Hungry for LOST

It feels like this week flew by faster than flaming arrows during an Others raid, with the series finale for LOST coming up in just under 24 hours. Or at least, it’s 24 hours for us poor saps in Hawaii. You’d think that for the last show ever, they’d let KITV broadcast the show for us first or something since we’re actually living on the island. Ridiculous notion, yes, when you consider the time of day and the advertising and stuff, but still, I wish.

I remember how I first heard of LOST. My mother-in-law had told us about a show filming exclusively here and it sounded kind of dumb at the time. We’d just come off of viewing an extremely annoying cop show called Hawaii that quickly got canceled, so it didn’t sound like something we’d end up watching on a regular basis. Boy, was I wrong. Once they showed Locke yelling “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” at the end of ‘Walkabout’, I was completely and totally hooked.

Just to note, after the cut I let loose with spoilers from every season. This is your only warning.

For LOST fans like myself, this last day before The End has felt like something monstrous. I’m more anxious about this than I was about Y2K. Seriously, I feel consumed by thoughts of LOST. I check Facebook and everyone is posting LOST articles, pictures, quotes, and videos. I woke up this morning and just spent some time catching up on Jorge Garcia’s blog. As I write this post, I’m baking more Sweet Cheeks and tomorrow I’ll make some LOST spam musubis to eat while we take in the last 2 1/2 hours of a truly epic tv show. Those of you visiting for the first time, my blog doesn’t always look like this. I specifically made this entire color scheme and the above banner to celebrate tomorrow.

In this blog post, I’ll take you through my LOST foodie journey over the last year and a half. I did a recap last year, but since I’ve done a ton more LOST food since then, it’s time for a complete recap. It’s going to be long, so prepare yourself. Before I get to the food, there’s the first autograph I ever got, which I got from Matthew Fox.

Me and Mr. Pikko were at the Diamond Head firing range when I saw this guy there shooting his rifle and he looked just like Matthew Fox, but I couldn’t tell because he was wearing sunglasses. I moseyed on over to the sign-in book and sure enough, there was his name, “Matt Fox”. There was no way I could go over to him when he was shooting, but he just so happened to be leaving at the same time as us, so I gathered up all my guts and prepared myself to go over to him and ask if he’s Matthew Fox. As soon as I got up to him and said, “Excuse me…”, he turned around and I swear, it was like I had stepped into my tv and was standing in front of Jack Shepherd.

Suddenly my question on whether he was Matthew Fox was just about the most idiotic thing to say because of course he’s Matthew Fox. What came out of my mouth was, “Are you… oh.” I stumbled through a little conversation with him and got his autograph. I was not carrying my camera, but I’m not sure if he’d have liked that anyway. He was pretty nice and asked if I lived on the island. I’m guessing he was nice because he figured that there was no way I could be stalking him under those conditions and therefore, it was just a coincidence that I was a huge fan.

The LOST Bentos Begin

I started making bento in April 2007, but didn’t think about making a LOST themed bento until mid-season 5 last year. I had been thinking about doing one for a while but as usual, was too scatterbrained and lazy to do it. Then one day I saw one on Bento Lunches (that’s a link to the community, not the bento) and to be honest, I didn’t get it. I felt like I could do better, so I made a bento about the numbers in Help! I LOST My Bento!

I seem to remember finding the maker of that first bento I saw on a blog somewhere and if I remember correctly, she was a bit bitter about my work and made snide comments about how I stole her idea. Whatever. If anything, she gave me that last bit of motivation I needed to get started on something I’d already wanted to do.

The numbers were cut from fish sausage with Wilton Fondant Alphabet Cutters. The white pear flowers are supposed to be “orchids”, but they just look like suck.

When I held my 1 Million Hits Bento Giveaway, I asked people to tell me which bento of mine was their favorite. I was pretty surprised to read that a lot of people that don’t even watch the show put my LOST bentos among their favorites. Among the top bentos was this next one, I Put the Ben in Bento.

