Thanks largely to the gamut of '80s/'90s Chex Mix commercials starring the Peanuts gang, I've come to consider no winter holiday complete without a trough full of buttered cereal and snacks drenched in Worcestershire sauce. I can't pronounce "Worcestershire," but I enjoy the invitation to smear it on Chex cereal.

While the good people at Chex HQ would have me believe that this "Chex Mix" was a holiday staple since the cereal's inception, I give all credit to Chuck Brown and his crew, who always managed to make everything they cooked and ate look so ridiculously palatable. I remember one Peanuts cartoon where the gang went to France, and there was this twenty minute scene where the non-French speaking Charlie Brown failed in his attempt to order "one loaf de bread." I ate nothing but loafs de bread for the month following that.

Then there was the classic Peanuts Thanksgiving feast; a glorious spread of jelly beans and ice cream sundaes that charmed my ass straight to the grocery store so I could attempt to recreate it. I can only describe the Peanuts gang's influence over what we find appetizing as something metaphysical if not outright occult. There's no logic behind it. It just is.

Little did you know that everything above was merely an introduction to a photo of a sealed Chex Mix seasoning packet from 1990. I took the long way home on this one.

I can't remember exactly how it came to be in my possession, but I've got what's likely the last remaining Chex Mix "Instant Party Seasoning Pack" in existence -- a cereal "premium" stuffed inside Chex boxes in 1990. Like the Ninja Turtles "Honey Ooze" I wrote about recently, I refuse to open this seasoning pack due to the high probability that it's the last of its kind.

My desire to preserve history is pretty annoying in this case, as I've never been able to truly master cooking up a batch of Chex Mix. I tell people that I'm good at it, but I know the truth: My Chex Mix needs work. I don't know if the various salts, sugars and tamarinds inside this polyurethane wrapped foil pack of dust has gone sour in the eighteen some odd years since its creation, but for the ultimate result of the perfect batch of Chex Mix, the risk/reward ratio seems to lean towards the latter.

Maybe a Chex Mix seasoning pack wasn't the most action-packed blog topic that I could've chosen, but it felt like I was fated to do this. Not ten minutes after finding the pack in one of my many cardboard trunks, I stumbled upon a 1990 magazine ad promoting the promotion:

Lucy totally went pinky-up, so you knew this shit was serious.

I've forged batches of Chex Mix for every Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday in recent memory, and eventually, I must assume that the law of averages will favor me with a bowl that tastes just right. Until such time, all I can really do is draw pictures of dinosaurs wearing sunglasses.

Happy SNT.

PS: In case you didn't catch the green note on the Trapper logo, we're set to move forward with X-E's Summer Megaparty as of July 1st. What this means: New blog posts everyday, at least for the month of July. Vegas odds are against this being a successful venture, but we can safely assume that there will be many, many more entries than usual. Feels like I should add an emoticon here, but I know it's kind of improper. Fuck it.

Posted by Matt on 06/07/2008. E-mail me!