Author Archives: dan g.

Spooned & Spotted: 2017 Monster Cereals!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BXV4q44Dk0l/?taken-by=cantbear2livewithoutit

And just like that, the residual sweat of summer’s dog days has been wicked away, replaced with the foaming spittle of Halloween’s werewolf days.

Early August has long meant the resurrection of Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry, but even when I know it’s coming, I still get giddy when I see those pointy teeth, head valves, and that little porkpie hat. They’re the edible harbingers of an entire spookily delicious time of the year—the literal breakfasts of Halloween’s eating season, if you will.

Instagram user @cantbear2livewithoutit has the enviable honor of being 2017’s first successful Monster hunter, having found the trio at a Foodworld store, though General Mills has confirmed that the cereals have shipped everywhere as of late July.

As far as themes go, the Three Muske-Fears here have scaled back from their grandiose 2016 election campaign. Despite getting points for effort, the online voting process was riddled with bugs and miscommunication, while consumers in general were a little too election-fatigued to be thrilled by a Transylvanian one (it was clear within a week that the Count’s name recognition would be unbeatable).

This year, Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry’s cereal box artwork simply puts a new perspective on 2015’s augmented reality boxes—but they add the novel idea of monster marshmallows! It’s a simply concept, but a refreshingly innocent one. Count Chocula keeps his iconic, cocoa-swirled bat marbits, but Franken Berry gets his lumpy head turned into sugar nuggets, while Boo Berry’s box is filled with sweet used napkins.

I mean sheet ghosts—sheet ghosts! Please don’t haunt me, ghost of Pete Lorre.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BXXqKKED7HP/?taken-by=cantbear2livewithoutit

Can’tBEAR2livewithoutit was also kind enough to share the back of the box art. While the past few years have at least included cameos by cult favorite monster cereals Frute Brute and Yummy Mummy, it seems like this year they’re well and truly sleeping in their respective doghouse and pyramid. Instead, we get a suite of monster cereal cosplays from a bunch of other General Mills cereal mascots—and the Pillsbury Doughboy.

I love the idea of other food characters hanging out like some giant crossover episode, and I heartily hope that the Doughboy gets his own zombie-themed Pillsburied Alive monster cereal next year.

Until then, I’ll be hunting these boxes for a more comprehensive breakdown. Until then, our thanks go again to Can’tBEAR2livewithoutit for sharing the photo. Wanna see your own find in a Spooned & Spotted post? We’d love to see your latest breakfast haul, discovery, or feast: send it over on our Submissions page.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: boo berry, count chocula, franken berry, general mills, halloween, monster cereals. 13 Comments

Aug. ’17

Spooned & Spotted (Canada): Oatmeal Crisp Apple Crisp Cereal

Oatmeal Crisp is a strange and wonderful beast, and it’s quietly getting a new Apple Crisp variety—in Canada only.

Traditionally lumped with Basic 4 and Raisin Nut Bran in the odd pantheon of “General Mills Cereals That Are Really But No One Talks About Them,” Oatmeal Crisp is a decadent cereal featuring toasted oatmeal flakes glazed with sugar syrup, paired with almond slivers and granola clusters.

So it’s pretty much normal oatmeal, just made more crunchy, less microwaveable, and with about a thousand more delicious calories per oatmeal-imeter.

Given my love for toasted oatmeal cereals, I’m personally embarrassed that I haven’t geeked out about it more. As punishment, I’ll accept execution by way of conveyor belt-induced mass Oatmeal Crisp ingestion.

Canada’s newest Apple Crisp Oatmeal Crisp variety, discovered and kindly shared by our friend Junk Food Jeff, excitingly pairs the not-so-iconic cereal with the apple-cinnamon taste (and homely thatched charm) of a homemade apple pie, apple streusel, or apple slice topped with cinnamon and butter and microwaved for 12 seconds because I’m too poor to bake, okay Grandma?

Meanwhile, America has only seen regular Almond and Hearty Raisin Oatmeal Crisp in the past decade or so. I tried to more thoroughly research Oatmeal Crisp’s past American flavors, but this cult favorite is so elusive that online cereal historians can’t come to a consensus. The cereal’s Wikipedia page also name-drops Triple Berry, Apple Brown Sugar, Maple Nut, and Vanilla Yogurt as past, oddly specific flavors, while trusted resource Mr. Breakfast only names Maple Brown Sugar in addition to the mainstays.

