Pumpkin soup and bento gear

I turned one of our uncarved sugar pumpkins into pumpkin soup (courtesy of Alice Waters)! Soup packed in a thermal food jar to keep it hot, Branston pickle & cheese sandwich in the bottom half of a bento box with grape tomatoes and a Norman Love chocolate.

I started taking photos of some of the loot I just got to make up for my cancelled Japan trip.

My son loves Thomas the Tank Engine, so he’s quite taken with the Thomas bento gear. There’s a small kinchaku originally for a cup, but the small 270ml bento box fits inside nicely.

Some new egg and onigiri molds. I’m especially fond of the quail egg mold on the left and the Anpanman onigiri molds on the right (my son loves Anpanman) (click photo for details).

$1 kinchaku lunch bags from Ichibankan, a Japanese dollar store in San Francisco Japantown. Gotta love the Engrish on the blue bag!

And I picked up the Urara dragonfly box for $1.50 at Ichibankan (plus the bento band and the chopstick case). Also picked up a variety of sauce containers, small picks and baran, but I haven’t taken photos yet.

READ MORE:

• Need for speed: A mommy’s lunch manifesto
• Food safety for packed lunches
• How to pack a bento lunch and use “gap fillers”
• Choosing the right size bento box
• Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and equipment reviews