I'm Biggie: avid cook, speedy lunch packer, mom in San Francisco, & former expat fluent in Japanese. 
Lunch in a Box forum launched
I’ve just launched a new reader forum about bento and packed lunches, and wanted to invite everyone in to kick the tires and inspect the engine. Care to take a look?
One thing that’s always struck me about Lunch in a Box readers is how willing you are to jump in to and helpfully answer each other’s questions. I’ve felt that there should be a better infrastructure for people to tap into the knowledge of our tremendous reader community, like we did with the Bento Store Locator. So I’ve been toying around with starting a packed lunch forum since last summer, and have had early versions on lunchinabox.net/forum and /forums since July.
New year is a good time to start new things, so I’m throwing open the doors now. But with all of the different online lunch communities on my Lunch Links page, you might ask, “Why another?” Read the rest of this entry »
January 8th, 2009 | Categories: admin | 
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2008: My bento year in review
2008 was a year of big changes for Lunch in a Box, so I thought I’d step back a moment to look back at the highlights. I turned forty last year, so being at my own midway point may have made me more reflective than usual.
We’ll see what 2009 holds: my son’ll be starting regular kindergarten this fall, so I’m interested in seeing how a non-Japanese peer group affects his attitude towards his bento lunches. I’m looking forward to more blog changes in 2009 as well, including more bento community features and a site redesign to clean things up. Read the rest of this entry »
January 4th, 2009 | Categories: admin | Print This Post
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Poll: Why do you pack bento lunches?
Why do you pack bento-style lunches, or why do you want to?
I gradually got into bento lunches through a series of coincidences that I wrote about in my profile. I lived in Japan for almost a decade, but didn’t pack bentos often until my husband was misdiagnosed with celiac disease, a food intolerance that all but ruled out restaurant meals. Bento-style packing appealed to me as a way to help my husband eat well despite health restrictions.
After the doctors figured out that my husband didn’t actually have celiac disease, I drifted back into the bento habit because of my toddler son: one small bento box took up a lot less room in my diaper bag than four or five Tupperware containers. How about you?
Loading ...Poll voting closes at midnight Pacific on Sunday, January 11, 2009.
FURTHER READING:
- Poll: When do you pack lunch? (poll closed)
- Poll: Who do you pack lunch for? (poll closed)
- All polls on Lunch in a Box
- How to cut your food bills
- Bento FAQ and Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and reviews
December 31st, 2008 | Categories: poll | Print This Post
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Holiday injury bento lunch
Over the holidays, we moved our huge cat perch into my four-year-old’s playroom to make room for the Christmas tree. Our cats Moose and Squirrel love it, but moving it out from the wall led to a mysterious mishap when Bug reported that Moose “pushed it over with his head” when I was in the next room.
Sounds like Bugs Bunny physics to me, but Moose isn’t talking. The cat perch wound up hitting Bug on the cheek on the way down and caused a cut on the inside of his mouth. 
The pediatrician recommended giving him soft foods that weren’t too salty, cut small enough so that he didn’t have to open his mouth wide to eat (no hamburgers). So I packed him a soft lunch with a deconstructed sandwich to eat while things healed.
Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Whole wheat bread, chicken salad, simmered kabocha squash (kabocha nimono), and cherry tomatoes. When I served this same kabocha at dinner the night before, Bug said he didn’t like the kabocha he tried before at a monthly school lunch and didn’t want any. But after I asked him to try a bite of mine and tell me if it was the same or different from what he’d had at school, he changed his mind and asked for a portion of his own.
We didn’t manage to isolate what was different about the kabocha at dinner that made it okay for him. I wonder if it was the temperature — maybe he prefers it warm. He does respond well to approaching food tastings as an experiment, though. You know, “I’m not going to make you eat it, but can you figure out what aspect you don’t like? Is it the taste, smell, texture or appearance?” Kids are funny, but at least he’s not a very picky eater!
Morning prep time: 5 minutes using chicken salad from Costco and leftover kabocha (recipe upcoming). In the morning I trimmed the crusts off the bread and filled the box. Done! Super speedy. (Read on for packing details and the verdict.) Read the rest of this entry »
December 30th, 2008 | Categories: bento, for kids, potatoes, sandwich or wrap | Print This Post
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Host a doable kids’ cookie party
The weekend before Christmas we had one of Bug’s little friends over to the house for a holiday cookie party. No, not the kind of cookie party where each guest brings several dozen homemade cookies and you swap. The kind where the kids get messy baking and decorating their own cookies — aesthetics be damned.
Bug’s friend brought him a present of a kid’s robot apron from Old Navy that matched her own. I haven’t been into Old Navy recently, but these aren’t on their website now. I have seen a few of these robot aprons on Ebay, and a number of other fun kids’ aprons on Amazon
The first year I made holiday cookies with Bug, I wore myself out. I made too many different kinds of cookies and tried to decorate every cookie just so. That level of baking frenzy was fine when it was just me in the kitchen, but now it’s just a recipe for frustration with a four-year-old who wants in on the action. Learn from my mistakes and don’t bite off more than you can chew when you have little helpers! (Read on for my tips on how to host a manageable Kids’ Holiday Cookie Party.) Read the rest of this entry »
