Granola Is People, Too

I know, I know ... this blog has fallen by the wayside as of late, as all blogs about cereal and other such things submerged in milk are wont to do. No sense in fighting nature. I'll do my best to keep Cereal Hour alive and kicking, even if it's just one hour every couple weeks. You can do your best to overlook my complete lack of dedication, and instead choose to revel in the cereal-ness (or is it cereality?) of it all.

So a bag of homemade granola arrived on my porch a number of weeks ago. No, it was not out of the blue -- it came as promised from my friend Tessa in Santa Cruz, whose mom developed her very own granola recipe. Being a granola appreciator, if not a connoisseur, I was interested in taking it for a spin. Well I've been snacking on the sizable stash all these weeks and am finally ready to say: It's really damn good. Not that that helps any of you out there, because there's little to no way you can get your hands on some, unless the family suddenly decides to go into the granola business. Which, I gather, the granola's popularity has rendered not THAT far out of the picture. But perhaps my point is more that if you feel so inclined, you, too, could whip up some granola from scratch, and while it may take you a few times to get it right, you could end up with something equally delectable.

Electronic Light-Up Cereal Boxes

Just like we always dreamed of! Though I can't say I share this guy's enthusiasm to the point that I won't be buying any more cereal until the light-up boxes are released. That would just be stupid.

100 Cereal Box Covers

This is really rad. I especially like Sir Grapefellow and Sugar Crisp on that last one.

I Knew There Was a Reason I Liked These Guys

Flaming Lips to release new songs on cereal boxes? Something tells me Raisin Nut Bran is out of the running.

The Long-Awaited, Long-Overdue, Much-Ballyhooed Post on Mixing

Mixing has been on my mind since Cereal Hour was merely a figment of my imagination -- since before blogging about cereal seemed an even remotely reasonable thing to do. I still wonder, in fact, if it is a reasonable thing for a grown man to do. But that is beside the point. I am here, you are here, we are here, cereal is here. And so it goes, said Vonnegut. The point I am making is that there's one simple reason this post has taken so long to materialize: I am intimidated by the very prospect.

Mixing cereal is so integral to my daily life (nary a weekday morning goes by where one cereal is not mixed with another) that I was wary to address it out of fear that I could not do it justice. Mixing was the marshmallow elephant in Cereal Hour's room, and it grew larger and more ribboned with red and green and yellow swirls and still more sugary every day. Until now.

Cracklin' Oat Bran: Living in Danger

I'm listening to the song "Standing Outside a Broken Telephone Booth With Money in My Hand" by the Primitive Radio Gods, and thinking about Cracklin' Oat Bran. For some reason the two seem to fit. Maybe it's the hollow rectangular shape of the cereal recalling an empty phone booth. Maybe it's the lightly toasted oatmeal taste syncing in my brain with the ethereal piano solo at 2:41. Maybe its the fact that both are outlaws of sorts -- Cracklin' Oat Bran with its unorthodox shape, Primitive Radio Gods with their one-hit-wonderness, both relegated to the sidelines of popular culture, both enjoying a sort of forlorn cult status from the fringes of our popular imagination.

Whatever the reason, Cracklin' Oat Bran has been on my mind. For a good while. Well, for a few days. Until Saturday night, I had actually never tried the stuff. Now I realize it's the XTC or the Beta Band or the Zombies or the Action of the cereal world -- revered by few, forgotten by most. And that's fine. Because mystique is very becoming on cereal, and Cracklin' Oat Bran is nothing if not mysterious. Its squared-off edges and geometric cuts and hard angles seem manufactured in some grey North Korean factory or some underground Montana bunker, infused with military precision and the vestiges of a time when, as Abe Simpson once put it, men's haircuts were so sharp you could set a clock to them.

Nutritious Bran Treasures Mush

Behold: a cereal name creator. It's kind of stupid. But that didn't stop me from crafting Lucky Dipped Sugar Cubes (TM), a Japanese children's brand; or Sweetened Nut Granola Loops (TM), a healthy alternative to Froot Loops; or even Nutritious Bran Treasures Mush (TM), something you should never, ever eat, yet will nonetheless be appearing on grocery store shelves in Spring 2011.