SMORGASBORD: Gluten-free bread . . . ‘Smarter’ than others . . . Travel pasta . . . Doffing their jackets

Gluten-free bread

Some gluten-free breads are dense. Some don’t hold up in sandwiches.

But a trio of heat-and-serve gluten-free breads by Schar — baguette, ciabatta and sub rolls — worked well for sandwiches, garlic bread and holiday stuffing. They take a short warm in a 400-degree oven first and pleased tasters who avoid gluten as well as those who don’t. Suggested retail prices: $4.99 to $7.49. For a store locater or to buy, go to schar.com.

‘Smarter’ than others

At least as popular as “simply” in product names these days is “smart,” but who knows what the term means, beyond that it’s clearly supposed to put the product in the better-for-you column.

Prego makes Light Smart, Heart Smart and Veggie Smart pasta sauces. Sunsweet has PlumSmart and PlumSmart Light prune juices. Perdue trumps everyone with its Simply Smart chicken products.

Now, Hostess has introduced Smart Bakes Muffins and Smart Bakes Streusel Cakes. Each has 3 grams of fiber, a little whole grain and 150 calories per serving, better than the original versions.

Travel pasta

Tiny tikes and fans of globe-trotter Tintin, that Belgian comics character and now big-screen star, might enjoy Tintin-inspired Travel Pasta.

Serve up red, white and green pasta shaped like cars, motorcycles, planes and steam engines for a suppertime smile. They cook up tender in 5 to 7 minutes. The made-in-Italy pasta is $2.99. For a store locater or to buy, go to worldmarket.com.

Doffing their jackets

More and more cookbooks are going jacketless these days, a trend that has little to do with saving money or being green. Instead, it’s all about being new and different — standing out on the shelf. Credit Europeans for sparking demand.

“That aesthetic caught on,” said Aaron Wehner, vice president and publisher at Ten Speed Press in Emeryville, Calif. “Publishers started to notice it. Chefs and book writers started to want it.”

Wehner said seven of 12 cookbooks on Ten Speed’s fall 2011 list were jacketless, “It’s a sleeker, more modern approach. The paper jacket seems dated,” said Lisa Ekus, principal of her eponymous agency that offers media training, public relations, marketing and literary representation to culinary-themed professionals.

All that aside, jacketless has a certain practicality, said Bill LeBlond, editorial director for food and drink at Chronicle Books in San Francisco.

“You want them to be usable in the kitchen and to be an utilitarian item,” he said. “Jackets get ragged. It’s hard to keep a jacket looking nice.”

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