№ 243. Bento Box: Kiwix

Monday's Bento Box: Kiwix

Kiwix is a free and open-source offline web browser created by Emmanuel Engelhart and Renaud Gaudin in 2007. It was first launched to allow offline access to Wikipedia, but has since expanded to include other projects from the Wikimedia foundation as well as public domain texts such as Project Gutenberg.

Kiwix

№ 228. Jiro is a Borg

"While watching it, I found myself drawn into the mystery of this man. Are there any unrealized wishes in his life? Secret diversions? Regrets? If you find an occupation you love and spend your entire life working at it, is that enough? Standing behind his counter, Jiro notices things. Some customers are left-handed, some right-handed. That helps determine where they are seated at his counter. As he serves a perfect piece of sushi, he observes it being eaten. He knows the history of that piece of seafood. He knows his staff has recently started massaging an octopus for 45 minutes and not half an hour, for example. Does he search a customer's eyes for a signal that this change has been an improvement? Half an hour of massage was good enough to win three Michelin stars. You realize the tragedy of Jiro Ono's life is that there are not, and will never be, four stars."

Ooma in Megamall has one of the best Gyozas in town.

№ 23. 34 and Hopeful ...

A facebook friend posted this blog by a young mom, 34, who's stricken with stage 3 breast cancer. I'm reposting this, just in case, someone might extend some help. Any help.

"I am a healthy, 34 year-old mother who breastfed my son for the first two years of his life. Despite receiving regular check-ups, my youthful age and presumed preventative measures, I was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. I hope that this blog will open the eyes, minds and hearts of young women everywhere and change how they think about breast cancer. Please join me on my journey..." from 34 and Hopeful



Bento Box: 

I need to ask a doctor friend about this. Maybe he has a ready answer. How can regular check-ups miss a Stage 3 breast cancer? How malignant is breast cancer that malignant? I thought mammograms are standard for executive check-ups for women, especially beginning a certain age (I overhear this often in the office water cooler, among women friends, of course, and in the hospitals during my annual executive check-ups).

Just wondering about the mysteries of the known universe.

From wikipedia, "mammography is the process of using low-dose amplitude-X-rays (usually around 0.7 mSv) to examine the human breast and is used as a diagnostic and a screening tool. The goal of mammography is the early detection of breast cancer, typically through detection of characteristic masses and/or microcalcifications. Mammography is believed to reduce mortality from breast cancer. Remaining aware of breast changes and physician examination are considered essential parts of regular breast care."

№ 20. Can You Be My Friend?

Bento: Thanks S for posting on Facebook.

№ 14. Three Questions. All About Bento Boxes.

Boxes in Tsukiji Market, Tokyo. Not bento. 

1st: What’s a bento box?

The trusty Wikipedia says that “Bento is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables, usually in a box-shaped container.”

It is a lunch box. A lunch box that inspired IBM’s Thinkpad!

I love bentos because everything is carefully prepared and neatly arranged in err, a box. A friend tells me that the Japanese have rules for preparing bento. So she spent considerable time learning from her Japanese mother-in-law. I can only imagine how it went: Iie, not like that. Hai, cut that way.

Unlike the usual turu-turo (nothing wrong with turu-turo, of course), it simplifies one’s choices. It’s a convenience for those on the go. Turu-turo is our point and shoot style of ordering. It has its own merits worth writing in the future. But for now, bento.

The protein comes paired with the right vegetables, carbs, fruits and, sometimes, even soup. One doesn’t have to bother with both the choices and the proximity of the viands, etc. anymore. No more, “Ketchup please, Louise.” A balanced meal has been prepared. One just has to dig in.

In short, for a reformed OC, the structure and convenience entice. Wiping the drool now, Dr. Pavlov. Woof!

2nd: Is there method to the marvel in the box?
To sew order from chaos, that’s our sacred duty---all magnitudes of disasters, notwithstanding.

“This is bento lunch’s great strength: the thought and attention given to creating it. Making and presenting food with care is an act of love, whether it means a judicious balance of food ingredients (for taste, color, texture), or making the contents fun for a child, using imaginative cut-out shapes.” (Denis Dutton, from the New York Times article “Beauty and the Bento”)

Here’s an attempt to tame the universe in the box. 10 rules.

Thai version. This was our snack on a clean bus from 

Bangkok to Cambodia. Strictly speaking, not bento.

3rd: What’s bento got to do with this post?
I just happen to like food and metaphors. So I’m using what’s accessible and pleasant to my senses as a tool to explain a concept.

The bento box, under my posts here, is actually a meal for information omnivores like me. It’s a listing of links, resources, trivia and other marvels of the internet. I appreciate them, like footnotes, with gusto. They are marvels, for example, like the fried baby octopus dipped in soy sauce or the pink radish pickle that comes inside my favorite bento.

But for those who don’t care much for Japanese food, or right brain-imposed structure, or just boxes in general, nothing much really.

I’ll try to reign in on any excess. That’s rule No. 2 for me (2nd Question, above). There is no Babbette’s Feast here. I won’t attempt to rival Wikipedia. Not even a thought.

Bento in a Bento:

Neat discussion on the aesthetics of my favorite bento in Beauty and Bento.

---oΘo---

Chapter 1: In the Beginning….

The email thread below began the big bang (or perhaps, more accurately, the small blip). The idea of a blog had been with me for years now. I just wasn’t prepared with the contents, visuals and the commitment.

As some force would will it, the edited conversation pushed this idea into the blogosphere. I stirred the primordial soup, ignited the burner and… 


*KABLAM!*