Monthly Archives: December 2018

The Empty Bowl Episode 6: Frank’s Breakfast Club

Crashing through the snow on a once-heaved open sigh? Thanks to the infamous irritability of Michigan winters, I too understand seasonal affective disorder.

And when even happy lamps have me feeling burnt out, I like to turn to the one ever-shining beacon of edible escapism I have on hand: cereal. Even the fibrous rays of Raisin Bran Crunch’s sun is tastefully magnificent enough to melt through the season’s sorry slush like a hot knife through raisin rum cake.

As always, cereal’s simply sweet food therapy has inspired Justin and I to return to The Empty Bowl amidst what’s apt to be a few holiday recording delays. We thank you for bearing with us and in return come bearing Episode 6’s three wise gifts: golden-baked Snickerdoodle Kookies cereal, some Frank insights on the Monster Cereals’ movie auditions, and mirthful musings about how to treat December’s Big Guy right.

Thank you all again for your continued support of the show: you can subscribe and support The Empty Bowl on Anchor, email us questions, and follow our feed of reminder mantras on Twitter.

Don’t forget to drink the milk, and from me: don’t forget to hug your nearest raisin bran.

Review: Strawberry Krispies Cereal

Kellogg's Strawberry Rice Krispies Cereal Review Box

There are a lot of retro cereals Kellogg’s could’ve brought back.

Pokémon Cereal seems poised for a Detective Pikachu-themed comeback (hopefully without all the textured fur). OJ’s could fill the Orange Creampop Crunch-sized hole in my heart/roof of mouth. Or C3PO’s could return with special “Red Arm Marshmallows”—though I’m not sure anyone would recognize them at that point.

But no, rather than any of those, we got Strawberry Krispies. This 1983 cereal (with an early 2000s freeze-dried spiritual successor), is a tame choice—though I suppose it is a doubtlessly safer business investment for nosh-able necromancy than, say, Strawberry Crunchy Loggs.

But come on: that cereal was just a slow burner!

Wistful beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. Time to drown my crystal tears of extinct nostalgia in a few rose-tinted milk glasses instead.

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Review: Wild Harvest Blueberry Walnut Cereal

Wild Harvest Blueberry Walnut Cereal Review Box

The breakfast aisle is guerrilla warfare. We have Malt-o-Meal cranking out hit after hit while Aldi’s in-house brand drops the surprise bomb of the holiday season. What the Cuphead is going on here?! I’m having ancestor-flashbacks to when an imitator started dressing like Hydrox and soon became America’s Favorite Cookie. So please, stick with me for a moment while I argue that the future very likely rests on the shoulders of companies we don’t even recognize.

Sometimes, I take a trip to the local hippie grocery chain to see what’s up in the world of avant granola. It was during one such venture that I spotted this perplexing bit of cerealia perched high up on a shelf in the ill-defined “healthy cereal” section. It stood out amid Barbara’s Puffins and Kashi GoLean because, more so than any other probiotic, low-sugar, organic, gluten-free, paleo, vegan option with 1000% of your daily fiber, the minimalist art shouts “wholesome.” Screams it. Through a megaphone. While standing in front of a celery poster. This is box art that could make Teddy Ruxpin burst into apologetic tears for not giving enough warm hugs to orphans.

Meet Wild Harvest, a brand with barely any discernible history or footprint in the marketplace. The enlarged image on their milquetoastly-named Blueberry Walnut Cereal looks a lot like one of the many pretenders to the Honey Bunches of Oats lineage. An investigation of the copyright reveals that Wild Harvest is an imprint of SuperValu, Inc. Inspired by Dan’s recent tumble down the rabbit bowl, I checked more into it. Here’s hoping I don’t need a secret handshake to get in. Continue reading

Review: Kellogg’s Honey Nut Frosted Flakes

Kellogg's Honey Nut Frosted Flakes Review Box

As a wise little green friend once said:

“Always two there are; no more, no less.”

And while he may have been talking about an arcane order of insidiously apprenticed malevolence, I think the moral of that particular space opera applies to honey nut cereals, as well. See, Honey Nut Cheerios didn’t become America’s favorite cereal off alleged heart-healthiness alone.

No, Buzz’s magnum O-pus is far and away the most famous honey-nutted nectar on cereal shelves because it understands balance and simplicity like no other. The neutral-by-nature Cheerios base is basted with a simply satisfying glaze of golden, cozy honey and authentically ambrosial almond earthiness.

And that’s it: always two enriching and bewitching flavors. No more, no less.

This minimalist breakfast mantra was on my mind when cracking open Kellogg’s new Honey Nut Frosted Flakes. Tony’s take on a honey nut cereal, set to debut everywhere in early 2019, is clearly tiger-eyeing Cheerios’ lion share of the niche.

