A few updates today on online bento shopping, bento gear in Europe, conferences I’ll be attending, and something that annoyed me this week.

* Ichiban Kan: Online poll and delay in restocking bento gear

The Ichiban Kan blog is running an online poll to help them decide whether to stock thermal bento sets like this one that I use regularly. The poll closes at 3:00 pm Pacific Time today (Wednesday, April 30, 2008), so click over there if you’d like to weigh in, or leave a comment at their blog post about the thermal bento sets if you’re too late for the poll. (Sorry about the late notice!) Ichiban Kan is a Japanese-style discount store with branches in the SF Bay Area and a new online store with cheap bento gear. See my full review of their online store, or get info on their local stores in my San Francisco Bay Area shopping guide for bento gear.

Speaking of Ichiban Kan, they’re evidently experiencing a delay in restocking their bento inventory as their big shipping container from Japan has been delayed by U.S. Customs. The delay may last for another three weeks or so; stay up to date via their blog or online store. Their blog now offers the ability to receive e-mail updates via Feedburner; fill out the info in the upper right corner of their blog to get their latest in your e-mail box. (You can do the same here, by the way — click to get Feedburner e-mails with the latest Lunch in a Box posts.) (Read on for European bento shopping update, conferences I’ll be attending at, and something that irritated me.)

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One drawback to packing pasta that’s already coated with a liquidy sauce is that the noodles absorb the sauce over time and the texture can suffer. Take advantage of the tendency of unsauced noodles to clump together, and make little bite-sized “nests” out of cold zarusoba noodles. This allows you to easily grab a bite-sized portion and dunk it in a separate container of dipping sauce, reviving each bunch of noodles just before you eat them. The important thing is to use a truly watertight container for the dipping sauce; these earlier zarusoba lunches for adults show how thermal lunch jar innards or even GladWare can be used for the dipping sauce.

Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Green tea & spinach zarusoba noodle “nests” (Korean nockcha gooksoo noodles, similar to green tea soba noodles on Amazon), kizami nori julienned seaweed and chopped green onions for the noodle dipping sauce (soba tsuyu). The smaller containers have strawberries, sweet pickles, and a garlic & herb cheese triangle.

Morning prep time: 15 minutes, mostly spent boiling water for the noodles and making the little noodle nests (and my three-year-old “helped” me curl the nests, adding a few minutes). To save time, I used bottled dipping sauce instead of making my own out of dashi bonito broth, soy sauce and mirin sweetened cooking sake. Once the noodles were cooked, rinsed in cold water and drained, I curled them into bite-sized nests on chopsticks for easy eating. This also works well with somen and any other cold noodles for dipping. To make looser nests, twirl the noodles around your fingers or a fork instead of chopsticks. This whole lunch could be made ahead of time and refrigerated overnight. The noodles perk right up when swirled around in the dipping sauce. (Read on for packing details and an additional preschooler lunch.)

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Perfect lettuce glows. I don't know a better way of describing it. Unfortunately, the glow doesn't last long. From the minute lettuce is picked, you're in a race against time and the elements. Tick, it is getting smashed by your other groceries. Tock, it's starting to wilt. Great lettuce emanates a color and vibrancy that makes you believe it is still alive. Chances are, by the time you encounter lettuce in your local grocery store the glow has long since faded. I hate to be too snobby, but you really have to go to the farmers' market to seek it out.

Once you get in the habit of enjoying salads made from just-picked baby lettuce, it becomes increasingly difficult (if not impossible) to reach for those bags of pre-washed lettuce or spinach. While not much of a recipe, I thought I'd share a simple spring salad I threw together for lunch the other day - peppered with black olives, oranges, and walnuts. My hope is that it might encourage you to seek out (or grow your own) perfect lettuce this year. I just planted a bunch of lettuce on my back patio, but I'll save that story for a separate post.

A few tips:

- Good shopping is the key to making a memorable salad. Buy the freshest lettuce you can find and completely baby it. Bruised lettuce is bad lettuce.

