nakji

Yes, I was thinking about that. He really likes sandwiches, so I thought of putting in the meat and the cheese and bread individually, with little pots of mustard and some chopped raw veggies on the side. He also really likes meatballs, so maybe the makings of a meatball sandwich. He's not a big fan of mayo, though, so most salad sandwiches are out, but coleslaw might make a good side. What he really likes are stews, chilis, and homemade soups, so I may have to reassess the budget and look at getting him a thermos set. He really likes fried chicken, and it's his dependence on local fast food chains (cough KFC cough) is what's got me looking at bentos for him. He never gains an ounce, damn him, but I do worry about all that salt.

Is Bo Luc Lac considered dumbed down Vietnamese food? I've only ever had it in Vietnam...in Vietnamese restaurants...surrounded by Vietnamese people who were also eating Bo Luc Lac. Granted, I did all my serious eating in the North...

Oh, that looks good, Ted Fairhead. Was that made in a skillet? I'm always on the lookout for recipes that don't require an oven.

Helenjp, this had me laughing until I cried. I read your post with enthusiasm, as I'm going to start preparing bentos for myself and my husband in earnest next week. I'm facing some obstacles, though. My microwave and range can't be operated at the same time, as it causes an overload on the power and plummets my apartment-pod into darkness. I don't make fresh rice in the morning, since we don't have a rice cooker, and I draw the line at getting up more than 30 minutes early to make lunch. Right now, I'm zapping leftover rice from the night before, while relying on cold veg (not reheated, from the fridge) and cold boiled eggs or tamagoyaki made the night before and kept in the fridge as sides. So prep is basically: nuke rice, leave on table to cool while I make breakfast and shower, and then before I bolt out the door, I plop in the sides from the fridge. Should I be worried about food safety with this method? Any tips on being more efficient? The other problem is that my husband, while enjoying Japanese food, considers neither rice nor leftovers from the previous night a satisfactory lunch. The leftovers are no problem - there's usually only enough for one anyway, and I can put those in my lunch. So I'll be making western-style bentos - sandwiches, and the like. Does anyone have any ideas? We don't have any thermoses, and they're not in the budget until after Christmas, nor do we have any facilities for heating up lunch. I was thinking cold chopped veggies, cheese and crackers, ploughman's lunch....? Biggie, I've been following your blog for a couple of months now, and your ideas and photos inspired me to make the leap into my own bento-ing.

Thanks for the warning! I usually pack a small cold pack in my lunch bag, but I have to be careful with food safety, since my lunch travels with me on the train for an hour in the morning, and sits in my class until I eat it at about 1 pm. I've read Helenjp's tips, and I'm adding a little vinegar and sake to my rice. But my gut is pretty hardened now, especially after Vietnam. What's atsuyaki tamago? It must be some kind of fried egg? Ce'nedra - they are store-bought gyoza - just pork, green onion and ginger filling. My students laughed when they saw gyoza in my bento. I guess they're not a standard bento filling.

My first day in Korea, my boss took us for bulgogi. There were chilis on the green plate, and Mrs. Lee encouraged me to try one. "Don't worry - they're mild!" Since I was fairly comfortable with spicy food in general, I took a big ol' bite out of one. There was not enough cider in that shop to take away the burn. I felt I had let down all foreigners in Korea by wimping out on a "mild" chili. Then Mrs. Lee tried one herself and had a similar reaction. I felt much relieved.

I used to get goat's milk yogurt at the shop beneath my school. It was really rich and delicious, and it was a creamy yellow colour. It had a skin on top that added to the flavour. A lot of cafes made yogurt cafe, where they mixed yogurt and coffee....oh, I'm missing Hanoi now!

Dr. J, you have an exceptional collection of pretty bowls. I especially like the one with the fish on it. More pictures, please. Also, the food looks good. What kind of rice did you use?

