Honey Bunches of Oats Greek Honey Crunch

Happy New Year! It’s 2013, and a new batch of  food trends is upon us. We’ve seen cupcakes come and go, fried chicken and waffles run its course, and Greek Yogurt everything peak in 2012.

Oh wait, nevermind.

Post apparently didn’t get the memo that Greek Yogurt was so 2012, because the new Greek Honey Crunch variety of the popular Honey Bunches of Oats brand comes a year after the launch of Honey Bunches of Oats’ Fruit Blends. You might remember I thought the Fruit Blends were a bit underwhelming, and while I love me some Honey Bunches of Oats, I find myself rolling my eyes when it comes to adding Greek yogurt to the mix.

Seriously. I like thick and creamy Greek yogurt as much as anyone, but the foodie worship of the health food staple is almost as tiring as trying to keep up with the decrepid Greek economy. Can we just admit that Greek yogurt, like the Greek civilization itself, had its moment in the sun, but has now been supplanted by something else?

What makes this cereal unique, according to Post, is a dual yogurt granola cluster formula. Greek Yogurt granola and Greek “style” coated granola sit amidst the lightly sweetened whole grain flakes, with each serving coming in at 230 calories, 3.5 grams of fat (1 sat) and a whopping 33 grams of whole grains. The cereal also has 13 grams of sugar per serving.

We’re definitely looking at a granola-style cereal, with a high ratio of crunchy clusters and small toasted oat bits to larger flakes. The flakes, as they always are, display a prominent honey flavor. There’s something about the HBO flakes which is just superior to any other whole grain flake cereal. It’s as if they exhibit the perfect balance of crispness and sweetness, as well as toasted a symphony of grain flavors that other cereals just can’t match. With the granola, each bite of cereal feels complete, and like snacking on dry granola alone, one can down a few handfuls without even realizing it. It’s an especially dangerous but delicious scenario that’s hastened by the second helping of yogurt-covered oat clusters. The small Greek Yogurt clusters are sweet, crunchy, and have that pleasantly candy-like moutfeel about them. I enjoyed them, but wasn’t thrilled about the size. Man these buggers are small. While there are a few scattered Greek “style” monster-granola chunks, the granola bits covered completely by yogurt seem to come only in smaller iterations.

The cereal is much better dry than in milk. The more I eat cereal the more I’m convinced there’s a dividing line in terms of sugar grams and the ability to retain sweetness in milk. In this case, the 13 grams per 58 grams of cereal isn’t enough to really carry the honey flavor through the milk, while not enough sweetness is transferred to the milk to make the end-milk anything worth writing home about. I thought that both the flakes, as well as both kinds of granola clusters, lost their crunch when exposed to a moderate soak.

I really enjoyed dry-snacking on the new Honey Bunches of Oats Greek flavor, but I enjoyed it because, as Leandra so eloquently points out, HBO are “nearly the perfect cereal.” The flakes are great, the honey taste really does taste roasted, and there’s plenty of crunchy bunches to make every bite an adventure. But did the Greek Yogurt granola concept add anything? It didn’t taste like it. The yogurt clusters were good, but they tasted exactly like regular yogurt clusters in every other cereal, and what’s more, they were tiny in comparison to the yogurt clusters in, say, Basic 4. I admire HBO for developing a clean ingredient list which doesn’t feature any partially hydrogenated oils, but like most granola based cereals, the serving size seems meager when measured out.

If you like HBO, you’re going to like this cereal, but I’m not sure you’re going to be enamored with it. I, personally, prefer Honey Bunches of Oats with Cinammon Clusters. If you’re a true fan of Greek Yogurt, my guess is you’ll just be adding your favorite flavor of Honey Bunches of Oats to your favorite brand of Greek Yogurt.

Honey Bunches of Oats Greek Honey Crunch 

• Price: $3.00 (Walmart)
• Ranking: 7/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 0%

Portalli’s (Ellicott City, MD)

  

Portalli’s is one of those restaurants one would like to enjoy immensely. Located amidst the classic storefront ambiance of a town pulled right out of a 1940s photograph, the upscale Italian restaurant in downtime Ellicott City features tantalizing menu descriptions and a well dressed, friendly staff that, upon first entering, inspires the kinds of sentiment that would endear one to think this could be “our place.”

The only problem, however, is that once the dining experience begins, those sentiments gradually begin to fade away.

