I know, I know, it’s crazy: even after a devilishly creative line like that, Trader Joe’s corporate still won’t hire me to write their Fearless Flyer. Well buckle, up, Josè, Joey, and Joseph, because your nativity-era copywriting ain’t getting any better than that!
In fact, I ‘d like to try writing a Fearless Flyer entry for the store’s newest cereal, Trader Joe’s Hot Cocoa O’s, before diving into the review. Let me just clear my keyboard—*ahem*:
It’s all fun and reindeer games until someone skips breakfast. So click-click-click on over to the cereal aisle to kick-kick-kick-off a merry day of snowball fighting and cookie dough munching in true winter style, as we turned a classic Yuletide flavor into a box of ho ho hoops and marshmallows. It narrowly beat out our second idea: Fruitcake-Frosted Coal Flakes.
Not bad, eh? Hopefully we can say the same for the cereal. Continue reading →
I have to say, that of all the ring-shaped foods out there, I’m pretty glad doughnuts are the only ones that have been into not just one cereal, but several.
It’s not that I wouldn’t love to try a bagel, ditalini pasta, bundt cake, or onion ring: it’s just that I think the world at large, in its current state, is not ready to handle such concentric, near-Olympian power in their breakfast bowl. It’d be like if the Chaos Emeralds married the Dragon Balls.
Whew, hope you’re still reading after that horrible intro. My doughnut-based creativity has run drier than a stale cruller after talking so highly about Kellogg’s other Donut Shop cereal: Pink Donut. That stuff tasted like delightful animal crackers, so like Lard Lad, I’m already holding this Donut Shop Chocolate Donut Cereal to high standards.
By this point, my obsession with gingerbread is well documented on this site—and probably by the Library of Congress, too.
So I’m not going to start this review of Quaker’s new Gingerbread Oatmeal (just one arm of their 2017 gingerbread menagerie, which also includes a cereal) by clobbering you over the head with my love for cloves, ginger, and molasses-y dough. Instead, I’ll segue in by briefly obsessing over my other favorite winter flavor: eggnog. In short…it’s great!
This delightfully spiced custardy concoction is coziness distilled, and now that my bucket list is one gingerbread cereal shorter, my new “dream cereal” has to be an eggnog one—preferably of the Toast Crunch variety—if only so that I can pour eggnog on my crunchy eggnog cereal and feel as giddy as a kid watching a G.I. Christmas Special on a Saturday morning Christmas Eve.
Or maybe that’ll just be the rum talking. Whatever: oatmeal time! Continue reading →
The people have spoken, and what they have said is, “we want Arctic dairy beverages distilled into rectangular toaster pastry form.”
Yes, after much clamoring from a cult of cow-juice junkies (in other words, fans), both Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tarts and Vanilla Milkshake Pop-Tarts are coming back from whatever breakfast Hades Pop-Tarts shuffle off to when they’re discontinued from this mortal coil.
Both were originallky introduced in 2006 as part of Kellogg’s Ice Cream Shoppe line-up, which also included Ice Cream Sandwich Pop-Tarts—the fact that Kellogg’s morning necromancers skipped over that one will forever earn them my soft-served ire. And while Strawberry Milkshake got rave reviews and has since been the subject of countless Facebook petitions and annoying BuzzFeed nostalgia-holic listicles, I recall Vanilla Milkshake’s reception being more tepid—so I’m surprised to see it riding the coattails of its fruitier, more successful sibling.
Oh well, regardless, I’m triple-deckering both with a Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-Tart to make a Neapolitan pastry sandwich sharply sweet enough to carve a portal in space-time straight between Michigan and Renaissance-era Naples.
Waffle Crisp: the maple father, always present, always watching with a golden gaze.
French Toast Crunch: the sticky son, lost once, but resurrected thanks to a cult following.
And now, new Kashi Cinnamon French Toast: a holy syrup, created to enrich our sugar-loving lives with a cereal slightly more wholesome?
Forgive me for theologizing, but I love maple flavored cereals so much, that even the possibility of a healthy one has my heart sizzling like a freshly caked griddle. Long story short: when I was exploring the web’s deepest cereal caverns—an exploration that also turned up new Rice Krispies Treats and Super Mario Cereal—I happened upon this Kashi Cinnamon French Toast Cereal box, too.
These pillows look like Puffins, they’re flavored with real cinnamon and maple syrup, and they have plenty of fiber, but other than that, there’s nothing to say about this cereal yet that you can’t garner from staring at that very very enlarged to show texture cereal piece above. I won’t tell IT if you lick your screen.
