all over the internets, but I am not sure I can bring myself to make cute-ass bento only just for myself. That is why it is good to have a sister who lives with you!

I wanted a box that would be simple, cute (but not too cute), with 2 or more compartments, and at least one that could seal up and hold slightly-wet foods. And I sort of hoped it would fit in my messenger bag. So I went over to Bento&Co and got the blue and green Iro Iro Argyle Set.

These are lovely solid-color boxes with a 600ml total capacity. For $60, I got two boxes…

My cat does not know that this picture is not supposed to be of her.

Lovely Argyle carrying bags…

And chopsticks with their own carrying case!

I also got us each a set of My Cutlery, which come in their own small box…

And can be assembled to make a spoon, a fork…

Or chopsticks!

I don’t plan on making anything that will need a knife, nor is that really (as far as I can tell) the Bento Way.

I also got some cutie-pants bento things.

All these bright colors make me go eeeeeeee!

The flat round things are for thick sauces (hummus, dips); the little bottles are for thin sauces (soy sauce, vinegar dressing). These, of course, are totally practical. Slightly less defensible are the cute as crap panda bear picks.

But I bought them anyway.

Last week, I went on down to Uwajimaya, Seattle’s reigning Asian food palace (calling it a “market” seems diminutive), to get some authentic bento foods of various sorts. While I’m not against the idea of sticking in westernized substances such as cheese and crudités and so on, I nonetheless love any opportunity to play around with food, and Japanese food is a sort I’m less acquainted with than many another. (I say “less” because I’m pretty good with sushi, but there’s a lot of Japanese food that’s not sushi. And to anyone out there who tries to argue the “You wanted something cheaper, but you have to go out and buy extra food” line on me: dude, have you ever been to an Asian food market? It’s like the cheapest food there is…)

Here’s the haul:
In the back row, from left to right: furikake (a seasoning made of seaweed, sesame seeds, and yum), pickled ginger, seasoned rice vinegar, black sesame seeds, and kim chee.
On the left: umeboshi (pickled plums), green tea, fruit snacks. (I didn’t get the fruit snacks at the Asian food market, but eventually they’re going to wind up in the bentos…)
Center: sushi nori (for playing with, basically), bonito flakes (fish seasoning that flavors all sorts of Japanese food).
Right: pickled radish. (This looks weird as hell, I know, but it makes a great palate-cleanser. I spent a week once at a Zen Buddhist monastery, and we ate pickled daikon with every meal. Om nom nom!)

A few notes on these. This is one of the most delicious things you can ever put in your mouth:

and since apparently onigiri with umeboshi inside is a traditional type of onigiri, well, that’ll be happening.

Fear not: this will never be going in the bento boxes. It is strictly for at-home consumption, because I do not hate my coworkers, and I’m pretty sure that kim chee is considered only slightly more acceptable in civilized places than durians are.

More things that will be going in the boxes:

Snacky crackers! And…

Sweets! I think most folks around here are familiar with Pocky (chocolate or strawberry-flavoring-dipped little stick-cookies); the other items here are, from the top: ginger candy, plum candy, toasted sesame-filled mochi, and bean paste-filled wheat cakes.

So, I’m excited; I’ve been busy enough with the upkeep of other parts of my life lately (friends, career, blahdeeblah) that I haven’t had as much time and energy as I once did to have foodventures. But this is a good start, and I’m already a little bit in love with it all. For tonight, though…

The most beautiful bottle of absinthe I’ve ever seen, I think.

Well, I’ve done it, folks — joined Daring Kitchen. This is the first recipe I’ve cooked for the site! The post started out with an intro from our host:

Hi all, this is Olga from Las Cosas de Olga and Olga’s Recipes and I’m pleased to be your host at August Daring Cooks Challenge. I’ve chosen a delicious Spanish recipe, Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes by José Andrés, one of the most important Spanish Chefs at the moment.

I have very little need for Lots of Food on my own, so I made this for my parents at their house. They both expressed grave doubts about the edibility of squid in general, and especially the squid I made after it had been cooking so long. But in the end, we all were pretty happy with the way it came out; they even asked for seconds.

Mmm, tentacle-y.

My mom is on the “Sugar Busters” diet, so the one major substitution I made was to use brown rice; accordingly I left out the saffron/turmeric, since I’m not really sure what it would have been coloring.

As you’ll see, it came out looking pretty much like a big plate of glorp, something Calvin would stab at and make disgusted faces — but it tasted great! This was my first time making aïoli (I’ve actually made it since), and I’ll freely admit that I probably should have worked it up a bit more to try to get some creaminess going, or maybe used the more modern recipe with raw eggs. Ah, well — next time… here’s the original recipe:

Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes
Cooking time: 45 minutes

4 Artichokes (you can use jarred or freezed if fresh are not available)
12 Mushrooms (button or Portobello)
1 or 2 Bay leaves (optional but highly recommended)
1 glass of white wine
2 Cuttlefish (you can use freezed cuttlefish or squid if you don’t find it fresh)
Sofregit (see recipe below)
2 cups short grain rice (Spanish types Calasparra or Montsant are preferred, but you can choose any other short grain. This kind of rice absorbs flavor very well) – about ½ cup per person
Water or Fish Stock (use 1 ½ cup of liquid per ½ cup of rice)
Saffron threads (if you can’t find it or afford to buy it, you can substitute it for turmeric or yellow coloring powder)
Allioli (olive oil and garlic sauce, similar to mayonnaise sauce) - optional

