General Mills has been on a tear with its “Hello Cereal Lovers” campaign. Chefs like Dale Talde, Harold Dieterle and Amanda Frietag have developed recipes, and even I was moved to attend a cooking event with Do or Dine’s Justin Warner and I’m pretty certain I haven’t eaten cereal since I was in grade school (which I
probably should’ve kept to myself, if only because saying “I don’t think I’ve eaten cereal in 30 years” aloud only succeeds in scaring the NYU food studies girls who might not even be into their second decade of life).
Why not Cocoa Puff carbonara, nuggets mimicking ground beef? Or Fizzy Trix cocktails, sweetness tamed with bitters?
What I really wanted to see was some unnaturally colored food made palatable, and I got my wish during the interactive cooking session. Lucky Charms, marshmallows only was an audience suggestion, which got turned into ravioli, also stuffed with smoked mozzarella and oregano.
The result wasn’t abysmal, a little sweet and herbal, and most importantly, the shells oozed blue.
The dark (destitute?) underbelly of food media was exposed when attendees began scrounging for leftover raw meat. Heck, I gave in and took the baggie of scallops along with my swag. Even though I rarely blog about cooking anymore, I always make at least two meals a week at home and a scallop fennel recipe was on the roster for Wednesday. A dusting of crumbled Vanilla Chex actually would’ve worked with this buttery seafood dish, so don’t think that I didn’t learn anything.