August 27th Bento Lunch

I know that the majority of my readers are not Canadian, so I'll start with a bit of background. One of our largest suppliers of luncheon meat, called Maple Leaf, had a recent contamination in their products causing an outbreak of listeria. I don't really know anything about listeria other than the facts that this recent outbreak has killed six Canadians, and that it can take up to 70 days for the symptoms of the illness to show itself.

So I know people who have eaten these products within the past two months and they don't know yet whether they're going to get sick, so I guess there's some phone number they're supposed to call and then I don't know what happens after that. So there's an acute feeling of 'awareness' around here. I wouldn't call it worry, we just have it on our minds and see it in the news all the time.

When we heard about it, BF and I sat down and tried to remember any times in the last 70 days that we had eaten processed meat, and to my surprise we couldn't think of a single one. So as you can imagine, it's reaffirmed our decision to eat natural foods whenever we can (of course, had it been a contamination of say, broccoli, we'd be in trouble).

So why am I bringing this up in a blog about bento? As a result of this incident, there was an article in the newspaper that made me pause. It was entitled Panic in the Lunchbox and it talks about the fact that school starts next week and all kinds of parents across the country have no idea what to pack for lunch since sandwiches are out for the next little while. So, I guess I just wanted to say that it makes me sad that a lack of luncheon meat can inspire the use of the word 'panic' in this country. And that I'm tempted to make a list of 100 delicious lunch foods that don't involve sandwiches and anonymously mail it to everyone in the country who packs lunches.

Thanks for listening to (reading?) my rant. Okay, here was today's bento.

The center piece of today's bento lunch was the zucchini dumpling I made (the tutorial is below). I think it's so pretty! On either side there are triangle onigiri, stuffed with the same bison soboro that is in the zucchini.

For meat there are bites of marinated lamb steak that I pan fried. The veggies include steamed asparagus, broccoli and sugar snaps, and julienned carrot fried in sesame oil. For fruit there are some really juicy raspberries, blueberries, something called a damson plum, mango pieces and apple tulips.

BF sent me a message from work that said "This is an amazing tasting and looking bento!" so I think that means it was a success!