2019: cereal’s sophomore year of college.

I say that because, though the 1.5 century-old stuff made some great friends and memories this year, cereal also pulled some dumb shenanigans—as if it were trying to get hazed into a fraternity of goofy flavoring that it was really never cut out for.

Yes, decades from now, when cereal is telling its grandkids (named canned oatmeal & freeze-dried apocalypse biscuits) about these hectic post-halcyon days, we have to imagine it’ll grimace at the times it wore a meat dress and got sticky for no good reason.

In fact, just looking at the first three reviews I wrote this year pretty much gives you the full breadth of 2019’s cereal unorthodoxy. Pop-Tarts Cereal heralded the return of many other cult favorites. Sour Patch Kids Cereal puckered us up for freak incidents of cereal sensory overload. And Hostess’ inaugural pair of crunchable snack cakes showed us that Post means business.

But did any of those make my year-end cut of the tastiest, most creative and charming products of the past 365 days? Let’s count down like it’s Donkey…uh…Clown? Continue reading →

Though 2019 has (at least, as of me writing this) yet to liberate me with its arbitrarily assigned opportunity for self-improvement and rebirth, I’m already esophagus-deep in the new year’s first trimester of fresh cereal madness.

Yes, to the bittersweet disdain of resolution-makers everywhere, the cereal industry always chooses to debut the bulk of its innovative ideas right around January. This means while others are hitting the gym, I’m working up a knuckle sweat trying to cover everything. So please bear with me if it takes a little while for me to review every Sourly Patched Kid and Honeyed Bun—the light at the end of the carpal tunnel is still but a sugary twinkle.

Though of course, that doesn’t mean I can’t make time for a Cerealously tradition: ranking my favorite releases of the previous year, to try and make some quasi-academic at best conclusion about who ‘won’ the last 365-day cereal war. 2018 was a year of much shade-slinging and cereal creativity. In fact, since there were so many good peripheral breakfast products this year, I’m opening up the rankings beyond just plain, milk-able cereals.

This is a rule I’ve already historically stretched, so I’m sure no one will mind if I turn this cereal blog into a brief breakfast bonanza. For richer or pourer, let’s do it!

Continue reading →

I’m getting old.

3. That’s like, 29 in blog years. I’m not ready to be outgrowing trendy latte bars!

But I realize the hypothetical age of this blog is entropically ambiguous, as I equally praise both the sugary innocence of Lucky Charms and the hearty sensibility of Raisin Bran, so let’s just agree that 3 is probably too old to be making extensive fanfare. That’s why I won’t be doing a quantitative analysis of score distribution this year—in blog years, that was decades ago! Numbers are a young man’s game!

But I will still say thank you to everyone who continues to read this site, and greetings to those who recently stumbled upon it and decided to stick around. I hope you like Simpsons references and six-adjective sentences. I mean it when I say your support inspires me to keep writing/crunching/munching/spooning.

In celebration I made this tiny cereal treat. It’s made from Kellogg’s recently released Birthday Cake Rice Krispies (read the review and see my other birthday cake product reviews here), and it sure isn’t Gordon Ramsay, but it’s better than a Gordon Food Service dumpster.

Here’s the recipe for all you Pinteresters out there.

1) Fashion one (1) Kellogg’s Birthday Cake Rice Krispies Treat into a roughly sprinkled pizza slice using a pizza cutter, knife, or spool of hot wire.

2) Feed the trimmin’s to your nearest Furby (or humans if you’re desperate).

3) Microwave a bundle (approximately two bunches of white chocolate chips (the chipperer the better: this is a birthday party!) for 64 seconds (give or take 32 seconds. you know how chocolate chips are).

4) Using a spool of hot wire (if you haven’t completed your hot wire certification, use a knife instead), spread the gooey white chocolate bog across the Rice Krispizza in a dolloped, classically Little Caesarian pattern.

5) Repeat Step 1, being sure to keep the A/C on (bogs bubble when warmed!).

6) Plant brick #2 on top brick #1.

7) Attempt and fail to PhotoShop out all the sticky bits.

Serve on marble and have a happy C3realously Day!