Deborah Hamilton

Dubbed "the Rachael Ray of bento" by The Washington Post, Deborah Lamascus Hamilton runs Lunch in a Box, an award-winning blog about making speedy bento-style packed lunches for her son. Fluent in Japanese, Deborah worked in Japan for nine years at consumer electronics companies such as Panasonic and Sanyo before moving to San Francisco. One of the largest packed lunch blogs in English, Lunch in a Box is often featured in popular media.

Too lazy to make intricate food art, Deborah (aka “Biggie”) uses tips and tricks found in Japanese bento cookbooks to speed up lunch prep, and applies them to her family's Western kitchen and global diet. Her focus on fast, simple, balanced meals shows how packing lunches can help save money, encourage healthy eating, and be ecologically conscious while still being fun and playful.

Lunch in a Box features a unique Bento Store Locator that gathers and maps reader-generated information on stores carrying bento gear worldwide, and a new online lunch forum for organized discussion among the lunch-packing community.