1. [1] RECIPE PAGE

I’ve been working on improvements to the website over the past month, and just put up an [1] organized list of all of the recipes that have appeared on Lunch in a Box over the past year. Grouped by main ingredient, I hope this link list will be useful to folks in browsing around. Please feel free to comment even on old posts with any questions as I do keep up via the Recent Comments widget in the sidebar to the right that displays the most recent comments.

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2. GET YOUR BENTO T-SHIRTS & GEAR

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With design help from reader Corgi, Lunch in a Box now has funny lunch- and bento-themed T-shirts and merchandise available via CafePress, which ships internationally. If you’d like to wear your pasttime on your sleeve, coffee mug, onesie, notebook, greeting card or anywhere else, pop on by the [2] Lunch in a Box store on CafePress. The Original What’s For Lunch blog actually read my mind last week by writing [4] a song parody about Lunch in a Box. If you don’t get the song reference, go to YouTube for the Justin Timberlake/Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live [5] music video spoof “D*ck in a Box”, which is actually nominated for a Grammy Award this year (work warning: uncensored version). We’re working on additional designs, so stay tuned.

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3. SITE IMPROVEMENTS

If you’re reading this on the website itself, you may have noticed a few changes over the past week. You can now click icons at the end of each entry to e-mail the post to someone, or to go to a printer-friendly version of the post without photos or comments. This should be helpful for printing out posts like recipes and the San Francisco Bay Area shopping guides.

There are now a number of ways to keep up with Lunch in a Box posts. In addition to [7] subscribing via a feed reader, you can now [8] subscribe via e-mail, delivered daily by FeedBurner whenever there’s a new post. There will be no spam as a result of supplying your e-mail address for the posts — I get cranky about that sort of spamming. Additionally, people who had asked me for graphics to use when linking here can now create and customize a [9] widget via Widgetbox showing the latest Lunch in a Box posts (text and/or photos).

If you keep track of blogs via MyBlogLog, you might want to join the [10] Lunch in a Box community on MyBlogLog. The MyBlogLog widget in the sidebar also lets you see recent Lunch in a Box readers with a MyBlogLog identity — clicking on their photo will take you to their member page where you can surf to their blogs. Interesting stuff! If you have a MyBlogLog identity but do not want your information to be displayed when you visit, you can control this on your MyBlogLog account settings page.

Lastly, the [11] Guestbook is back up after a hiatus necessitated by a conflict with another WordPress plug-in. Unfortunately, the fix wiped out the old entries, so my apologies if your comment is no longer there. Should be fine now!

As always, please feel free to comment with any bugs you’ve noticed on the site, suggestions for improvement, etc. as I continue to work on the site usability. Having just launched this standalone site in June 2007, this is still quite new for me, and your feedback is welcome.

READ MORE:

• [12] Need for speed: A mommy’s lunch manifesto
• [13] Choosing the right size bento box
• [14] How to pack a bento lunch and use “gap fillers”
• [15] Guide to lunch gear and cookbooks
• [16] Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and equipment reviews