how to make sweet n’ sour pickled radish
May 31, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - fundamentals Tags: daikon, pickled radish
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My boyfriend and I were supposed to go to Boston for his niece’s 2nd birthday party this weekend, but we had to cancel it because his sister had another baby girl! We are so excited for his sister and her family. 
Since we weren’t going to Boston, we were able to attend the birthday party of one of my old friends from my art school. The party was at McCarren park in Brooklyn. The weather was nice, and it was very nice to see my old friends. Understandably, there were a lot of people besides us at the park, but we didn’t expect to see zombies. Yes, there were dozens of zombies at the park. Apparently there was a zombie crawl (not a walk, but crawl) in Williamsburg. I guess zombies are hip this summer.
We came home late from the park, and didn’t have the time to do a full how-to today. So I decided to show how I store leftover veggies. Sometimes, I use radish for my kyaraben. The candle on the cake for Portal bento, a cigarette for Mechazawa in Cromartie High bento, mushrooms for the Totoro parade bento, etc… Radish is a good ingredient for solid white things in kyaraben, like the snowflake I’ve made before. I usually just eat leftover radish raw, but if there’s a lot leftover I make sweet pickled radish.
[Basic measurement for this recipe for sweet n' sour radish pickle]
Rice vinegar – 4 TBS
Sugar – 1 and 1/2 TBS
Salt – a pinch
Lemon juice (if you have any) – 1/2 TS
You can just double, triple, quadruple the measurements according to how much radish you have.
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non-bento #15: quail egg Prinnies
May 30, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - non bento Tags: prinny, quail egg
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When I made the Prinny bento, I had prepared some food to put in the bento, but I couldn’t used it because I ran out of time. I didn’t want to waste it, so I just put it in our regular bento.
Non-bento #15: Quail egg Prinnies
Created and eaten on: 5/29/2009
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bento #50: Prinny
May 28, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - video game Tags: disgaea, penguin, prinny, psp
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My boyfriend is still playing Patapon 2 on his PSP the most of times, but just the other day, he was trying out a new game.
Bento #50: Prinny
Created and eaten on: 5/27/2009
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bento sketch book #6
May 26, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog - sketch Tags: sketches
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We still had tons of leftovers from Cracker Barrel, so no need to make bento. =/
Instead, here are some sketches!
Bento #41: Ryuk from Death Note
I mostly focused on Ryuk’s face, so not much is going on around him. As I mentioned, I did draw Shido and Rem in the background first, but erased them later. I usually don’t erase anything from my sketchbook even if I didn’t have the time to make it. But this time, it was too distracting, and I couldn’t draw Ryuk’s wings with them in the background.
Just like any other Totoro bento, this drawing was done in less than 5 minutes. I love drawing Totoro. It just makes me smile. But I did look up for the logo for Studio Ghibli which appears in the beginning of every Studio Ghibli film as a reference. (The line drawing of Totoro in profile, with chibi-Totoro on his head)
This simple sketches of bunch of square heads in line took FOREVER to draw. I just couldn’t come up with a good composition for this, so I ended up making just the heads. I should’ve realized that the hole punch was much smaller than the eyes I drew for Castle Crashers. Then I wouldn’t have made the head so big, and the eyes would’ve been the perfect size. =/ And as you can see in the drawing, I was going to put bunch of animal orbs in this bento, but I was obviously delusional to plan such a thing. So instead of spending 3 more hours to make the animal orbs for this bento, I decided to make a bento just with animal orbs.
Whoops, seems like I didn’t paste the animal orb cutouts on this page… I’ll update the picture of my drawing later.
Bento #45: Pink Castle Crasher with Tom Fulp
I drew this Pink Castle Crasher after watching the video of someone playing the game, “Castle Crashing, the Beard.” Because I suck at the game and I kept dying before I got to Pink Castle Crasher. It turns out the most common Pink Castle Crasher doesn’t have a ” <3 ” on his/her head. He/She’s just like a regular Castle Crasher, in pink, with <3 on his/her chest. But I like my Pink Castle Crasher with a ” <3 .”
For bigger pictures of my sketches, just click on the image of sketch or visit Bento Sketches! on my flickr page.
For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.
Back from Boston!
May 24, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Alteil, Everything else Tags: anime boston, boston, conventions, cosplay
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We’re back from Anime Boston!
The people I went with were my boyfriend and four other co-workers. We’re all friends, so even though it was a business trip, we had a great time. My feet and neck were killing me by the end of each day, but one of the great things about a business trip is that we can try different food in the area. My boyfriend and I love cooking, and we cook almost everyday, but it’s still kinda nice to eat food someone else cooked for you once in a while. (especially if you don’t have to pay for it 
) As I mentioned in my previous blog post, we ate at The Daily Grill on Thursday.
On the second day (the first day of Anime Boston), I had an omelet at the hotel for breakfast.
My omelet seemed concerned about the long day (9 hours) ahead of us.
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Memorial day weekend in Boston!
