MDN wrote:
ICHIHARA, Japan -- Kazumi Shimomura's kitchen table is cluttered with tools not usually associated with cooking: A pair of tweezers, a razor knife and a digital camera.
Her culinary style is just as unique.
She sculpts rice colored with egg yolks into the shape of a dinosaur, fashions its eye with sliced cheese and strips of seaweed. Star-shaped pieces of okra adorn the belly.
"I just wanted my son to have fun when he goes to day care on Saturdays," explains Shimomura as she uses tweezers to place tiny teeth-shaped bits of cheese in the dinosaur's mouth.
Spending hours meticulously perfecting a meal that will be gobbled down in a school cafeteria by her 6-year-old son hardly seems like time well-invested.
But lunch-box art marries the age-old Japanese penchant for precision and aesthetics with the country's modern, shrinking, affluent nuclear family, where fewer children mean moms have more time and money to lavish on their little emperors. The intricate presentations are also a public way for mothers -- who often forgo careers to cater to their families -- to demonstrate their devotion to motherhood, dedication to their children's nutrition and creative skills.
. . . "I never make the same thing twice. I just think about what to make next time," said Shimomura, 38, as she leafed through albums of digital photos of her own work at her home outside Tokyo.
Housewives have taken their lunchbox exhibitions online, where Internet journals feature up-to-date photos of the latest works. Cooking books catering to the trend are proliferating, and companies even host contests.
The blogs provide a forum for mothers to exchange esoteric tips such as how to dye egg white blue. The answer? Add purple sweet potato powder and cook in the frying pan.
The trend has struck a chord with stay-at-home mothers, many of whom retire early when they have children, but still have plenty of creative energy to spare.
. . . Mari Miyazawa, the host of a popular site, e-obento.com, since 2004, said she started making bento to save money, but now it's become a full-time job: she's authored three cookbooks and is one of the most recognized lunchbox artists in the country.
This photo [above] released by Japanese housewife Junko Terashima shows an edible likeness of Japanese pop duo Puffy in a box lunch she prepared on April 3, 2006 . . . more
