Totoro Lunches

 The boys LOVE Miyazaki, like their parents.  Totoro is a household favorite.  In fact, our youngest's nursery is entirely decorated like My Neighbor Totoro.  Here are their matching lunches.  The Totoros are both turkey sandwiches with cut cheese and spinach for decoration.  The pupils of the eyes are tiny bits of raisin.

The banana trick was new to me this year.  As you can see below, when you first "draw" on the peel (making a firm indentation with a toothpick, as I would draw with pen on paper) you can't see much.  By the time lunchtime rolls around, the peel has bruised to make lovely dark lines where I drew the design.

                              Before:

                                After:

Being a huge Whovian, I particularly like this artists banana designs:
http://ravenriss.blogspot.com/2011/03/i-draw-on-bananas-now-bananas-are-cool.html
As you can see, I did not invent banana art and have not even begun to "scratch the surface" of what is possible.  I will certainly be showing more of it in the future.


**Important note to school lunch packers though, if you like to use bento-style all-in-one boxes like me, bananas can be very pungent when included with the meal.  Be warned that they can often infect sandwiches with a hazy banana smell by lunch time...as well as everything else in that box!  Some banana fans are fine with that.  Other kids lose their interest in having bananas included with lunch very quickly. (you will note that I put a banana in only ONE of the above lunches for just this reason)