Whatever Oatmeal Crisp’s true past contains (perhaps we once briefly overlapped with a parallel universe where Oatmeal Crisp is a currency), I’m just excited that its shelf presence isn’t petering out here in the 21st century. As Basic 4 and Raisin Nut Bran feel like they’re becoming modern relics, one of them has to survive and speak on behalf of weird cereals everywhere.

As a cereal weirdo myself, I thank Oatmeal Crisp for being my Lorax.

Our thanks again to Junk Food Jeff for sharing the photo. Wanna see your own find in a Spooned & Spotted post? We’d love to see your latest breakfast haul, discovery, or feast: send it over on our Submissions page.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: apple, canada, general mills. 2 Comments

Jul. ’17

Review: Quaker Overnight Oats – Toasted Coconut & Almond Crunch

Is it just me, or has the humble coconut been having a quietly nutty couple years in the breakfast aisle?

Before 2016, we rarely saw the milk-stuffed tropical sphere appear at breakfast time—unless we watched Monty Python’s Holy Grail while eating our Saturday morning munchies—but now it seems like every Girl Scout, superfood, and massive anthropomorphized consonant is paying homage to the fruit with translucent slivers of coconutty love. I can’t say for certain just why there’s been a coconut resurgence. Perhaps it’s piggybacking off the coconut oil fad, but I like to believe it’s because Super Mario Sunshine’s 15th anniversary is next month.

Regardless, it unfortunately doesn’t feel like any recent coconut breakfast food really nails the coconut experience—Nature’s Path’s latest Love Crunch flavor comes closest, but even then, the dark chocolate is the star of the show.

I know what you’re probably thinking: “Oh, since this is his introduction to a Toasted Coconut & Almond Crunch Overnight Oats review, that must mean this new Quaker product finally breaks the ‘weak coconut streak’ like a cracked coconut over a marooned cartoon islander’s head!”

Wrong. Sorry to break the bad news, like a cracked coconut broken over a…you know…but this second flavor of Quaker Overnight Oats I’ve tried (after the borderline heavenly Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven) doesn’t get coconut right, either. But what it does get right is that other nut in its name. Boy, does it ever. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, almond, coconut, non cereal, oatmeal, quaker. 4 Comments

Jul. ’17

Review: Quaker Overnight Oats – Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven

I don’t remember learning about Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven in Sunday school. Is that where young folks who like to eat breakfast like senior citizens go when they die? If so, the whatever higher power is up there can hurry up and smite me, because there’s nothing I secretly love more than eating bowls full of fibrous cereal and grapes that got the shrunken head treatment.

Hey, something’s gotta balance out all the Cinnamon Toast Crunch I eat, um, for science.

Yes, Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven was my natural first choice when presented with Quaker’s four new Overnight Oat flavors. The little cups of oats, which you’re supposed to pour milk on and refrigerate for 6+ hours before eating (my condolences to the world’s insomniacs), also come in Toasted Coconut & Almond Crunch, Blueberry Banana & Vanilla Bliss, and Orchard Peach Pecan Perfection.

Why each flavor sounds so euphoric and zen, I don’t know, but I do know I’ll now forever picture the Quaker Oat guy’s face on the Buddha’s plumply smiling body. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, non cereal, oatmeal, quaker, raisin. 4 Comments

Jul. ’17

Spooned & Spotted (Germany): Unicorn Froot Loops Cereal

The unicorn virus…it’s spreading.

When the cotton candied Pepto-Bismol known as the Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino hit the U.S. earlier this year, kicking off a pink food pandemic that would infect everything from cupcakes to bagels, I thought it would be a purely American phenomenon. After all, it speaks to two of our country’s biggest passions: cryptozoology and colorful sugar.

(I’m still waiting for the Loch Ness Monster Frappuccino. Our underwater ally deserves to be submerged in whipped cream!)

But no, as Kellogg Germany’s new Unicorn Froot Loops prove, the eponymous horned horse has the ability to migrate across seas—despite lacking wings or gills. Maybe it bummed a ride off a pegasus. This limited edition cereal is, predictably, causing a buzz across the internet (and more than just the sugar rush kind), but I wanted to know how it actually tastes. So I sought out the help of the only cereal-loving German I know: Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: froot loops, kelloggs, spooned & spotted. 8 Comments

Jul. ’17

Spooned & Spotted (UK): Special K Peach & Apricot Cereal

https://www.instagram.com/p/BW29BO9j0Fi/?taken-by=productsinstore

Peach is one of those cereal tastes we just don’t see enough. Rarer than other fruity flavors like coconut and banana, but more common than some of my nonexistent dream flavors like gingerbread, cheesecake, or zucchini bread (my imagination shoots for the stars), peach has seen just a couple cobbled-together cereals in its history. There have been a couple Honey Bunches varieties and a Quaker Real Medleys variety, but that’s about it.

