My first bento, SchmoopyBoy's first "school" lunch

I really need to stop taking pictures with my lousy phone camera. The lighting is usually so bad, I can rarely even use the pictures I take with it. Anyway, I just wanted to share my first attempt at making SchmoopyBoy a bento lunch. For those of you unfamiliar with bento, it is a 'single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine' (definition by Wikepedia). For more information on bento as well as some great ideas and quality pictures of bento lunches, check out the sites Just Bento and Lunch in a Box.

For SchmoopyBoy's first day at daycare, I wanted to prepare him something fun and special. Peanuts are not allowed but almonds are, so I made him an almond butter and jelly sandwich in the shape of a dinosaur (sandwich cutout from Albertson's), with sliced cucumber, a baby carrot, a cupcake holder filled with grapes, and a slice of apple. He tends to be a bit picky these days, so I wanted to give a variety of foods so he could find something he would be willing to eat. Hopefully he'll get so hungry from all the activity that he'll eat everything. We'll see.

The container I bought at a local shop called Tokyo Discount which has tons of cute (and cheap!) bento boxes and accessories. Needless to say, I went a bit crazy. SchmoopyBoy has quite an assortment of containers to choose from. ;)

So here is a horrible picture of my first bento. I'll start using a real camera if I start making some nice bentos so I'll have some decent pictures to show.


This is a bento box from Japan. In case you can't read the phrase, it says "Let's enjoy a time with me." Cute.

-----------------------
Update @ 1:30 pm
I just picked him up. He did all right, had a few moments of "Hey, Where's Mom and Dad? I want Mom and Dad!" but overall he did well for his first day. Didn't eat much during lunch time - only the fruit. But, when I picked him up, while we were waiting for some paperwork, he decided he was hungry and ate his veggies while sitting on my lap. The dinosaur sandwich, I'm sorry to say, was a flop. A cute flop, but a flop nonetheless. Oh well, we'll work on it.