My first photo-worthy o-bento! Although lunches on my campus are criminally cheap (380 yen for a giant curry rice with 2 korroke or tonkatsu on top) I find them too salty for my taste. I made this bento with leftover takikomi-gohan (note the mushrooms have gravitated to the bottom!) and carrots from the night before. They were re-heated in the microwave while I fried some gyoza and made a hard-boiled egg to round out the box. I didn't have enough veg in the house to make it more balanced, but the meal was delicious. I had a mikan for dessert, which I shared with the campus tabbycat on the quad. I think he was more interested in the gyoza, but I didn't share those! I've gone through Torakris's kinpira thread, so I'll add that to the rotation, I think. I've seen the heat-and-eat frozen bento additions in our supermarket, but after a year and a half in Vietnam, I find I'm really sensitive to processed food now, which is funny, considering the enormous quantities of MSG I'm sure I consumed while there. Are there any other standard bento additions? I've also made tamago-yaki with some success, but onigiri are difficult for me, as I don't make fresh rice in the morning (no rice cooker yet!). The box is just a plastic container I got at the 100 yen store, not a real bento.

Oh yeah, that was totally margarine. My favourite butter is 'Snow Brand Fermented Butter" - it's one of the few in my super market that is visibly salted. The rest seem to be unsalted, so I'd guess that most people here prefer a mild butter.

The meatballs are made with ground chicken, and maybe some seasonings like green onion and ginger. I pick them up in the meat department. The sauce is a 1:1 mix of mirin and soy, reduced a little. As for the mirin, I thought about that, like, 10 minutes after posting. But I'd have to get my hands on good mirin. Do you think it would go well with olive oil and butter?

I went to a matsuri in Hon Kawagoe, outside of Tokyo, last weekend, and in between snapping pictures of the incredible shrines making the procession around the historic streets, we managed to get some pictures of all the yummy food on offer. I would have eaten even more, but for a delicate stomach resulting from overindulgence in some really fine Japanese wheat beer the night before. Takoyaki, with extra tentacles: Okonomiyaki: Is it Osaka or Hiroshima style? Formed "steak" with cornbread. Not all that great, actually. Karaage - this did more for my hangover than anything else all day. So light! So gingery! Succulent! Butter Potatoes - Please, sir - I don't think you gave me enough butter. Can I have some more? And finally, for dessert.... Mmmm, bananas....what hangover?

Pasta! Venison Pie! Refrigerator soup! Oh My! I've let my posting lapse while trying to figure out the macro on my husband's new camera. My camera is one plug adapter short of being fully charged, so I finally gave up and went back to my husband's old camera. Now I have to pause and wonder why my house has three cameras but nothing to bake in. There is no decent answer to this question. Recent dinners: Thinly sliced pork, rubbed inside with grainy mustard and wrapped around asparagus. Pan-fried and served over garlic mashed potato. Chicken "marsala" - actually, "Chicken Cheap Red Wine". Anyone know where to buy real Marsala in Tokyo? This is one of the few dishes my husband can actually cook. Served with a loaf of fresh bread and a salad of baby beet greens with sesame dressing. My husband cooked it as a gesture of goodwill, after I spent the day tromping around at the motor show, holding his swag bag while he took photos of motorcycles and models. Tonight, chicken meatballs with teriyaki sauce, as per Hiroyuki's ratio, with mushroom rice - I can't remember if they were matsutake or maitakes. They started with an "m", anyway. And eternal carrots. They're cheap.

What great pictures, Dodie! I've been to Ichon several times, once with my mother. We had an amazing baek ban meal there with Ichon ssal. My boss drove us, and we couldn't stop for lunch until she had stopped at least three other cars and canvassed locals on the best place to take foreigners to eat true Ichon ssal. I sneaked away during the meal and paid the bill before she could get it. What a great memory!

That photo is beautiful, Pille. I wish my husband liked eggplant, I'd make this for dinner! All of the pictures of apple pie are killing me!

The event in question took place early in the nineties, pre-internet availability. Not having any convenient Americans about to question, I proceeded sans common sense. What can I say? I was young then.

When I read a recipe that calls for a "stick" of butter, I immediately throw the book across the room. Excuse me, but WTF is a stick of butter*? My butter comes in pounds, thankyouverymuch. The first time I read a recipe calling for stick, I blithely put a whole pound of butter in, thinking that, while it certainly looked like a stumpy sort of stick, what else could they be referring to? You can imagine how the recipe turned out. And how pissed off I was to waste a whole pound of real butter. *yes, yes, I know I can google it.

