Are your eyes getting weary? Perhaps your back is getting tight? Perhaps you’re even sitting here in traffic, on the Queensborough Bridge tonight?
Well, whatever burdens—sitcom-inspired or otherwise—may be weighing you down, assuage them with a new episode of The Empty Bowl: a soothing cereal podcast by myself and Justin McElroy that’s fit for a king of queens, a queen of kings, or even a jester for clowns.
As with every episode, we cover new cereal news, reviews, and a lil something extra. In this case, we’re talking Kellogg’s x Addams Family, CLIF Cereals, all things purple, and more!
If you’re tired of TBS reruns, you can find 53 other Empty Bowl 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 each one is like a high-five from Kevin James, delivered directly to our brains.
No, I’m not asking for your phone digits, height & weight, or preferred prophetic angel number. Rather, what’s the most you’d be willing to pay for a new cereal? Depending on where you live, your typical breakfast boxful probably costs around $3-$4, or a little more for a family-sized brick of the stuff. Tipping the scales on the other end are indie/healthy cereals like Three Wishes and luxury products like Morning Summit, which seems to use its premium price point solely to earn PR—not unlike that silly I Am Rich app from the early iOS days.
Falling somewhere between average and exorbitant are premium cereals like LaraBar Cereal, KIND Bar Cereal, and now, yes, even CLIF Bar Cereals. I’m sure it’s only coincidence that trying all these bar-inspired cereals will cost you a veritable gold bar, but regardless, since they each cost about $7 a box, this is a morning investment worth researching first.
Thankfully, CLIF was kind enough to send me each of their four new cereal flavors, so I can tell you whether the steep price point is worth the sojourn. In other words, does the view justify the climb? Allow me to stake in my spoon and find out. Continue reading →
BITE-SIZED REVIEW: Cap'n Crunch's new Treats lack something I've come to expect from cereal bars—a gooey, binding sugar coating on the bottom. Without this cerebral sweetness, these are just ho-hum, milquetoast granola bars that add rice crisps to dilute any iconic cereal flavor. pic.twitter.com/dYeCn9AKy3
Extra, extra, cold cereal-flavored hot cereal! Get your cold cereal-flavored hot cereal here! Hot off the cold milk-inspired presses!
Sorry, I just think it’s really funny that oatmeal, despite being a hot cereal by definition, rarely gets treated like one. Sure, I’m partially to blame, since I rarely review oatmeal despite considering it part of my blog’s oeuvre. Why is that? Well, partly because new oatmeals don’t often generate enough buzz or PR for me to notice them, partly because oatmeal is miserably hard to photograph in an attractive light, and partly, honestly, because I tend to be really bad at making it without the whole bowl getting runnier than an Oregon Trail marathon.
That said, General Mills’ new line of oatmeals inspired by some of their most iconic cereals is far too exciting to ignore. Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Trix, and Cocoa Puffs are all getting the hot mush treatment, but so far I’ve only been able to try the last of these. So for now, sit back as I go spoon deep in Sonny’s finest bowl of sweetly swollen oats. Continue reading →
No, that’s not a typo: it’s a dumb pun, referring to a) the squishiness of these upcoming Monster Cereal fruit-flavored snacks, as well as b) the smushed state of any gravestone that dares bear the sheer squishy mass of ninety fruit snack pouches.
Seriously, these fruit snacks, discovered and kindly shared by Mikey H. on Sam’s Club’s site, are listed in four-pound boxes—no doubt big enough to serve as a fun-sized mausoleum. No word yet on whether Monster Mash Fruit Snacks—the sidecar to this Halloween’s massive menagerie of a Monster Cereal main event—are Sam’s Club exclusive and thus locked to such an insane per-box quantity, but hey, at just $9.98 (eleven cents a pouch!), maybe these are worth stockpiling. If nothing else, I’m sure they’re shelf stable long enough to outlast a Monster-pocalypse, and if not, they’ll probably ferment into Spooky Jungle Juice pouches you can stab with a straw, Capri-Sun style.
While Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Frute Brute, and Yummy Mummy all have iconic flavors associated with their namesake cereals, these fruit snacks seem to mix things up a bit to fit their ambiguous “Spooky Berry” name. Franken Berry, usually strawberry, now appears to be strawberry, cherry, or fruit punch. Frute Brute, typically cherry, is probably lemony here. Boo Berry, in blue, will probably be as vaguely fruity as usual, while Yummy Mummy too will retain his recent orange pedigree. Count Chocula, in an understandable adaptation, looks like grape here instead of chocolate, and we even get a gelatinous green cameo from the Monster Cereal Castle. No idea what green is supposed to taste like, but since green Scooby-Doo fruit snacks were always my favorite, I can see this castle fruit snack giving the gummy Venus de Milo a run for her artisanal money.
No word yet on just when Monster Mash Fruit Snacks will be available, but I’m at least happy we have one more new thing to look forward to this fall, as the summer heat continues to turn my brain into a grey matter Fruit Wrinkle.
Yes, hot off the mountain-scaling heels of CLIF Cereal, Golden Grahams is bringing karmic balance to the bar–cereal continuum with a new S’Mores Soft-Baked Bar.
It’s the same type of treat treatment that Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch already got. Those were good—like pillowy cereal brownies—but personally, I’m betting Golden Grahams will do it even better, mostly because graham (and by extension, S’Mores) is an undefeated taste note in the breakfast aisle.
Golden Grahams Soft-Baked Bars are hitting stores as you read this, so let your eyes glaze over, your watering mouth spilleth over, and head over to your nearest Walmart for your best chance at finding these.
Finally, a cereal for the breakfast fan who loves eating the most important meal of the day in precarious, out of the way, or otherwise naturally awe-inspiring places! Fittingly enough, I’m actually on a bit of a vacation right now, so forgive me if I don’t say too much about these new CLIF Cereals and instead ponder their glory on a kayak in the middle of a sparkling lake.
Debuting in Chocolate & Peanut Butter, Blueberry & Almond Butter, plus Apple Cinnamon & Peanut Butter (also, allegedly Honey & Peanut Butter, though I couldn’t find a photo), these CLIF Cereals are already listed on Walmart.com and available in store. They combine coated flakes and oat clusters with nut butters and sweet extras. However, priced at $7 a box, the cost of entry for each CLIF Cereal is steeper than the rock faces they envision you eating the stuff on. Here’s hoping CLIF Cereal actually tastes good, unlike the similarly priced KIND and Larabar Cereals that ended up being the cereal aisle’s blandest bad value.
They say hunger is the best spice, but I love a mustardy pop of obscurity on whatever I’m eating, too. Whether it’s a ultra-limited box art variant, a colorway rarer than a shiny Pokémon, or a very specific natural habitat, weird food only gets more weirdly interesting when you have to scavenge and/or hunt for it.
Case in point: the newest General Mills cereal cookies, debuting this month, that are exclusive to Starbucks locations within Barnes & Noble bookstores. This odd breed of a breakfast–dessert hybrid first surfaced last year, with a Cinnamon Toast Crunch cookie, and now Trix and Cocoa Puffs are joining the (probably not actually) fresh-baked fray. These really look like what-you-see-is-what-you-get cookies: Trix or Cocoa Puffs pieces melded with a sugar or chocolate cookie. So they’ll probably taste good, especially when paired with an iced black tea lemonade or mocha Frapp, respectively.
Oh, and I suppose you’ll need to buy a good book to pair with your little sip-n-sweet treat, huh? How about Grapity Grapes of Wrath and One Flew Over Sonny’s Nest?
