Maryland has been in a cloud. Not a nice, cozy, fleecy cloud either, but a damp, wet, almost-fog of a cloud. Today promises just be just as gray – the kind of days I loved in college for their gothic beauty. They aren’t so pretty when you’re out driving in them, let me tell you. Which means I had to make my own pretty this week

Aren’t they cute? These are the products of one of my Christmas presents, a set of aspic cutters {{1}}. [[1]] I here by vow to take a picture of them all squashed in their adorable tin, with a quarter for size comparison. [[1]] Here’s the whole bento, sans artsy angles:

And then Mondays:

The pink stuff was supposed to be Maki-san’s Sakura Denbu, but I 1) managed to mush in into granules instead of threads and 2) put in way too much pink food coloring. In real life it’s more of a hot pink – crazy fun to look at but a little scary to eat. I have about two more cups of it stored up in my freezer.

Putting this together took mere minutes, even if you count washing the rice before putting it in the rice cooker. I was so elated to find I had made something both cute and practical that I almost showed it off at work, but I restrained. What kind of oversized ego would you need to actually do a thing like that? No, I contented myself with the knowledge that I would be posting about it here, on the blog completely dedicated to me. I couldn’t resist with the stars though. For some reason it doesn’t seem as shameless to show of a Christmas present.

Todays bento promises to be pretty boring looking – spring soup and lentil balls – but maybe I’ll spice things up visually with a sprinkle of stars, or a handful of hearts. As long as the clouds are here my attempts at cute will have to go on.