But can a cereal already so sweet really add a veneer of honey and nut without sugar-watering it down? It’s time to bee thorough. Continue reading

Rumor Mill: Fruity Lucky Charms & (Boxed) Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros Cereals!

Fruity Lucky Charms 2019

Photos via sega_retro_revival

(Update: We reviewed both!)

What does Franken Berry do for the 10.5 months of the year he isn’t slinging spooky strawberry cereal and reclining seductively in plain view of traffic?

Trading secrets with Lucky and Mario, apparently.

Thanks to tips from sega_retro_revival and cereal compatriot Gabe Fonseca on Instagram (thanks!), we now know that General Mills is at the very least testing a new Fruity Lucky Charms cereal. While the cereal hasn’t been confirmed to be hitting stores, the “not for resale” boxes sega_retro_revival received directly echo four cereals play-tested by General Mills about this time last year, all of which ended up coming out. So I think it’s safe to say that those specifically nostalgic for 2006’s Berry Lucky Charms will have something to look forward to soon.

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Review: Pop-Tarts Bites (Strawberry & Brown Sugar Cinnamon!)

Kellogg's Pop-Tarts Bites Review - Strawberry & Brown Sugar Cinnamon Boxes

Understanding the pervasive appeal of Pop-Tarts Bites is easy:

Would you rather have a bite of pie, or a bite of entire pie?
A red Skittle or a concentrated rainbow pill?
The east wall of a gingerbread house, or the entire 20-acre gingerbread farm?

My point is that while any individual bite of a Pop-Tart—which maxes out at around a quarter-Tart in extreme cases, or at least in my own—cannot possibly contain the same measured deliciousness as the entirety of a Pop-Tart, as in all of the crust and everything inside, in one bite. It’s like having a party-sized pizza, which typically have contentiously hand-soiling Cheese Only slices, vs. a whole-crust-and-kaboodle Pizza Roll.

Yes, Pop-Tarts Bites are tasty enough to surpass my typically quasi-topical recipe for review introductions. These spiritual successors to Pop-Tarts Mini Crisps (née Popsters) naturally come in the toaster pastry brand’s two unshakeable pillars of flavor: Strawberry & Brown Sugar Cinnamon. The de facto Pop-Tarts royal family will begin appearing in all their shrunken glory come January, but for now, I was postally blessed via Kellogg’s with enough pouches to last me ’til Christmas (edit: Christmas Eve) (edit 2: Christmas Eve Eve).

(edit 3: I need to stop eating these)

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Spooned & Spotted: Snickerdoodle Koo-Kies! Cereal

Bay-Valley-Snickerdoodle-Kookies-Cereal

Consider this a gentle warning: no matter how much you like digging into a bowl of cinnamon sweetness, don’t bother digging deep into its origins.

Because as I’ve learned, you risk getting tangled in the strings of a merry marionette show starring corporate puppet brands, shrouded timelines, and eye-dehydrating confusion.

It all started when the above photo of Limited Edition Snickerdoodle Koo-Kies, produced by Bay Valley Foods, was tweeted to me by reader Fabo. It instantly caught my curiosity, and not just because of the bizarrely lifeless and questionably adorned box art (why does the penguin need a speech bubble and quotation marks to Regurgitate His Vapid Claim?).

See, those with a larger-than-penguin-sized memory will doubtlessly wonder how, why, and how dare this cereal exists when Millville and Aldi have already been making big headlines and waistlines with their Snickerdoodle Kookies cereal. Surely this doppelgänger, with its unheimlich hyphenation, must be about as authentic as a mall Santa, right?

Not content with all these questions, and particularly dissatisfied that I likely won’t get to try these Koo…pause for emphasis…Kies myself (they were found in a Pennsylvania Giant Foods), I took my journalistic wagon to the information super highway. Because if I can’t taste Snickerdoodle Koo-Kies, you’d better believe I’m still going to understand its genetic genesis.

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News: Funko Pop Cap’n Crunch Returns…

(Image via Funko)

Hold your forks and pitch-horses there, friend: let’s take it easy. You’re probably justifiably wondering why I, an admitted Funko apathetic, am writing another headline about the culture collectible collective—especially not long after my (and my now-gothic digestive system’s) recent run in with their black-dyed Cuphead FunkO’s?

Well it wouldn’t be December without a countdown, so here are my favorite answers to that question:

6. Because I’m sure whatever-sized segment of my readership likes Funko—and I’m so sorry for all I’ve said and will soon say again about the Pops’ eyes—would like to know that the brand is re-releasing their earlier Target-exclusive Cap’n Crunch Funko Pop this month, with this fresh fleet of cubelike Cap’ns likely shipping in January 2019.

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