1 post tagged “righting wrongs”

Apropos of nothing....  (Okay, fine - that's a little disingenuous....)  Apropos of Jodi being an idiot, here's a ranking of the best breakfast cereals.

 
Number One (with a bullet). Grape Nuts:  There are at least three unique ways that Grape Nuts are delicious.  I defy you to find a more versatile cereal.  With a little bit of milk, they are pleasantly crunchy.  But if you let them sit for twenty minutes or so, they absorb all that milk and become a dense and delicious paste.  (And you don't have the annoyance of a puddle of milk at the bottom of the bowl.)  And if you stick the whole bowl in the microwave for a minute or two...  Well, you've got cereal nirvana.  When I was a kid, I liked to spoon enough sugar atop my Grape Nuts to approximate the snows of Kilimanjaro, but they are just as tasty on their own.  If I had to choose only one cereal for the rest of my life, it would be Grape Nuts.

2. Cap'n Crunch:  I'm not even going to make a Cap'n Crook joke here, because Crook can only dream of one day attaining Crunch's lofty heights.  Cap'n Crunch is the king (or, I guess, the Cap'n) of the sweet cereals.  Number two isn't even close.  Crunch succeeds because it doesn't try to be something it isn't.  It doesn't taste like anything but Cap'n Crunch.  (This is why Peanut Butter Crunch is the red-headed stepchild of the Crunch family, and the less said about Crunch Berries the better.)  Sure, it occasionally lacerates the palate; that's a small price to pay for deliciousness.  In a pinch, this cereal can be used as percussion.

3. Raisin Bran:  Flake cereals - as a rule - really, really suck.  And I'm not too crazy about a lot of things that have raisins either.  But this is a match made in heaven.  The key is that these bran flakes become soggy in milk almost instantaneously.  Too many flake cereals try to maintain their structural integrity.  Structural integrity is overrated.  I want a soggy mass of bran punctuated by the occasional raisin.  Also overrated is two scoops of raisins.  Post's Raisin Bran kicks Kelloggs' ass.

4. Cracklin' Oat Bran:  Talk about your soggy masses of bran.  These bran-shaped O's disintegrate into loosely congealed bran particles with the mere hint of milk.  They're also really good mixed into yogurt.

5. Alpha Bits:  Alpha Bits are basically Lucky Charms without the stupid fucking marshmallows.  So this is sort of a case of addition by subtraction.  Also - unlike the inferior Lucky Charms (without the marshmallows) - Alpha Bits are shaped like letters, so you can make them into words.  As a rule, any breakfast cereal that occasionally swears at me is gonna make my top five.

6. Frosted Mini Wheats:  I love shredded wheat, but even better is shredded wheat that's not good for me.  Kelloggs probably figured out early on that most people drown their shredded wheat in sugar, so they eliminated the middle man and coated these little wheat pillows with a sugary glaze.  But they only did so on half the cereal so they could still pretend this is somewhat good for me.  I'm not buying it, which is why I'm buying it.

7. Cookie Crisp:  Speaking of pretending to be good for me, that's something with which Cookie Crisp doesn't bother.  Tiny chocolate chip cookies for breakfast?  Yes, please.

8. Golden Grahams:  It's strange - ordinary graham crackers don't much appeal to me, but if you make them spoon-sized and add a lot of sugar and milk, they become delicious.  Who knew?

9. Cinnamon Toast Crunch:  See Golden Grahams.

10. Life:  Mikey likes it.  So does Hotrod.

Third to last. Trix:  Trix are for kids.  'Nuff said.

Second to last. Froot Loops:  Froot Loops aspire to replicate the subtle melange of fruity flavors that is Trix.

Dead last.  Fruity Pebbles:  Fail.