Raisin Bran

Ever have one of those moments when you vividly recall something from your childhood? A smell, a TV commercial or program, a game you’d play? For me today, it was Raisin Bran. Actually, I was older than a child when this was a staple in our home. I used to love Raisin Bran along with Shredded Wheat. The big squares of wheat. Not those bite-size ones. Maybe they still are available. I don’t buy cereal nowadays. But I sure could go for a bowl of either right now.

Remember the small serving size boxes of cereal that you open up, pour milk directly into the box and waaala, you had a convenient bowl of cereal? Those were fun-size. I only had those a couple of times, but you could eat several boxes at a sitting. A serving size of any cereal doesn’t fill you up at all.

I remember when my brother, sister, and I were very young, my parents went away to the Bahamas. Aunt Judy, my dad’s sister, came to stay with us. One morning, she got our bowls of cereal ready in what are now antique bowls. Fire King Peach Luster Beehive bowls, to be exact. And I have collected quite a few over the years. Anyway, Aunt Judy served us and, yuck….how could Cheerios taste so bad?! We were quiet kids and we tried to eat it but just couldn’t. We tried telling Aunt Judy politely that the cereal was really bad. I remember thinking that she thought we were trying to get out of eating. No. It wasn’t that. We were hungry. The cereal was bad.

Finally, Aunt Judy took a bite for herself. Ohhh! She couldn’t eat it either. And she knew exactly what was wrong. She had used salt instead of sugar. Two spoonfuls of salt into each bowl. She was sure apologetic after that. And we’d laugh about it whenever salty cereal was brought up again.

I have another cereal story which I’m really not proud of. When my two oldest boys were but wee, little men, I once bought Lucky Charms cereal. But…I ate all the marshmallow charms out of the box and gave them the cereal. Bad mommy. 😬 Um…I think I owe them a box of Lucky Charms. I’ll check into that.

Cereal was a big food item over my younger years. There were always cool prizes in or on the box. We sometimes couldn’t wait to empty a box so we could cut something off the back of the carton. I remember getting a couple of 45’s in boxes of cereal. One was of the songs from the Saturday morning kids show, H.R. Pufnstuf. Gosh, I was in love with Jack Wild.

We ate Frosted Flakes for breakfast in Minnesota when visiting my grandparents. Lots of great memories there. And many are food memories.

I loved Wheaties too. What kid loved Wheaties? It was a boring cereal. But not to me. Oh, and I remember loving hot Cream of Wheat and Cocoa Wheats. That was a favorite of mine. I would break up hot, very buttery toast into my bowl of Cocoa Wheats. That was so good! Maybe this is why I cannot tolerate wheat today. Ha!

Well, that’s all I’ve got on cereal this morning. But I’m thinking ‘move over Raisin Bran’. I could go for hot, buttery toast and Cocoa Wheats instead. It’s COLD outside!

Thanks for sharing coffee with me this morning and maybe a yummy bowl of cereal.

Enjoy your day. And be grateful for good, fun, and delicious memories….like cereal. ♥️

Andi

Photos: vintage cereal pics from the web; two of my vintage Fire King Peach Luster Beehive bowls; photo clip of H.R. Pufnstuf, starring my beloved Jack Wild, a.k.a. the Artful Dodger from Oliver!; a pic of myself and my siblings at my grandparents’ kitchen table