Monthly Archives: May 2020

Quick(ish) Review: SpongeBob Sea Berry Pop-Tarts

SpongeBob Sea Berry Pop-Tarts Review Box

When you get right down to the rock bottom of it, there are really only two types of Pop-Tarts people: People who like fruity Pop-Tarts and those who prefer Chocolate Pop-Tarts. Yes, there some Pop-Tarts that can’t be easily sorted onto this continuum, but with the exception of fan-flavor-ite Brown Sugar Cinnamon (which really should be considered a member of the extended “brown sweetness” family alongside Cousin Chocolate), I can’t think of any Pop-Tart flavors beyond the choco-fruit binary that have a significant fan following. Yes, this includes Confetti Cupcake. And no, this doesn’t and in fact can’t include The Chosen One.

It was supposed to bring balance, which is why Kellogg’s destroyed it.

Long story short, I’m a chocolate Pop-Tart kind of guy. Chocolate Chip is probably my favorite of the O.G.s, while Milk Chocolate Graham forever has my heart for evicting that freeloading marshmallow from S’Mores Pop-Tarts. Yeah, I said it.

This is why, though I love classic Strawberry Pop-Tarts, I don’t think the likes of Blueberry, Cherry, and Raspberry—the latter of which I can’t remember ever having eaten more than once or twice. When Kellogg’s first tried to re-skin Raspberry Pop-Tarts as Spidey Berry Pop-Tarts, I gave them a pass. But now that Spidey Berries have been mashed en masse to produce an ocean’s worth of SpongeBob’s Sea Berries, I figured it was fate telling me to give the flavor another shot—or else the next time they came back it’d be as Beetle Juicy Pop-Tarts. Continue reading

News: What’s Up with IHOP Panflakes?

IHOP Panflakes Cereal Box

It’s about time.

With French toast and waffles soaking up the most syrupy cereal attention, the O.G. (Original Griddler) of the breakfast’s holy maple trinity has been inexplicably left out. Yeah, there’s been that one pancake cereal, but since the likes of French Toast Crunch and Waffle Crisp have already done their namesake foodstuff proper geometric justice, Cap’n Crunch’s pan-puffs feel borderline disrespectful—not to mention overeager; who makes a blueberry pancake cereal before classic maple?

Thankfully, IHOP is teasing a new breakfast product that appears to risk it for the disc-shaped syrup biscuit. Continue reading

News: Star Wars Baby Yoda Cereal

New Baby Yoda Cereal

EPISODE MMXX: THE PHANTOM FAD

It is a time of indoor inertia and slow-digesting creativity. General Grievous’ great-grand-droid-child Mills has assumed his ancestral rank and inherited a diabolical plot: to pump the galaxy full of cloned cash-grab cereals offering little flavor and even less timely appeal. His defenses only loosely fortified with intergalactic vitamins and minerals, it’s up to White Squadron to douse Mills’ plans before it’s too late. But the General has come prepared, for he’s surrounded himself with a belt of razor-sharp corn asteroids, which even sogginess can’t make much worse….

Let’s be honest: Star Wars cereals haven’t been good for a while. Not since the days of C3POs, a double-hooped cereal that was later charmingly reborn as Winnie the Pooh’s Hunny B’s, have we seen the omnipresent series done crunchy justice beyond the tried-and-truly boring formula of corn pieces and marshmallows. While I love marbit cereals as much as the next Rodian, to take the graces of Lucky Charms and neuter the oat component is a tragedy most unwise.

Baby Yoda Cereal is the latest example. While I’ll throttle my own personal opinion on the itty-bitty alien muppet itself—I’ve kind of fallen off the Star Wars train since around the time in the early ’00s that my parents wouldn’t upgrade our dial-up internet solely so I could play Star Wars Galaxies—I can’t say I’m excited about Baby Yoda’s cereal. Since The Mandalorian Season 2 doesn’t drop until October, it feels strangely timed. Plus, it doesn’t even appear to have the fruity flavor of its General Mills predecessors. But since that fruit flavor was also chemically cringeworthy, maybe comparative corny blandness isn’t such a bad thing.

Whether this is the cereal you’re looking for or not, expect it in stores this summer.

The Empty Bowl Episodes Thirty & Thirty-One: The Beckoning Breakfast Beach

Yes, yes, time is an illusion, and despite me promising last time I forgot to post an episode The Empty Bowl that I wouldn’t do it again, somehow it’s been four weeks since then and I’m grizzled as a snooze-button-happy hibernating bear. While I’d like to say this is because our meditative cereal podcast has brought me a literal amount of tranquility, it’s really because I’ve been measuring the passing weeks by how many times I make up song parody lyrics using my cats, Beignet & Jupiter’s names.

Benny & the Jupes! It writes itself!

But I both digress and hope you’re handling your time indoors well. If the space-time continuum’s sucked you in and rattled you around like a child’s toy vacuum, at least there are two new episodes of The Empty Bowl to unplug and unwind to. As you may notice, we’ve got a new show look & feel that aptly maps the feelings we try to project. So put on the rose-colored glasses of a Saturday morning cereal-eating child and join me + Justin on a beach made of Franken Berry dust, as we listen to crashing waves of milk (vanilla almond, for my sake) and explore breakfast’s latest and greatest news.

In these episodes, we try to tell Sea Berries from Spider Berries, check out cereal history’s least remembered video game, and once more sing the praises of those oh-so-underrated Golden Grahams.

Still working on your tan? Our beach never closes, with more episodes at our Anchor hub. You can also follow along on Twitter, or send in a listener question. We can’t discuss or respond to every email, but they’re all eligible for consideration in our seaside book club.

Review: Gluten-Free Cinnamon Cheerios

New Gluten-Free Cinnamon Cheerios Review Box

For one spice, cinnamon sure wears a lot of hats. Just like Sailor Moon with her disguise pen, cinnamon can be just about anything: the faint infusion grounding Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s hyper sweetness. The sinful spear wielded by a Hot Tamale. Or the soon-to-be-regretted cornerstone ingredient in the tempting elixir known as Rumchata (or the more nefarious, Fireball).

The point is that, though it’s simple to write off the likes of Cinnamon Cheerios as ‘just another cinnamon cereal,’ the rich historical matrix of cinnamon cereals proves that very few of them—from Cinnabon Cereal to Cinnamon Crunch Krave—present the exact same shade of auburn delight. So while your first reaction—as mine was—to Cinnamon Cheerios may be “oh, it’s just Diet Oat Crunch,” I’m happy to report that not only are Cinnamon Cheerios a wonderful gluten-free option for cinnamon cereal fans, but their approach to cinnamon is different enough to make both worthy of a place in your pantry.

But I’ve said too much: let’s start from the top of the bowl. Continue reading