The AB(GF)Cs of A Bowl of Cereal

 

This Thursday, I’m thinking out loud about a topic near and dear to many hearts (and tummies). That, my friends, is cereal, the crispy, crunchy snack of kids, adults, runners, couch potatoes, and everyone in between. Including me, as evidenced in my WIAWs of late! Cereal may seem pretty innocuous, but sometimes the most disorienting experiences happen with the most familiar things. 

 

Can’t let a day go by without my apples, yogurt, or cereal

There’s a cereal aisle in every grocery store in America. Whether it’s a generic chain or a small-town market, a Stop n’ Shop or the mom-and-pop shop on the corner, it’s a permanent fixture. You loved it as a kid – the rows of brightly colored boxes, packaging designed to appeal to the children squirming in the basket seats of shopping carts or alternately running ahead of and slowing down their parents, trying Mom or Dad’s patience. You eat the bounty of its boxes in a bowl with milk poured over the particles for breakfast in the morning, or swirled into yogurt. Some people have the same brand every day, others like to mix and match.

 

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Confetti Crispie Clouds

My grandfather traveled all over the world during his career as an engineer, working on projects in Taiwan and Tokyo as often as in the tri-state area. When I was growing up, he told me stories about the exotic sights to see and different dress of the people he encountered. He loved it. But he was never one for foreign food. Every morning, he wanted his bowl of Rice Krispies with a glass of cold milk poured over them to set them snap, crackle, and pop-ping away. Sometimes he’d add a banana or some sliced strawberries, but that’s as much of a twist as he would accept. So when he went to Asia on assignment, the hotels would stock imported Rice Krispies so he could stick to his regular routine.