It’s kind of weird that this ended up being the 316th bento I made. It took me about two hours of nori cutting to get that image. This was a very OMG point of the show for sure, when they finally reveal who is dead in the coffin. KITV showed it on the morning news.

Later, my Aunty C sent a photo of my bento to Michael Emerson via a friend of a friend on set and he mailed it back to me pretty quickly.

He signed the plane, AWESOME! I thought it was pretty hilarious that he wrote (Ben) in for me, as if I don’t know who he is. Later in the year, I went to see him recite Babar at the Honolulu Symphony. I went with one of my extra friends and Daniel Dae Kim’s stand-in and we got to see Jorge Garcia there as he went to his seat.

This bento, A Shirt for Sawyer, was my personal favorite of my Season 5 bentos because I love Sawyer and I loved Hurley’s big yellow t-shirt. I actually had one of these made on my Cafe Press store for myself. It’s the only one in existence.

I ordered a Medium, but for some reason, the Cafe Press yellow shirts are in football player size, cause this is like a XL for me.

This bento was shown on KITV as well.

Then to top it off, I got back Evangeline Lilly’s autograph too.

I now have these two pictures framed on my microwave, like the true LOST dorkette that I am. I have a bunch of photos of my Season 6 bentos to send off to more cast, but I’ve been really lazy. I’ll do it eventually!

My next one, 15 Has Landed in My Bento, cheated a bit with a printed Dharma sign, but that Dharma sign on the left would have been way too hard to cut out, even for me.

At the end of March 2009, I suffered a torturous phone call with one of the LOST casting directors in which she told me that I’d called her back too late. Had I charged my phone and checked my voicemail, I’d have been at Jin and Sun’s wedding. I got put on stand-by, but never got the call to come in. I actually didn’t learn my lesson and forgot my phone at home one day, losing out on a chance to be on Oceanic 815 in Season 6. In other words, I am a certified DUMBASS.

I made this one before we knew the Man in Black was also the Smoke Monster. All I knew about him was that he ripped trees out of the ground, made eerie “WOOOOOOOO……….” wails, and didn’t like those weird sonic fences. The worst part about Smokey is I don’t think they’re going to explain why he doesn’t like those fences. Or why Rose commented in Season 1 that the noise was familiar to her. My sonic fence was made out of zucchini. I’m pretty sure he can bust through that and own me.

There have been tons of scenes over the last six seasons that made me cry, but any scene that has to do with motherhood that doesn’t involve Claire pretty much made me bawl. Kate’s scene in which she says, “Goodbye, my baby.” to Aaron during what may be the last time she sees him just cut right through my heart. Last week, when Jacob told Kate that he only crossed off her name because she had become a mother and that it’s just chalk on a wall, suddenly there was this basketball sized lump in my throat and I couldn’t get it out.

This embarrassment came about due to poor planning. I didn’t cook fresh rice and so my Four-Toed Rice Statue left a lot to be desired. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

I was pretty happy with how this Dharma Van bento came out, but I remember having a lot of trouble cutting out that damn van. Then to make it worse, my co-worker, also a LOST fan, informed me that the front of the van has a Dharma logo, not the VW logo. Later, I actually saw one of these vans at a 7-Eleven store by UH. I knew because the VW logo was missing!

KITV showed this one on the morning news.

My next was is the second most embarrassing of the bunch, which came in nuclear bomb form with my Jughead Bento.

Next, I made a Dharma Onigiri Bento, which to me seemed easy until I actually LOOKED at the logo. I had thought that they were all just made out of dashed lines, but it turns out that they had specific patterns to each station or logo. I don’t remember which one I ended up choosing to use.

KITV was nice enough to put this one on air too.

My last LOST bento for Season 5 was my Hatch Bento, which people loved. I ended up discovering that plain konnyaku tastes super gross.

I brought the numbers back for this one, this time in kamaboko form. KITV put this one on the morning news too, but I never did get around to putting it on YouTube. I was pretty proud of all the bentos I’d done this season, but am devastated to report that not only did I lose the original photos of my Ben Bento, I somehow misfiled every single one of these Season 5 bentos and I can’t find any of these anywhere. They must be on my old computer…

I had to attend a work conference at the Hawaii Convention Center and as some of you may know, this is where the Sydney Airport is located.