Oh, and Special K Peach & Apricot, a cereal that appeared in the United Kingdom about 5 years ago and is now gracing shelves once more, thanks to the above journalistic photo kindly shared by Instagram friends @Productsinstore.

This cereal is far simpler than Special K’s recent U.S. debuts, which include clusters and yogurt clusters and whatever other sweet mix-ins it takes to convince Americans to put down the Cookie Crisp for a change. No, Special K Peach & Apricot only includes classic Special K whole wheat and barley flakes with two kinds of dried fruit: peaches and apricots (who would’ve guessed?)

I always like to share international cereal photos when it leaves me drooling half a world away. As someone who will likely never taste an apricot in his cereal bowl without the help of a Trader Joe’s run and a food dehydrator, I’m glad someone out there is getting to chomp on one of the only apricot cereals to ever exist. If you’ve tried it, let me know how it is in the comments.

In the words of Michael Scott: “Apricot. Made of real apes!”

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: kelloggs, special k, spooned & spotted. Leave a comment

Jul. ’17

Review: Nature’s Path Love Crunch Dark Chocolate Macaroon Cereal

In this era of snarky infographics and predacious BuzzFeedian BuzzFoodies, it’s hard for anyone to mistake the difference between a macaroon and a French macaron anymore—though I’d argue that it’s much easier to confuse the French macaron with French president Emmanuel Macron.

Yes, everyone, their grandma, and their hyperintelligent pet ape who will one day overthrow humanity or at least star in a memorable sitcom knows that a macaroon is a shredded and toasted mound of sweet, sweet coconut, while a macaron is an ethereal pastel hamburger made of almond flour, powdered sugar, and filling pipetted with the care of a hummingbird whisperer.

And even though I knew this, just like Caesar, I’m still upset that Nature Path’s newest Love Crunch Cereal is Dark Chocolate Macaroon and not Dark Chocolate Macaron. Yes, that cereal would probably just taste like Chocolate Cheerios, but it’s the principle of the thing! I want colorfully crunchy cereal sliders so small White Castle would sell them by the Crave Catamaran!

But fine: I’ll sop up my tears with a bowl of this expensive, though likely delicious Love Crunch Cereal. Despite costing $4 and containing hardly enough cereal per box to feed a hummingbird whisperer’s daily clientele, the first Love Crunch Cereal I tried blew me—nay, propelled me—away with raw sumptuousness.

Now that I’ve got a safety net behind, let’s get with the propelling, Dark Chocolate Macaroon! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, chocolate, coconut, nature's path. 3 Comments

Jul. ’17

News: Banana Nut Cheerios Cereal is Returning for 2017!

(Image via General Mills. Note: this is an old box photo, as the new one hasn’t been released yet.)

It would be so, so easy to make a “going nuts” joke to open this review, but that would be too easy. I’ll hold off, because I know it would make you all go bananas.

Whoops.

But whichever gastronomical idiom you use to express your excitement, there’s plenty to be giddy about. Even after gifting us delicious new apple cinnamon and mocha cereals, as well as the sure-to-be-delicious-because-c’mon-just-look-at-them Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites doughnut holes, General Mills is treating cereal fans like spoiled grandkids once more by bringing back Banana Nut Cheerios, a fan-favorite variety that lasted from 2009 until late 2015.

Thanks to a tip from our friend Steffen (who has a great site about foreign cereals, if you have a translator ready), the above press release confirmed that the cult favorite Cheerios were returning to shelves.

We love you, Grandma Mills: you always did make the best banana bread.

Which is interesting, because while banana nut and banana bread are similara flavors, I don’t consider them exactly the same. It will be fun to see (and taste) whether the revival of Banana Nut Cheerios is exactly the same as before, or if it draws inspiration from Canada’s delightfully dense and ripe Banana Bread Shreddies.

Or maybe they’ll just subvert all expectations and make them taste like a peanut butter banana sandwich. Speaking of which…hey General Mills, people did love your discontinued Peanut Butter Cheerios. Hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: banana, cheerios, general mills, news. 18 Comments