I’m a woman of quirky hobbies, and a few years ago, I became fascinated with the phenomenon of bento blogs. These are people who craft works of art out of their packed lunches and blog about the resulting masterpieces. As this phenomenon gained traction in North America, I noticed a curious trend—many of the moms who are into this stuff will try to tie in the theme of their lunchbox artforms with movies, books and current events.
Consider this trio of Princess Bride-themed lunches, posted in celebration of William Goldman’s birthday the other day:
She’s used a sandwich press to spell out Westley’s signature declaration of love ‘As You Wish’ onto a heart-shaped sandwich, and made the cucumbers into buttercups in honour of the princess herself. The lunch is rounded out with popcorn, grapes and berries and a little chocolate treat. Yum!
This blogger often uses food-safe markers to achieve the desired artistic effect: the ‘as you wish’ tagline is accompanied by a pirate cameo with swords and everything, sketched onto a sandwich-topping piece of cheese. Shelled peanuts and a fruit-and-veggie side complete the lunchbox.
A standard-looking pasta entree, veggie side dish and ice cream treat are topped with cookie-cutter-molded cheese portraying a mini castle and a message of encouragement to its vanquisher. I have to admit, I covet those mini letters—I have seen the cutters at Williams Sonoma, but it doesn’t seem worth the bother to get them just for me, and the Beloved doesn’t let me do cute things with his lunch, so I haven’t shelled out for them. But whenever I see them on my bento blog RSS feed, I feel a smidge jealous!
These lunches are a bit beyond what I myself would pack, but if I had a loved one who was into this, I would totally do cute lunches. A belated happy birthday to Mr. Goldman!