I went to Portalli’s in early December. It was my second time visiting, inspired by an enjoyable summer meal at the occasion of my sister’s college graduation. This occasion – my birthday dinner — was not nearly as enjoyable. It was downright forgettable.

The staff at Portalli’s, including the young women who served my family, may be well dressed, but their knowledge of the menu is completely inadequate for an establishment with Portalli’s prices. When I inquired as to two entrees – the Pork Osso Bucco and the Brasied Veal Shank – the waitress seemed at loss to differentiate the two. Not terribly experienced with the shank bones of either animal, I inquired further, but she was unable to identify Osso Bucco as a style of preparation of a shank bone and could not explain either dish in terms of flavor or texture.

There are highlights in the food – to be sure — but they are limited. My party started with the Portallian Flatbread, which was composed of jumbo lump crab, goat cheese, and peppadews atop a walnut pesto. I thought the flavors were good but the portion meager, even taking into account the high quality ingredients and the limits of a flatbread. The good was that the crab retained its sweet and buttery flavor despite a trip into the oven. The goat cheese was delicious and mellow, with the combination of the bright peppadwes and savory pesto trumpeting bold and memorable flavors. I was not a fan of the crust, however, which was more cracker than thin-crust, and decidedly lacking in flavor. Despite enjoying several elements of the flatbread, I felt it lacking in terms of scope, with an inspid crust unable to make up for the sparseness of the toppings. At a mere four slices – each the size of a small hand – it isn’t substantial as a first course for a party of more than two.

After the waitress seemed unable to explain the menu in the kind of detail that would lead me to chance an entrée selection, I decided to roll the dice on something I felt certain I would like but also wouldn’t feel like I was overpaying for. I went with a Winter Caprese Salad. It was everything I look for in a small plate salad, with distinctive elements and flavors that allow the eater to assemble and savor in stages.

The sun-dried tomato and grape tomato confit was, in a word, amazing. Tangy-sweet and rich without seeming heavy, there were smoky and bright notes at work. The house-made mozzarella (which I remember being very good from a summer antipasti selection) is luscious and memorable as well, with a mellow but enjoyable grassy flavor and slightly creamy texture. The pesto, just like on the pizza, was excellent. I usually hold an aversion to strongly flavored olive oil, but in this case the walnut taste balanced the assertive olive notes, and made for a strong delivery atop crunchy, garlic-rubbed slices of a baguette. For the $8 price, I consider it a very reasonable small plate salad to start any meal.

I would have felt content had the evening ended on this note, but the staff dropped the ball when it came to the end of the night. Actually, I should say they lost the card. Not only did the waitress with so little knowledge of the menu lose our credit card, but she was slow in admitting it and kept our party waiting without a proper explanation. The card was never found, and although part of the meal was taken up on the house, the management’s gratuity did not extent to the majority of the meal, which was still charged to a gift certificate that was redeemed.

I don’t enjoy pointing out mistakes or flaws, and when it came the waitress, I certainly sympathize – heck, even empathize – with being a young person in the awkward position of making a mistake. Yet I’ve also worked in hospitality, and having seen how happy a staff can make people given their handling of questions and complaints, I know that Portalli’s can do better. At least, they should strive to do much better. If the restaurant really wishes to be the flagship upscale Italian eatery of Ellicott City then they need to better inform their staff and reconsider their portions. I am not talking about some kind of Olive Garden, 5000 calorie dinner. I’m talking about reexamining each entrée on a bite by bite basis to make sure they maximize flavor for price, balancing ingredients with craft, and keeping in mind that today’s dinner standards are constantly evolving.

Oh yea, and please, for the love of all things Italian, enough with the damn black pepper grinder and offer us some real Parmigiano-Reggiano!

Honey Bunches of Oats Tropical Blends: Mango Coconut

According to the HBO website, we can expect a new flavor to join the lineup this year. Made with real coconut (but apparently no mango) the new “Tropical Blend” will debut along with the Greek Honey Crunch flavor in the new year. As much as I like HBO, I’m not sure I’m feeling coconut in my cereal. Any one spotted it in stores?

Nova and Lox Done My Way

Christmas meal traditions. Everyone has them, I suppose. For my family, it’s usually lunch out on Christmas Eve, a plethora of cookies on Christmas morning, and whatever my aunt and uncle serve up at their place for Christmas dinner. The meals range from the memorably homemade to the bland and store-bought. Sometimes, we manage to get the best of both worlds. Like this Christmas, when my aunt and uncle had a catered Wegman’s turkey (brined, smoked, and helped out by plenty of delicious sides). Through the highs and lows of whatever were chowing on, however, Christmas eating has never really included the mysterious meal called ‘brunch’ (that is, unless you count the hundreds of grams of sugar in the cookies we’ve been known to put away during car rides en route from Baltimore to Buffalo.)

