Houston Bento Contest - Deadline 2/19!

Hello again, guys! Today I'll be talking about bento lunches, and including information at the end for Houston's annual bento contest.

Lunch time is one of the many things that the Japanese have managed to turn into a creative, intricate art. The word bento (or "Obento," as my Japanese teacher once corrected me, being the proper way for females to say it), is a word derived from a Chinese term meaning "convenient." Obento lunches are small boxes packed with yummy healthy things. They are typically a base of rice, with meat and vegetation on top. When I was in Japan, my host mom made me cute little obento boxes with tiny portions of food, like a single swirl of spaghetti, and a tiny mini sausage with a smiley face. These are a great excuse to use up small amounts of leftover dinner, rather than throwing them away because there "isn't enough for a meal."

Here is an obento I attempted prior to getting cute little cutters/molds, with poor knife skills and whatever I found in my fridge. :P I like to have bags of mixed frozen vegetables for this!

I love taking these to school. They're healthy and convenient, and believe it or not, you can fit a ton of food into these tiny containers.. but I'd rather hide in a corner with them so people don't think I'm a total nerd with my little chopsticks!

This is an attempt after getting little cutters for flowers.. Still kinda sloppy, haha. I made it for my mom to take to work. :P I wish I had a picture of the little sausage octopuses we made - you can find instructions for that here!

Most of my obento attempts are just stuffing things in a box and going off to school, rather than trying to sit down and make a masterpiece. There are some insanely creative/intricate things out there, for instance this site. I urge you to go check it out! My attempts seriously pale in comparison!

If you've been inspired to try your hand at some cute little obento lunches, a great local place to get everything you need to do this is Fit, the Japanese (two-)dollar store of Houston. Granted, it's not actually run by Japanese people, but they sell legitimate Japanese dollar store things, play Japanese music, and scream at you in Japanese when you enter/leave, so you can get the experience of being in a Japanese store.

Anyway, on to the contest part. This year, the Japan-America Society of Houston and the Japanese Consulate of Houston will host the second annual bento contest! Deadlines for submissions are Tuesday, 2/19, so get creative and eat yummy things at the same time! Anyone can enter, and all finalists get a prize. More information on the contest can be found here.