So this week’s Bento Challenge was, ugh, Paleo.

Perhaps this statement will be my blog’s ultimate undoing, but I have to say it: I have very little patience with Paleo. I mean, sure, limiting sugars is sensible. Eating more vegetables than any other food group is sensible. Making sure to eat enough fat for satiety is sensible. But that’s pretty much where my tolerance stops.

No beans?! No bread?! No pasta?! No rice?! NO CHEESE?!

I’m sorry. I will not live that way. I’m lucky enough to have the rare but delightful mutation that allows me to digest as much lactose as I can get down my gullet without any ill effects whatsoever. You think I’m not gonna take advantage of that? Beans and lentils are delicious. Grain products are the freakin’ staff of life. Some Paleo people even say you shouldn’t have nightshades because they’re pro-inflammatory.

You will pry my tomato sandwiches and ratatouille and babaganoush from my cold, dead hands.

So yeah, I found this one a bit of a challenge. I couldn’t put in any of the lovely ginger-scallion sauce I made last night, because it’s made with peanut oil, and peanuts are anathema. I couldn’t put in the lovely multicolored sweet crunchy bell peppers I bought last night. I couldn’t even put in any seaweed, because the kind I’ve got in my cupboard is flavored with soybean derivatives. Uggghhhhhh.

But my wife gave me a can of sprats for Christmas this year, primarily because it’s fun to say “sprats” (but also because I like them), so in it goes. Maybe I’ll wrap them in the dino kale and have the saddest fish taco ever.