Things were a bit different this year though, and different for the better. After celebrating two extended family Christmases on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, we returned home to a slower, more leisurely pace on Tuesday. Mass was in the morning at nine, and not getting home until 10:30, we put ourselves squarely in brunch territory.

Unfamiliar ground, to be certain, but we were prepared. A rich and indulgent filet of smoked Sockeye Salmon Lox from Portlock had been shipped courtesy of my father’s employer, whole my mother had picked up enough fresh-baked rye bread and pumpernickel rolls to feed a football team during pre-game bowl preparations. While we had the prerequisite cream cheese, capers, tomatoes, and even ricotta on hand (mmm, ricotta) my mother also picked up some something called Greek Cream Cheese.

I was skeptical. After all, Greek yogurt is one of those buzz foods every company is trying to capitalize on. But when it comes to rich and lip smacking, savory spreads, I find most, if not all, substitutes to be unacceptable. A ‘butter blend,’ say you? Please. Canola Oil and whipped monoglycerides will never actually taste like  actual butter. A Vegetable Pate? Be still my heart and just kill my taste buds, why don’t you!

Here’s the shocker; I was incredibly surprised by Green Mountain Farm’s Greek Cream Cheese . Whipped and full of that creamy, ethereal flavor that pairs so wonderfully with the buttery and smoky flavors of salmon, this ‘Greek’ Cream cheese tastes just as good as the expensive store-bought spreads that my favorite bagel shop, Einstein Brothers, charges an arm and a leg for. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a lower saturated fat alternative to traditional cream cheese. Why would you be looking for a little less saturated fat in your cream cheese spread? Because, like Christmas, the feasting on lox doesn’t limit itself to just one day in my house. With a few days worth of salmon and bread to get me through all my snacking, you might just say I’ve found a go-to cream cheese spread that’s not only delicious and affordable, but remarkably healthy.

Which is good, because I have a butt-ton of cookie eating to catch up on. And those definetly are anything but healthy.

New Honey Nut Cheerios, a Chocolate Fiber One, and Crunchy Mini Wheats Highlight 2013′s New Cereal

Congratulations breakfast lovers. You’ve just about made it to another January. Didn’t think you’d make it, did you? Oh c’mon, don’t tell me you were buying that Mayan bullshit! It’s OK if you did — I won’t hold it against you, just so long as you move on. Fortunately, there’s a lot to move on to, especially when it comes to the forthcoming launches of 2013′s new line of cereals. Here’s a rundown of what’s on tap (or, should I say, in the bowl)!

Kellogg’s is rolling out several new cereals for the new year, although all appear to be takes on current brands. Frosted Mini Wheats Crunch Brown Sugar doesn’t look too different from the current Mini Wheats varieties, but perhaps the addition of malted wheat flour will help take the crunch effect to another level. Also on tap for Kellogg’s appears to be a new variation of the always seasonal (in January, that is) Special K line. Chocolatey Strawberry promises something “wholesome” for those “craving something sweet without some of the guilt.” Because really, nothing says “hola, skinny jeans” like partially hydrogenated palm kernal oil and freeze-dried strawberries. Finally, look out for a new variation on Apple Jacks. It’s not on the Kellogg’s website yet, but a Cinnamon Jacks version is coming. I spotted on at Walmart the day after Christmas.

General Mills isn’t far behind Kellogg’s when it comes to developing new cereals. Fiber One fans looking to rev up that yearly diet after Christmas might find inspiration in a new Chocolate version of Fiber One 80 Calories. It might just be the first occasion in the history of the world in which chocolate is flavored with “pea fiber.” Mmmmm. Meanwhile, the ever popular Cheerios line, including one of the nation’s top-selling cereals in Honey Nut Cheerios, will also expand with a new variety called Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch.

Post, meanwhile, is going to go Greek on us. No, not in terms of developing a new business campaign behind laziness and financial ruin, but rather my introducing the new Honey Bunches of Oats Greek Honey Crunch cereal. It combines “2 unique granolas made with real Greek yogurt, crispy flakes, and a touch of honey. A 58 gram serving has 230 calories, 4 grams of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.

