Tools of the Trade pt 2: The "Box" in eatinginabox

As promised, I'm doing an entry on the hardware that goes into the bento production. When we first began, I decided I wanted folks to be on a standard box that I could punch out bentos factory style. I stumbled upon this wonderful company that produced the perfect solution. You can find them here (no I don't work for them but they do deserve a plug). They have various color schemes (you're looking at primary color scheme above).

It all starts with the outer box. Simple but effective, the lid snaps into a slot at the front. The only complaint I have is that over time the lid warps a little and that is likely from the dishwasher (too many boxes to try to do them by hand). It's a real smart design, pre-grooved sections inside allow for the inner boxes to be nestled securely, and there's even a place for the fork and spoon.


Here we have the innards of the box (there's more than this) they have various sized boxes some with lids that you can apply towards various food items, soups, sauces, entrees, sides. It's perfect in that it allows you to put together lots of different foods without them "polluting" one another by having sauces mix. They're nice and sturdy and microwaveable, a big plus. This feature allows you to have a lunch that has both hot and cold items since components can be reheated without reheating the whole lunch box.

So the cool thing about boxes that are removable is when you make use of space *because* you don't have a box. You'll see lots of my blog entries where I've left out boxes in order to make room for larger items. You can get creative on how to separate things, like using japanese fake grass or the silicone muffin tin (shown in the picture). Once, I left out the utensils and put some asparagus in the utensil slot.

Last but not least we have the utensils, pretty basic stuff fork and spoon. On my trip to Taiwan, I bought my bento eaters a set of collapsible chopsticks as a souvenir, so on the days they feel like being in the Asian theme they can bust out the chopsticks.

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed this entry on the hardware side of things. I'll be spacing out the last of my bento entries for the year so there will be more of those. Just not quite as frequent.