Monthly Archives: April 2018

Review: Trader Joe’s Crunchy Maple Ladders Cereal

Falafel and honey.

Hummus and chocolate sauce.

Chana masala and marshmallow fluff.

As you can obviously tell by these obviously real and totally classic flavor combos, pairing chickpeas with sweet flavor is a totally normal and not eyebrow-raising thing to do. I mean, why else would Trader Joe’s make a chickpea, corn, and rice flour cereal flavored with maple syrup? People have definitely probably maybe been roasting garbanzo beans in whipped cream for centuries!

In all seriousness, once you get over the novelty of this psyllium-rich, gluten-free cereal’s ingredients, the more baffling question is: why ladders? Trader Joe’s site poses this explanation:

“Does every morning feel like an uphill climb? Is breakfast a bore, a chore, or—worse—a battle? We hear you. In fact, we’ve been there. So, to help make that sluggish, uphill climb feel more like a victorious ascent, we’ve created another great breakfast cereal.”

But that seems like a stretch to me. If they wanted to make a cereal shaped like something morning-friendly, they could have make crunchy coffee cups, chewy snooze alarms, or crispy traffic-free commutes. But no, instead we have these ladders, which look like modernized Graham Crackos that migrated to Canada.* As a certified maple fanatic who is seriously considering a French Toast Crunch tattoo, I’m ready to see if these ladders can climb up to my lofty standards. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 4 rating, maple, trader joe's. 9 Comments

Apr. ’18

News: Wild Berry Froot Loops, Banana Raisin Bran, & Vanilla Latte Mini-Wheats!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiDj6SInltB/?taken-by=markie_devo

If you need a minute to process the title you just read, feel free to step outside, have a deep breath/smoke/Tums, or maybe just scream “It’s my money, and I need to spend it on cereal now!”

Yes, it’s not often we get an unexpected cereal bomb like the one Kellogg’s just dropped. Rumors about Wild Berry Froot Loops, Banana Raisin Bran, and Vanilla Latte Mini-Wheats have been swirling around the internet recently, but now that we have photo confirmation from markie_devo on Instagram, we’re free to let our country divide itself into a three-party system about which flavor will be best. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: froot loops, kelloggs, mini-wheats, raisin bran. 1 Comment

Apr. ’18

Review: Steak ‘n Shake Froot Loops Milkshake

Toucan Sam himself always told kids to “follow your nose!” And I’m glad he did, because I’ve got a good nose for B.S. (Bumbling Shenanigans).

What do I mean by this? Oh, just the last 5/11 of Steak ‘n Shake’s name. For a place that prides itself on its arctic milk products, presumably made by milking polar bears, a lot of Steak ‘n Shake’s milkshakes seem a little lazy—almost as lazy as putting only one apostrophe on a truncated conjunction that deserves two.

But that’s none of my fast food business, I say while sipping a milkshake like it’s hot tea.

The shakes, on the other hand, are my bloggerly business, and time and time again, I’ve been disappointed by S&S shakes that don’t make the most of their ingredients, instead seemingly dusting chunks of M&M’s, Kit Kats, Cocoa Krispies, or otherwise, when the more logical thing to use would be a flavored ice cream base.

This is why I’m remaining tentatively skeptical of the chain’s new Froot Loops Shake: joining a quintet of other breakfast flavors, this dairy concoction is far from daring. Not only has it been done before, but this Froot Loops Shake has huge talons to fill, as last year’s Burger King Froot Loops Shake was a fantastic tropical elixir infused with magical cereal syrup.

I don’t expect Steak ‘n Shake to use fancy strawberry ice cream or anything, but are a few pumps of mysterious fruit goo too much to ask? Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 5 rating, froot loops, kelloggs. Leave a comment

Apr. ’18

Spooned & Spotted: Rice Krispies with Spring Colors

Look, I know weather is bad every where, but I think any of my fellow Midwesterners can agree that these past two months of “spring” have been a bigger tease than my school bullies after I admitted I liked Neopets.

So while Michigan’s climate has been clenching my seasonally affected spirits in its mittened clutches, I think we’re finally over the worst of it. While I happily sweated through my local Meijer, I appropriately saw a beacon of true Spring: like a prancing baby deer, chirping robin, or one of those awful stink trees—you know, the ones that smell like a damp Filet-O-Fish that got kicked under a rotten couch—a seasonal cereal like these new Spring colored Rice Krispies are harbingers of happy times, times when I don’t need to sleep inside a Tauntaun to feel comfortable.

While new to the States, these blue and green Rice Krispies have been released in Canada before. And while I’m not sure exactly what its colors are trying to connote—robin’s eggs in a tree? oceanic algae? the Blue Man Group on St. Patrick’s Day?—I do know one thing for sure: seeing newly animated Snap, Crackle, and Pop in bunny ears seems like a good prompt for a Silent Hill fan fiction.

Featuring my favorite OC of course: Food Pyramid Head.

Got a hot cereal tip of your own to share? Pass it over to our Submissions page and you could see your name and photo right here on the site!

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: kelloggs, rice krispies. Leave a comment

Apr. ’18

News: Cap’n Crunch’s Beach Bash Crunch is Coming Soon (Plus Bonus Crunch Rumors!)

Cap’n Crunch is the Mario of the cereal world.