- Wash and dry your lettuce as soon as you get it home, this way you'll have it at the ready for days to come. I use a salad spinner to wash AND dry my lettuce. Place the lettuce in the basket of a salad spinner. Place the basket of lettuce in the bigger outer bowl and fill the entire thing with cold water. Gently swish the leaves around to loosen up any dirt or grit. Drain off the water by lifting the basket out and dumping out the dirty water. Repeat once or twice more. Now spin the lettuce dry. Place in a bag in your refrigerator until ready to use.

- Don't cram your lettuce into the bag. Let it have some space. Think of your bags of lettuce as pillows - you don't want all the lettuce smashed together. Instead, aim to have it fluffed and even throughout its storage bag.

- Resist the urge to drown your salad, and keep in mind that you can always add, but never take away dressing. And I know you've heard it before, but it's important enough that I'll say it again - dress your salad just before you are going to serve it. Right that moment. Not five or ten or (god-forbid) twenty minutes ahead of time.

Because I don’t sit down and plan the week’s bento lunches in advance, every morning involves some poking around inside of the refrigerator and freezer to see what looks good to pack for lunch that day. I realize that my life would be easier if I kept a written inventory other than just my freezer magnets, but it’s just not going to happen as I don’t have the staying power to keep things updated.

One thing that Japanese bento cookbooks recommend if you pack lunch in the morning is to think of one dish the night before that you’d like to pack the next day, and just start visualizing the lunch. This takes some of the pressure off when you step into the kitchen as you’ve already got a starting point.

One problem with my approach is that I tend to stand in front of the refrigerator or freezer with the door wide open while I look around for something that inspires me. Unlike looking in the pantry, though, this actually wastes energy and I often overlook buried food that would be perfect for bento lunches. Enter plastic organizer baskets and trays. (Read on for details and variations.)

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It’s been a really topsy turvy month around here! First the website was hacked (boo), then my bulk freezing tip went viral with write-ups all over (yay!). In the latest of the ups and downs, on Tuesday my computer bag was stolen from behind a store counter where I had checked it as per store policy. Mercifully, my computer wasn’t inside, but my checkbook and digital camera were (along with photos of lunches from the past few days). Filing police reports and doing paperwork is a pain, but upon reflection it could have been so much worse — I had my wallet, phone and car keys on me so Bug and I were able to drive home afterwards with minimal inconvenience. We dodged a bullet! I picked up a replacement camera on Wednesday, so the blog will go on.

Today I’m going back to some small bento dinners that I made for my husband and I to take to our running club last month, to supplement the snacks served after our run. According to the bento box size guidelines, they’re both too small for adults on their own. They’re filled with things that my three-year-old had previously rejected at dinner, so I packed a plain sandwich bento for him (not shown).

Contents of my bento dinner: “Confetti spaghetti” (roasted spaghetti squash with sauteed red bell pepper and zucchini, recipe from Kitchen Playdates), Moroccan-spiced grilled lamb (recipe from Steve Raichlen’s The Barbecue! Bible, my husband also made the same dish last year for this lamb lunch). Roasted asparagus, Moro blood orange and a banana segment round out the meal. Because the banana was just for myself, I didn’t bother cutting it into decorative banana wedges.

Afternoon prep time: 5 minutes, using all dinner leftovers. In the afternoon I cut the fruit, and microwaved the meat and squash to take the chill off. (Read on for an additional lunch, details, and a cookbook review.)
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This spring ragout can take five minutes to pull together or fifty - depending on how much shelling you are willing to do. The basic idea is this - take fava beans, fresh green peas, and skinny green asparagus stems and cook until bright and vibrant - barely any time at all. Finish them off with the smallest splash of cream, a hint of lemon zest, and a dusting of freshly grated cheese. I'll be the first to say a recipe like this really shines when you use farmer's market fresh favas and peas - but I recognize that not everyone has the time (or inclination) to sit around double shelling fava beans. Never mind the fact that some of you are still snowed in ;)

The good news is that you can make a quick, end-of-a-busy-day version of this spring ragout using whatever fresh ingredients you have prepped on hand, supplemented by an ingredient or two from the deep freeze. Frozen peas work nicely in a recipe like this, and I've even come across frozen pre-shelled fava beans at Whole Foods Market. All told this recipe creates a skillet full of beauitful, bright, healthy, deliciousness. And for those of you looking for a vegan version, omit the dairy and you still have a wonderful springtime plate to enjoy. While I enjoyed the vegetables all on their own, my mind kept wandering to other serving ideas. How about:

- ladled over a serving of pan-fried gnocchi.

