Down the hatch, morning after morning, goes my favorite breakfast cereal – half of which turns into a soggy fail-mush by the time I eat my way down the bowl. On top of that, at least a cup or so of milk ultimately flows down the drain. I suppose it beats the slovenly alternative, though. My five year old inner being is one thing, but the nearly 30 year old Sleepless One just feels his dignity slip a little at chug-a-lugging the leftover milk and crumbs. So could a hands-on experience with a Geek Gems favorite save my love affair with cereal, while whittling down my grocery budget?
I dug the Obol cereal bowl from the first time we featured it here. A bowl in which I could separate my milk and cereal, keeping my breakfast crunchy as I scoop-and-swoop what I needed into the milk a single bite at a time? Simple! Perfect! Useful! Where, oh where had this been all my life?
I was already impressed before the first milk drops coated the bowl’s bottom. The durable white plastic dish is molded with this C-shaped, textured white handhold in the base, making it so very simple to cradle comfortably to one’s body while reclining. It’s also a necessity, as the bowl is wide enough across that palming it would be a bit cumbersome. The shallower of the Obol’s two recesses holds what amounts to a perfect portion-controlling single measuring cup of any dry cereal. The divider between cereal and milk gives way via something shaped a little like a built-in curved playground slide to the deeper pool for the milk. And here’s where things go from “awesome” to “pretty damn awesome”.
I will nearly guarantee from personal experience that anybody could finish a dry cup of cereal using as little as a half pint of milk and pour practically nothing down the drain. Think of what cup after cup of wasted milk would’ve ultimately added up to over a week or a month. Another half-gallon? A full gallon? That couple bucks doesn’t seem like much this shopping trip, but over a year, that savings shall keep your treasure troves of Fruity Pebbles running over. Your only problem will be what you’re to do with all those extra prizes from the bottoms of all those extra boxes of cereal you can suddenly stockpile, you Seinfeldian saver, you!
I own few kitchen implements and gadgets that each day I truly relish using, and the Obol cereal bowl is useful enough to be favored among the few, right alongside my ESPN Sportszone “Chalice of Colombian Caffeination”. For casual users and cereal connoisseurs alike, the Obol gets two solid thumbs-up!
Obol: The Original Crispy Bowl ($19.99)
