Bento boxes are part food-portion control, part art

On a small table in the middle of her cozy kitchen, Phaedra Hise was quickly and efficiently turning a little of this and a little of that into some of the best-looking lunches in the Fan.

With a few snips, a corn tortilla became a lion's head. A punch or two on a sheet of seaweed, and eyes appeared.

A few feet away, Hise's charges -- daughter Lily Hargis, 13, and Lily's friends, 13-year-old Emma and 10-year-old Elinor Follmer -- were clamoring for first shot at the little box lunches.

"I want the lion," Lily said, beating her friends to the punch by a second or two as Hise turned buckwheat noodles with peanut sauce, a corn tortilla, seaweed and carrot into the kind of meal over which three girls would clamor. (They ended up sharing it, as well as the other meals that followed.)

"You can get into this," Hise said about her obsession with bento boxes, the Japanese style of packing colorful, flavorful and healthful meals into small containers. "It's like arts and crafts with food."

Bento is part art, part genius. It combines portion control with food adventure. In Japan, mothers have been known to compete zealously for the best presentation.

"Schools didn't have cafeterias, so mothers had to make lunches," said Chong Park, the owner of Tokyo Market in Carytown.

Packing lunches bento style allowed mothers "to show children they were special," she said. "They would open it and see a 'I love you' spelled in rice or a happy face."

In Richmond, the competition is a little more sedate but no less precise.

The idea, Hise said, is to combine five colors and five styles of cooking, and to pack it all in a tight little container. It should have about 50 percent carbohydrates and 25 percent each of protein and vegetables.

"It's a perfectly balanced meal," she said.

The food is packed in boxes that range from simple plastic containers with snap-tight lids to elaborate enamel-coated wooden boxes with compartments and special straps.

Park sells a variety of both. Hise has a large collection, though she's selective in what goes to school.

"I learned my lesson the first time," she said.

On that fateful day when Lily first took a bento lunch, she forgot the box at the bus stop. She never saw it again.

"That was a $30 box," Hise said. "Now I'm more careful. If I want to see it again, I don't send it."

. . .

In a typical lunch -- the kind she made for Lily through the fifth grade -- there were big things such as a sandwich, a bag of chips or a whole piece of fruit. Now, there are many small things. A lunch might have a cherry tomato, but it also has a couple of grapes, some lettuce, a piece or two of hot dog and a kernel of corn.

Hise said she doesn't know another parent who packs lunch like she does, but she's not about to let the lack of company keep her from trying new things.

She began doing lunch bento-style two years ago after reading about it online and looking at pictures.

The idea of small amounts of many things appealed to her, so she gave it a try.

"I'll quickly admit I'm obsessed with this," she said. "I've planned business trips around it."

She has traveled the country as a freelance writer. Since taking up bento, some of those trips have been to cities with vibrant Japanese communities. After buying her way through Richmond's bento offerings -- mostly at the Tokyo Market in Carytown -- she has been shopping in Japanese markets in New York, Seattle and Portland, Ore., among other places.

She also has purchased (from Target, dollar stores and on eBay) the mini cookie cutters, novelty hole punches, animal-shaped toothpicks and other add-ons that elevate bento from simple preparation style to culinary art.

And that's just the accouterments. Keeping the daily staples in stock has forced her to change the way she shops at the grocery store, too.

"You really have to rethink your shopping," Hise said. "You don't need big quantities. You need a little of a lot. The American idea is to get a lot of a little."

The other challenge, she said, is making sure colors and textures work well together.

"You start to think of food as a medium," she said. "I've caught myself shopping for color."

As the girls watched, Hise kept up the part about turning a little into a lot.

In a simple plastic box, sticky white rice became an owl.

A bite of lettuce landed next, intended as the owl's nest.

"That can be tree branches," she said when Lily offered the leftover buckwheat noodles for the nest. "The noodles can go on the other side."

Two thin slices of a hard-cooked egg became eyes, with dabs of seaweed as the pupils in eyes of yellow ringed by white.

"Seaweed is great," Hise said. "It's about the only black food there is."

She pulled out a small cookie cutter and punched two feet out of a thin slice of carrot.

"Oh, he needs a beak," she said, slicing into the carrot again.

After posing for a picture or two, the owl faced its fate and was quickly gobbled down by the girls.

"It's just a different way of preparing food," Hise said. "And sometimes, it gets you to try something you wouldn't normally try. A kid might not try a big serving of something, but they'll eat a bite."

Especially if they can prepare it.

As Hise was beginning to clean up, the three girls took over the kitchen and began filling out their own bento boxes.

"Look," Lily said, showing off Emma's first-ever bento creation.

"Wow, that's good," Hise said, looking into a box of sticky rice pressed into shapes and topped with vegetables.

"It's just fun," she said a bit earlier. "It's a good way to relax."

And, she admitted, a good way to get good food in reasonable quantities.

"It's a whole different way of thinking," she said.

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or .