Mr. Bento

I promise I won't do this for every meal, but I have to show off once. I bought a Mr. Bento as a birthday present to myself, and tonight was its (his?) debut.

Mr. Bento is a nifty little insulated lunchbox, with four containers for food. It's supposed to keep food hot or cold for six hours, and two of the containers seal nicely so you can pack messy things without a mess. Mr. Bento comes with a carrying case with backpack straps and pockets, and I added the can holder for my drink.



You can fit a lot of food in a Mr. Bento. This is chicken salad (half an order!) from The Buttery Shelf Eatery, regular salad (with dressing in the Tuppergadget), crackers from Trader Joe's, and Sutlac (Turkish rice pudding) and blueberries (from the MCL Farmers' Market!) for dessert. The spork and its cover come with the Mr. Bento, and appear to be a new innovation for the American market - the reviews on Amazon mention Japanese-only instructions and a chopstick holder.

Yes, I'm completely and impractically indulging my love of gadgets, but isn't Mr. Bento cute? And he will be a useful addition to my household, if it means I can stop eating burritos three days a week. This has been on my Amazon.com wishlist for a long time - so it's probably worth the money just so I can stop drooling over it. Much better to drool over chicken salad and Indiana-grown blueberries!