Archive for March, 2008

Food books in my kitchen

On seeing my new kitchen bookshelf that holds most of my cookbooks and some organized lunch gear, reader Spiceaholic of One Bite at a Time asked for a list of all my cookbooks. Twist my arm! Please pardon me while I indulge my inner Virgo; here’s an organized list of my 150 or so books (plus food writing) with brief comments. They’re not all ringing endorsements; some of these I’ve had since college, others are more like souvenirs I’ve picked up in my travels. Plenty of award-winners, though — I do have a weakness for the James Beard and IACP cookbook awards. I’ve underlined my favorites. Have a recommendation for a really outstanding book? Let me know in comments. (Read on for the full list of cookbooks with commentary…)

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Published by Biggie on March 31st, 2008 tagged shopping, tips | 34 Comments »

Corned beef bento lunches

I made corned beef and cabbage for our St. Patrick’s Day dinner, so leftovers made their appearance in my three-year-old’s packed lunches last week. Surprisingly, he was a big fan of the cabbage and carrots, not so much the meat and potatoes.

Packing Tip: When packing moist foods in a standard bento box, be sure to drain them of excess moisture first. This helps prevent spoilage if the food hits room temperature before lunchtime.

Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Cabbage and carrots in broth, corned beef, boiled potatoes, and orange segments.

Morning prep time: 5 minutes, using dinner leftovers. In the morning I pre-warmed the thermal food jar with hot tap water while I microwaved the vegetables, and cut up the beef, potatoes and orange into bite-size pieces for easy preschooler eating. (Read on for packing details and an additional preschooler lunch.)

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Published by Biggie on March 27th, 2008 tagged bento, food jar, for kids, glutenfree, lactose free, meat, sandwich or wrap, soup or stew | 8 Comments »

Reorganization of lunch gear storage

After seeing all of the great ideas in the lunch gear organization event and Rhiannon’s cool bento bookcase, I was inspired to do a reorganization of my own. First problem: my mess of a kitchen bookshelf, which was overflowing with my ever-growing cookbook collection and insulated lunch bags.

As with my first bento organization push, I turned to Ikea for reasonably priced storage. A new tall Billy bookcase and height extension (US$105 total) go almost to the ceiling of my kitchen and nicely fill the corner near the kitchen table. My husband anchored it to the wall to keep it from falling over in case of an earthquake or energetic little climbers. (Here you can also see Bug’s little play kitchen and an old wall organizer for pot lids, also from Ikea.) (Read on for details and more photos.)

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Published by Biggie on March 25th, 2008 tagged equipment | 50 Comments »

Japanese auction & overseas shipping services

I know how frustrating it is to get excited about unusual bento boxes and accessories on Japanese websites, only to find out that the online stores won’t ship outside of Japan. Mail order companies that wouldn’t ship internationally were a pet peeve of mine when I lived in Japan, especially when looking for clothes and shoes. Being 5′10″ with size 11 feet made it hard to find properly fitting things there — my nickname “Biggie” is short for Bigfoot, after all! Anyway, I digress.

There are a number of online companies that will act as your own personal shopper or “friend in Japan”, placing bids on Japanese-language online auctions, accepting packages you order from mail order stores that won’t ship internationally, and shipping them over to you (for a price, of course — the low end is around 10%). This opens up the bento treasure of Japanese online stores (in addition to J-List, which does ship their bento stuff overseas). I’ve put together a list of some of these shipping and auction agents, some bigger online stores, and translation tools to guide you. (Read on for the full list.)

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Published by Biggie on March 24th, 2008 tagged shopping | 10 Comments »

Egg-wrapped onigiri lunch

I woke up early and decided to see how microwaved thin egg sheets (usuyaki tamago, tutorial here) would work as an alternative to nori seaweed wrappers in fake maki-zushi. (Okay, technically if you don’t use flavored sushi rice it’s just an onigiri rice ball.)

Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Mini onigiri rice balls wrapped in a thin egg sheet, mini plum tomatoes, scallop and shrimp cakes (review below), and zucchini with Korean barbecue sauce.

Morning prep time: 18 minutes, which was simply too long for me, even using frozen scallop & shrimp cakes, frozen rice and a frozen egg wrapper that I’d made previously. In the morning I microwaved the rice and egg wrapper (very briefly, on 40% power so as to not actually heat it and make it rubbery), made the onigiri (notes below), and microwaved the zucchini in my microwave mini steamer. (Read on for a review of the scallop and shrimp cakes, packing notes, and cooking notes for the faux makizushi.)