1 ) Cut the cuttlefish in little strips.
2 ) Add 1 or 2 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and put the cuttlefish in the pan.
3 ) If you use fresh artichokes, clean them as shown in the video in tip #7. Cut artichokes in eights.
4 ) Clean the mushrooms and cut them in fourths.
5 ) Add a bay leaf to the cuttlefish and add also the artichokes and the mushrooms.
6 ) Sauté until we get a golden color in the artichokes.
7 ) Put a touch of white wine so all the solids in the bottom of the get mixed, getting a more flavorful dish.
8 ) Add a couple or three tablespoons of sofregit and mix to make sure everything gets impregnated with the sofregit.
9 ) Add all the liquid and bring it to boil.
10 ) Add all the rice. Let boil for about 5 minutes in heavy heat.
11 ) Add some saffron thread to enrich the dish with its flavor and color. Stir a little bit so the rice and the other ingredients get the entire flavor. If you’re using turmeric or yellow coloring, use only 1/4 teaspoon.
12 ) Turn to low heat and boil for another 8 minutes (or until rice is a little softer than “al dente”)
13 ) Put the pan away from heat and let the rice stand a couple of minutes.

I should have used more, or larger, tomatoes, I think.

Sofregit
Cooking time: aprox. 1 hour
(a well cooked and fragrant sauce made of olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and onions, and may at times
different vegetables such as peppers or mushrooms)

2 tablespoons of olive oil
5 big red ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 small onions, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped (optional)
4 or 5 garlic cloves, chopped
1 cup of button or Portobello mushrooms, chopped (optional)
1 Bay leaf
Salt
Touch of ground cumin
Touch of dried oregano

1 ) Put all the ingredients together in a frying pan and sauté slowly until all vegetables are soft.
2 ) Taste and salt if necessary (maybe it’s not!)

Delicious glorp!

Allioli is the optional part of the recipe. You must choose one of the two recipes given, even though I highly recommend you to try traditional one. Allioli is served together with the rice and it gives a very nice taste.

Allioli (Traditional recipe)
Cooking time: 20 min aprox.
Ingredients:

4 garlic cloves, peeled
Pinch of salt
Fresh lemon juice (some drops)
Extra-virgin olive oil (Spanish preferred but not essential)

Directions:

1 ) Place the garlic in a mortar along with the salt.
2 ) Using a pestle, smash the garlic cloves to a smooth paste. (The salt stops the garlic from slipping at the bottom of the mortar as you pound it down.)
3 ) Add the lemon juice to the garlic.
4 ) Drop by drop; pour the olive oil into the mortar slowly as you continue to crush the paste with your pestle.
5 ) Keep turning your pestle in a slow, continuous circular motion in the mortar. The drip needs to be slow and steady. Make sure the paste soaks up the olive oil as you go.
6 ) Keep adding the oil, drop by drop, until you have the consistency of a very thick mayonnaise. If your allioli gets too dense, add water to thin it out. This takes time—around 20 minutes of slow motion around the mortar—to create a dense, rich sauce.

José’s tips for traditional recipe: It’s hard to think that, when you start crushing the garlic, it will ever turn into something as dense and smooth as allioli. But don’t give up. It’s worth the extra time and effort to see the oil and garlic come together before your eyes. Just make sure you’re adding the olive oil slowly, drop by drop. Keep moving the pestle around the mortar in a circular motion and keep dreaming of the thick, creamy sauce at the end of it all.

Here are a few iPhone apps I’ve got on my phone, and am loving:

Big Oven - There are dozens, really, of recipe-compilation iPhone apps, but so far, this is my favorite. It speedily accesses its online database of 170,000+ recipes and classifies by dietary restrictions, ratings, type of cuisine, and more! It will even pick a random recipe from its trove if you ask it to, so if you find yourself stuck at the grocery store with no brilliant ideas of what to cook, you’ll find a shopping list appearing in your hands. Photos of their recipes are rather inspirational, too…

Cocktail Compass: Seattle - This is all about finding hours and specs on Seattle’s Happy Hour. It uses location services to show you what’s closest, and then goes on to tell you how much time you have to get there before Happy Hour ends. Tap on an interesting-looking entry, and you’ll get details on what that location’s Happy Hour involves, as well as a map to them, a call button, and an option to add them to your favorites list. No longer must you wander downtown like a lost, thirsty puppy!

Yelp - It’s just as good as the full website is, with hundreds of restaurant reviews, hours, phone numbers, and details. Even better, it integrates with maps and location services to tell you what’s nearby, and how to get there. You can search by ethnicity, price range, and more, and build up a list of favorites to come back to.

Open Table - So you’ve found a restaurant that looks great, is nearby, and in your price range. Of course, it’s only two in the afternoon, and you need a table for six, but no one’s answering the phone at the restaurants. Open Table will allow you to make reservations online instantly, for free. The one caveat I’d have for this is that the selection of restaurants available via Open Table, while large, is not Every Restaurant in Seattle. Yet.