a tribute to breakfast cereal

I'd like to take a break from trying new recipes to talk about my old stand-by, cereal.  Cereal has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember.  All kinds of cereal.  Healthy cereal, hot cereal, cold cereal, sugary cereal, cereal with milk, and lately, even dry cereal.  I have trouble defining my favorite food, as I can't seem to eat anything I'm not in the mood for.  Cereal is really the only food that I can eat at literally any time of the day and is often the only thing I can stomach when I'm not feeling well.

On a whole, I'd say that breakfast foods are my favorite genre of food.  Let me indulge myself momentarily and make a list of breakfast foods that I love: french toast, waffles, hash browns, pancakes, muffins, danish, donuts, bagels, english muffins, crumpets, cinnamon buns, home fries, toast, yogurt, eggs, little sausages, croissants, pastries, and granola.  My idea of bliss is going on vacation and being welcomed by a free hotel breakfast buffet.  The problem is that I can't eat a lot of these things first thing in the morning.  If I actually eat french toast and eggs for breakfast, I end up feeling queasy, lethargic, and greasy for the rest of the day.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any breakfast for dinner buffets (perhaps this should be my new business Life Plan?).

But this is where cereal comes in.  I can stomach cereal in the morning.  It very rarely makes me feel sick (with the exception of some delicious vanilla granola from Trader Joe's that starts making me sick after I've been eating it for a few days) and can actually act as a buffer layer between waking up and all of those delicious but heavy food items I listed above.  Much to the dismay of my family and boyfriend, I can happily eat cereal for dinner and be totally satisfied.

I eat a bowl of cereal almost every morning for breakfast.  Lately, I've been really into Kashi's Go Lean Crunch.  Something about the hard stick-like texture is really appealing to me.  I recently had a brief rekindled love affair with Frosted Mini Wheats after developing a fondness for eating them raw and by the handful.  My favorite cereal is Rice Krispie Treats with the discontinued Sprinkle Spangles a close second (my heart/mouth ache for you, Sprinkle Spangles).

So this entry goes out to you, cereal.  Thanks for the good times.

Original photo from here.  Sorry for ruining it.