I’m sure there are more to come, and as new products hit stores, I’ll look to snatch some photos and gather some intel. And of course, I’m sure I’ll eventually be working my way through some of these new cereals. That is, if my house ever runs out of our seemingly endless supply of Christmas leftovers. It’ll happen eventually, I’m sure. As hard as I am trying to disprove it, Man cannot live Pizelles and smoked salmon alone. In the meantime, if you’ve tried any of these new cereals, throw us a line! How was it? Anything stand out as a must buy for the New Year?

How I Say, “Merry Christmas”

Christmas has come in anticlimactic fashion for me this December 25th. Even though it has just begun, the Holiday feels over and done with. A rushed weekend filled with travel and family gatherings which saw forced smiles and hollow embraces, it came and went like a passing evening snow. Mostly, I felt myself wishing I was somewhere else during the whole ordeal. Somewhere, or sometime else. Christmas is never the same when you get older. Even when you go through the same motions and see the same faces you’ve experienced for 24 years. Come to think of it, especially when you  go through the same motions and see the same faces you’ve experienced for 24 years.

Everyone seems different, and different for the better. Me? The same. Grudgingly, stubbornly the same. And in this yearly reminder, I don’t know what to feel this Christmas Eve. I don’t know what to think. There’s a sense of disquietude lingering over me and my spirit, whispering into my ear that no matter how many Christmas movies I try to watch or songs I play on the radio, I failed to prepare adequately. I am, instead, lost amidst the lost amidst the traffic and the movement the world shows to us each December. Not just the movement of dollar signs and gathering and festivities of the secular world, but even amidst the religious message of hope and blessings that I’ve heard throughout Advent.

Both Christmases — that of celebration in the unity of what we’ve been blessed with on Earth and why and how we came to be blessed with it — they wait. They wait, and await, change on my part, and a decision to leave one world behind and embrace another one. The way is deep. The weather, sharp. But like the poet contemplating on the true meaning of Christmas and the necessary – yet not necessarily easy – decision we all must make to embrace it, I find myself in a familiar place. This year, more than past years, I identify with the Magi, and hope that I, like them, can say’ Merry Christmas’ when leaving one way of living behind for a better, happier one.

‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kiking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Cap’n Crunch’s Christmas Crunch

Unless you’ve been living under a rock in Afghanistan (in which case, the U.S. Army is coming for you) or you’re just a general Scrooge who lives in your own little world (in which case, stop reading my damn blog) you may have noticed Christmas is a week away. Obviously this means lots of great stuff. Jesus, for starters, with requisite shout-outs to the holiday cheer of presents, carols, and yes, lots and lots of food. Aside from buffets filled with honey glazed hams, Christmas cookies (cocoa crinkles, please), and – for our Jewish friends – delicious assortments of latkes, Christmas inspires another traditional treat; Captain Crunch’s Christmas Crunch.

Despite having a stocked cereal pantry, I decided that for $2.50 this cereal commanded my hard-earned dollar on a late November sweep of Walmart. First introduced during my 1988, the cereal was welcomed into the world in all it’s green and red festivity at the same time which I entered the planet. There is, however, no documentation of my eating this cereal during the lead-up to my first Christmas. There is also no evidence that Charles Dickens meant to include it in place of Figgy Pudding during while composing his classic Christmas Carol. Both circumstances, I should say, are a real damn shame.

I didn’t let either of these unfortunate facts deflect my excitement for letting my inner child rule the day in the vicarious form of some good old-fashioned, limited-time only junkfood cereal. Having been subjected to several ho-hum ‘adult’ Christmases in which both LEGOs and Star Wars action figures remained consciously absent from under the tree, you might say I’ve been waiting to let that kid out for quite some time. And, like eight-year old Adam proudly opening that amazing machine known as the Sega Genesis during a childhood Christmas, so I tore through the packaging on Christmas Crunch. I was met immediately by the fruity-ish yet inexplicably Christmasy smell of red and green crunchberry pieces, and proceeded to down my first few spoonfuls  with such excitement that I almost forgot to actually taste the cereal. Almost, because like all renditions of Cap’n Crunch, the cereal’s crunchy corn pieces refuse to dissolve into mush when in milk. You either love it or you hate it. I love it like I love the fact that Johnny Football won the Heisman.

