Thursday, June 26, 2008

Cereal Song

It has been pointed out more than once that things have been quiet around here, and there are several reasons for that. For one, we are on a break from cereal. Not to worry, it is only a short break and we'll be back in business in another 2 days! In the meantime, here are some other friends of cereal who are holding the fort down.


Indian Cereal

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Introducing: Cereal Sightings

A new segment in which cereal sightings will be pointed out. In this edition, one more reason to love HSM: cereal makes it into the final script. Yessssss.

Chad: Look, you're a hoops dude. Not a musical singer person. Have you ever seen Michael Crawford on a cereal box?
Troy Bolton: Who's Michael Crawford?
Chad: Exactly my point. He was the "Phantom of the Opera" on Broadway. Now my mom, she's seen that musical 27 times and she put Michael Crawford's picture in our refrigerator. Not on it. IN it. So my point is, if you play basketball, you'll end up on the cereal box. If you sing in musicals, you'll end up in my mom's refrigerator.

a new day!

The time has come, friends...

I'm out of cereal, and you know what that means.

NEW CEREAL ALERT!!

I really have been loving on the honey bunches of oats. I've also been thinking about more simple cereals that I've kind of forgotten about: grape nuts, rice krispies, kix, special k. Maybe a grape nuts base with honey bunches of oats. gotta get some bananas, too.

Help me out! What should I go for next?

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Definitions, Standards, and Deviations (part 3)

Toppings: A Sub-Explo-sition

Everyone knows that there are certain things that you can put on top of a bowl of cereal that do indeed enhance the cereal experience. I recently had an experience in which I was lusting so passionately for cereal and as many toppings as I could manage, that I fear I may have gone overboard. Today, we'll discuss a few things:

*CAN one "go overboard" with regard to cereal toppings? How many is too many?
*Is there ever a time when no topping is appropriate?
*My favorites and why. Because I AM THE MAIN BLOGGER.
*YOUR favorite toppings.


So, this fateful night a couple of weeks ago, I had a couple of cereals--I believe they were honey bunches of oats and maybe some kashi honey puffs? It was late at night (whet
her or not I had the "munchies" is not relevant). I poured myself a mug (standard in my household) and thought to myself, "man, I love all o f the stuff thats in here. Wait a second--if I like all of THIS stuff, maybe I would like even MORE stuff!" Thus it began. I reached for a banana, sliced up half of it, and instantly had a better and more awesome bowl of cereal. Then I saw the bag of cranberry trail mix. Retrospectively, this was one step too far. A handful of almonds, peanuts, raisins, cranberries, and sunflower seeds cascaded into the mug, mingling with the flakes and clusters and sticking to the creamy banana, already sinking into the soymilk.
"That's all well and good," I thought, "but if this is so great, maybe even MORE stuff would be even BETTER!"
It was then that I saw the chocolate chip cookies. Not just any cookies--Tate's, that come in the little cellophane-y bag, super thin, super crispy, and super crumbly. I grabbed a cookie out of the bag and crumbled it into the mug.

2 kinds of cereal
banana
trail mix

cookie



I clenched the clover honey in my fist, adrenaline now pulsing through my veins, unable to control any of my actions (all of which consisted of putting more shit into this damn mug, at this juncture), and honey oozed out, covering my masterpiece. I'd created a beautiful, beautiful monster.
Needless to say, it was fucking delicious.
Was I wrong? It felt so damn right.

SO: IS THIS OKAY?

This was certainly a full meal, and most likely not apprpriate for breakfast. Even though I always say that cereal is right for ANY time of day, there are certain incarnations of it which simply don't fit with what I would consider a warm welcome into the day, i.e. trail mix and a cookie in a mug of ce
real. Perhaps this touches upon a topic discussed earlier: when is cereal still a bowl of cereal, ad when is it another snack altogether? But I DID have actual cereal in my mug (not cookie crisp or any of that shit), and bananas are standard. And hey, some cereal even has trail mix IN it (read earlier post: I'm currently in possession of some grape nuts trail mix crunch, for better or for worse). And the cookie, well...everyone knows how I feel about cookie crisp, but people eat it, so who knows. The honey was certainly superfluous, as these cereals have a ton of sugar anyway, and in case they didnt, the chocolate chip cookie probably took care of that.

My favorite cereal toppings: BANANA , HONEY....(chocolate chip cookie when appropriate)

Is there such a thing as too many toppings?
Ultimately, I think that cereal is the perfect template for your 3am (or 3 pm) dream-come-true snack. I'm a cereal super-liberal. Follow your hearts!


