Just in case you follow Just Bento but not Just Hungry, and you're wondering why there haven't been any updates for a while, this is what happened. I'll be back home in a few days though and back to regular bento making!

In the meantime, a picture from a couple of days ago. In the background is the Pacific Ocean, from Laie Point on the northeastern shore of Oahu, Hawai'i. On the dashboard of my rental car...two spam musubi! I still can't say I am in love with them but they do sure fill a hole in the tummy very very well.

Since Just Bento is attracting a lot of new readers these days (thank you!) starting now I'm going to be highlighting some of the most popular or interesting articles from the past month every month, in case you missed something good.

• Bento teasing? Do you or your kids get teased about your (or their) bento? The comments are really thought provoking.
• Carrot rice two ways. These two very easy ways of adding carroty goodness to plain rice have gotten great reviews from readers who've tried them.
• Tuna tofu miso mini-burgers. Another hit recipe - cheap and easy to make.
• Bento boxes of the week: Stainless steel People seemed to really warm to the idea of a durable, non-plastic bento. This was a followup of sorts to a question posed in March, how to get rid of the plastic smell in bento boxes.

See more entries from April, not to mention March, February and more!

Good news for bento fans in Europe and the UK in particular: as reported previously, Japan Centre's online store has expanded their bento box and accessory lineup from Daiso. Accessories are priced at £1.45 to &1.49, and bento boxes like the popular Lube Sheep Dragonfly model are £2.50 - pretty reasonable I think. While Japan Centre, who are based in London, only ship food items within Europe, they do ship non-food items worldwide, Always figure in the shipping costs and shop around for the best deals! See Where to buy bento items. (*Disclaimer: Japan Centre is an advertiser on Just Bento, but I'm also a very happy repeat customer.)

Hi folks. I will be mostly offline for a week or so. Some new articles that are already written up will (if it works out) get posted but replying to comments and so on will have to wait a bit. Here's why in case you don't follow Just Hungry too. I'll be back though! :)

(Update on my status is here.) \

I've been doing a lot of background organizing on Just Bento, now that it has a few months under its belt. So far, I've been featuring mainly bento staples or _johbisai_, things that you can make in advance and stock in the freezer, refrigerator or elsewhere. There are lots of things that aren't well suited to cooking in advance (or any earlier than the night before) though. So I'll be writing up more individual item recipes.

Now that there's a comfortable amount of content on Just Bento, I've added two features to the site: an index page of all entries on the site, and a recipe only index. (The links are in the top navigation, on the left side of the page.) Both pages are sortable by title or date, and clicking on a category will take you to a page which lists all entries under that category. I hope you'll find them useful!

I've boosted the information on the bento archive list - the completed bento how-tos are the heart of the site after all. Instead of just a simple listing of thumbnails, each bento now has the Time needed, Calories, Type and Protein sources (which indicate whether a bento is vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore) indicated. So, now you can scan the page for the bento that suits your time, calorie, or eating preferences.

This is the very last day you can donate to Menu For Hope! And a nice bonus - take a look at the beautiful poem about Lesotho <a href="http://sotho.blogsome.com/2007/02/08/my-country-my-home/'>here by Rethabile.

Just Bento is taking a few days off to take care of a ton of offline duties. We'll be back on the 26th, Boxing Day - an appropriate day to start talking about getting into the bento making spirit for 2008.

Happy Holidays!