Bento Zen

I love the idea of healthy lunches for the kids. Even more I love the idea of healthy and "cute" lunches. There are some extremely talented and creative bento box makers out there. I recently came across a site called "Bento Zen" and fell head over heels for her lunches. She inspired yesterday's and today's lunches. I recently came across a passage from "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" and read a few paragraphs to the girls. We learned about the Baron's trip to the moon and the people he met there. As the moon was at war with the sun and the weapons used by the moon people were mushroom shields and asparagus swords, when I saw the following lunch on Bento Zen, I knew I had to try it. So, even though my lunches are nowhere near the level of perfection found elsewhere, the kids don't seem to mind. They headed off this morning with their own mushroom shields and asparagus swords and some pages from the story in their backpack.  The ravioli are mushroom and chicken with ham and cheese mushrooms on top.

From Chapter 18 of "The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen" by Rudolph Raspe

On the eighteenth day after we had passed the Island of Otaheite, mentioned by Captain Cook as the place from whence they brought Omai, a hurricane blew our ship at least one thousand leagues above the surface of the water, and kept it at the height till a fresh gale arising filled the sails in every part, and onwards we travelled at a prodigious rate; thus we proceeded above the clouds for six weeks. At last we discovered a great land in the sky, like a shining island, round and bright, where, coming into a convenient harbour, we went on shore, and soon found it was inhabited. Below us we saw another earth, containing cities, trees, mountains, rivers, seas, &c., which we conjectured was this world which we had left. Here we saw huge figures riding upon vultures of a prodigious size, and each of them having three heads. To form some idea of the magnitude of these birds, I must inform you that each of their wings is as wide and six times the length of the main sheet of our vessel, which was about six hundred tons burthen. Thus, instead of riding upon horses, as we do in this world, the inhabitants of the moon (for we now found we were in Madam Luna) fly about on these birds. The king, we found, was engaged in a war with the sun, and he offered me a commission, but I declined the honour his majesty intended me. Everything in this world is of extraordinary magnitude! a common flea being much larger than one of our sheep: in making war, their principal weapons are radishes, which are used as darts: those who are wounded by them die immediately. Their shields are made of mushrooms, and their darts (when radishes are out of season) are the tops of asparagus. Some of the natives of the dog-star are to be seen here; commerce tempts them to ramble; their faces are like large mastiffs’, with their eyes near the lower end or tip of their noses: they have no eyelids, but cover their eyes with the end of their tongues when they go to sleep; they are generally twenty feet high. As to the natives of the moon, none of them are less in stature than thirty-six feet: they are not called the human species, but the cooking animals, for they all dress their food by fire, as we do, but lose not time at their meals, as they open their left side, and place the whole quantity at once in their stomach, then shut it again till the same day in the next month; for they never indulge themselves with food more than twelve times a year, or once a month. All but gluttons and epicures must prefer this method to ours.