I took a photo in the downstairs area, which is where we first saw Jack checking his dad’s coffin in and where Sun was supposed to ditch Jin for her new life in America. We’ve also taken trips to the Bishop Museum for the kids, which is where Desmond and Penny take their oceanfront photo and where Sideways Faraday is having his big birthday bash in Season 6.

For the Season 5 finale, I got myself an invitation to the KITV viewing party down at Dave & Busters. Sadly, it was so last minute, I couldn’t find anyone to go with, even though I had four people who really wanted to go. It was kinda sucky watching Juliet flounder as Sawyer screamed for her to stay with him with no one I knew to wring my hands with, but I still loved going.

For the rest of 2009, people kept asking me when I’d be starting up again. With everyone having to wait until January for LOST, I got lucky. Finally, in September 2009, my dream came true and I got a casting call to be an extra. It seemed as though my waiting had finally paid off, as I got to spend two awesome but exhausting days on set at the Honolulu Airport. Yes, I got to be in the Season 6 Sideways scenes! I went home the first day after a 16 hour shoot and plopped my Season 1 DVD in. I was baffled to see them wearing the same clothes I’d just seen them wearing that day, six years later. I mean, obviously they needed to be, but it was still just surreal.

That Saturday, they had us go down to the set down by the pier, but unfortunately we didn’t get to do much and when we did, I got lumped into the “Zero” group that didn’t do anything. However, when Jin is being grilled about the 10Gs security found in his bag, I’m behind the wall, laughing it up with a fake cop and another extra.

Later, I’d miss a call from casting and lose out on a chance to work at the Diamond Head studio and be on the freaking plane. Believe me, I wanted to smash my head against a wall until I forgot about what an idiot I am.

January finally rolled around and the early on, I got wind of a reshoot at the airport. Since I hadn’t gotten a call, I called them instead and found out that they’d somehow forgotten to call me, but that I did need to report to the set. I said ok immediately, only realizing afterwards that I’d just said okay to working on my wedding anniversary. Oops.. Luckily, Mr. Pikko is a very nice guy. That ended up being Desmond scenes from ‘Happily Ever After’ and I actually got to stand next to Henry Ian Cusick for about an hour during shooting and asked Emilie De Ravin what her belly was made of between takes.

Kicking Off “The Final Season”

The first time I got to see any LOST stars was at the Season 2 Premiere at Sunset on the Beach, which turned out to be a mixture of misery and excitement because it rained. Imagine sitting on the beach in wet sand with three toddlers fighting over Gerber Puffs as you try to make sense of some mysterious man doing weird things who eventually turns out to be Desmond. It took four years to get over that and go back for Season 6’s premiere.

I made a step-by-step guide on How to Make a LOST Spam Musubi to eat at the beach.

They turned out just how I’d wanted them to and we had a lot of fun eating them at Sunset on the Beach, even though this time instead of rain, it was like being slow cooked over some burning fuselage.

Here’s a photo of me with one of them.

I dragged my poor daughter with me to the “red carpet”, which turned out to be wooden planks. I took my telephoto lens and even though I couldn’t get a good spot to get autographs of pictures with the stars, I did get to take some nice shots anyway.

Like this one of Ian. Seriously, OMG. Love him and Desmond. I also love this lens. Make sure you take a look at all my photos of the event!

It turned out that only the first hour would be shown at the beach and since there was no airport in the first half, all us extras down there waiting for a glimpse of ourselves had to wait until Tuesday like the rest of the world.

If you stuck around and turned in a filled out survey, you could get one of these white shirts.

I started off my Season 6 bentos with Charlie and Desmond, using that momentous scene when Charlie dies and somehow miraculously manages to write NOT PENNYS BOAT with a Sharpie on a really wet hand. I’d wanted to test this, but every time I go to the beach (for the salt water, in case it matters), I forget to bring a pen.

