Bento #101 was another ‘ordinary’ workday lunch. Or was it?

Top tier

  • Deviled (curry) eggs
  • Salad of tomato, gherkin, celery stalk, red bell pepper and fresh Italian herbs on a bed of Romaine lettuce and corn salad
  • Freshly made lemony houmous

Tier on the right

  • Thin wasa crackers
  • Cashews with garlic and rosemary
  • Puff pastry with goat’s cheese, spinach, chopped pine nuts, honey, chives and thyme on Romaine leaf
  • Dried cranberries

Below

  • Fruit mix of apple, pear and kiwi in lemon juice
  • Plumtomatino on a skewer with a balsamic pickled onion
    (I’m so lucky to have received these food picks as a present!)

Re-Bento 101, 4 mei 2010
Does the contents of my bento in any way look or sound familiar to you? Probably not, but there is something special going on…

Bento #101 is a make-over of my very first: Première Bento! Here’s what it looked like.

Première Bento #1, 16-06-2007

Much more bland-looking than today’s lunch, isn’t it?

Bento #1 came along on a hike on June 16th, 2007. Yesh, you heard that right: I will be celebrating my 3-year bento anniversary next month! In the years and exactly 100 bentos that have passed, I have obviously learnt to pay more attention to colour. And although my composition may still be somewhat cluttery — that salad doesn’t allow your eyes a rest, does it? — it is not messy. Look at the way I presented my houmous the first time… Different, right?

My arrangement is neater and I’ve put in more veggies. I just think more about packing a balanced meal.

Now I hope you haven’t forgotten that I’m not just comparing bento #101 to #1. I actually took the same box and ingredients I used at the time! Cool idea, isn’t it? Yeah well, it’s not mine…

Bento goddesses Gamene, Sheri, Debra and Susan have been re-inventing their initial bentos in the previous week, to see how their skills have improved. I couldn’t resist doing the same for bento #101; such an appropriate number! I hope I’ll have a similar brilliant brainwave for my upcoming bento-anniversary ;)

Check out the posts that inspired me!

I did not feel like making the same puff pastry dish and egg-filled tomato of bento #1, but really: all original ingredients are there. I just translated cherries (which are not in season at the moment) into ‘fruit’, La vache qui rit into cheese and reshuffled a bit ;) Boy, did I have fun! Although I’m a tiny bit frustrated that I forgot to include my usagi bento box lid in the picture to prove it’s the same box :(

I’ll end today’s post with a little secret. Look at another picture of bento #101 to see how I prevented my houmous from spilling..!

Organic: bell pepper, pickled onions, apple, chickpeas, tahin, honey, plumtomato