My Neighbor Totoro Bento

 Hi there!!!

 

So I'm not even going to try and put these up in a Slideshow. I just love this bento so much and I want you to know a little more about it. If you can't tell, it's a My Neighbor Totoro themed bento. I'm not just a big fan of all things Studio Ghibli, but this film holds a very special place in my heart. I grew up watching it back when Fox held the dubbing rights to it. I can't stand the Fanning version. Not even sorry to say that. But I dedicated this bento to my family back home. Every part of it holds some significance to the movie.

 

If you've watched the movie, you can see that this bento box is strikingly similar to the box that Mei uses. Her sister makes her lunch in a tiny red bento. I couldn't find a single tier that was similar but I found a use for the second tier, which is apparent from the pictures.

 

So the top tier is supposed to look like the lunch that is packed for Mei. I know that all the ingredients aren't accurate as I've looked them up. I did my research. But all the fixin's are awfully hard to find here.

 

So what I had to work with was Short grain rice, ume (the red ball), sardines, sweet peas, and pink pickled daikon radish. The combination was still very delicious and would still work so well in any bento.

 

The second tier (or top tier) I filled with sides that I made to represent different parts of the film. There is a baby Totoro hard boiled egg, a hotdog and egg sheet daisy (Mei picks flowers before she meets Totoro), some little Dust Bunny meatballs, sausage and hotdot acorns (Mei collects them), cucumber slices (Mei and her sister pick some fresh from Grandma's garden), a tiny baby corn (Mei and her sister bring an ear of corn to their sick mother in the hospital), and food picks in the shape of an umbrella (the give one to Totoro) and a little hat (Mei's grown up hat for picking flowers) 

 

 

 As you can see, I put a lot of thought and care into this bento. And that's the way all bento should be, in my opinion. Bento should be a piece of your heart filling spaces and taken wherever needed.

 

I hope this post made you smile because looking at these pictures makes me smile every time.

 

Have a great day and stay inspired!

 

Aggy