Special Lunchbox

My special lunch When the weather is gorgeous like this, I can’t resist the urge to pack my lunch and eat it outside. Sometimes I grab just anything in the kitchen, and other times I feel like packing a very special lunch, taking time for preparation. Today I felt like the latter. So here’s what I brought to the park which is a part of the Castle Garden here in this city. Bamboo sheath lunchbox and wrapping cloth This retro-looking lunchbox is again from the 100-yen shop. Bamboo sheath was said to be widely used in Japan in the past (maybe until 50 to 100 years ago?) to wrap rice balls to bring to work. Now we use plastic lunchboxes, but the retro-looking ones are still available. I don’t think they’d look good at school or in the office, but perfectly appropriate for picnicking. I made 3 kinds of rice balls. For the pink ones, I used seasoned salmon flakes --- one of those ready-made toppings to sprinkle on rice. The color of the green ones came from the minced Takana pickles that I mixed in. The last kind had a bit of Korean taste. I seasoned minced carrots, shiitake mushrooms and ground meat with kochujan, then mixed with the rice. Pretty good and spicy, but would have been better if I used kimchi instead of the carrots and mushrooms.　In the past I didn’t make much of the idea of using saran wrap for making rice balls, but I changed my mind recently. This way you can hold the rice balls without getting sticky rice on your fingers when you eat. (Or you can use chopsticks, of course.) A close-up The tiny taro potatoes were microwaved, salted, then sprinkled with green laver. This was an idea I got from a women’s magazine, but they didn’t taste as good as I expected. Maybe I microwaved them too long. Then, the small fried eggs. What you see in the center is minced scallions with the kochujan-seasoned stuff I made for the rice balls. What was a hit this time was the rolled chicken with dwarf French beans(?) in the center. I just love the way it looks when sliced. The dwarf French beans could have used more seasoning, but the garlicky teriyaki sauce I made to season the chicken was a big success. I was lucky that almost no one, except one young couple playing catch in the same park, was there to watch me taking so many photos of my lunchbox. ; ) I wanted to include some lovely autumn flowers in the photos with my lunchbox, but it was harder than I thought. Maybe the couple were watching me and laughing, but they at least didn't show that to me. Thanks, guys.