Bento lunch possibility

[winter]

Between murasaki99's recent laptop-lunch blogging and the recent kerfuffle on bentolunch reported on Fandom_Wank, I'm eyeing packing bento to work as a distinct possibility.

Pros: There are usually leftovers in the fridge at home. I can pack as many vegetables as I like (something bought-lunches are usually too short on for my taste). Cheaper than lunching out. I have a fridge and microwave at work, so I could pack any type of food.

Cons: Preparation time (though I get up an hour and a half before going out to work, anyway). Planning ahead with shopping.

I think I might have to have a look-see in the food-boxes isle at Carrefour tomorrow :) If I manage to drag myself out at all, that is. Fetching newspapers and some water from the kiosk downstairs left me winded this morning, so I'm afraid the infection's not as beaten as I'd like it to be.

Recipe links for safekeeping: mini-quiches, omuraisu, mini-fritattas and fried onigiri

Wraps.

And just in case - blog/site/lj recommendations, anyone? I think I saw several mentions on the f-list :) Especially if it's affordable bento-sets for sale in Europe, preferably Poland...

Comments

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

So that's the proper word for the kind of lunch combinations I've lived on for years!

If you have an Ikea nearby, they have a very practical set of well-sealing plastic boxes in all sizes, something like 20 boxes for three euros. That's served me well - I just take one of the bigger boxes and put the smaller ones in at need. And they even hold liquids without spillage. Not quite a proper bento, it seems, but at times practicality beats style.

[winter]

All Ikeas are annoyingly placed on the outskirts, but I think I saw similar things at Carrefour. I'll be in one tomorrow to make sure.

Carrying the whole setup looks like a problem at the moment, but once I get the boxes, I can look for a totebag to match (I have too damn many) or I found instructions to wrap it in cloth to carry it. Might make a nice business accessory :>

Yay for bento!

[murasaki99.livejournal.com]

There was a kerfuffle about bento? It's just food, how could...? Guess I'll have to check it out. :D If they have a community just for bento, I think I'll join.

Any container works for bento - in Japan, bento could be packed in anything from wood boxes, split bamboo, and fine laquerware in the old days, and in modern times, it can be in plastic 'laquerware' specialty bento boxes, and even good old styrene. So don't feel constrained, the Japanese sure didn't. If it looked good and held the food nicely, they would use it.

My current bento are all plastic of various sorts, one 'offical' plastic bento bought in Seattle at Uwajimaya, a wonderful huge Japanese grocery store, one Laptop Lunch box set bought online in the US, and a cheap set of nesting plastic for lunches bought on Amazon.com that is basically the plain modern bento set for westerners. Made in China, of course. :p
Fit
and Fresh is what I bought, only $7 US and your Carrefour may supply something very similar/same.

For salad dressing and sauces, while you're in Carrefour, check the camping section if the plasticware section doesn't have anything useful. Camping gear will supply small squeeze bottles and little contains just right for sauces.

I hope you feel better soon, too.

Re: Yay for bento!

[winter]

The community sounds perfectly friendly except for the kerfuffle - as far as I could tell, caused by someone objecting to a woman who both participated in the comm and promoted a friend's bento-box-importing business in order to practice her online-marketing skills (does online marketing advice for a living).

Even if I don't find a set, assembling one out of all the kinds of boxes on offer shouldn't be hard :) The very same kerfuffle-cause suggested getting novelty-candy containers for dressings, which I think is worth a try :)

Re: Yay for bento!

[murasaki99.livejournal.com]

Silly me, I followed some of the links to bento shops from the community and spent money for a few items. -__- :D Oh well, I haven't yet gone so far as to get a bento box in every color. Yet.

But the candy containers is a cool idea, no matter who it comes from! Especially for small non-drippy items.

Re: Yay for bento!

[winter]

Some are water-tight, so might work for drippy items too :) But I think I'll have to sort out my computer first. Don't click on the link in the comment below, was what broke it :/

Re: Yay for bento!

[murasaki99.livejournal.com]

I see your comment on the link -- oh dear! That's the preferred method for evil html nowadays - a link to a poisoned page, and the page owner may not even know their website has been contaminated. I don't know how those of us to maintain sites can make them 100% safe short of turning them off. Hope you get your machine cleaned up quickly.

Re: Yay for bento!

[sukeban.livejournal.com]

Er. Wordpress blog is using version 2.2 (the most recent, 2.2.1, came out only three days ago and the blog will be updated as soon as Fantastico gets that version), source code is squeaky clean (I know, I've gotten intimately acquainted with the template), the only javascript I use on my blog isn't used in post pages, and the only extern element in the page in question is only a Flickr image. I've run the ClamAV antivirus on the whole site three times now without finding anything. I frankly don't know what can have caused the error message, but it's not out of lack of tech savvy -_-;;

Re: Yay for bento!

[sukeban.livejournal.com]

...And after running updated versions of Norton and AdAware, I can say that my computer is quite clean, too. The only problems I had were the remains of a few adware programs that I detected and uninstalled years ago, but no virii at all.

Try not to stress

[murasaki99.livejournal.com]

It may be an unfortunate hiccup on the part of bwinter's machine/operating system, but it also could be that someone has hacked the server you use and put naughty html on that side of the fence. This is the preferred technique of cyber-criminals nowadays. Not much you can do about that either, except check in with the owners of the server hosting your website to get them to run a scan. I live in fear of this myself, since I host on a server that is not my own.

If no one else has a problem, it may just be a case of something else crashing on bwinter's PC just as she clicked on your website.

