Acquisitions

Check it out! A brand new Laptop Lunch! Actually I bought three of them, although only one is pictured here.



This came from the fine folks at Red Apple School Supply, also home of the Green Apple Earth Friendly School Supplies. I'm sure I sound like an ad, but no affiliation, I'm just glad to support these guys.



I purchased these for myself and kidlets, in support of the new lunch excitement that pervades the household. You see, I browsed pictures of bento lunches with the kidlets, and they were both very inspired.



Now they're making exciting poser bentos, and two good things have come out of this. First of all, their lunches are now packed with colourful and nutritious variety. Secondly, the inspiration is such that they are making their lunches the night before, which makes for much easier mornings.



The pictures show our attempts at making rice balls. I first had rice balls 20 years ago, when us Canadian teens (college age) had cultural exchange parties with some Japanese teens who were attending an English school in our town. We fixed nachos, which was a common party food for us at the time, and involved sprinkling grated cheese on chips and broiling it in the oven. The Japanese girls fixed rice balls, which were far more labour intensive. As we watched them assembling this lovely feast, we were shamed by our lame little addition to the party. The rice balls were so delicious, too!





I attempted making rice balls with the kids a four or five years ago. I had googled some recipes and gave it a try. They were not very impressive, and the kidlets didn't like them. I asked some Japanese mothers at school, and a very nice mom had her husband pick me up some rice ball molds while he was in San Francisco. I'm afraid I was too intimidated to try it again. But now, with the kids so excited, we ventured into that cultural adventure again. We used the molds, which work great. And since they made them themselves, the kids liked the rice balls.