An American bento

For my son's final bento as a yochien (kindergarten) student, I made him an American lunch.  I've always prepared him traditional bentos with rice, a small amount of meat, and vegetables.  I also include a little bit of love into each one.  Of course, the American lunch would also include that.

I've always made more traditional bentos for my son so his lunch would not be the focus on anyone's attention.  We've all heard stories of immigrant kids lunches being the focus of a lot of negative attention.  And I just wanted him to avoid this.

As a last hurrah, my husband thought it would be fun to skip the rice and give him a sandwich instead.  After finding the requisite baby carrots in a grocery store, I humored him.

The lunch featured a cashew and jelly sandwich, using cashew butter I made with my son and some homemade bread.  The sides were string cheese (purchased at Costco, the only place in Japan I've ever seen "real" string cheese), baby carrots with a zesty vinaigrette, grapes, and dried blueberries with a few cashews.

When my son returned home, he told me that everyone was interested in his lunch.  But it was less the contents and more the container.  They had never seen a bento box like the one I had sent with him - a fantastic box called BentGo.  It is much larger than a traditional Japanese bento box.  Instead of smashing all the foods together in the same compartment, with the exception of rice, the Bentgo has several separate compartments.

Once my son starts elementary school, he will enjoy a hot school lunch.  I will no longer send bentos with him each day.  But the work I put into making his lunch will be replaced with something else.  Another gift a parent gives a child.