YET ANOTHER REJECTION

I keep sending submissions to the McSweeney’s website, but so far I’ve only managed to get a couple of Lists and Brain Exploder answers published. Boo.

Here’s one I sent in the other day - a Review of New Food. All right, so they didn’t like it. Fuck ’em if they can’t deal with my crisp, incisive writing style.

REVIEW of NEW FOOD:
KELLOGG’S ALL-BRAN APRICOT BITES
Stop a random stranger on the street and chances are you will find a devotee of Atkins, South Beach, or some other form of sugar and starch denial. Based on my own experience, the low-carb regimen is OK as far as it goes, but as with any good thing there are tradeoffs. Like breakfast. Froot Loops, pancakes, last night’s pizza? No more, brother. Unless you’re a ham-and-eggs person, or German (which is pretty much the same thing), you will not be enjoying your Atkins-friendly breakfast. And far worse is the side effect on digestion, which I discreetly choose to call the Tar Baby Syndrome.

Enter Kellogg’s All-Bran Apricot Bites. It’s not exactly a low-carb cereal, but the high fiber content (equivalent to eating about a half-cord of hickory logs) means the net carb count is acceptable. But how does it taste? After all, most of us who have had experience with high-fiber cereals in general, and with All-Bran in particular, think of wet shredded newsprint when we see that ominous looking box on the supermarket shelf. Well, I’m pleased to report that All-Bran Apricot Bites are actually pretty good.

Pour ’em in a bowl and douse with milk. Let ’em sit for a few minutes to soften up. The little squares retain just enough grit to stay interesting, and each one has a mini-load of apricot filling to offset what would otherwise be excessive branliness. This is nothing less than an inspired spin-off of another Kellogg’s product consisting of sweet goop in a cardboardy casing: the Pop-Tart. But, unlike the Pop-Tart, these little squares kick ass.

Literally. “Tar Baby? Aww, you won’t see him no more.”