I use a local group's server to host my modest website and so far, so good. They seem to keep their machines current on security.

If you are using your own machine as a server and you keep it all up to date security-wise, then you're probably ok. Moreso if you're running a Mac server. :D

Re: Try not to stress

[sukeban.livejournal.com]

No, the source code is alright, and I ran ClamAV over all my webspace without finding anything. I use the same webhost as Beth, and if there was anything wrong on that side we'd already have gotten some kind of update from them.

I'm inclined to think that it was a different site and some delay from the antivirus, because if it was a Pagerank exploit we'd already have heard about that *everywhere*.

[sukeban.livejournal.com]

Tips: Pasta needs only a half-hour of mostly unsupervised cooking. With a vinaigrette and some toppings like sweet corn or shredded carrots it holds very well, although normal tomato sauce is an option if you've got a microwave oven at work. More or less the same for rice, although sometimes I also buy pre-cooked "curry" (that's what it says in the box) rice.

Hard eggs give lots of proteins and, if kept unshelled, hold three or four days in the fridge, so you can boil a batch and eat them through half the week. Canned tuna is another option for pasta or rice.

I buy one-use small packets of Jerez vinegar and olive oil (yay Spain) at the supermarket for the salads, and a co-worker gifted me with some salt and pepper thingies from McDonald's and airlines. Supermarkets here also have small packets of cocktail or salad sauces.

I wish I knew how to make onigiri and things like that, but I'm not too good at cooking. Anyway, I compiled a list of bento sites at the blog: http://gramarie.net/log/?p=1149

[winter]

Love, I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but I opened your link (in IE), and OfficeScan beeped about an irremovable virus, IE shut down, I restarted my computer just to make sure and now Windows can't finish loading, repeatedly. You might want to look into it as I salvage my system.

[sukeban.livejournal.com]

Uh? I've scanned the whole site with Cpanel's antivirus and it doesn't find anything, and the source code is clean, too. I removed the iframe from Pagerank from WP, but I doubt it was it, and post pages don't use Statcounter anyway. Do you have more info, or a screenshot of the error message, please?

[winter]

The main virus is Win32/PEPatch.Y. It managed to bollix up a file in Windows/System so that I can't even scan it with AVG (which I just downloaded) without Windows dying, or fire up Firefox without it doing the same, though at least stuff loads now. Was up until 3AM last night fixing it, combined with my antibiotics giving me a hard time :( Might require a full Windows reinstall, though at least I scanned my personal files and programs first and they're all fine.

TrendMicro's first error message mentioned an Iframe exploit, so I'm thinking maybe someone hijacked Pagerank for a moment? I don't claim to be a professional, mind you :)

Re: Try not to stress

[sukeban.livejournal.com]

Beats me, but I removed the iframe anyway :)

[winter]

Possibly something delayed, but I wasn't on any suspect sites yesterday at all :/ It's a new variant of the PEPatch virus (only reported on Spanish and Eastern European forums so far), so I'm hoping the same cleaning techniques will help with it, once I'm upright enough to employ them :) Guess what time my body chose to disagree with my antibiotic... 2AM after 4 hours of fighting with the bloody thing.

[sukeban.livejournal.com]

FWIW, a free version of Norton is bundled with Google Pack. It didn't remove all my adware (but AdAware did), but it automatically cleaned the two trojans I had.

[(Anonymous)]

Right now I'd be very happy if I could just boot Windows. Think it's time to call a computer rescue service...

[winter]

Right now I'd be very happy if I could just boot Windows. Think it's time to call a computer rescue service...

[sukeban.livejournal.com]

{{best wishes}}

[kyrre.livejournal.com]

Now I can come out and admit that murasaki99 addicted me too. While I currently haven't many opportunities to take a bento box with me the link she provided to cookingcute.com led me to go hunting for sushi molds.

I lust after sushi. Alas, it's quite pricey and my attempt at homemade sushi wasn't that successful so far. Forming the nigiri and maki by hand ended in rather pitiful shapes and took much, much time. I hope that doing it with the molds that arrived yesterday will be easier and faster.

Sushi good :)

[murasaki99.livejournal.com]

Heh-heh, sushi is a good addiction. Isn't Cooking Cute adorable?

For forming nigiri, use short-grained rice and cook it sticky, not dry. While the rice is still warm in the pot, wet your hands with cold water, sprinkle a little salt on your palms, then scoop up and form the rice ball quickly. Re-wet and re-salt your hands for each new rice ball. The wet keeps it from sticking and you can go much faster. My Japanese teacher showed us how to do this. Yay for Yoriko Sensei! :)

Try a simple snowball shape to start - you can put a lump of something in the middle as you form it. Pickled plum is traditional, but really anything is good - tuna, a meat sauce, pickles, whatever you fancy. Plain onigiri is fine too.

Re: Sushi good :)

[kyrre.livejournal.com]

I tested the first sushi mold today. Ten nice, even nigiri in under one minute. :) That just doesn't compare to the misshapen lumps I produced in my other attempts. I think the rice was still somewhat to dry though.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

How can bento lunches trigger a kerfluffle? That would seem as innocuous a topic as one could find!

[winter]

Ah, but as usual, it's a business and a half in supplies ;) Though I was looking in the nearest supermarket today and found several nice clear boxes that might do the trick once I do more research and see if I can't find something I like even better.

(Now somebody stop me from ordering Hello Kitty bento supplies. For some reason I'm always in a Hello Kitty mood when I'm sick, and the warm jacket and real kitty curled at my feet aren't enough ;))