Tag Archives: ghibli

Totoro’s Pirate Crew

Posted on October 21, 2011 by nekochan

Yesterday I inaugurated my new Bento Box. Remember that last week I wrote that Mon Bento had kindly offered me one of their cute Bento Boxes? The Box is pink and white and so lovely! I’m very impressed with its quality and shape but most important: their boxes are microwaveable and dishwasher proof. Well for me, that doesn’t really count because I have no dishwasher and no microwave and I never heat my Obento up but I think that for many people this boxes are a big convenince. The box is also very well finished and compact. Thank you again Mon Bento for sending me this pretty Bento Box!

The initial idea for the composition of this Obento was a forest full of little different-colored Totoro but naturally it came out quite different from what I imagined.. After an attempt to color the rice with a Japanese food coloring based on Furikake that miserably failed I took action by using a pretty strong Swiss colorant that almost worked too good. Normally I don’t use food colorant but for what I had in mind it was just indispensable. Miscalculating the volume of the new box I formed Totoro that were way to big for this box so in the end there was only place for five.

As you may noticed it’s not the usual cute Totoro Obento you can see on many wonderful Bento sites but rather a wry smiling and suspicious-looking pirate crew. (The small one in the right corner is even a vampire..) I don’t know how and when it started to look so wacky but it probably was when Silvankun started to help me out .. muahahaharhar I’m being mean

Anyway, you think you have seen worse? Well wait until you see the upper part.. With Halloween being so close and the alienating, radioactive-looking pirate Totoro I decided to make the whole Obento look freaky. As soon as we finished cutting out those cranky smiles out of seaweed we knew that this wasn’t going to be the usual cute Obento and decided to make a pirate crew out of it. As you may or may not see the inspiration was clearly One Piece. The yellow Totoro with a tortilla hat and a scar under his eye is supposed to be Ruffy.

The upper part features Brook the skeleton with a treasure and some other weird guys.

Is Silvankun’s influence noticeable?

I’ve rarely seen an Obento with such contrastive colors.. The upper part has very natural and has autumanl colors while the Totoro part is fancy with strong colors. To be honest, I don’t think that I’m going to use food coloring for an Obento ever again.. It’s just so not my style! But it sure was fun doing this Bento with Silvankun! The Bento is still in the fridge and I don’t know if I have the guts to bite in one of those green or red Totoro but I’m sure that Silvankun will

To read about the ingredients and see more wacky pictures of Totoro’s Pirate Crew, read on!
read more →

Kaonashi Onigiri~

Posted on September 5, 2011 by nekochan

Kaonashi Onigiri~

Yaaay! It’s dark and rainy and cold. I can’t wait for more rainy days to come.

Yesterday Pimo from Wok Blog translated and published my Rilakkuma Inari article on her fabulous Blog! Thank you Pimo, I feel so honoured! I strongly recommend you to check out the genuine and mouth-watering recipes with beautiful pictures on her Blog! I don’t know if it’s the weather or just me but with this temperatures there’s nothing more enjoyable than to hold and eat a steaming and warm Onigiri. I love the moist and slightly sticky texture of the rice coverd with a sheet of nori. I wonder why there isn’t a restaurant or something that sells them! The only places I had Onigiri in Japan was while staying at some families and in Konbini stores. I remember that instead of sandwiches, Okasan prepared Onigiri to bring with us on the slopes. It was so romantic eating the riceballs outside in the snow.

There is nothing romantic about these little fellows. In fact they look more like Gene Simmons (KISS).. you know, the rock band with the dudes who look like cool pandas.

In case ou didn’t get it, I tried to make them look like Kaonashi from Spirited Away. The idea is from Anna the red‘s bentofactory. Kaonashi means “no face” and is a very interesting and mystic character. I tried to find more information about him but I didn’t find anything satisfying. There are a lot theories and assumptions around this Miyazaki film but I think most of them are useless. It is probable that Kaonashi’s impressive face is inspired by the masks of the traditional Japanese Nō (能) plays but I’m not totally convinced about this. Anyway, it is a great movie and it doesn’t make much sense looking for an explanation somewhere on the internet because probably everyone has his own understanding and feelings while watching this spectacular movie.

The next time I’m doing them, I’ll try to give them more accurate faces

It was some kind of snack for me and Silvankun so I simply added some cherry tomatoes and a “yellow” carrot with some white yoghurt. If you want to know how to make yummy Onigiri with filling look it up here.

Do you like Onigiri as much as I do?! byebye ねこちゃん

Totoro and The thousand-dollar genome

Posted on July 8, 2011 by nekochan

Totoro and The thousand-dollar genome

Hi Everyone! :hionigiri:

I can’t believe the week is almost over again! Next week I’m going to start with my matriculation project and therefor will have to visit a laboratory. I know it probably isn’t a topic of public interest but I will nevertheless shortly describe what this project is about

. Scientists have found a more or less reasonably priced (a thosand-dollar) way to sequence human DNA which means that your personal genome can be decoded and possible genetic diseases (such as for example Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or different kinds of cancer) can be predicted. My question is if this is a curse or a blessing. What would you do? Would you dare having your personal genome analysed and being told what diseases you may carry on your DNA?… Well, now you know what will keep me away from blogging the next week

.

But now to the other part of this post: My first Totoro Obento!
Yesterday I found a magnificent blog called “Cooking Gallery”. Athough I visited quite a few Bento related blogs I had never see this one! Some of them look almost a little too kitschy to me but all in all I have to say that I’m quite impressed! The color and box range is just stunning

! Unpredictable as I am (if you read my last Obento entry you’ll probably know why..), I suddenly felt the urge to make a Kyaraben (キャラ弁)! Influenced by all the Totoro Obento out there on the web I chose to follow the mass and creating one myself. I think many people choose Totoro as character in their Obento because it is (compared to a specific human) an abstract character and therefor quite easy to reproduce. Sure there are a lot of details that you can reproduce in different ways (better or less good) but I think you still have a wider range of options as while reproducing a human character like Naruto for example. I think what distinguishes a real Kyaraben from a well let’s say “less good” Kyaraben (as mine) is the accuracy of the details! Totoro fan as you all are you will surely detect my bad blunder.. Yes,… I forgot the whiskers

Anyway that’s exactly what I was writing about. You can instantly recognize Totoro even without his whiskers but Naruto without whiskers just isn’t Naruto