Count Chocula, Franken-Berry, Boo-Berry, and Lucky Charms

Q: Why do programmers confuse Halloween and Christmas?

A: Because OCT 31 is the same as DEC 25.

With that out of the way...

When Halloween approaches the Halloween themed cereals reappear. I never had them as a kid and curiosity arose, and alas memory and perhaps judgment did not - as is the nature of the impulse buy. It's been a long time since I saw any of the commercials for any of the Halloween themed cereals. Once I had them - and I went and got a box of each - I realized I needn't have bothered. They are, of course, the same except for the coloring and flavoring used on the cereal part. That's the non-marshmallow (if you can call those marshmallows) bits. And since it's a cereal part and marshmallows, well, it's just a Lucky Charms with added color and flavor, and probably just different dies in an extruder for the shapes. I suspect had I looked at the boxes more closely in the store or had I seen the TV ads again, I might have realized that before making the purchase.

My impressions now? There's good reason Boo-Berry was a rarity in some years. It's not at all blueberry to me, but the amount of color is intense. Franken Berry (the strawberry) probably uses just as much coloration, but seems not to be quite so nasty about it and at least makes a good attempt at being strawberry flavored. Count Chocola is chocolate, or at least what passes for it in dry cereal form. Not great by any means, but at least identifiable. All three, like Lucky Charms, have the modern lousy addition to make sure they "stay crispy in milk!" And that is, there is enough wax to that even if the cereal is left in milk for a good while, the wax shell will provide a crunch. The result is rather abrasive and doesn't taste good. There is sweetness, which trips the "more!" switch, so it's easy to want to have more even if the actual flavor isn't very good. I don't need to do try these again. Once those were gone, it was back to nice, plain, sensible Cheerios.

Time Accelerates On

When I was a kid I would see things in old movies that were pretty much like the things around me. There were differences, but some stuff still used tubes. Music that wasn't on the radio often was from a phonograph. Cameras used film. Phones had rotary dials. But things have changed. The last few vacuum tubes in the house are the picture tubes (CRTs) and the magnetron in the microwave. Camera now means digital. Phones have buttons. Music is from... a CD maybe, but more often mp3. Even the lights are changing from incandescent to CFL or LED depending on the application. Those old movies were old, but they didn't seem all that foreign. I suspect that to someone who grew up with the modern replacements of things, such films seem all that much more ancient. For them, the continuity is more broken than it was (and is) for me.

Vacuum tube electronics
Record players and records
Rotary dial telephones
Film cameras
Incandescent lights

What did I miss?

Beer Bread: A Use For Schlitz?

When I first saw this recipe a few years ago I tried it. Just once, I think. I'm not sure why I didn't make it again. I suspect it was that it didn't come out of the pan very well, I didn't need to have such a bread around, and that it used up good beer and I tended not to have not so good beer around. Sometime before Christmas I tried it again, using Budweiser's American Ale which while cheap, is reasonably good stuff. Good enough to drink (It tastes like a beer. Really.) but not so good in the bread. What gives the beer a good character gives the bread a not so good one. And it still stuck to the pan. And we (Jay and I) still ate it way too fast.

Schlitz, a truly cheap beer - or "beer" - recently reverted to the 1960s recipe in an attempt to put the 'L' back in the name. Not long ago I picked up some (and made sure it was 1960s recipe version) to give it a(nother) try. It's better than it was, but that's not saying much. It's still not what I would choose to drink, but it's certainly not the worst I've had. I recall that Julia Child said that if you wouldn't drink a wine, you shouldn't cook with it either. It didn't need to be great, it just had to not be bad - and you would not drink what is sold as "cooking wine." So I tried again. You can decide for yourself if I heeded or ignored Julia Child's advice in regard to the namesake ingredient here. I also made a couple changes to the original recipe:

Recipe source

3 c flour
3 tsp baking powder*
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp sugar
1 bottle or can of beer (approx 12 oz/350 ml)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix dry ingredients in loaf pan.
Pour beer over. Wait for foam to subside, and stir together.
Bake for approx 30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.

Watch entire loaf disappear.

* I have no idea why this isn't just "1 Tbsp baking powder"

The third time I made this, on Saturday, I mixed it in a bowl and greased (okkay, sprayed) the bread pan. I used a bottle of Schlitz. And once the dough was in the pan, I poured about a quarter cup of melted butter over the dough, so the crust wouldn't be very hard. I think the baking temperature is a bit low (or else the thermometer on our oven is off) but I've seen 375 F on some beer bread recipes, so I'll likely go a bit higher next time I do this.

The result? The baked loaf slid right out of the pan. And it tasted good. Good enough that despite taking it to the airport to give away, I probably still ate too much of it.

[ADDENDUM: 375 F for 45 minutes makes a better loaf. Less crumbly and no/less odd taste from the beer used.]