Monthly Archives: November 2019

Review: Eggo Cereal (Homestyle Maple & Blueberry!)

Shhh! Here: take these black robes and put them on. Just don’t make a sound.

Tiptoe around the maple-scented candles and gather round the Ouija Griddle.

Tonight, we’re going to try and summon Waffle Crisp from the grave.

…

Zounds! Foiled by Beelzegrub himself again! No matter how many boxes of Chicken & Waffles Cereal I sacrifice, the necromancers who dwell in the cursed ruins of Postopia never hear my cries. But all is not lost: my prayers have reached the GRRR-oaning orifices of the Kellogg’s Leviathan, who have rewarded my syrupy blood magics with two boxes of Eggo Cereal. All it took was 10,000 people to discard their souls and retweet the demands of their branded overlords.

But nevertheless, Eggo Cereal is back after 7 years spent in eggs-in-purgatory—in both Maple and Blueberry, at that. But is it a worthy successor to our dearly departed dark amber lord? Allow me to retrieve my devilish pitch-spork and find out. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: blueberry, kellogg's, maple. 6 Comments

Nov. ’19

News: Cheerios Oat Crunch – Oats ‘N Honey Cereal!

Forget Star Wars and assorted superheroes: this is the most-anticipated sequel of 2019.

For many moons now, Cinnamon Cheerios Oat Crunch has been a sleeper hit amongst wizened breakfasters—in fact, it’s tied with Chocolate Peanut Butter for the title of my favorite Cheerio variety currently on shelves. With the kind of crispety crunchiness that could earn a lawsuit from Butterfinger, the Cheerios Oat Crunch lineage was practically begging for a breath of fresh heirs—the flavor potential is pretty much endless.

And now, over a year later, we’re finally getting a new taste. While it may be the most obvious variety the folks behind Honey Nut Cheerios could do, and while it’s pretty oat-vertly redundant in concept, the only thing I can fault Oats ‘N Honey Cheerios Oat Crunch for is its questionable use of a single apostrophized capital N in lieu of just about any other symbolic or textual conjuration of the word “and.”

(I get it, it’s technically grammatically acceptable, but flanking one side and not the other really has me peev’d.)

But hey, I break writing conventions by the bowlful, so I should stay excited for what may be 2019’s brightly honeyed dark horse—which has already been spotted on shelves!

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cheerios, honey, news. Leave a comment

Nov. ’19

Review: Hostess Twinkies Cereal

There is a new cereal dichotomy blooming before our very tongues. If it comes to civil war, whose side will you be on?

The monolithic masses of the Kellogg’s Krusaders, their defenses made impenetrable and especially unpalatable by pounds of cushiony, bland corn ‘n’ sugar rings?

Or the silent-but-growing cabal of crunchily dusted Powdered Paladins, whose cereals are equally sweet, but, you know, actually good?

Yeah, the choice is pretty obvious: with the Economically Chintzy Empire, we get Baby Sharks and celebratory man-birds. Neither is fit for battle—unless Kellogg’s brings in a Caticorn that’s actually equine in stature—against the trustiest, dustiest and most delectable division led by Powdered Donettes Cereal, with Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios as its right- and left-hand confidants. Honestly: if you did a cross-comparison between Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch and Kellogg’s Elf on the Shelf Sugar Cookie Cereal, you’d find a certain starry sugar-corn Rehash in the Trash, where it so boldly and brashly deserves to be.

I also know that overly flavor-powdered cereals can be divisive, as revealed by the internet’s violently split opinion on Frosted G.O.A.T.nettes—err, I mean Donettes, of course. So will this camp be pleased or feel sucker-punched by Twinkies Cereal, the latest dusted cake-crop in Hostess’ Cereal line? The answer is only a bowlful of crème larvae away: Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, Hostess, post. 1 Comment

Nov. ’19

The Empty Bowl Episode Twenty-Two: Takin’ the Snack Cake

Whoosh

*crunch*

Whoosh

*crunch*

That’s it. That’s your mantra for today. No words needed: just a cereal bowl in hand and the ethereal ocean of milk that is The Empty Bowl’s lifeblood.

New to this astral breakfast sphere? Well then you and your tensest joints are in luck: The Empty Bowl is a meditative podcast about cereal and has often been called more calming than its subject matter has any right to be. But regardless, Justin and I are proud to host a show that quite literally puts our listeners to sleep. In this lull-vely episode, we take you on the slowest rapid-fire journey through the biggest cereal news and reviews of the past four weeks, from the incoming glory of Timbits Cereal to a sneak peek at my upcoming Eggo Cereal breakdown.

