Apple season.

At this time of year I hear all about my friends and their children all having a wonderful time picking apples, cooking with apples, posing with apples on social media, playing cornhole with apples for all the hell I remember. Well, I did some frigging apple picking too, damn it. In the cereal aisle.

Take THAT! losers

Regular readers of this blog -- your check is going out Monday, promise -- may recall that we've been closely following the Tiny Toast fiasco that began in 2016. General Mills released Tiny Toast in strawberry and blueberry to great fanfare, fanfare that quickly died down. A year later Tiny Toast was quietly shoved down the memory hole and the cereals were reintroduced as part of the Toast Crunch line. And now Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch, another cereal that looks nothing like Cinnamon Toast Crunch. You can't slip this stuff by me, General Mills. I'm always watching.

My review: The Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch is pretty good. Very sweet, of course, and with more of a genuine apple taste than I expected. I have to hand it to them; they say it's flavored with real apples and they've managed to do it or fake it convincingly. Point to you, G. Mills.

But you're wondering: What does Mr. Breakfast think? Well, Mr. B, being the world's greatest authority on breakfast, has waded in already, and his review is here. Money quote: "The more you eat - the more that apple tastes like apple flavoring as opposed to the real thing. But it's still pleasing and pretty much exactly what you'd expect."

That sounds kind of like "this appeals to the kind of people who would find this kind of thing appealing," but Mr. B knows what he's talking about. We don't expect that much from our fruit flavored cereals, just the effort. And I think this works better than most.

I'm still watching you, General M. You can only take this toast thing so far. Buttered Toast Cereal isn't going to work. Irish Soda Bread Toast Crunch, Bialy Toast Crunch, Bagel with Lox and Cream Cheese Toast Crunch... just leave well enough alone.