Yup, you've read that correctly, my very first and my very own bento cookbook :-)! After months of hard work, it's finally done! This was also one of the reasons why I had been in an on-and-off again relationship with my blog the last couple of months. So, let me introduce you to my new little baby: Bento Delights - adorable + stylish lunches on the go. You even get to know my name too :). Hello, my name is Syntia, even though so far I have only been known as CG virtually. After knowing my name, I don't appear that mysterious distant anymore right ;)??

I'd thought about writing a bento book since mid 2011. Numerous people (blog readers, Facebook followers, etc) have contacted me via e-mail or Facebook messages, and inquired if I would publish a bento book in the near future, since they'd love to have one. I told them that it was something that I would think about and would try to fit into my schedule. However, due to professional commitment, I was regularly short on time and I just never had the chance to work on this project until a few months ago. But now, I've kept my promise and I hope this book would be helpful for everyone who wants to embark on a journey of bento-making or is just curious about it :)!

If you wish to know more about this book, read on, but be warned, this will be a quite long post!

Bento Delights is a 118 pages full-colour paperback (8.5 x 11 inches). It contains 31 bento menus and 100 recipes. The book is divided into 2 main sections: Character Bento (Charaben) and Traditional Bento. But, you will also find other information related to bento, such as Bento Basics, Tools & Accessories, Bento Helpers, etc. Please find below the complete list of Contents.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Bento Basics

Bento Boxes + Tools + Accessories

Character Bento

Traditional Bento

Additional Recipes

rice

pickles + salads

stir-fries + other favourites

tamagoyaki

Further Tips + Tricks

onigiri

colouring rice

bento helpers

idea list for a colourful bento box

pretty bento accents

Resource Guide

Glossary

Afterword

Keep scrolling to get a sneak peek of my book.

WHAT YOU WILL FIND IN THIS BOOK

• 16 Charaben menus including step-by-step photographs
• 15 Traditional Bento menus and each features a full-colour photo of the final bento
• 100 recipes (Focus: Modern Asian - especially Japanese, Chinese & Korean)
• Other bento related information.

PLEASE NOTE

• Even though half of the book features cute bento ideas, this book was not written with the aim to give parents fun lunch ideas for kids who are picky eaters. A lot of the recipes are more geared towards older audience who are into bento, Japanese cusine or modern Asian foods in general.
• Out of the 31 bento menus, 5 have been previously featured in this blog (even though I just briefly talked about them and didn't really include any recipes). The other 26 bento menus were exclusively made for this cookbook.
• Before you buy the book, check out the CHARABEN and TRADITIONAL BENTO sections in my blog - if you like my bento style, chance is you might like this book too.

WHERE TO BUY

• Australia - Fishpond.com.au
• France - Amazon.fr
• Germany - Amazon.de
• India - Amazon.in
• Italy - Amazon.it
• Spain - Amazon.es
• UK - Amazon.co.uk
• USA - Amazon.com
• USA - Barnes & Noble 

Note: Amazon has a "Look Inside" function, which is great, since you will be able to see more sample pages of my book. Unfortunately, I don't have any control on which pages to display, and since Amazon doesn't really show the pages in order, the design might look rather inconsistent.

BUY DIRECTLY FROM ME
If your country is not listed above or if you would like to buy my book outside the mentioned online retailers, you can directly purchase the book from me. My printer is based in the US, but I can arrange the shipping/handling for you - and yes, my printer ships worldwide! Contact me for a quote!

DISCLAIMER

• Even though I now have one bento book published, I by no means would like to claim that I am a bento expert. Bentoing (and cooking) is just a hobby of mine and an outlet to express my creative urges - my educational/professional background actually has absolutely nothing to do with the culinary arts, but I've always been rather artsy since I was younger. I also love to cook, I love to eat and I love to create pretty things. So, the result is this bento book :).

FURTHER INFORMATION

• If you have any questions regarding  this book, leave me a comment below, or simply shoot me an e-mail to: cookinggallery@yahoo.de
• If you would like to have a hardcover edition, you can contact me and I can arrange to order it for you, but the price for hardcover is of course higher than paperback. E-mail and ask me for a quote, and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Finally I had the time to post this cat-themed bento I promised I would make! Can you guess that each kitty is just made out of 1 tablespoon of cooked rice? So yes, they're pretty small rice balls, which are actually great for little kids who certainly eat smaller portions than us. The brown kitty on the left is flavoured with fish floss and the yellow kitty on the right is rice ball mixed with boiled egg yolk. The side dishes are pretty similar to the sides in my previous Baby Minion Bento, since I was actually just using some leftovers (but what is a bento without using leftovers? Nightmare!! *lol* ;) - if you bento, I am sure you get what I mean :)). But I did whip up a small portion of Korean rice cakes with ground chicken.

I used the super chick "Large Bento Glamour Kitty" bento box I got from CasaBento (yep, again ;)! I think 95% of my bento supplies are from CasaBento - love you CasaBento ;D)!). If you are into cats, I think this is the perfect box for you. This box costs €31.99 and is handpainted! It is also microwave and dishwasher safe.

The cute food picks shown in today's bento are also from CasaBento. They have a pretty good selection of adorable food picks, which can function both as mini forks and cute accesories.

That's it for today. Hopefully this bento brought a smile to your face :).

Wow, I made another bento again today :)! I kept my promise :). I told you yesterday that I didn't really like how my Olaf Bento turned out, but I am pretty happy with the Baby Minion bento I made today, I think it's very cute :)!

The two baby minions in the middle are mini onigiri mixed with boiled egg yolk, and the other four minions are tamagoyaki (Japanese rolled omellete). The sides are pretty simple: steamed broccoli, oven-baked breaded shrimps, pan-fried meatballs, cherry tomatoes, edamame and pistaschios.

I am going to make a cat-themed bento tomorrow - I think I mostly made piggies, teddy bears, chicks and pandas so far. So stay tuned :)!