Still up late with a pair of screaming children/cats/houseplants? You can soothe the savage snake plant with twenty-one other episodes of cereal sleepiness at our Anchor hub, follow along on Twitter, or send in a listener question. We can’t discuss or respond to every email, but each one really pleases my begonias.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: empty bowl. Leave a comment

Nov. ’19

News: Coffee Mate Cinnamon Toast Crunch Coffee Creamer

New Coffee Mate Cinnamon Toast Crunch Coffee Creamer Cereal

Ignore the Funfetti—on this blog, we’re about done with generically vanilla-flavored things for a while.

Coffee 👏 creamer 👏 should have 👏 a built-in 👏 straw.

Or at least a strapped-in cereal straw.

As my comfort with consuming crude coffee creamer over cereal has only been emboldened by this blog, I’m worried that by the time I get my misty palms on a tankard of Cinnamon Toast Crunch coffee creamer, I’ll be fine with thoughtlessly transferring it into a Big Gulp cup.

General Mills is teaming up with Coffee Mate for this one, though it remains unclear how different CTC coffee creamer will be from, you know, any other cinnamon coffee creamer. It’s very much the same situation we just faced with Market Pantry Cereal Bowl Ice Cream, which ended up bringing in gingerbread vibes out of the leftmost corn & rice field, so I wouldn’t put it past General Mills to somehow make this coffee creamer taste like liquefied cookie butter…or liquefied regular butter.

If you find Cinnamon Toast Crunch coffee creamer, let us know what you think of it in the comments!

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cinnamon, news, non cereal, toast crunch. 1 Comment

Nov. ’19

News: Eggo Cereal Officially Returns in Maple & Blueberry

Could you imagine if there was a new Super Smash Bros. game, and the first characters they announced were like, Birdo, Tingle and Doshin the Giant? And then two months later they drop a cryptic trailer confirming that Mario will be playable this time around?

Yeah, that was the kind of anachronistic vibe I got when news of Blueberry Eggo Cereal dropped some time ago, not long after Eggo got the necessary 10,000 retweets to bring the cereal back. Sure, blueberry and maple is fun, but a) Cap’n Crunch already dropped a passable combo like that, and b) the world has been lost in a haze of log-cabin fever for too long now, after the unjust and untimely death of Waffle Crisp.

See you, griddled cowboy ;__;

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: kellogg's, maple. 5 Comments

Nov. ’19

Review: Target’s Market Pantry Cereal Bowl Ice Cream

Cereal and milk have a deep, cosmic soul bond. This is known.

Naturally, we’ve seen enough cereal-infused milkshakes and ice creams to leave us brain-frozen ’til the cows come home.

But where’s the cerealized justice for other dairy delicacies? Sure, Trix basically defined the cereal–yogurt game so hard that it discouraged all competition and ultimately discontinued itself—except for one place, I guess? But despite my mildly discomforting, yet nevertheless ignored lactose intolerance, I demand more. I want Cocoa Krispies Kefir. Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch Butter. Heck, give me Frosted Flakes Cottage Cheese, I’ll eat it. But only if it’s large curd, of course.

It’s not that I’m tired of cereal-flavored ice cream, it’s just that, in cases like Target’s new store-brand Market Pantry Cereal Bowl Ice Cream, the concept can easily feel uninspired. Like, “oh, this cereal tastes like pieces of bootleg Cinnamon Roast Munch? Gotcha, so it’s Cinnamon Ice Cream.”

Err, maybe I’m not giving enough credit to a potential “cereal milk” factor here. I’d better reserve judgement until I’m doubled over on the couch, looking for the right adjectives in between stomach-garglings more intestinally eviscerating than swallowed mouthwash. No pain, no bloggerly gain! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: cinnamon, ice cream, non cereal. Leave a comment

Nov. ’19

Review: Kraft Jet-Puffed Lucky Charms Magical Marshmallows

Imagine if you bit into a Twinkie, and it tasted like a stick of margarine.

Picture this: your fully factorized cheesecake is naught but Crisco and gelatin.

Or perhaps you wake up tomorrow, and your mom’s chocolate-chip cookies are actually worse than oatmeal raisin in disguise: they taste like unsweetened raisins and uncooked instant oats.

That’s the type of disappointment you can expect from Kraft’s new Jet-Puffed Lucky Charms Magical Marshmallows. Yes, I was already put on guard when ordering these online—to this day, my conspiracy theory is that, since Kellogg’s and Post were founded in Michigan, General Mills has cursed us with poor product distribution—because all online listings for these bear impressively unanimous one-star reviews. And it’s not hard to see why. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: general mills, lucky charms, non cereal. 1 Comment