Aside from the killer ‘stache and symbolic embodiment of an undying imaginative childhood, Horatio Magellan Crunch and Italy’s most esteemed septic specialist also share a knack for character versatility.

Where Mario has appeared in basketball games, parties, races, hotels, and even famous disappearances, the Cap’n has likewise found himself playing sports, slinging ice cream, and even infamously disappearing.

And now, until we get the Cap’n Crunch Kart video game the world deserves—power-ups will naturally include Soggies that turn the track squishy—ol’ H. M. Crunch is hitting the beach. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cap'n crunch, quaker. Leave a comment

Apr. ’18

News: Pop-Tarts Mash Ups are Coming Soon!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhO-va6F_a4/?taken-by=junkbanter

Bless you, Dr. Frankenstein.

The chaotic good doctor’s contributions to science may be questionable—he couldn’t even splice “fear of fire” out of his tragic monster: rookie mistake!—but his impact on the breakfast world should not be understated. Aside from giving us the fruity phenomena that is Franken Berry, I like to think ol’ Francis Stein (an ancestor of R.L. Stein, I’ll assume) also normalized the “frankensteining,” mixing-up, swirling, world-colliding, or otherwise mashing up of different foodstuffs into an impressively alien whole.

Famous examples include turkey + duck + chicken, cheese popcorn + caramel popcorn, and of course, purple + ketchup.

And now, these new Pop-Tarts Mash Ups, unveiled by old blogging friend and snackin’ superstar Junk Banter. A clear, and clearly much-needed, reboot of 2007’s Pop-Tarts Splitz, which included pairings of two flavors—Chocolate Strawberry, Chocolate Vanilla, and Strawberry Blueberry—split and splice down the center of a single Pop-Tart, a sensation that looked downright radical in person.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhPeE7hFYKH/?taken-by=junkbanter

2018’s remixed mix-ups are far more exciting, because one half of each Franken-Tart contains a wholly never-before-tasted Pop-Tart: cult classic Sugar Cookie is paired with Brownie Batter, while straight-up classic Strawberry is joined by Cheesecake.

I expect the first Mash Up to taste like fudgier Chocolate Sugar Cookie Pop-Tarts, and I expect the second to be tasty enough to turn my toaster into a literal Cheesecake Factory.

No word on when these will hit shelves yet, but I do know one thing for sure: keep an eye on my Etsy shop, because as soon as I snag boxes of Pop-Tarts Mash Ups, I’m sewing a Brownie Batter half to a Cheesecake half and blowing all of your minds.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: kelloggs, pop-tarts. 1 Comment

Apr. ’18

Spooned & Spotted: Cap’n Crunch’s Soccer Crunch

(Photo via hollywooderik on eBay)

Fill another World Cup of joe, and get ready to fill your World Bowl with tri-colored Crunchberries, because Cap’n Crunch’s Soccer Crunch, first seen in 2010, is alive and kicking again.

Spotted by Oreo Hunters on Instagram then uncovered in an eBay auction, 2018’s re-release of Soccer Crunch trades the original’s Cap’n Crunch with red and blue ‘Berries into a strictly faux-fruity affair.

Now that we’ve got our daily serving of imaginary fruit, can we get some Crunchbroccoli?

Cereal scholars will notice that these reskinned Crunchberries are even less original than they seem. It looks like the cereal pieces from Freedom Crunch, an unreleased concept cereal that hit only the selectest of select markets last summer, have found a new team in this sports-themed variant.

In short, the athletic modern Crunch trilogy of HomeRun and TouchDown Crunch is now complete, and I’ll have to find another creative way to review the same cereal I’ve eaten 100 times.

Now that’s a lofty GOOOOOOOAAAALLLL!

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cap'n crunch, quaker. 2 Comments

Apr. ’18

Review: Honey Oh’s Cereal

To paraphrase Heath Ledger’s Joker: “Release a new cereal, and no one panics. Tweak the recipe of an old cereal, and everyone loses their minds!”

Yes, these past couple years have seen a mass vocalization of irritated cereal fans, many of which seem to think teh very fabric of their remembered childhood is under attack by greedy, scheming cereal companies who are corrupting their favorite breakfasts and effectively erasing their personal history in the process.

While some cereal formula changes may be done to save cash, some, like Honeycomb and Trix, have merely been misguided attempts to make cereals all natural—which companies think consumers want. And though diehard fans shut down those last two changes with cries of “the naturalness of my cereal is none of your beeswax!” and “silly General Mills, Trix are for artificial colors more technicolored than Joseph’s dreamcoat!” other cereals, like Alpha-Bits and now Honey Oh’s remain metamorphosed into something new altogether.

This is all to say that cereal companies should probably keep their Tony-sized paws off the classics, and consumers should probably be more clear about what the heck they want out of their morning meals. But while that debate will doubtlessly roll on until my comments section is quarantined by the CDC, I finally found these newly formulated Honey Oh’s for review.

Formerly known as “Honey Graham Oh’s” or “Honey Graham Oh My Goodness They’re So Good But Leave My Mouth Torn To Shred’s,” these new rings dared to remove graham from one my own favorite cereals. I’ll remain un-opinionated until I try them, but there is one thing I’ll say for sure: Post better have shipped their leftover graham flour to the Teddy Grahams factory. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, honey, post. 13 Comments