The corn pieces are your standard if not delicious Cap’n Crunch nuggets of corn and oats. Sweet but with a touch of salt, I’ve always felt they fit the definition of crispy-crunchy as opposed to just crunchy, but regardless, they’re scrumptious thanks to a hint of brown sugar and coconut oil. Now, as for the Holiday shapes of red and green. It’s been said they do not exactly taste like traditional Crunchberries, but I disagree. They actually taste like Strawberry Crunchberries, which contain, as Leandra points out, a “vaguely fruity flavor.” Note that this is true for both the red and green pieces. Don’t ask me why the green pieces taste like strawberry crunchberries. It’s the same reason why some of the trees shapes are red and some of the Santa hat shapes are green. THEY JUST ARE. Call it a Christmas miracle, or attribute it to the magic of Santa Clause, but in either case, it’s best beyond our human understanding. And it’s best left that way.

The cereal is incredibly sweet to be sure — so sweet, in fact, that I’m think Kirby the Dentist-Elf would file a formal protest with Cap’n Santa Clause Crunch. Thing is, I’m confident the Cap’n isn’t actually Santa Clause. The borrow a phrase from Kevin McAlister in Home Alone, “he works for him.” While cereals which are overly sweet often get a bad rap, I feel like the taste of corn and hint of salt do bring some balance to the party. And of course, an overly sweet cereal is better than and cereal with not enough sweetness when it comes to producing end-milk. Thanks perhaps to that baked-in coconut oil fruitiness, the Christmas Crunch end-milk has that drink-the-bowl-with-two-hands quality about it.

Is Cap’n Crunch’s Christmas a better tasting cereal than Cap’n Crunch Crunchberries? Probably not, but that’s ok. The novelty alone of buying a Christmas Cereal is worth it, while the shapes make excellent decorating adornments should you decide to play White Christmas in your vanilla ice cream. I highly recommend this, and highly recommend Christmas Crunch as an essential part of any proper Holiday feast. Even if your Jewish.

Your Turn: Favorite Christmas food? Love the Cap’n as I do, it’s cookies for me. And how awesome would a Hanukkah cereal with dradle shapes and chocolate coin pieces be? Answer? Freaking awesome.

Cap’n Crunch Christmas Crunch

• Price: $2.50 (Walmart)
• Ranking: 8.5/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100%

He Said it All

I have been searching for the words to say. Not just since Friday, but for weeks,maybe years, now. After seeing this recently on Facebook, however, I realize I have nothing left to say. He said it all.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejewelled trees, Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a crib, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her: “How could God let something like this happen?” (regarding Hurricane Katrina). Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said: “I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?”

In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbour as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said okay.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it…. no one will know you did. But if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

Trash these words if you want to. But don’t come telling me how great the world you’ve created is.

A Birthday Dinner: Something Worth Celebrating

“How was your Birthday?”

It figured Taylor would be the first one at work on Monday to ask me the dreaded question after my birthday weekend. She’s probably the sweetest, nicest person in the office, with the kind of hopeful — if not meek — voice that makes answering in any other way besides a Tony the Tiger “GRRREEAT” feel like letting her down.

But I couldn’t lie. It had been bugging me too much. I had to tell her.

“It sucked,” I just let out, my voice a tempered mixture of relief at admitting the fact and shame in recalling the memories of another birthday spent feeling sorry for myself.

It didn’t have to suck. Unlike past years, I didn’t have to be at work or at school, and also unlike past birthdays, my parents seemed to be especially willing to invest a whole day into letting me know they were up to doing whatever I wanted to do.

The only problem was that I didn’t want to do anything. Or at least I didn’t want to do anything on a Sunday before another stressful week at work. Wait a second; was that the excuse I used, or was it not wanting to spend money out for a dinner I could make myself or not wanting to throw off my parents’ plans after their own busy weekend out-of-state? The whole thing played out just as it always does, and just like not celebrating my 21st birthday because I spent the majority of it stuck in the Salt Lake City airport, this year’s saw me doing everything in my power to try to downplay the event. Too many past birthday dinners that could never live up to expectations and too much money spent on stuff I neither thought I wanted nor needed had entrenched regret and guilt in my mind, and judging by the way I’ve allowed the stress of recent work and world events get to me, I wasn’t about to get my hopes up for something material and fleeting.

One thing led to another though, and after spending my actual birthday alone doing, well, nothing, I found myself at the proverbial birthday dinner with my parents, knowing gifts — perhaps of necessity, perhaps for enjoyment — awaited me when we got home. It was a Sunday night, and even though it’s where I said I wanted to be, it was the last place I wanted to be.