Little did I know that this phrase would come back in the final season when Side Charlie decided to use it to “wake up” Desmond. Seriously, I felt psychic or something.

After watching LAX Parts 1 and 2, I was pretty bummed because I didn’t see myself in the scenes I thought I had the best chance in. I’d walked right behind Jack as he learned that Oceanic had lost his father’s coffin and had walked right past Kate as she waited to escape through the locked door. Then I went back back and watched in slow motion.

I ended up finding the back of my head as I talked to another extra. On my shoulder is my best friend’s wedding favor tote bag!

I also found my extremely blurry and unrecognizable face as Kate tried to steal a cab.

Yes, it’s sad to get excited over something that blurry, but keep in mind that I carve carrots into Drive Shaft rings. I’m a few numbers short of a Valenzetti Equation.

The next week, when ‘What Kate Does’ aired, I made a bento tribute to Hurley with I carried this bento across the ocean and like, through time.

That was one of the best lines I’d ever heard from Hurley. Then, I totally cracked that thing in half.

I wish I still had that episode on my TiVo. Even the thought of it cracks me up.

Alas, no note inside my carrot ankh. After slow-mo of this episode, I saw myself walk in front of Jack. I didn’t even remember doing this scene until I saw myself.

It wasn’t much, but it was still better than the back of my head or my murky face. Thanks to Grandma J for lending me her suitcase!

The next week, when Locke’s episode ‘The Candidate’ aired, I made an In-Flight Bento From Ajira Airways. It took me five hours to do…

I don’t even remember why it took so freaking long, but that’s just ridiculous. Even more ridiculous, I was at home with a bad cold.

The next week was a Jack episode with ‘The Lighthouse’, in which Jacob has him stare out at the ocean for a bit to figure stuff out. Debra from hapa bento asked me to do a duo post with her and for my part, I chose to do the Swan Hieroglyphics. This was my 15th LOST bento.

This brought me back to one of my favorite John Locke scenes, when he’s standing in the middle of the Hatch while it all goes to hell, then he turns to Mr. Eko with his “OHSHIT” face and says, “I was wrong.”

The week ‘Sundown’ aired, I made a traditional bento in a Dharma Initiative case for Dogen.

Too bad Sayid murdered him that night. Poor guy. I ate the bento for him. There were no poisonous herb pills in it.

The next week was ‘Dr. Linus’, the first Sideways episode about a non-airplane character, though I guess technically he was on Ajira 316. I chose to do an Oceanic Airlines bento.

This one was pretty fun to make. I got all teary-eyed watching Ben sob about how Locke was the only person who would have him. I give Ilana a lot of credit for forgiving him for killing Jacob. I felt she got a raw deal blowing up with the dynamite. =

‘Recon’ aired next and while I generally love Sawyer episodes, it didn’t really advance the story as much as I wanted it to. I ended up doing my first cutout bento since Kate a year ago with my Kwon Musubis.

Note the bananas and beans in the side box, which is what Miles tried to offer Ben as he was digging his own grave the week before. Someone told me it was so sad that even in bento form, they’re not together. An interesting observation, especially since I didn’t do that on purpose.

My next bento was one of my least favorites of the season. I was pretty lazy and this Locke Spaghetti Bento was the best I could come up with.

That week was the week ‘Ab Aeterno’ aired, which was when we got to learn all about Richard Alpert’s history and how he got to the island. In what was one of the most sob-worthy scenes of LOST, Hurley plays Oda Mae Brown to Richard and recites Isabella’s last words to him. This inspired me to do my next cutout bento, Ab Aeterno.

This was my favorite episode of the season. I’m a total sucker for love scenes, which brings me to my all time favorite scene.

I’d read that ‘Happily Ever After’ was a Desmond episode. Finally, the Brother returns! I had already seen myself in the Sneak Peek, so I was extremely excited to finally see the whole thing.

