Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.
Cereal: Frosted Toast Crunch
When I was younger, maybe five or six years old, my mom refused to let my brother, sister and I eat sugary cereals. She reasoned we ate so much sugar during the day, during the rest of our meals that an added significant dosage at breakfast would make us grow up to become bank robbers. This might have been a fair argument. But we were young. We didn’t know any better, and those damn commercials with cartoon rabbits and the fluorescent glow of cardboard boxes perpetrated our minds, alluring us to the sugary side. We begged nonstop.
One day, she struck a compromise. We could eat somewhat sugary cereals. By definition, we could eat cereal in which sugar was the third ingredient. This did not include cereals that would appease a first grader. The good ones – Trix, Honey Comb, etc. – featured sugar as the second ingredient, usually behind wheat flour.* But to every rule that sucks, there is a loophole if you find it. We scanned every freaking box (and bag, for Malt-O-Meal) in that cereal aisle, finally coming across the Holy Grail of morning cuisine. Somehow, sugar was the third ingredient in Frosted Flakes. Immediately, it became my favorite cereal, and I ate it not just for breakfast but after school as well.
*We would always try and convince my mom that wheat flour was really WHEAT and FLOUR.
By fifth grade, broken free from the third ingredient rule and able to buy parental advisory CD’s and all kinds of other crazy rebellious shit, I developed a co-favorite, probably everyone’s favorite, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or as it’s better known “CTC.”
Now my co-favorites have come together as Frosted Toast Crunch. FTC has fused the two greatest tastes, leading to the best mornings since the invention of the sun.
And, yes, sugar is the second ingredient. — Mark Dent
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Summer listening: European music for Euro 2012
Euro 2012 started on Friday, and I wrote a little bit about it last week. But one of my favorite — and perhaps odd — things about watching European soccer for a month is becoming a full-blown Europhile. (Couple suggestions: Read The Economist, refer to Angela Merkel in casual conversation as just “Angela”, and study trade agreements between the “Benelux” countries.)
Most of all, thought, it means listening to nothing but European music.
You can, of course, go the popular route. Oasis is, admittedly, a guilty pleasure, and there’s something bizarrely satisfying about reading about the English National Team while listening to “Don’t Look Back In Anger.”
There’s also U2 (Ireland), and the Cranberries (more Ireland), and Brew House favorite Robyn (Sweden) if you want to go the pop road. But here’s one suggestion, especially when Ireland kicks off against Croatia on Sunday afternoon.
— Rustin Dodd
The Brew House 