We make our own luck, I suppose, because as luck would have it, the whole thing turned into something of a disaster. From the exceptionally small plates that left me feeling robbed without feeling satiated, to the usual banter between my parents and even the waitress’ losing our credit card, the entire dinner reached into the depths of all my anxiety issues and left them on the table like an uneaten breadbasket. The night, like many before it, ended with harsh words being exchanged between my mother, father, and I, and a feeling of guilt and shame that comes with the recognition that we should never have even tried to make the night ‘special.’ It just served to remind me how alone I feel in life, and didn’t do anything to make me remember the past year as one worth celebrating.

I hardly spoke to my parents the rest of the night, and the gifts they left out are still sitting in our basement, unopened. The gifts — wrapped tightly in glittering paper and red bows, like candy canes — are there for when “I feel like celebrating.”

But after the way I treated the two people who love me more than anything in this world, and after feeling the guilt and shame of being unable to smile and feel gratitude for all the gifts they have given me in life, I couldn’t imagine when that time for celebrating would be.

It might not be far off. Later on that night, before I went to bed, I was glancing at passages in this Advent reflections book I had grabbed at church but had then abruptly tossed into a corner of my room. I was reading back through the entries listed for the days I had missed, and, turning to the day of my birthday, I read the following words:

God loves you. He really does…Where you may see only your sins and failings, your Father sees your heart. He knows you’re not immaculate, but he also knows how much you want to do what is right. He knows all of your dreams, your needs, and your hopes. Nothing is impossible for him…

It’s telling, isn’t it? That same kind of unconventional  Divine love and recognition of an imperfect love returned is so akin to the relationship many of us have with those closest in our lives. My parents would and have done everything for me in my life — from giving me life to providing me with a place to live to believing in me even when I have given up on myself. Yet that love, like God’s love, is something that recognizes intent, and recognizes a yearning and desire to return the favor, even though our actions so often fail to live up to what we really desire. For me — the son who constantly struggles with showing gratitude and living the life of happiness they want for me — just that knowledge that they know I want to, well, that makse all the difference.

The morning after my birthday celebration gone wrong, my father hugged me.  It was one of those weird, you’d-never-expect it hugs that a father gives his grown son, but in his embrace I felt like he understood the realization I had come to from reading that reflections book. Suddenly all my guilt, all my shame, it just flew away. Even though we never seem to be on the same page in getting along and doing the things that convey our love for each other, we both would do anything, and I mean anything, for each other. They say it’s the thought that counts a lot this time of year. The more I experience life, the more I realize that’s not just a trite saying for Christmas presents, but something we experience everyday in our lives. My issues, my anxieties, like a lot of peoples’, they aren’t going to go away with a one good day or one attempt to change or push my boundaries. But even though we might not show those close to us we’ve ‘made it,’ we can still show them our intent. And, just as God loves and forgives each one of, so our loved one’s will recognize the intent behind our actions, and continue to love us even when we seem ungrateful.

That’s something worth celebrating, and not just for birthdays, Holidays, or special occasion, but for every day we share together.

Special K Cinnamon Pecan

Congratulations. You made it out of Thanksgiving alive. Whether you were subjected to the gossip and banter of the kid’s table or outlived the freezing lines of late-night Black Friday camp-outs, you’ve made it into December, and that’s a credit to your gastronomic gusto and eating prowess. Turkey, alcohol, stuffing, leftovers. Even an ad-hoc homemade cranberry sauce made on a mountaintop in Virginia when you forgot the sugar back home in Maryland. The sweetness you tasted? Oh. That was the Jet Puff mallows you melted down to make a syrup.

And you still saved room for pie.

 

Yes, pie. I myself made the traditional Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving, albeit one made with a damaged pie crust set as a base above a baking pan. Call it a gingery and cinnamon take on brownies, if you must, but I call it a yummy way to start the season in which the traditionally round, flaky crusts encase a plethora of sweet and rich fillings. Pumpkin. Apple. Lemon Meringue. Pecan.

Ah, pecans. The richest, sweetest, heck, the most expensive nuts there are, pecans have long captured my attention. Thankfully, I don’t need to sit around a table of annoying relatives and confess my thankfulness to get a taste of pecans. The cereal world is more than happy to indulge my epicurean curiosity for the autumnal dessert staple.