Desmond’s tearjerking phone call in which he finally finds the balls to tell Penny that he loves her and also saves himself from certain death due to consciousness-jumping in ‘The Constant’ has always had the top spot for me. That hasn’t changed so far. Feel free to post a comment here and tell me what your all time favorite scene was!

What’s funny is that until I looked it up today, I’d thought that Season 4 was the worst and that The Constant was Season 5, yet it turns out that it was actually Season 3 I hated. Yeah, the rock cracking/Ben Others season just didn’t do it for me. Plus, Juliet was a serious bitch back then.

He topped an egg salad sandwich that week, when we got to see ‘The Package’, which was about Jin and Sun. Mr. Pikko almost slit his wrists at the corniness of Sun’s boob teasing scene. I laughed at Jin’s stupid choice of hiding spot, topless in the bathroom. The only really memorable thing from that week was Jack and Sun’s little talk on the beach with her notepad. That was also the week legions of LOST fans suddenly felt a burning fiery rage at ABC and ‘V’, since the stupid, idiotic ‘V’ Countdown clock actually blocked something Sun wrote on her notepad.

That day of filming in January was like my lucky day or something, as I got to get really close to Desmond in three different scenes. At one point, me and another extra got moved from behind him to across him and he recognized and pointed at us. I couldn’t help it and busted up laughing. It was a combination of the thought that we’d suddenly warped away from behind him and the realization that Desmond had just looked and pointed at me. I know, creepy starstruck mentality, but what can I say, it happens.

I had thought I’d gotten some direct face time when Desmond talks to Claire, but I’m just off the screen as they talk.

I also walked in front of him as he found his limo driver, Minkowski, but all you can see is the back of me again.

My very last appearance in LOST was a side shot. My husband felt it was very appropriate that I be standing at a map of LAX, since I tend to get myself lost all the time.

While we waited at the catering tents in the morning before the shoot, I bought a shirt from the guy everyone called Fathead on set, who was known for his LOST shirts. I bought this one for 10 bucks and a red one for my brother.

It’s a really cool design, so I was really happy to get one.

I started to feel like I was in a complete cutout rut, so I went back to something a little more “traditional” for the next week, when ‘Everybody Loves Hugo’ aired.

If you’re not sure what this is, it’s the logo of the fried chicken restaurant, Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack, that Hurley used to work at and bought after he won the lottery. I used fried chicken!

‘The Last Recruit’ aired next and by this time, making this many LOST bentos was wearing me down, so I went back to a cutout. I’d found a Facebook group called “I don’t know how long the batteries will last” and decided to make some battery sushi. Thank goodness for alphabet pasta!

That week, I posted some LOST Crostini for people to serve at viewing parties. Ideally, you’d also make the Spam Musubis and just use the letters from that to decorate your appetizers.

The next week, ordinary viewers turned on their TVs and recoiled in horror that it was actually a rerun. A rerun! During a season where there weren’t supposed to be any! Instead of a bento, I posted more LOST party food with a soup course, Have you seen my minestrone? I lost it!

This was actually a pretty dang expensive soup, with the spinach leaves bringing it to around $20, but it fed us all for a few days. It was the first time I’d ever made my own pasta, too. The things I do for Lost… The Daily Beast put this soup and my NOT PENNYS BOAT bento into a Lost Tributes Gallery. They pointed out that I instructed people to boil the noodles for 4-8 minutes, which I totally didn’t realize until I saw the piece!!

Since we’ve been watching a lot of Dog Whisperer, I felt like doing a bento tribute to good ole Vincent, who hasn’t been seen since Season 5, when Sawyer, Juliet, and Kate find Rose and Bernard.

I have a feeling Vincent is lying on the LOST cutting room floor somewhere and we’ll never know what happened to that lil’ doggie.

The most recent bento that I made was probably the last bento I’ll make for LOST while the show is still on the air. I’m sure I’ll make more after, but with no need for a bento on a Sunday, this odd Luigi Jack Shepherd is where the “show companion” bentos end. Fitting in a way, isn’t it? Since Jack is the protector of the island, I mean. I just wish I hadn’t done such a dopey cutout.

