Do You Bento?

I would rather not talk about how many times I've wound up eating lunch on the subway (I really need to schedule my time better),

or to explain exactly how much I actually spend on food in a week (the decision process is usually "pay for opera tickets to Carmen, or buy groceries. Carmen or groceries.... hmmmm")

or how I've been trying my hardest to stay away from a diet of ramen and the dollar menu at McDonalds (you know what happens to a boyish figure when they get fat? It all goes into the gut, and we look like an apple with little toothpick legs and arms. Not good).


Thankfully I found inspiration on my grocery trip to Chinatown and the answer to this dilemma is bento.

While there are many types of bento, from some really gorgeous formal dinner makunouchi bento, to picnic style kouraku bento, to eki bento which is sold at train stations, as prepared meals for travelers (the kind I'm eating). However, basically bento is a meal in a box. You really can't get any more simple than that.

Reasons to Bento?
1. Eating at home is always less expensive than eating pre-prepared food. You pay for labor.

2. The small box size and little dividers helps with portion control. People always seem surprised by how small portions actually are supposed to be.

3. I'm more willing to eat my veggies when they look pretty. Please don't ask me to explain the phenomenon. It's my inner kindergartner talking.

4. You could also throw in the "No plastic bags! Good for the environment!" schtick.

5. It's kind of fun. Reminds me of a grown up version of elementary school brown paper sack lunches, except prettier. And you know, Asian.

So without further ado, here is some of my inspiration

Of course they don't have to be as elaborate as these (I do aspire though).

My bento is usually just brown rice, steamed pea pods or broccoli, maybe a little chicken (or more veggies and fruit, depending on the budget situation), a little container of plain yogurt and honey, and some dark chocolate (come on, a girl needs her dessert).

If you're interested in jumping on the bento bandwagon, some good places to start are:

Just Bento for recipes and getting started and I Love Bento for supplies and inspiration.

Cupcake

So ages ago when I told you guys about my shopping trip with my friend Erin (It's like Erin squared! HILARIOUS... really)
Anyway, I mentioned stumbling on this mini store with mini delicious cupcakes and that I might have eaten about twenty bazillion of them, as a rough estimate.
Well fun fact of the day is that the same store, Baked by Melissa, will be catering for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show after-party, according to The Daily Obsession who has the inside scoop.
If you happened to be overlooked for an invitation and don't live in New York, apparently you can also order the cupcakes online here at Melissa's website. Although I'm not sure how I'd feel about mail order cupcakes...

Dinner and a Museum

Yesterday was my Birthday *WOOO*. So I got a day off and Blondie and I went out for dinner and a museum, which is personally my favorite way to spend an afternoon.

We went to Myers and Chang which I highly recommend to anyone with experimental tastes (or not, my BF is known to turn his nose up at "brown bread" but even admitted it was pretty good)

Then we checked out the ICA because I'd never been there before, and I wanted to see it before I left for New York. My reaction was that it was really small (only one floor of galleries) and that the video art as always, confused me, but they had a pin sculpture that we decided was pretty awesome although it made us want to kick it.

Sorry, but I don't have a camera at the moment :( it needs repairs, but this thing was awesome. They literally took thousands of straight pins, poured them into a box, peeled away the box and it resulted in a five foot cube of pins. WITH NOTHING HOLDING IT TOGETHER. NOTHING. Someone please explain the physics of that to me, because Blondie (who is a budding engineer) tried and I didn't get it, I just kept thinking "That's awesome. A magic cube of pins. What would happen if I kicked it? You think I can kick it? Is the security guard still looking? Okay, I'm going to kick it."

The main event was about Shepard Fairey, and he took up about half of the gallery. Here's the blurb on the guy if you, you know, live under a rock or aren't at all interested in art:

"From humble beginnings as a defiant, skateboard-obsessed art student pasting homemade stickers, Shepard Fairey has developed into one of the most influential street artists of our time. Despite breaking many of the spoken and unspoken rules of contemporary art and culture, his work is now seen in museums and galleries, as well as the worlds of graphic design and signature apparel. His multi-faceted, open-ended and generous artistic practice actively resists categorization. Building off of precedents set by artists such as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, Fairey shifts easily between the realms of fine, commercial, and even political art.
Fairey's multi-layered renderings of counter-cultural revolutionaries and rap, punk and rock stars, as well as updated and re-imagined propaganda-style posters, carry his signature graphic style, marked by his frequent use of black, white, and red. Recently, his portrait of Barack Obama, a ubiquitous sight on the campaign trail, drew a new level of attention to the artist's work and was recently acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, for its collection."

and here's some pictures (look familiar?):

My overall impression about Shepard Fairey (although I had seen some of his stuff before going to the ICA) is that from a graphic design point of view and purely aesthetically, this guy is the bomb. He is absolutely a genius. He has an incredibly distinctive style, it grabs you attention, every piece is just incredible with the designs, the old newspaper headings peeking through the paint of the collages, the way he uses his proportion and balance, and the striking red, black and white... honestly I'm taking a few lessons away from this. Not to mention its incredibly fresh and dare I say "edgy" and "street". Wow, those sound weird even when I'm typing them.

However, if I'm paying attention to the messages that he's giving (because every single one does have an agenda if you haven't noticed) I'm afraid I don't always agree with they way he expresses his point of view. I'm all for peace (who isn't?) but I just feel he's a little heavy handed with the images, and slants his point of view so much that it's a turn off. Just my opinion obviously, and any good art should get people talking and make you take a stance, so he certainly accomplished that.