Lunch for Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Well I am now back from my mini vacation.  We went to the lake for a few days but it was so hot it was hard to enjoy.  The weather man said the temperatures are 10-15 degrees above normal for this time of year.  Blah.  But it was good to get away.

I did have a snag in my vacation plans for the first day.  The night before we were headed out to eat and I noticed some bees on the front porch.  When we got back home I opened the front door (we usually exit in and out the garage) and saw a swarm of bees on the porch.  The next morning I knew I needed to do something. 

I called a company that said they could come out and remove the bees.  The man showed up an hour later and rang the doorbell to say he left some of his equipment at home.  He needed to go back home and get it.  That took almost two hours since he lives a couple of towns over from mine.

When he finally did show up he got to work sucking up the bees with a shop vac.  I'm glad he did that instead of me.  I swell up when stung by bees and this was way too many for me to handle.  He did say he saw the queen bee and got her as well.  He said she looked just about ready to lay eggs.  If she had laid eggs and they had hatched I would have been in trouble.  He said if it had been worse he probably would not have done the job.  He was a grumpy old man but I enjoyed that about him.  Although it did cost me $150.

I saw on the news this last weekend about one of the homes destroyed in the recent tornado's and they said they use to have bees.  I am wondering if my bees that magically showed up were evacuees of the tornado's?  That's an idea.

After he got most of the bees removed, the top cavity of the column filled with expandable foam (yes I still had bees in the column that you could hear buzzing), some bees sprayed with chemical, he cut down the combs.  It was kind of interesting but I did throw them away.  It was starting to crystallize.

But now back to food.

After we got home last night we ran out to a town close to us and checked out the Piggly Wiggly just to see what they had.  I was able to find these tiny apricots.  They are less than 2-in each and so cute. 

I used one in my lunch today.  At first I had no idea what I was going to do for my lunch other than the apricot.  The rest of my family was snoring away since The Kid is on summer break and Mr Man took off work the rest of the week.  So I cut it in half and removed the pit.  I heated up some purple jasmine rice and laid it down in the box to look like a sheet.  I placed half of the apricot for a head, colored some provolone cheese for some arms and facial details, then added some soy wrapper for hair.  I also added some provolone Z's since that is what I was hearing from the bedrooms.

In the other part I have the other half of the apricot, a mini sweet pepper, yellow squash, cherry tomatoes, chicken teriyaki and ham flowers.  It sure is good to be back to making bentos.  AND while I was shopping on vacation I started to collect some items for another bento giveaway later this summer.  Keep watching for it.