I’d meant to do a Hatch Salad and Roast “Boar” as the other two courses, but some personal issues and a hectic schedule this month always seemed to get in the way. My last LOST Party Food post was about my Sawyer cookies, which I dubbed “Sweet Cheeks“.

I’ve been so stressed out that I didn’t even feel like throwing a LOST party this Sunday, but today I suddenly felt the urge after Mr. Pikko had a sad look about all the work I’d done only to not follow through with it. I invited several people, but a lot of people can’t make it at such last minute notice. My poor brother actually has to work during the finale.

Now that I’ve put you all to sleep with 4,000 words about my LOST food obsession, I can get down to what I am hoping to see tomorrow.

Things They Better Freaking Answer

Let’s face it, there’s no way everything is going to be answered, Carlton and Damon have already said that, but here’s my list of stuff that better get addressed.

• Just how the heck is Jacob whizzing himself on and off the island to visit candidates if he can’t leave the island? Does Mommy’s magical wine have teleportation juice in it?
• What was Ilana and her crew’s job, exactly?
• Why was Dogen the only thing keeping MIB out of the Temple? What did Jacob need him for exactly?
• What the heck was Jacob’s cabin and who was there? MIB? That was interesting yet went nowhere.
• WHAT HAPPENED TO RICHARD? Seriously, that’s how you kill a three-hundred year old character? By a Smoke Monster thwack? Boooooo!
• What exactly is/was “wrong” with Claire and Sayid?
• Why does MIB “inherit” dead souls on the island? Did his encounter with the light make him part light and therefore able to do what the light enables dead people to do? i.e. Be ghosts and tell people what to do.
• What is with that ash that people keep Smokey away with? Why ash and sonic noise? Why is Jacob gone forever when the fire goes out?!?
• Why was it so gosh dang important that Claire raise Aaron?
• If Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley live and they defeat MIB, do they get to go home?
• What. Is. Smokey’s. Name………??? (Make a guess. I’ll guess Samuel.)
• What exactly is the point of Desmond’s waking people up in the Sideways? (Actually, I’m pretty sure they’ll answer that one.)

There’s like six hours of LOST to watch tomorrow, but only 2 hours of that (minused out the commercials) are dedicated to bringing us closure. Will it be enough?

Monday, Monday

I don’t really want to think about what’s probably going to be the most depressing Monday ever. The Monday where we all sit down at our computers to read articles and forums and slowly come to terms with the fact that there will be no more. My husband has watched this show by my side for six years now, complaining every step of the way about how this show is more about questions than answers. It’s become clear to me that we watch the show for entirely different reasons. While he’ll be watching tomorrow to get all his itches scratched, I just want to know what happens to all these people that I’ve come to feel so much emotion for.

I mean, you know people have got it bad when the only thing we can think about when the show heartlessly ripped Jin and Sun away from us was an imaginary child named Ji Yeon. She doesn’t exist and yet, for so many of us, she does. So many scenes have stuck in my head and I know I’ll be buying the whole shebang when Lost: The Complete Collection [Blu-ray] comes out this August.

I haven’t the faintest clue what is coming tomorrow, but Damon and Carlton have hinted that people will be polarized and either love it or hate it. I really hope that I am not disappointed and end up in the haters camp. If I do though, I just have to tell myself that even though I’ve had entire shows ruined for me by crappy finales in the past (*cough cough* Heroes), the ride getting to this point has been so completely wild and emotional that whatever ending they throw at us tomorrow can’t change the connection I’ve felt to all these characters over the years. I have truly cared about Desmond, Kate, Sawyer, Penny, Hurley, Locke, Sun, Jin, Sayid, Charlie, Claire, and Jack.

It’s not often that shows get to end how they want it to, so it’s nice to know that LOST gets to end on its own terms. All together, I did 24 LOST bentos and four LOST foods in just over a year. It’s been so much fun entertaining you all these last two seasons with my freaky LOST food and I think that no matter what happens tomorrow, we’ll all still be hungry for more.