Cereal Stuff

 There is something satisfying about making the "original" snack food, way before a company figures out how popular it is, homemade, and starts selling it in polypropylene bags.

As a kid, I remember the fun of making this easy snack, when the recipe was printed on the cereal box, and you couldn't buy it all pre-mixed in a bag. The recipe donor, Brenda Kerr, remembers her grandmother making it for the holidays only. Her grandmother apparently got the recipe from the TV. I remember my grandmother clipping newspaper recipes. Brenda's grandmother tried to keep up with the times, adding a new cereal, Crispix, in the early 80's when she herself was in her 80's.

You can use store brand or Chex brand cereal. The butter and the spices make it all taste snack-bowl-terrific. When my mother moved to an assisted living home, in the last years of her life, she took a hankering to this particular snack. As you may know, when a person lives in one room, there are few material things one can give the person, for enjoyment, due to space constraints. So when my mother expressed desire for this snack, I didn't want to buy her the store stuff. You can control the amount of sodium, etc, if you make it at home, so my sister and I often made it for her.

I think this is a great snack any time of the year, so I don't know why it was popular just at Christmas time, except that Christmas is a time when lots of people gather together. It's one of those easy recipes, but you do have to babysit it. It takes a full two hours to thoroughly coat the snack material with the buttery goodness, and you have to stir it every half hour. Another one of those recipes where I bring my work to the kitchen island in order to be alert to the oven timer.

A great snack to involve kids in the making. And just salty enough that you'll want soda or punch to wash it down.