Ghibli feast #7: Spirited Away
May 28, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - ghibli (totoro, etc...), bento blog - non bento Tags: Ghibli feast, spirited away
9 comments
Day 3 of Ghibli feast
Ghibli feast #7: Spirited Away
Spirited Away was the second Miyazaki film that was theatrically released in the U.S., so I’m sure a lot of people know and saw this film in the theater. I’m not going into details of this film since I’m not good at summarizing… so let’s just get to the feast.
I’m sure the people who missed my “preview of Ghibli feast” post are wondering what I’d make for Spirited Away. There is soooo much food in the film. So much that I could probably have a feast just with Spirited Away. I hate to disappoint you but I’ll save that for some other time. Sorry!! But I will do it someday, maybe soon… I have to do a lot of research first. But for this time I decided to do the simplest food from the film.
Dish 1
[Rice balls]
After Chihiro started working at the bathhouse, Haku tells Chihiro to meet him outside. He gives her back her clothes and a card from her friends with her name, Chihiro, on it and tells her not to forget her name. He assures her that she’ll see her parents again, and gives her rice balls. The rice balls Haku gives her has no seaweed and it doesn’t look like anythingis inside either, but it looks soooo good when Chihiro eats them. Chihiro, who’s confused and worried about her parents starts crying as she eats the rice balls.
Growing up, eating rice myself, I can understand her feeling so well. Nothing makes me feel more at home than eating rice. I used to go to conventions a lot, and for a couple of days I’d have to eat hotel food, convention food, take-out, fast food, etc… And usually by the end of the trip, I just can’t wait to get home and eat rice. Chihiro is feeling so lost and alone in a strange world, and biting into plain rice balls relaxes her, making her burst into tears.
My boyfriend and I make rice balls every Sunday morning, but we usually have seaweed on them. I should’ve had him make them though. His rice balls are usually perfect triangular like the ones Haku gives her.
My rice balls always end up big and round.
-
—
——
My grandma used to tell me farmers go through 88 stages to grow rice (thus splitting the Kanji for rice becomes 88), so I had to chew one mouth full of rice 88 times to pay respect. I've tried, and it's not an easy thing to do... but it's a nice story nonetheless.
——
—
-
Dish 2
[Steamed red bean bun]
After a busy day at the bathhouse, Chihiro stares at the train running outside the bathhouse. Rin who also works at the bathhouse tells Chihiro that the train only leaves, but never comes back, and gives her a steamed bun with sweet red bean inside.
I didn’t want to wait for yeast to rise, so I used cake flour to make steam buns. (check out “how to make steamed bun with cake flour without yeast”) I was going to make sweet red beans from scratch, but I had bought sweet red beans a long time ago to make Oshiruko, so I decided to use it. (Oshiruko is rice cake in sweet red bean soup) I’ve never made seamed bun with sweet red bean but it came out pretty nice!
I like using a bamboo steamer. No need for cheese cloth, and no worries about water dripping on the buns!
I tried to make them as big as possible, but my steamed buns were not even close to the size of the bun Chihiro had. I think Miyazaki wanted to make her look like a very skinny city kid, and that’s why her hands are tiny and her arms and legs are almost stick-like. But look how HUGE the steamed bun is compared to her hand!!
-
—
——
Chihiro's bun is as big as my steamer. I'm not sure if she should be eating something so big as a night snack.
——
—
-
Dish? 3
[Konpeito]
This one was a last minute extra food we threw in. When we decided to do this, we realized that we had the “konpeitou candy” which Kamajii feeds to the hard working Makkurokurosuke. I bought the candy for my boyfriend a long time ago because he didn’t know what it was and was surprised when I told him that you could buy them.
“To make Konpeitou, the rice kernels are put in a turnable pot, and slowly covered with syrup over a period of 10 to 30 days, allowing layer after layer of syrup to build up, about 1 mm a day. Spikes will start appearing about the 5th day.” (Copyright 2010 Practically Edible. All rights reserved and enforced.) Read more of this snippet here.
That’s right, those tiny spikes are not artificially created or from a mold! It’s pretty much pure sugar, so it’s very very sweet. The ones I got were plain flavor, but for some reason, he had eaten more colored ones than white ones. The colored ones do look tastier.
-
—
——
——
—
-
Okay, so it wasn’t much of a feast… But we had one last feast planned to finish the Ghibli feast! It was the Castle of Cagliostro.
You can also see these pictures in Ghibi feast set on my flickr page!
non-bento #16: Kaonashi and kodama onigiri
July 16, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - non bento Tags: kaonashi, kodama, onigiri, princess mononoke, rice ball, spirited away
3 comments
My boyfriend and I are on the road again! We’ve been trying to empty the fridge, so I’ve been making regular bento. But I still wanted to make a kyaraben-ish thing, so I decided to make breakfast.
Non-bento #16: Kaonashi and Kodama onigiri (rice ball)
Created and eaten on: 7/15/2009
Click to continue reading "non-bento #16: Kaonashi and kodama onigiri"
bento #12: Spirited Away
December 2, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - ghibli (totoro, etc...) Tags: bou-nezumi, hae-dori, makkurokurosuke, spirited away, studio ghibli
6 comments
My boyfriend has “Ootori-sama” (Duck God?) plush keychain from Spirited Away on his bag, so I always wanted to make a bento with Ootori-sama. I looked around in my boyfriend’s room, trying to find anything that would go with Ootori-sama, and I noticed that hippo looking thing (Bou-nezumi) and the black bird (Hae-dori) from Spirited Away on his desk… that was enough for me to try making Spirited Away bento.
Bento #12: Spirited Away
Created and eaten: 10/13/2008
Click to continue reading "bento #12: Spirited Away"
bento #6: Kaonashi
November 20, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - ghibli (totoro, etc...) Tags: kaonashi, kodama, makkurokurosuke, princess mononoke, spirited away, studio ghibli
4 comments
After my sad attempt at making Nekobus bento, I was looking for something very easy & fail-free to make.
I was going through images of characters from Ghibli films, and came across the picture of a tall black figure with black eyes and mouth on a white mask called Kaonashi (“No Face” in English version) from Spirited Away.
Bento# 6: Kaonashi, Kodama and Makkurokurosuke bento (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro/Spirited Away)
Created and eaten on: 10/1/2008
He has a face, yet, he's called Kaonashi (No Face)...
