From Wikipedia:

Kyaraben or charaben, a shortened form of character bento, kyarakutaa bentou?), is a style of elaborately arranged bento which features food decorated to look like people, characters from popular media, animals, and plants.

Two years ago, Christopher D Salyers' book Face Food: The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes brought the curious, cute and infectiously popular phenomenon of charaben, or character bento boxes, into homes across the globe. His new book Face Food Recipes builds upon the success of Face Food with a new collection of charaben that also includes informative how-to guides for making lunches that look like your favorite animated pop culture figures.

From Astro Boy, to Hello Kitty, to Naruto to pirates, Salyers has collected recipes and how-to's from the best of the best: Japanese mothers.

Along with stunningly detailed examples of fancy foodstuff, Christopher D Salyers has compiled a glossary of Japanese culinary terms and techniques geared toward making sure you understand how to make rice balls, dye eggs and slice seaweed.

Join Mark Batty Publisher and Christopher D Salyers at Giant Robot NY on Saturday, December 12 from 6-8pm for drinks, snacks, fun and Face Food book-signage. And, bring your own homemade charaben to the event and receive a FREE copy of of the book! This event has fun written all over it. Don't believe me? Check out Christopher's blog. And of course, take a look at the great selection of books available from Mark Batty Publisher.

Labels: bento, bento box, charaben, Christopher D Salyers, Face Food, Face Food Recipes, Giant Robot, Giant Robot Magazine, Giant Robot New York, GRNY, kyaraben, Mark Batty Publisher