Blogs

Indiana Jones Chocolate Cereal with Marshmallows
Kellogg's
Rating: Three spoons out of four

Cereal description: The main pieces consist of brown oat-and-corn puffs -- but the main attractions are the marshmallows, which come in four different shapes. "Indy's Hat" might more accurately be described as "a triangle," and only its brownish tint differentiates it from the bits dubbed "Temple of Akator," whatever the hell that means. (Presumably, the movie, which opens on May 22, will explain all.) Also disappointing is the "Torch," which resembles a lumpy-tipped blue diamond from Lucky Charms that only got colored to the midline. Thumbs up, though, to the "Crystal Skulls," white, skull-shaped chunks of goodness with ghostly eyes that seem to stare dolefully as you raise the spoon to your mouth. Disturbing!

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My Friends Tigger & Pooh Corn Puffs
General Mills
Rating: A half spoon out of four

Cereal description: Not much innovation here. The enclosed corn puffs are, quite simply, corn puffs, as generic as they can be. Their hue is similar to to the color of Winnie the Pooh's fur, but don't give the product development team at General Mills any extra credit for it. Plenty of corn puffs have been this color for years. Way to break a sweat, guys.

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Chocolate Chex
General Mills
Rating: Three spoons out of four

Cereal description: The typical Chex construction: square grids with a puff in the middle, like a pillow that would leave a tic-tac-toe pattern on your cheek. Approximately half the cereal, which represents a fusion of rice, corn meal and (the words alone sound delicious) soy lecithin, is light colored, while the other half is supposed to be a uniform shade of chocolate brown. Instead, the brown pieces vary in darkness and uniformity of coverage. Maybe some of the sprayers at the General Mills factory are getting clogged -- probably a positive sign.

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Welcome to the inaugural edition of Milking It: Cereal Killers & Thrillers, a blog dedicated to that most beloved culinary delight, breakfast cereal. And not just any cereal. These pages will review a specific sort – the sugary kind, typically featuring a cartoony character on the box. The stuff that adults are supposed to feel guilty about loving. But not me. Oh no, not me.

A little background. I’m allergic to eggs, meaning that I can’t ingest the vast majority of items that most folks regard as breakfast delicacies. (I’d describe in detail what happens to me if I accidentally swallow something with egg in it, but some of you may be eating.) I can gobble cereal, though, and man, do I ever. Over the years, I’ve probably paid for at least a couple of General Mills and Kellogg’s manufacturing plants all by my lonesome. But from an early age, I also made cereal an important part of my life and identity. Most tots sleep with teddy bears; my mother reports, with a certain weariness, that I once cuddled up with cereal boxes before drifting off to dreamland. And among my most cherished childhood belongings was a stuffed Quisp doll ordered using box tops, no doubt. I still have it, and I’m particularly fond of the jagged stitching where my mom sewed his propeller back on after I’d nearly loved him to death.

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Barbie Multi-grain Cereal with Marshmallows
Kellogg’s
Rating: Two-and-a-half spoons out of four

Cereal description: The cereal pieces consist of hearts evenly split between red and purple – the latter apparently a tribute to men and women of the Armed Services who’ve been wounded in combat. There are also five different types of marshmallows, allegedly shaped like a hand mirror, a jewel, a flower, a purse and a butterfly – although you’d never know it without a guide on the top of the box labeling one from the other. The mirror, which is yellow, with a handle-like protrusion and a purplish oval at the center, looks like a mutant avocado, the jewel is a blue mound, the flower resembles a yellow and green police badge, the purple and white purse could pass for a Quonset hut, and the pink and blue butterfly suggests a clip-on bow tie worn to a prom in 1981.

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