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Taste Rebecca Teagarden

Family Ties

In sharing our very own gooey squares, we bond

I RECENTLY ACQUIRED a shiny new husband, and in the deal came a shiny new 15-year-old stepson.

It's not like I've never seen a teenager before. They walk down my street to the bus like the zombies in "Night of the Living Dead."

But now I've got one of my very own, and it is a wondrous thing to watch him eat. Wondrous, not wonderful. The kid's food groups: cheese, bread (including tortillas and cereals), pizza, sugar in any form, macaroni and lemonade.

I have prepared all manner of vegetables in all manner of ways to entice him toward green food. "I don't eat vegetables," he told me, like it was a violation of his own personal religion to even entertain such an idea.

But we're in the bonding stage, Victor and I. And families are supposed to do food things together. Then it hit me. Rice Krispies Treats. The gooey tie that would bind us. I'd seen him, in one week, gnaw his way through the corner-store-size box I brought home from Costco. He seems to like these. I like these. They are easy to make and do not involve cleaning your room. We could try variations on the original — Kellogg's Rice Krispies, marshmallows and butter — and share in our discoveries.

And so we did.

The original recipe certainly can be tricked out for whatever holiday looms: Throw in candy corn for Halloween, cinnamon hearts for Valentine's Day. But we weren't looking for a little-kid's treat. This is a young gentleman (his father and I hope) with sporadic razor stubble and a fresh learner's permit. What we were seeking was that delicious link between kiddom and adulthood. Something for everyone.

This crispy-treat-as-adult treat is catching on. "Martha Stewart Living" featured them on a cover. Starbucks sells them as "Chewy Marshmallow Squares" at $1.50 a block. And in Redmond, the fortysomething founders of Caroline's Desserts turn out premium versions called "Krispettes" using organic brown rice cereal. These treats supreme sell for $3.99 each and come in more than a dozen flavors, including Tiki Bar (pineapple, macadamia nuts, coconut, white chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate). Kellogg's has long known a good thing when it sees one, and, thus, the name Rice Krispies Treats is trademarked. A brief history of the magic nugget: Rice Krispies cereal has been around since 1928. They are oven-popped, creating the light shell walls that collapse and snap! crackle! pop! when mixed with milk.

Rice Krispies Treats were concocted in the 1940s by one Mildred Day, according to the Iowa State University School of Agriculture, in a claim to fame for one of its own. The home-economics graduate worked for Kellogg Co. in Battle Creek, Mich., and developed the snack with one Malitta Jensen as a Camp Fire Girls group fundraiser. A legend was born. The headline on Day's obituary reads, "Her gift to Us: Recipe for Rice Krispies Treats." The first pre-made treats hit supermarkets on Jan. 15, 1995. They were an instant hit.

For our bonding crispies, Victor and I piled a grocery cart high with Rice Krispies, Cocoa Krispies, Cocoa Puffs, Fruity Cheerios, Yogurt Burst Cheerios, eight bags of marshmallows, cinnamon, pecans, vanilla, dried cherries, slivered almonds, almond flavoring and peanut butter. We thought that oughta do it.

Victor liked all the Cheerios versions, and so did his friends at school. But to me they seemed like nothing more than congealed-cereal squares.

We both liked the treats made with the Cocoa Krispies and peanut butter, but the recipe called for rolling those into balls. Easier said than done. The globs stuck to our hands more than to each other. Funny, not fun.

We made up one recipe completely on our own: the original Rice Krispies Treats with dried cherries, vanilla, almond flavoring and slivered almonds. Those had the mature look and flavor we were going for. And, yes, they were very good. As Victor said, "Are there any we're not gonna like?"

No.

But the afternoon he bit into a batch we made after school using Cocoa Puffs, looked up and hollered, "Sweet!," a Cocoa Puff stuck to his cheek, I knew we were there. Done. Finished. Mission accomplished. These were other-worldly. We had come up with the perfectly evolved crispy treat. Groan-out-loud good and all grown up.

I couldn't agree with Victor more.

Sweet.

Rebecca Teagarden is assistant editor of Pacific Northwest magazine. Ken Lambert is a Seattle Times staff photographer.

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