May 21, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Alteil, Everything else Tags: applemmon, boston, conventions
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I’m on a business trip again! This time I’m in Boston, where my boyfriend is from. Sorry for those people who came here looking for a new bento… I’ll be posting more bento next week! But today ~ Sunday, my posts will be about this trip.
When you’re in Boston, you gotta try this…
Applemon. Apples and lemon, all in one.
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bento #49: Patapon
May 19, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - video game Tags: patapon, psp
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I’ve been pretty busy with work for past couple of weeks. I work for an online card game called Alteil, which my company brought to the U.S. from Japan 2 years ago. We just released a new set of cards, so I’ve been translating, checking for bugs, writing emails to Japanese staff for days and nights, working at work and from home until past midnight most nights. So I’ve been itching to make a new bento!
Anyway, my boyfriend treated himself with a PSP with his tax refund a couple of months ago. The reason he wanted a PSP was basically for this game.
Bento #49: Patapon bento!
Created and eaten on: 5/19/2009
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bento sketch book #5
May 14, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - sketch Tags: pink castle crasher
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Before I go onto bento sketch book, I want to show off something…
I received a very rare Pink Castle Crasher from Luis from Newgrounds!
Came with bunch of weapons as well.
I think I wrote about how he was holding a contest “make an edible pink castle crasher!” at Newgrounds.com on my blog before, and he picked three winners! (Check out his site for the winners.)
Anyway, I sent the picture of my Pink Castle Crasher bento to Tom Fulp (one of the creators of Castle Crashers), but I wrote that since I wasn’t a member on Newgrounds.com to begin with, I felt that it’d be unfair to register for the site just to enter the contest, but I still wanted him to see it. Then we received an email, asking us if we want a Pink Castle Crasher anyway. We would’ve been insane to say no. There exists only 15 Pink Castle Crasher figures in the world! It just makes me happy when the original creator of something I created actually gets to see my creation, so for them offering me something so precious just blew me away. I do feel bad about those who entered the contest, trying to win this desperately, and thought about not putting the picture of it on my blog, but… come on! It looks so freaking awesome!
I’d like to thank Luis and Tom from Newgrounds and Dan from the Behemoth studio for being such cool creators of awesome games!
Now onto my bento sketch book…
As you can see in the drawing, I wanted to put the kitty from the game… but I couldn’t. Also I had no idea what I was going to use for the bottom part. I just wrote down “broccoli.” But I happened to make teriyaki chicken the night before, so I decided to use it in the morning.
Bento #37: Headcrab from Half-life
I’m so embarrassed by this drawing. I just couldn’t draw Headcrabs. They all looked like turkeys. This was a very rare case that the actual bento ended up looking better than the drawing.
Bento #38: Payatan from Da Mahou Touge
I just drew Payatan and bunch of faces for each vegetable on the side. I didn’t like how Payatan’s face came out in the actual bento though… He doesn’t look like him. =/ I guess I’ll have to make Payatan with his serious face someday.
Bento #39: Mehazawa from Cromartie High
I was feeling ambitious when I drew this, thinking that I could put those two guys in the bunny and bear suit. I drew Mechazawa sitting in the desk, but I couldn’t think of anyway to do it, so I just made him standing up, but I had to cut off his legs… And for some reason, Mechazawa’s brother is floating in the air, which also has no feet. This is what happens if you don’t plan things in advance.
This is the drawing of FAIL. It took so long to draw this, and it took even longer to make food look like it. It was a disaster. As I wrote in the original post, I ran out of the time, so I didn’t make the main character’s head. But I didn’t want to waste the lower body part, so I just stuck it in there. I don’t even know what happened to the bunny…
For bigger pictures of my sketches, just click on the image of sketch or visit Bento Sketches! on my flickr page.
For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.
Anime Central 2 – I got E. coli!
May 12, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else Tags: Anime Central, chicago, conventions, cosplay, Fran, Link, midori days, Moyashimon, shiek
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No, I didn’t get sick. I got a plush of E. coli from Moyashimon!
Moyashimon plush! I got E. coli and A. oryzae 
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Anime Central 1 – I can has hedgehog sammich?
May 7, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else Tags: Anime Central, chicago, conventions, sandwich
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Why no bento blog?
It’s not because I’m lazy this time, but it’s because I’m on a business trip!
My boyfriend and I work for a post production company that licenses and releases Japanese anime, live action films, online card game (<-I’m in this game department now) and our company goes to many conventions throughout the year. It’s definitely fun to work at anime conventions, because we both love selling our products and just enjoy being there.
Anyway, we’re in Chicago, will be attending “Anime Central” from May 08 ~ May 10, so I probably won’t be doing bento related blog posts until I get back to the city. Instead, I’ll blog about the convention and anything interesting. I hope I can blog about food around here, but since usually these anime conventions are held in the middle of nowhere, there aren’t that much choices for food…
On the airplane to Chicago, we got a small sandwich, baby carrots, and a kitkat as a snack, so I decided to play with it.
First I played with it a little…
OH HAI!
And I decided to play with it a lot.
I can has hedgehog sammich?
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