As I reported last time, I am currently living in a kitchenless house. I thought we'd be further along in procuring cooking equipment, but due to various circumstances such as a backed up septic tank, wonky electricity and such, that hasn't happened. So far we are living on salads and bread, take-out sandwiches and - yes, fast food too. There are times like this for everyone right? We did finally get the rice cooker working (the transformer was acting funny) this morning, so I can finally start making rice at least. Here's a typical lunch these days - sandwiches from a local bakery. Really nice, but at 5 Euros per sandwich (about US $6.20) they aren't cheap. While I haven't been making real bentos, I did finally finish making this little number: This is a bento made of felt stuffed with polyfill - a plushie bento if you will. The base is a kit I got in Japan, which I modified a bit. It has everything you would want in a well-balanced bento: - 2 onigiri (rice balls) - one is mixed with furikake, one has nori around it - a breaded fried shrimp (I don't have a recipe for this on Just Bento as of yet, but there's one in the book ^_^) - a piece of tamagoyaki - a multi-egg one from the thickness, not a 1-egg one - Japanese potato salad - lettuce leaves - a mini hamburger complete with ketchup in the shape of a heart - 2 apple bunnies or usagi ringo - a slice of kiwi - blanched broccoli florets - great for filling those gaps - and even a octopus wiener. Here it is from a slightly different angle: Anyway, I am going to try to sort out our kitchenless-kitchen situation in the next few days, so that I can get back to making edible bentos! Although I must say, making felt food is so fun that I feel an obsession coming on...