おいしい!

My daughter is three years old.  Thankfully she's not a fussy eater, but she is still three so even a favorite such as perfectly salted edamame might tempt her tastes buds for one meal but may not the next.  She goes to preschool part of the week, and I have to pack a lunch for her.  Sometimes she comes home with an emptied lunch box, and sometimes you would have thought that I was feeding the child dirt.  What I have learned is that lunch preparation for a three year old is all in the presentation.  Oh, how times have changed.  In my day, my parents would have told me to eat what was in my rice bowl and waste not lest thunder strike me down, or better yet if I left any rice grains in my bowl, I'd have pock marks on my face when I was older.  Not these budding gourmands. Children are foodies from an early age.

Bento boxes are a god-send.

If you're not on the up-and-up, you're thinking probably bento boxes?  Isn't that an option on Japanese restaurant menus?

My daughter has several Hello Kitty lunch boxes that I pack as if I were making a bento box option at a Japanese restaurant.  Today, she got a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread cut into a heart shape with a cookie cutter.  I placed the sandwich in the middle of the bento box, surrounded with grapes.  I put string cheese along the bottom of the box.  In her My Melody food container, I packed seedless watermelon cubes which she eats with her Kitty fork (though the three year old insists that she have the matching spoon in her lunch bag as well even if the spoon isn't used).  Just because the food was simply arranged in an "artistic" manner, I can bank on Miss Priss finishing her lunch at school without nary a prompt from the teacher to eat.

My daughter hasn't seen this new bento box yet at the store, but no doubt the next time that she is there, she'll probably "ask" her grandmother for one (and yet another set of matching forks and spoons).  *sigh* At least she's eating.