I know, it’s been a while. But I am here to cheer you up hopefully in these rather dire times! Real Bento: Fresh and Easy Bentos from a Japanese Working Mom is a cookbook by a popular bento blogger in Japan called Kanae Inoue. She takes a very pragmatic, streamlined…
I’m so behind on blogging now, but the good part of that is I don’t have to stress so much about having pictures. I just have to find time to process them and write a quick post! When I have nothing queued up, it’s so much stress. I made this…
I meant to post this last week, but I ended up with too many things going on. This was Mikia’s lunch on… Thursday, I think? I had bagged up the rice we didn’t eat from two nights before so that I could make fried rice. It was good to use…
Gah! Halloween is in just over a week, and I only just put my Halloween wreath up today! I’m awful. I’m also in a sandwich bento rut. My stubborn son refuses to eat anything but ham sandwiches. I’ve noticed lately he tends to do this—eats something constantly, every day, until…
Wow, is it seriously Thursday already? On Monday night, my eczema itching was really bad, so I took some of my prescription anti-itching meds, and I took two (the bottle says I can take 1-2) because it was driving me crazy. Turns out, two is like cranking up the drowsy…
Okay, so I officially survived fall break. Mr. D drove me slightly bonkers, but we got to spend a lot of time together, which was nice too. Mikia had a sleepover approximately 99% of the break, either here or at someone else’s house, and Buddy was quite content blobbing out…
Okay, so yesterday I mentioned that my bento things for Mr. D were supposed to be coming in, and they arrived right on time. I was all set to make him sandwiches, but then I remembered that I needed to ask him what he wanted. Good thing I did, because…
HAPPY OCTOBER! It’s officially my favorite month of the year, and it’s totally time to bust out all the Halloweeny bento stuff. No update on Mr. D’s lunch yesterday, as he forgot his bento box in his classroom. He claims he ate the muffin and a whole half sandwich, plus…
Woohoo! It’s Friday, and I’ve made it through an entire week of bentos for Mr. D. I feel dead inside but happy. I’m just kidding. I do feel tired, though. I really need to make myself go to bed earlier, especially since I recently moved my morning alarm up fifteen…
I got two of Mr. D’s lunch boxes back yesterday. The chicken sandwich one was pretty much what he’d told me. He’d eaten a whole half and then bitten the other. He ate the muffin but left all the fruits (argh!). So I guess he’s pretty reliable when it comes…
Happy Friday! I’ve got only a slightly better update on yesterday’s lunch: He ate all the hot dog rolls, but then he started to feel full (see previous note about muffin being eaten first), and he decided to save his ham and cheese sandwiches for after school. Only, being five,…
Doom. Gloom. <insert expression of failure> Yeah, I got the dreaded full lunchbox back, just as I’d feared. Despite a hopeful morning, when it came lunchtime, all he did was pick at the Bantam Bagel and eat one piece of strawberry. The rest came home untouched. The reasons? The food…
As you may know, I was kind of away from this site for a while. Although I was still writing about food here and there, and about various topics related to Japan and Japanese culture, I have been rather absent from the world of bentos. Well OK, I did write…
I’ve noticed that several kyaraben/charaben (cute bento) oriented Japanese bento blogs are scaling back on the intricacy of their bentos recently. It gets very warm and humid in the summer throughout most of Japan, so food safety is a big issue. Complicated charaben require a lot of handling of the…
The Just Bento Cookbook 2: Make Ahead, Easy, Healthy Lunches to Go is the sequel to the best-selling The Just Bento Cookbook. It contains almost all new recipes (with the exception of a handful of “classics”), and is designed to expand your bento making repertoire, as well as increase your…
The long neglected sister site of Just Hungry is finally back! It hasbeen rebuilt from the bones, with a new mobile device friendly design and more. Read about the changes. I have also finally added a more comprehensive description of ust The Just Bento Cookbook 2, and what distinguishes it…
It’s been a very long time – years, in fact. But, the site has finally been revamped from the ground up. It now displays properly on mobile devices without having to pinch and zoom, and it should hopefully be a bit easier and faster to navigate. There are some changes…
It’s been a while since I updated the information about The Just Bento Cookbook – 7 long years in fact. It’s still in print (it has actually gone through double-digit printings!) and still doing very well. And I’m happy to announce that an ebook edition will finally be relieased on…
