It’s bad form to gush over food, to eat in front of people when you have no plans of sharing, and to pat yourself on the back.

I’m going to do all three.

This is the lunch I packed for myself last week. It’s really simple: leftover rice (I made extra on purpose the day before), black olives,  a layer of boiled egg, a layer of chopped tomato (salted and peppered), and crumbled bacon. The white tube is a rolled up tortilla, which turned out not to be big enough for all of my goodies. In the orange cup (isn’t it just too cute?) there’s chipotle mayonnaise. Do not ask me why this was in the fridge. All I know is it was there and it was good. It helped my ingredients stick together and, if you’ll excuse the expression, kicked the rice up a notch.

This picture has been modified to fit you perception of the world

Though I intended this bento to be a burrito, because alliteration tastes better, I ended up eating it like a salad.  I ate most of it too, even though there was a lot more rice in this than proportionally necessary. I would make this again, but I would like to try avocado slices soaked in lemon juice instead of the mayonnaise. Oh, that green with the red and yellow . . . it’s enough to make anyone hungry.

Now, regarding the photos: I know I was using the wrong lens. I had the big, long one on and I should have switched it with the short one. That’s why all my shots have weird angles to them, I’m not tall enough take an overhead photo with a lens a foot long. I’m actually really bad at photography, because, in a strange reversal of the Thermian transporter system, photography is more science than art. Exposure time, aperture, lighting – it’s all beyond me. Not to mention my dad’s camera has more options than a Starfleet ship panel.
I do know that this kitchen is extremely hard to take photos in because it’s so warm. Warm counters, warm lights. Taking these photos only an hour after the crack of dawn on a cloudy day didn’t help much either. But lighting issues are only something to work around. They force you to confront a fact about picture taking that people in good lighting can blissfully ignore. So, in the great tradition of the List-People, my personal photography goal is to take one bright, colorful bento picture before summer ends completely. One worthy of the new Willy Wonka, only more appetizing.

Which brings me to my closing thought, which is namely this, you know starfleet isn’t all that bad when their replicators pay just as much attention to arranging the food on the plates as they do to making who-knows-what taste just-like-mother-used-to-make. How would you even begin to tell a computer about garnishing dishes? And what invention do you think marks a civilization as, well, civilized?