Happy 2012! As you may have noticed, I’ve made a New Year’s resolution! Or maybe you haven’t noticed because I haven’t been posting as frequently as I should have.

Well, my resolution for this year was to be less lazy/more motivated, and that includes updating my blog more often! I hadn’t changed the layout for a few years, sometimes just changing the header. Not only was it hard to find the time to update my site, but I was also lacking inspiration! Web Design used to be a hobby, but now it’s my profession. As such, sometimes I feel that all my creative juices get sucked out 9-5 and when I get home the *last* thing I want to do is design something or type on the computer.

For Christmas my Grandma gave me a cookbook I have been lusting after since it was first published: Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented. Not only did I get inspired by the stunning photos and typography, but I was also aligned with the book’s philosophy. With a new color scheme (including Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2010) and a new outlook, I played with the design for a few days and then spent a day implementing it.

So, here’s to out with the old and in with the new!

More detailed specifics on the new layout will be found soon under the About section. Please feel free to share your thoughts, or let me know if something is broken or doesn’t look right!

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Thanks!

I found a site that takes photos and makes them look like Meiji Era photos! Not too sure how useful it is, but it’s great fun!
The website is called Bakumatsu Koshashin (幕末古写真) (via Tofugu). The picture above is one that I took at the local Sakura Matsuri in 2005.

Original

Wow, I just realized this is my four-hundredth post! Sorry there’s nothing more exciting for this, but it’s my bento for today! I think I did a good job of filling in all the extra spaces and having a good balance of fruit, vegetable, and carb.

This is a new bento that I purchased from Rakuten (via Crescent Trading). It’s hard to find sandwich case bento when you’re on a mission! There are only like two readily available designs and I didn’t like them.

The top is lined with wax paper (I took some small sheets from my local store’s bakery section) and contains Pizza Bread from my local Korean Bakery. Pizza bread is actually quite common in Japan and I ate it many times when I was there. This one seems more like a “leftover” pizza, and it has a weird layout of plain bread + ham + toppings. The toppings are also weird, and seem to have no rhyme or reason. I saw onions, mushrooms, cheese, crab, and sauce. It tasted pretty good and was quite filling.

The bottom holds dragonfruit stars, a chinese leek & scallion bao (xie ke huang 蟹殼黃), pretzels, raisins, and apple cinnamon “cheerios”. I’m struggling to find out how much food I actually eat because even though I only had half of the pizza bread today for lunch (the other half is already cut and will be used for later this week), I am incredibly full right now. Sometimes I pack more than this and I’m hungry throughout the day!

P.S. the furoshiki is from Japan and has Chu-Totoro and Chibi-Totoro on it with flower blossoms. I really must get/find more furoshiki~. I’m sure I bought more than two in Japan! I guess I can make some out of the fabric I bought in Japan as well.

Fortunately, most of these were cross-posted elsewhere and it will just take me quite a while to restore it manually.

Meanwhile, I went ahead and updated WordPress to 2.6 and changed the layout. I also changed the infrastructure of the site so that I won’t have “caged, i-frame” layouts and will now only have a php based, database driven site.

In the future look for:
*updated/restored entries
*updated/restored reviews (restaurant, book, etc)
*restored portfolio
*updated/restored resources (& indexed, alphabetized, and jquery table display format)
*updated/restored bento entries

CLICK ‘READ THE REST’ AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE
to see larger pictures and descriptions of each book.
To translate Japanese words, use this site: http://www.rikai.com/perl/Home.pl

サンリオキャラクターのおいしくてかわいいおべんとう
Sanrio Character Yummy and Cute Bento by 服部みどり
81 Pages, Published by Sanrio, March 2007, ISBN-10: 4387070196, ISBN-13: 978-4387070191, Measures 25.8 x 20.8 x 1.2 cm. Amazon selling page

