Are you a sushi fact whiz? Test your food trivia smarts with this fun sushi trivia and facts quiz.

When you're snacking on edamame, part of the experience is freeing the beans from their green pods. If they're for a dish, however, there's a quicker way to shell a soybean.

For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr.

Last week I showed you a Sakurako Kitsa masterpiece featuring a kimono-clad woman in front of a blue rice sky. Well this week I've got another lovely lady in Japanese attire, a geisha this time, captured from behind as she strolls off into a brown rice sky. Her kimono is salami with an Indian eggplant obi (sash) with kumquat and zucchini detailing. The nape of her neck, once considered the most erotic part of a woman's body, is rendered in emmental cheese, and she wears zucchini, salami and kumquat ornaments in her zucchini rind hair. In the other half of the bento are jewel-skewered edamame, kumquats, leftover korma decorated with a zucchini blossom, and a dessert of green tea-flavored Pocky.

For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr.

Today we've got another Sakurako Kitsa piece, an all-food rendering of a Japanese watercolor picture from the 1930s. A turkey woman with black food dye hair and face wears a kimono of mamenori (soy bean paper) with red food dye on a background of mozzarella. Behind her, mamenori sakura (cherry blossoms) with apple skin leaves drift through a sky of blue food coloring-dyed rice. On the side is a heart-shaped container of cranberries and edamame, a half a boiled egg with paprika, and sakura-shaped kamaboko (fish cake) dyed with pink food coloring.

I'm not sure I'd want to eat this, but I'd love to lacquer it and put it in a museum.

A salmagundi is either an English dish that consists of chopped egg, ground meat, anchovies, onions and assorted spices or, more generally, a miscellaneous collection. So today, I bring you a salmagundi of links for the Slashfood Ate. These are links I've collected all week long, tasty bits that I've been holding on while I looked for a way to write about them.

1. For her birthday, Laura at The Kitchen Illiterate made Tuna and White Bean Sandwiches that have captured my attention and motivated my purchase of a can of cannelinni beans last night.
2. On Tuesday, Culinate posted a terrific interview with Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of American Public Media's wonderful food program, The Splendid Table.
3. Over at Serious Eats, Robyn Lee posted a hilarious and wonderful stop motion "cooking" video called Spaghetti Western. This one is a definite must watch.
4. Geekadelphia found a cache of retro cereal box images. My favorite? Cocoa Hoots!
5. PAgent twittered this link over to me yesterday and it has gone straight to the top of my 'must make' list. Because how can you live until you've tasted coffee jell cubes?
6. Starting at the end of this month, the folks from Epicurious will be touring farmers markets in five US cities. They've created menus for each market and I'm particularly thrilled, cause they're coming to Philly.
7. The Homesick Texan has the ability to stir up cravings inside of me that I didn't even know were possible. Now I can't stop thinking about carnitas.
8. And lastly, did you hear that a bunch of new food-related words are going to be in the 2008 edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary? The list includes edamame, pescatarian, phytonutrient and prosecco.

We usually turn to fellow bloggers for our food porn shots, but this salad at Epicurious.com looked so tasty that I had to share. The ingredients are simple: just combine asparagus, fava beans, arugula, sliced Pecorino Romano cheese, and a mix of olive oil and balsamic for the dressing. They also suggest that you can use shelled edamame in place of the fava beans, though I would be inclined to add both, myself. You can check out the complete recipe at their website via this link.

I recently went to The Penthouse, the new restaurant at the top of The Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica. While the food was a little less than spectacular, the view of the Pacific from that high up was pretty stunning. However, there was one thing I ate that got my attention, which was their Green Crunch Salad.

The mix of crunchy greens tossed with a spicy vinaigrette was awesome, so I decided to re-create it at home, with my personal preferences, of course. The Penthouse's salad was composed of fresh sugar snap peas, cooked regular peas, and steamed edamame, which I did as well. However, instead of lightly steamed asparagus tips, I used raw snow peas cut on a bias. I dressed my vegetables with a spicy balsamic vinaigrette (3:1 olive oil: balsamic vinegar + finely minced garlic + salt/pepper + crushed red pepper) and the result was good. In fact, I might say that I liked my version with the balsamic vinaigrette a little more than The Penthouse's Asian-inspired sesame dressing.

After a week of summer vacation and trying to feed anywhere from four to five constantly ravenous teenaged boys everyday, I lost it. For six consecutive days I trudged to the grocery store stocking up on boy friendly foods, and spent the greater part of my food budget on the ungrateful oafs. In an effort to combat this problem, we decided to use our new Costco membership card and make the trek to the land of economy sized packages.

A Costco visit is no small effort on our part since we must drive about 175 to the nearest store; but when I weighed the one time trip against standing in the grocery line everyday while my toddler tried to pull everything within reach off the shelves, it seems like a swell idea. 

I've heard it a number of times either in a friend's kitchen or at the drop off line at school, it's always mentioned in somewhat hushed tones. "She's a vegetarian now, you know." Or, "No, he won't eat that anymore, he's a vegetarian all of a sudden."

These comments are usually met with eye rolls and knowing nods of the head. For many households, the switch of a teenager's diet means two different meals to prepare, more shopping to do and yet another battle with the resident teen. Statistics show that many teens currently classify themselves as vegetarians. The reasons vary widely: health, religion, ethics, weight, fashion, environment. Whatever the case, the trend is growing.

Evidence that vegetarian eating is more and more abundant: veggie burgers, edamame and soy products are available at more grocery stores. Fast food restaurants are offering more vegetarian options.

I became a vegetarian when I was 15. By the time I was 19, I was a full fledged vegan. I read John Robbin's Diet for a New America and became inspired to abandon all animal products. However, when I had a child at age 22, the efforts of preparing vegan meals became too much and I fell off the wagon and stopped by a KFC. If my teenager were to suddenly give up ham and pepperoni, I think I would support him and maybe even join him.

Hummus is typically made with garbanzo beans, but for Spring, I love the bright green of edamame, young soybeans.

Cook a bag of frozen edamame in their pods as directed on the package. Rinse the pods to cool them, then shell the soybeans. Each bean has a thin, transparent "skin" that you also have to remove. This takes a little bit of time, so do it on the couch with a couple of bowl on your lap while you're watching Rachael Ray make a fool of herself again.  

Puree the shelled and skinned edamame in a food processor with about 1 Tbsp. lemon juice, 1 minced clove garlic, ½ c. water (or you can use whatever liquid you want, like chicken or vegetable stock), and about 2 Tbsp. sesame oil. Salt and pepper to taste. You could also add tahini paste, which is an ingredient in regular hummus, but I didn't because sesame oil is fairly strong. Use more liquid to thin the hummus to the consistency you desire.

You can either serve the edamame hummus in a large bowl as a dip, or plop tiny spoonfuls on toasted flatbread, garnished with sesame seeds. Assure your guests that it's not wasabi, because that's what it looks like.