A word to the sugary and sweet; I’m not much of a fan of Special K products. Ok, so their breakfast sandwiches were better than tolerable, but aside from buying the faux Chocolate cereal known as “Choclatey Delight” for my mom, I shun their products like a sumo wrestler shuns a salad bar. Nevertheless, I’ve heard good things of Special K’s Cinnamon Pecan cereal, and unable to locate the Pecan Clusters version of Honey Bunches of Oats (now apparently discontinued) I decided to stoop to the classic ‘low calorie’ cereal choice.

(It’s at this point that I must subject you to an aside about how I hate the ethos inspired by Special K product. It may be an ethos of ‘losing weight’ under a guise of great tasting products, but it assigns the worth of said product to it’s value in helping one to lose weight as the only thing the product line has going for it. In that respect, it limits what the cereal can be to others, and reduces its own value and the value of the target demographic to one of calories, the scale, and some promise that losing weight makes a woman (and only a woman) happy. The entire premise, if you ask me, is highly akin to modern feminism’s fixation on sex and what it likes to call ‘reproductive rights’ as a manner of worth for women. It is, in effect, a limiting characteristic which denies a person, or a cereal, its full potential. My sister, mind you, is far more than just body parts and hormones, just as I, as a male, am also more than those things. So much like how any given human being is more dynamic and has more going on for themselves than just their reproductive organs or carnal desires, so Special K cereals are more than just a low-calories cereal which will help women reach some magical number that will suddenly make their life perfect. God forbid any person, regardless of age, sex, weight, etc. can enjoy it for its taste and/or affordability. Don’t like my analogy? Tough.)

Back to the box (although not the boring back-of-the-box lecture about the Special K diet.) I have to admit my expectations were not high for a pecan flavored cereal with all of 110 calories per serving. Pecans have a very high and rich oil content – making 110 calories more or less the equivalent of a mere half ounce of pecans. Still, low and behold “pecans” showed up on the ingredient list, and after breaking open the box, I can confirm Special K wasn’t telling tales out of school. Behold:

What we have here are three elements to the cereal makeup – flakes, glazed flakes, and pecan pieces. Starting with a dry snack run, I can’t say I am very impressed with the regular flakes. To their credit, they’re not to be counted with the insipid rice flakes of the plain Special K flavor. These flakes have a distinctive wheaty taste a shade more restrained than Wheaties, yet they also strike me as just as needed a bit more sugar. That said, the glazed flakes, which have a shiny coating of syrup and cinnamon, are very good. The cinnamon taste is exceptionally spicy, while the smooth mouthfeel makes for a really good burst in the middle of the roughly 4:1 regular flakes to glazed flake ratio. The last component is the Pecans. A single, blind pour that yielded 30 grams (a serving) of cereal also yielded two grams, or approximately five small pieces, of pecans. I tasted one alone and it was everything you’d want it to be. Full of flavor and oily, it was smoky and rich, buttery and earthy-sweet. Eaten with a small handful of flakes, the flavor is not as intense, but it still stands out to bind all the components with a nutty aftertaste.

I was slightly less impressed with the ability of the pecans to bind the taste of the flakes together when I added milk. The cinnamon flavor was no longer as prominent, and despite a not objectionable wheat and bran taste, I picked up less on the rich and earthy flavors of the pecans and very little of the malt flavoring. This is where I felt the cereals 7 grams of sugar failed. Had all the flakes been given a glazed brown sugar syrup and malt coating the cereal’s sweetness would have likely stood up better in milk, but as it was, the best thing I can say about the flakes in milk is that they avoid the airy crisp that the Regular Special K cereal is famous for. Not great, but definitely not objectionable.

If Special K Cinnamon Pecan was banking only on its Cinnamon flavor, I’d say it’s the classic case of a cereal trying to walk the ‘healthy’ line and coming up a few grams of sugar too short. However, the addition of real pecan pieces, even in a small amount, makes up for its sweetness deficiencies, and create a complete and richly spicy bite when eaten as a snack. While I can’t say it’ll make the normal rotation, it does garner points for being one of the few mainstream cereals to utilize the expensive nut, and, in my opinion, one of the few Special K products worth a try. Just don’t bank on it to replace that Holiday pecan pie—especially if you have a southern grandmother.

Special K Cinnamon Pecan (Nutrition and Website)

• Price: $2.50 (on sale at Safeway)
• Ranking: 7/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 50%