Every so often, a cereal appears that you didn’t know you needed in your life. That is, until you taste it and realize that a part of you—a small, quiet part chilling out near the gall bladder—has had its secret cravings fulfilled. Kellogg’s Pink Donut Cereal is one of those cereals.
Like Superman Cereal‘s Nilla Wafer-esque goodness or Chocolate Mini-Wheats‘ pangs of ice cream sandwich goodness, Pink Donut Cereal—one of two entries in Kellogg’s new Donut Shop cereal line (the other is chocolate)—fulfills a very specific and very nostalgic flavor niche. So before you go all hipster-vegan-doughnut-shop on me, turning your maple-bacon-ganache-primed nostrils up and saying, “Pshh, Kellogg’s just reused their Froot Loops shaped and called them doughnuts,” or, “Pink is not a flavor. She’s a wildly successful pop music artist whom I only enjoy ironically,” hear me out:
Kellogg’s Pink Donut Cereal is good, and it tastes like a very specific pink thing you already know and love. Continue reading →
Goodness knows that it’s been long enough since we’ve seen a Mario-themed breakfast cereal—28 years, in fact, since the Nintendo Cereal System, which packaged two bags of Mario and Zelda cereal in the same box. A man works 60 grueling hours a week fixing leaky sewer pipes, battling demented turtle kings, and cleaning graffiti just to be told his princess is in another castle? He deserves a cereal. Or at least a dedicated pasta brand more esteemed than SpaghettiOs.
And it looks like that might* will** finally happen. After the kind of digital sleuthing that would put Mario is Missing! to shame, I stumbled upon multiple references, including one with the above box art, to an upcoming Super Mario Cereal from Kellogg’s. In true Kelloggian fashion, it pairs oat pieces with colored marshmallow shapes—in this case, crunchy stars are flanked by Super Mushrooms, 1-Up Mushrooms, and ? Boxes. But most importantly, some boxes of this “Mixed Berry” cereal are Amiibos in and of themselves, allegedly able to be used with Super Mario Odyssey for the Nintendo Switch.
I can only assume that it gives Mario a Dig’em the Frog hat, and Snap, Crackle, Pop hats for all the Toads. Either way, I hope an Animal Crossing Cereal is next: Tom Nook’s Crunchy Bells with Real Fruit Bits, anyone? Just shake it up!
*Update: Though the box art may not be finalized, reader Chris has allegedly received confirmation from Kellogg’s that this cereal should be hitting shelves soon! Mamma mia:
“We cerealously appreciate your continued interest in seeing a Nintendo cereal, Chris! We hope you’ll keep an eye out for the new Super Mario Cereal that is hitting store shelves now. This star-shaped cereal features Super Mario-inspired marshmallows, and a limited number of packages will have an Amiibo powerup sticker that can be used on the Super Mario Odyssey game with the Nintendo Switch gaming console. We also appreciate your additional feedback regarding classic cereal favorites, and thanks for taking the time to write!” —@KelloggsUS
**Update 2: While originally a rumor, Super Mario Cereal has now been confirmed through Target, Walmart, and product photographs!
Congratulations: you survived Thanksgiving and Black Friday, hopefully with minimal turkeys thrown through microwaves and tracheas trampled to get a discount microwave.
As your reward for getting through this gauntlet of fierce family feasts, you get to feast your eyes on these two upcoming Rice Krispies Treats flavors.
No, your vision isn’t still blurry from Aunt Mary’s famous extra-bloody Bloody Mary (which everyone in the family agrees tastes more like a Sloppy Joe): these product photos are really that pixelated. I had to do some covert digital spelunking to discover them, risking attack by trolls, Morlocks, and whatever those things from The Descent are.
First up is Birthday Cake Rice Krispies Treats, which pair a gooey-looking white frosting with rainbow sprinkles. They debut alongside Cookies ‘n’ Creme Rice Krispies Treats, which pair another gooey-looking white cream with mini chocolate bits. Presumably, if you pair them together, you can re-create the divine Oreo Cheesecake my mother blessed my childhood with, birthday after birthday.
I don’t have a release date for these, but since the boxes feature Snap, Crackle, and Pop’s uncanny, claymation-esque redesigns, I’m confident they’re legit and not relics from some early 2008 art school undergraduate thesis. So keep a lookout in your local supermarket in the coming months.
Just remember one thing: no Oreo-flavored puffed rice marshmallow square is worth getting trampled for.