基本のおべんとう
Basic Bento by オレンジページブックス (Orange Page Books)
Published by Orange Page Books, February 2004, #ISBN-10: 4873032717, #ISBN-13: 978-4873032719, measures 29.4 x 22.8 x 0.6 cm, Amazon selling page

おいしい・楽しいおべんとう100箱 (大型本)
100 Tasty & Fun Bento by Inoe Yukari
223 pages, Published by 成美堂出版, June 2005, #ISBN-10: 4415039499, #ISBN-13: 978-4415039497, measures 25.8 x 21.2 x 1.8 cm, Amazon selling page

うちごはん
House Bento
More information coming, not available on Amazon.

おいしいお絵かきお弁当
Delicious Picture Bento by 宮澤 真理
112 pages, published by 白夜書房, October 2005, #ISBN-10: 4861910714, #ISBN-13: 978-4861910715, measures 23.4 x 18.2 x 1.2 cm, Amazon selling page.

前川メグの愛され・レシピ
Meg Maekawa’s Love Recipes by Mayakawa Meg
95 pages, published by 学習研究社, July 2007, #ISBN-10: 4056048282, #ISBN-13: 978-4056048285, measures 20 x 19.2 x 1 cm, Amazon selling page.

パパッと15分!おいしいお弁当
Tasty Bento in 15 minutes by 林 幸子
Published by 西東社, December 2003, #ISBN-10: 4791612051, #ISBN-13: 978-4791612055, measures 23.2 x 18.2 x 1.6 cm, Amazon selling page.

Beginner’s Cooking School
Beginner’s Cooking School by Ajinomoto
This was a book given to those who took a cooking class (like I did) through Ajinomoto. I don’t think this is available otherwise.

I just recently had an epiphany as a result of a few of my friends commenting on my bento. SINCE I’m so passionate (yet a rookie) about Bento, I plan to make a ‘resources’ section of my site.

Of course, this will not be JUST for Bento, I’ll also have site and probably some Japanese language resources, but the starting will be BENTO. Right now, It’ll probably be a compliation of some pages from my many bento books and some awesome bento links on the web. ^_^

so look out!
I started taking pictures of two books, and I’ll continue.
I will also announce updates through my blog (especially since this new section will not be created until the next layout).

Portfolio Update

Hey, ppl have been telling me to update the graphic art section of my site, and I did! Well, kinda. I added a ‘website portfolio’ section (which is only 1/2 completed). And I will add graphic art soon (most avail @ discojing.deviantart.com ) but I don’t know how integrating graphic art into this site will work. Right now I’m keeping the same layout that I had since version 2 and just changing colors and featured images. I really dont want to overhaul my site just for graphic art viewing purposes, though i guess, like my bio, that I could make a seperate page.

I also updated the Art, Profile, and Site sections like crazy. No more blank pages! Except graphic art and fiction…. >_<.

From Site > About > This Version:

For a while, I have been looking for some sort of vector image that I could make a site out of, without having to hand-make it myself. I have a fascination with cute little pieces of food that happen to have faces on them, and I several items of stationary that are like this.

I made Journal Hiatus, Coming Soon, and Background for Poetry Section Images.

Before that, I was using a $80.25 book.
I updated all of the journal entries from my Livejournal because I recently linked a Live Journal plug-in, so that when I post here, it will post on my Live Journal. BUT I wanted to transfer my old LJ journals here so that I’d have a pseudo complete journal. Now all that is left is to transfer b2 posts from like 4+ years!! I’m trying to get it so that I have only ONE journal I have to update, but the posts I put on here and crosspost to LJ, which feeds to FB, don’t feed to FB. Only ORIGINAL LJ posts feed to FB. So, maybe I can find a way to feed this journal to FB and then all will be good.

–nevermind! it just took a while for it to show up on facebook! all is good now~

I did a Winter Break Site Layout, but the opening page is　ちょっとクリスマスみたい, so I might change it. Because, now it is after Christmas.