What do YOU think?


next installment: an explo-sition of fresh fruit, and a guest blog on the virtues/shortcomings of dehydrated fruit.


crunch,
tweeone

BONUS: here is a photo of me in High School Mus
ical singing "Getcha Head In The Game" with Zac Efron

High

There is a significant height disparity between the contributors of this blog, so I speak only for myself here. Now, if you fall into the short-to-average height category and live in a city where you often need to purchase your cereal at a bodega or small-supermarket, you may have encountered the same dilemma as I did last night (and on countless previous nights. and days.) Both of the healthy mini-marts in my neighborhood stock well over 15 different kinds of cereal. From the standard less-sugared varieties of RiceCrispies and Cheerios, to SmartStart, to Kashi/Peace/HealthyMorning organic high-fiber types... there is plenty to choose from.

I walk in. Ready to choose one or two cereals to bring home and enjoy that same evening. There they are stacked 2 high in a neat row of color, shining like a beacon in the night on.... the highest shelf?
I looked around. Everyone was too busy to notice me let alone help me. I noted the yellow and black grabber in the corner. Taking things into my own hands I proceeded to knock over 4 boxes of cereal, none of which were the cereal I had intended to grab. Damn.

I was eventually glared at, shamed, and helped. Cereals in hands I emerged victorious but aware that I will probably have to buy my cereal at the other mini-health-store now.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

goodnight cereal

feelings change..and people change.

A more personal journal entry.

Today I combined trail mix crunch with some honey bunches of oats or breakfast, and I didn't like it a whole ton. It was too sweet and thick, dense--too many oats. I needed something lighter, more rice based. It made me wish I still had those kashi honey pufs to combine with the organic raisin bran. I guess this just teaches me that the combo I've currently got is more of a post-dinner thing and not a breakfast thing. I'm gonna pick up a lighter cereal tomorrow, but it doesn't mean that trail mix crunch is out of the picture forever. Brothers fight...but they're still brothers.

Definitions, Standards, and Deviations (part 2)


A Fine Line: Where Cereal Ends and Other Snack Begins

Cookie Crisp
Trail Mix Crunch
Smorez (sp?)
Rice Krispies Treats Cereal
Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Cereal
Fruit Filled Gigantic Shredded Wheat (paraphrase)

These are just a few examples of cereals that force us to ask where cereal ends and a whole different snack begins. Before we attempt to define cereal (a much more difficult task than one might think at first), let's just take Cookie Crisp as an example:



Cookie Crisp consists of small, bite-sized (i.e. cereal-sized) cookies, which are put ina bowl with milk, thus producing what (if we are to be played for chumps, in a sense) is a bowl of cereal. I call bullshit on this, folks. Cookie Crisp is cookies and milk, and any mother who buys this for her child as a breakfast cereal is deluded/krazy/kooky for cookie crisp. Again, I've made an assertion which needs an exploration of what exactly constitutes a bowl of cereal. I mean, we've got little bite sized nuggets of grain and such that are crispy, and nobody ever said that chocolate can't be part of breakfast (chocolate croissants, and even coco pebbles/krispies I'd allow). It just seems wrong somehow. Its cookies! Don't get me wrong, cookies are way up on my list of great things--I'm eating one right now as a matter of fact. It's a question of integrity, and it's this concern for the integrity of cereal that allows me to sympathize with the non-drinkers of The Cereal Milk (discussed in previous post).

What do you guys think about the fine line between cereal and other snack? Dialogue is so important when it comes to cereal, so let's get talkin'!

Less is More but so is More or less

As a child, I didn't eat nearly as much cereal as I do now. The parents only kept healthy cereal in the house and back then (1988-1998) my choices were limited enough that cereal was not my number one breakfast/snack/anytime food. I also refused to drink milk unless it was with two ice-cubes and a cookie, which made certain cereals, such as RiceCrispies, less palatable.

As far as I was concerned there were three main things to be excited about when it came to cereal.

1--Mom buys Honey Nut Cheerios and lets me eat them as a snack without milk.

2--Somehow a package of those mini cereal boxes with Trix, Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms, or other SUGAR cereals ends up in our kitchen via a friend, visitor, or magic.

3--TOYS. And this is what concerns me now.


