Giraffes are Cool

Hi there, world!  It feels like forever since I last had time to post.  Summer was crazy busy and tons of fun with adventures, lots of travel, lots of camps, kittens and my first semester back in school.  For A-chan's first day as a second grader she requested a Giraffe bento.  (One of her favorite summer memories was getting to feed a giraffe at Zoo Atlanta.)  Since I spent part of the summer practicing to perfect egg sheets, I was delighted to be able to use some in the first bento of the new school year!

In the bento: Two onigiri covered with egg sheet, grapes, cheddar cheese blocks, Morningstar Farms soy sausage links, steamed broccoli, pomegranate seeds and clementine wedges.

Mr. Giraffe has soy turkey for his spots, white eggsheet and nori facial details, black sesame seeds for his nose and soba noodles with corn kernals for antennae.  The large egg sheets for Mr. Giraffe were loosely  wrapped over the onigiri and held in place with the food that was packed around him.  The little hearts are cut from white egg sheet with nori hearts on top.

Though bentos were being made during the summer, most of the pictures have been ruminating on my computer without being posted.  I was extremely lax about anything online while I focused on studying for school. While I enjoyed my classes immensely I was unprepared for the wild amount of work necessary
in a summer session.  I can't wait to get back into the routine of bento making and I'm looking forward to catching up on everything and reconnecting with everyone!

Sumatran Tiger

A-chan and I love the zoo.  We could both sit around and watch the animals for hours.  A lot of our favorites are the big cats.  Sometimes we watch them with fascination and compare their actions to those of our house cats whose antics are an endless source of entertainment.  The Sumatran Tigers are high on my list of personal favorites and when I decided to challenge myself to a complicated bento, it was with the tigers in mind.

This is my first attempt at an 'art' bento and although there are several flaws, I'm very happy with the results! At two hours, this is the most time consuming bento I've made.  And I learned a lot doing it - things that will make it faster next time and a huge amount about the tigers themselves.  Despite my admiration for the big cuties, I couldn't say that I appreciated their stripes and facial designs the way I do now.

In the bento:  Rice, egg sheets, radish sprouts, a halved strawberry, steamed edamame, fried tofu, baby corn and black plum slices.

The tiger's face was made with layers of orange egg sheet, white egg sheet, soy bologna and nori.  His eyes are one layer of white egg sheet, a second layer of nori, a layer of bologna, a green iris cut from edamame, nori pupils and white egg sheet highlights.  I stuck short pieces of uncooked somen noodles into the egg sheets for the whiskers.  Originally I had planned to put lovely green grass around and behind the tiger but I got lazy and stuck a few radish sprout tops on instead.

We were staying home today with no need for a bento.  After it was finished came the inevitable question, "Who gets to eat that bento, mommy?"  Before we came to blows over it, I bribed her with a pbj and claimed the bento for myself.  I promised to make her one with whichever animal she chooses after our next visit to Zoo Atlanta.

Yaki Udon at the Zoo

You guys get to see a lot of A-chan's bentos.  So for our Zoo trip day I was selfish and only took a picture of my bento.  It's not as pretty as most of hers, but still very appetizing!  Since it's Spring Break our schedule has been completely skewed so this bento was limited by the fact that I hadn't gone grocery shopping and we were out of almost everything.  But I want you to ignore the fact that there is nothing red in this bento and focus on the red flower of the bamboo pick.  Pretty red flower.

We had a great time at Zoo Atlanta, taking it slow and moseying around to see all the animals.  A-chan made a new friend while we were there, a little girl who was a year older and was very sweet. They hit it off and spent the afternoon conquering the zoo together.  I foiled the goats at the petting zoo by wearing my hair up so they couldn't eat any this time.  I know they were disappointed!

In the bento:  Yaki udon with broccoli, carrots and onions, pan sauteed tofu with black sesame seeds, a bit of cucumber, a checkered apple, a pick with grapes, a carrot flower and cucumber peel leaf.  More carrot pieces and grapes were hidden underneath the carrot flower and huge chunk of apple.

I planned to carry our bentos with me during the day to avoid the long walk back out to the car.  The yaki udon would hold up well to being carried and shifted around, I thought.  It did!  A-chan had fun trying to eat the long noodles as I had forgotten to cut hers before packing up.

It was a chilly day with overcast skies.  Happily the rain that had threatened all day held off until after we left the zoo!