- served in a shallow bowl of simple broth with a drizzle of good olive oil and a sprinkling of grated cheese.

- spooned over a family-style quiche or frittata.

- mixed into a bowl of short pasta for a twist on pasta salad.

- as a component in a spring version of a ravioli salad

- Inside some skinny omelettes or crepes.

While I used fava beans, peas, and asparagus here, feel free to explore other spring ingredients. The only thing to be mindful of is cooking times - some vegetables will take more time to cook than others. For example peas are going to cook much more quickly than a thick cut of asparagus or potato. One way to even the playing field (so to speak) is to cut ingredients into into like sizes, or cook each ingredient seperately and combine them in the end. Keep your eyes peeled for baby spring carrots, fiddle heads, baby squash, morel mushrooms, baby artichokes (trimmed and quartered), and/or tiny potatoes. All would be right at home in a dish like this.

No, I haven’t lost my mind! That’s not poop in my son’s lunch! It’s little bits of whole tamarind fruit, which our friend from the French-African island of Reunion showed us how to eat. I’ve previously used blocks of tamarind pulp or paste as a souring agent when cooking Indian or Thai food, but had always shied away from the big packages of whole tamarind pods as I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. So when our friend Vincent brought out whole sweet tamarind pods at a dinner party last month, my three-year-old son and I were both fascinated. Bug inhaled them then, and laughingly asked that I pack the “unchi fruit” (poop fruit) in his bento lunch the next day. Here’s what I packed for my warped child, as well as a guide to eating whole tamarind.

Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Waffle and maple syrup, sauteed yellow bell pepper in vinaigrette, wrapped cheese, grapes, and tamarind fruit.

Morning prep time: 7 minutes, using frozen waffles and leftover bell pepper. In the morning I toasted a frozen homemade waffle, cut up the waffles and peeled the tamarind pod. (Read on for the illustrated how-to and more lunch details.)

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Back in the late 1990s, my friend Beatrice had a tradition of hosting dumpling parties. She'd make a few fillings ahead of time and then a bunch of us would spend the afternoon sitting around stuffing, folding, sealing, pinching, steaming, chatting and eventually eating. If you've never tried making your own dumplings you might consider the whole process a bit fussy, but the next time you have a bit of extra time on your hands, and/or a few nimble-fingered helpers, consider giving it a try. The filling for these particular dumplings is bright and light, focusing on the peas as the central flavor. That being said, the lemon zest is the magic ingredient that sets everything off. It permeates the pea and ricotta puree punctuating each bite like a bolt of sunshine. Dumplings are often served with a dipping sauce, but I found that all these needed were a thin drizzle of olive oil and a few grains of salt.

I'll warn you in advance, some people are natural dumpling darlings - able to crank out row after row of identical pillows. Others? Not so much. You'll quickly discover which camp you fall into. Either way, here are a few tips (I've learned the hard way) that might be helpful:

- Keep wrappers covered, they dry out quickly becoming brittle and impossible to work with.

- Exercise restraint when filling your dumplings - they key is to avoid overfilling. Also, ease out any air pockets before sealing - they expand when heated and will cause problems.

- When stuffing and folding dumplings use an assembly line method. Line counter with a dozen wrappers, drop filling onto each, seal and fold each. Instead of doing one at a time.

I cooked these two ways. You can see how the pan-fried version looks in the above shot, and they were de-licious. That being said, the steamed version were even more exceptional. The recipe below includes techniques for both.