Oh. My. Goodness. Those look delicious. The ratio of icing to roll is perfect.

I love soup. I wish I had an immersion blender so I could make more of it. I was worried coming home tonight because it's night-before-payday, and all I had in the fridge was a chicken breast and some random scraps of vegetables and things. But I got inspired when my husband revealed he dipped into our reserve for a Thursday night pick-me-up bottle of riesling. So I rose to the challenge, and filleted the chicken breast into three pieces, stuffed them with garlic scapes and grainy mustard, and wrapped them with bacon. I pan seared them, and finished in the pan with the cover on. A little cream would have been nice for a pan sauce, and some toothpicks to hold them together, but I didn't have any. Still tasted great, though.

Yo, I was worried. I used to live in Incheon, and I was like, "Incheon? Why the hell did he go to Incheon?". But Icheon is much nicer. I have never been to Ichon. This message has been brought to you by my Thursday night bottle of wine. Thank you.

Sapporo and Krispy Kreme donuts and ddalk galbi were pretty much what defined my weekends in Korea! Can you believe you they give them away free? We used to make our friend who was allergic to wheat go through the line with us and we'd eat his, too. Good times, good times. Fried chicken was a Thursday night thing, my husband and I would go out and get a plate, a pitcher of beer, and I'd eat as many pickled radishes I could until I got a stomachache. The Family Mart was always our last stop before catching a cab back to the burbs around 4 am on Sunday morning. We'd stock up on tuna mayonnaise rolls and Pocari Sweat to fortify ourselves for the long drive back to Incheon. There was a fabulous duck restaurant we used to go to in Ilsan, where you grilled duck galbi-style, and they bury sweet potatoes in your ashes - at the end of the meal we would fight over them! There were always bonfires burning outside and we had to wait at least a half-hour to get in. It was called Canna An. MMMmmmm, duck fat. We also used to go to a killer pork place in Sinchon, in the back alleys (isn't that always where the best restaurants are?) called Don Mania, and the adjumma there made the best kimchi - no shrimp, and she aged it for 6 months before she served it in the restaurant. She always gave me a little doggy bag to carry home, because I loved it sooo much. *Sigh.

Just regular old COPs - carrot, onion, and potato. I love the rice in Japan! Unfortunately, I have to cook it on the stovetop, so it's always dicey if it's going to turn out or not. Last night, it did. Yeah, that's pretty much why I took up cooking in the first place. Continuing on my tour of Japan's least healthy dishes, tonight I made yakisoba, right out of the package. I think I've discovered the Japanese version of Kraft Dinner. Put the noodles in the pan and add powder! (And veg, and chicken, but minor details..) Dessert was the remains of yesterday's kitkat. But I was dreaming of Dodie's apple pie.

angeljolie:I love a good cephalopod! C. Sapidus: Garlic scapes taste more like mild garlic, with the texture of young spears of asparagus. I love them, and they're super cheap here. I often use them in place of long beans when I make a Thai green curry, and they're great cold, with sesame dressing. Dodie: I knew it! Marlene: I shake my fist at your perfect potato rosti. Did you parboil the potatoes before frying them? Tonight was curry rice, perfect for a cold drizzly day in Tokyo when all of your trains have been running late. The last time I made curry rice, I doubled the amount of potatoes and carrots I prepped, and froze half. I took them out of the freezer this morning, and they were ready to put right into the curry when I made it this evening. Timesaver tip! We had "eternal" cucumbers on the side. They're such an easy vegetable to prep for dinner! Dessert was a "marron" kitkat, for the fall season.

Oh my goodness, those look gorgeous. I love eggplant in all forms. Do you eat those as an accompaniment to something, or as a plates with olives, dips, etc.? Lebanese food was quite popular where I grew up (in Nova Scotia - would you agree, Peter?), but I mostly just remember shwarma gulped down after a night of drinking. I'd love to see what dishes are served at home.

Mmmmmmayotard. I love mayo and mustard mixed together. That looks like it was eaten in about two minutes flat. Am I right? Dinner tonight was stir-fried pork with ginger and garlic scapes. Due to an aborted attempt at rosti Saturday night (who knew you had to cook the potatoes before grating?) we had latkes for dinner. Here's one before my husband scarfed it down.