These days, I rarely purchase cereal advertising a special prize inside the box. Most often there are health tips, something you can purchase with many proofs-of-purchases, or the rare Pilates DVD. When I started to blog about cereal prizes, it was with the intent to claim that they should put them in all cereals so that I could once again look forward to finding a Lion King spoon that changes color with cold milk (I still have mine) buried in my HealthNutCrunchKashiOrganicFlakeO's. Having meditated further on the subject, I'm not so sure. More toys = less cereal, and I'm not sure that I would be willing to make that sacrifice. The prize would have to be worth the cereal in its weight, and judging by the "toys" that are being put in boxes these days that would just not happen. I guess the cereal moguls don't think it is worth the shipping costs from China, or are worried about getting sued for lead-paint poisoning.

Check this out:


I LOVE HSM and even I wouldn't give up 50 flakes or 15 clusters for a silly sheet of 6 trading cards (and actual Kellogg's prize).

Now if they were action figures..... even mini ones......Boy oh boy!

A Few Core Issues: Definitions, Standards, and Deviations (part 1)

A multi-part explo-sition.

1 The Cereal Milk

n; def.: The milk left-over in the cereal bowl (or mug OR GLASS) / cereal container after the cereal has been consumed; can contain small bits of cereal. Often, as in the case of sweet "sugar cereals," cereal milk takes on the flavor of the cereal itself (chocolate, cinnamon, "fruity," bran-y).

Standards and Deviations

I was raised to believe/with the belief that the cereal milk is nothing more than a formality with which one must deal after the consumption of a bowl of cereal, much like the placenta, minus the act of birth. I was shocked and disgusted when a babysitter suggested/demanded that I "finish my cereal" by drinking the dreaded cereal milk. As I grew older, I found my own way to sugar cereals (all but forbidden in my household) and, with it, found a new appreciation for the cereal milk. (Milk that tastes like frosted flakes? Has little bits of shredded wheat/frosting in it? Don't wake me from this dream).
Some of my contemporaries believe that the cereal milk is vile in principle, and that the (necessary) purity of the milk has been corrupted--that it is the very contrast between the cereal and the milk that makes the experience enjoyable. I will more than grant that contrast and opposition are two huge factors in the enjoyment of cereal, and the very fact of its being enjoyable. The crunch of a dry flake with the cool, creaminess of milk (preferably soy; this issue will not presently be addressed); the sweetness of a frosted flake with the grainy flavor of a corn or even rice flake; the hollow crispness of a rice puff with the hearty crunch of an oat cluster. It's possible that it could follow from a love of these contrasts that the aftermath-amalgamation of cereal flavor and milk, combined with the fact of the milk's inevitable creeping-towards-room-temperature, would be antithetical to the cereal experience (put more gently, "not prefereable;" less so, "reprehensible.") I, however, don't draw this line. Maybe that's because whenever there's milk leftover, I usually just add more cereal. No matter! The issue of the cereal milk is a contentious one, and my final verdict is this: drink the cereal milk if you wish--I won't think less of you. But if you don't want to drink the cereal milk, hey--you're alright with me.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Recommendations


If you like cereal you'll LOVE.....

Monday, June 2, 2008

Hierarchy

K-- So why is the bowl better? There are pictures on both of them.
M-- Yeah but you wouldn't eat cereal from a glass.
K--What? Why not?
M-- Because it is gross. The question was mug vs. bowl and there isn't an HSM mug. You don't eat cereal from a glass. Would you eat cereal from a glass?
K--Yeah! ..... See this is why I am the main blogger and you are the guest blogger.

Debilitating dilemmas: Mug vs. Bowl

In the debate of mug vs. bowl MUG WINS. First of all, portability. Unless the handle is broken which is both dangerous and annoying. Secondly, less chance for spilling especially when you are mixing two (or more!) cereals together. Third, you could drink the left-over milk (see "what to do with the extra milk" to be written soon) easily and without spilling (see "secondly").

Case closed. EXCEPT.........
In the right hand bottom corner there is the most convincing argument for bowls yet. It throws the whole thing off. Unless you wanted to eat from the glass but that doesnt seem civilized.

So, readers, what do you think of that? Mug? or HSM cereal bowl?

dairy bases

dudes,

usually i use soymilk, avoiding the whoel dairy thing. but last night i ran out. what i DID have, though, was vanilla frozen yogurt. i scooped myself a mug and poured some grape nuts trail mix crunch on top.

phenomenal.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

WELCOME TO CEREAL

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my cereal blog. I fucking love cereal, and so do a lot of other people. I just finished a mug full of grape nuts trail mix crunch mixed with honey bunches of oats. soymilk.

Cereal's appropriate for ANY time of day in pretty much any quantity. This blog will have new ideas for your cereal life and all the latest ideas in cereal philosophy/critical cereal theory.

Is it ok to crumble chocolate chip cookies into your cereal? How many different fruits is too many? Which cereals reign supreme?