Saturday thoughts: Donna Hay, Just Bento, food blogging events

The sister site to Just Hungry got discovered by several sites overnight (while I was not at the computer, as always happens in such cases) and the traffic went up about 100 x, mainly thanks to it being on the del.icio.us popular page for a while. I haven't even 'officially' launched it in my mind, since I am occasionally breaking it by fiddling with the engine (Drupal, for the technically inclined) in the background, but it's very gratifying to know that people are interested in the subject. I think it must be timely.

While Just Bento is still in its infancy, bento fans should be sure to check out two great English language bento sites, Cooking Cute, which is on hiatus right now but has lots of great information in the archives, and Lunch In A Box, which among other things has lots of great information on making kid-friendly bento lunches. Both are in my favorite food blogs list.

I had a bit of a headache this morning due to a late night, and so plonked myself in front of the TV to watch Saturday Kitchen on the BBC, a breezy weekly food programme hosted by James Martin. One of his guests was Donna Hay, a cookbook author and food stylist who has fans all over the world. There's even a food blogging event in her honor called Hay Hay It's Donna Day (the latest round news is here). I love her food styling as much as everyone, but her appearance in the Saturday Kitchen was a bit of a let down - mainly because she declared in the Omelette Challenge (where two guests square off with each other to make a 3-egg omelette) that she doesn't like eggs! In my slightly groggy state I was bowled over by this statement. How can you like food and not like eggs? (She was also wearing a sort of party outfit complete with cute and impractical shoes, and flirting quite a bit with the host James Martin, but that's sort of beside the point. Needless to say, she lost the omelette challenge by a wide margin to chef Atul Kochhar, who I really admire - his book Simple Indian is so great that it's surpassed my Madhur Jaffrey collection to become my favorite go-to Indian cookbook. I bet he doesn't make a lot of omelettes being an Indian chef but he didn't complain!) I felt a similar sort of disappointment when Tom Colicchio said earlier this year that he did not like okra, though he could be excused for that since okra is one of those love/hate kinds of foods. But...eggs!

Speaking of food blogging events - I feel rather bad about this but I am giving them a pass for the forseeable future. Even the one I started, Food Destinations, is on hiatus. What with starting another blog and other issues I just can't find the time for them. I really appreciate getting invites to various events but...something has to give, unless I can magically increase the number of hours in a day, or figure out how to get by on 2 hours of sleep per 24 hour cycle. (Sometimes I get it down to 3, but it makes me cranky.)

Filed under:  essays food events tv offbeat chefs

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Comments

Just Bento was mentioned yesterday on Serious Eats, which is how I found it (and from there I went on to discover Just Hungry, to my great pleasure). They also had an entry about Just Hungry today; and since they certainly have some serious traffic, I wouldn't be surprised if that was what caused the increase in yours overnight (at least, to some extent). Just thought you might want to know:-). You do have two wonderful sites, and I'm glad they steered me your way, I sure will drop by often now. Oh, and good luck with Just Bento!

Serious Eats is a great site so it's always an honor to be mentioned by them!

i fell in love with beno and i actually made the onigiri yesterday and indeed thankyou for the reply....

how about some videos on preparations ..... i love videos on cooking...especially with foreign foods like japanese or vietnamese or thai...if u do know video sites for this kind of cooking pls let me know...

i mean bento....

blondee, I'm not really set up for video (translation: I don't even have a video camera!) but it's something to consider for the future....

I just had a look at Just Bento for the first time :) Very exciting! So well thought out, I love it :) Congratulations :)

never let something like this go it could be strep throat and then turn into the flesh-eating disease....okay i live in canada and everything is under medicare....so we never wait, but i do know firsthand how strep can turn very bad....if it is

I'm pretty sure the most recent bout was strep throat, since the doctor showed me a 'positive' on a tester thing that said 'strep'...something on it, but he just called it 'acute tonsilitis'. In any case the penicillin is doing wonders! (and health care in Switzerland is fairly reasonable...I think it's mostly the US that has the healthcare nightmares...)

I just saw it yesterday! Very nice site, and wonderful instructions on packing bento.

Sheri
www.ILoveObento.com