- There are various ways cooks keep dumplings from sticking to a steamer. You might line the steamer with banana leaf, tamale leaf, or a large leaf of lettuce. I didn't have any of those on hand this time around so I kissed the back of each dumpling with a touch of olive oil (where the dumpling would touch the steamer), and hand no problem with sticking.

- You might not want to immediately steam every dumpling you make. That's ok, they freeze perfectly. To keep them from freezing together in a big clump, freeze dumplings for an hour flat on a parchment-lined baking sheet or plate. Now place them in a freezer bag. You can go straight from freezer to steamer.

Today’s lunch illustrates an easy way to dress up an onigiri rice ball using ordinary plastic wrap and a little box. This is the first time I used this new little 350ml two-tier bento box that I found at Sanko in San Francisco’s Japantown for $8 (see my full store review or a brief writeup in the San Francisco Bay Area shopping guide for bento gear). 350ml is small, so it might seem unnecessary to split it into two tiers (especially ones that don’t nest inside each other when empty). But there is a reason behind it: the small shallow upper tier is the right size and shape for making decorative onigiri rice balls with the help of a little plastic wrap.

Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Onigiri rice ball with edamame and pre-cut nori seaweed shaped like Shinkansen, a little sauce container with Gohan Desu Yo! jarred seaweed paste for the rice, kiwi, broccoli, roasted eel (unagi kabayaki), and red/yellow bell pepper strips with Annie’s Green Goddess salad dressing (surprisingly good). Not pictured is a side dish container with snack strips of seasoned Korean seaweed shown in this bibimbap lunch, which is my three-year-old’s favorite way to eat rice: making little packets of rice with seaweed paste on Korean seaweed.

Morning prep time: 13 minutes, using frozen rice and leftover unagi eel. In the morning I microwaved some frozen rice, slapped together the rice ball (instructions below), and multi-cooked the vegetables in my microwave mini steamer, and filled the little sauce container. I could have taken a lot more time to really fancy up the rice ball, but that’s not my style and Bug was pleased enough with minimal decoration. (Read on for full cooking details, a review of the little bento box, and an additional lunch with pasta frittata.)

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This strawberry panzanella recipe was inspired by a childhood of picky eating. Extremely picky eating. My sister Heather was the fruit eater of the family. I, on the other hand, threw away every apple placed in my lunch bag from the time I was in kindergarten all the way through sixth grade - five days a week. Not a fact I'm proud of. The one fruit I did like was the strawberry, but only if my mom allowed me to dunk the perfect berry in plain yogurt, and then in a bowl of brown sugar. I wish I was kidding. With all the delicious strawberries turning up at the market right now, I decided to remix these favorite childhood flavors into a sweet strawberry panzanella. I tossed the bread cubes with a sweet brown sugar glaze, mashed the better part of a basket of strawberries into a dressing, and then served it up with a dollop of slightly tangy yogurt - simple and delicious.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, there are some rules to know when you enter panzanella country. As you can imagine, success starts with your choice of bread. Not all bread lends itself to a stellar panzanella. Choose wisely or all your efforts will be for naught. I encourage you to seek out bread that is the opposite of, say, Wonder Bread. Seek out a loaf that is dense, crusty, hearty, dark, and country-style. If the gods are smiling on you, you'll find a loaf that is all of these things, and is nut-studded as well. The bread needs to be dried out - let it sit out for a day, maybe two. This way it that will retain its structure (and not go to mush) in the midst of all that sweet berry juice - a key to a good panzanella whether you are talking strawberry or a more typical summer version. To further deter the mush (and to add another layer of flavor), I used a buttery, brown sugar glaze on the bread cubes before they went in the oven - it becomes a sugar crust.

I'm going to remix this recipe a hundred different ways throughout the remainder of the year using different fruits, berries, nuts, and the like. It's totally hassle free, pretty on the plate, and unbelievably flavorful. Perfect as a brunch component, or as a not-to-sweet dessert served family-style. Hope you like it as much as I do.