Get cooking
If you can't get enough food television, you'll be happy to learn that Scripps Networks Interactive, which brings you Food Network, is debuting the new Cooking Channel on May 31.
Scripps describes the channel as "the network by food people, for food people."
The channel's lineup of new, original shows includes "Foodcrafters with Aida Mollenkamp," "Unique Eats," "Foodography," "Drink Up" and "Cook Like an Iron Chef" hosted by Cleveland, Ohio's own Michael Symon, who is on Food Network's "Iron Chef America."
Symon, owner of Cleveland area restaurants Lola, Lolita, B-Spot and Bar Symon and Roast in Detroit, will teach viewers the skills and techniques needed to cook like an Iron Chef. He will be joined by chef challengers and other Iron Chefs who reveal how they deal with secret ingredients.
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"Cook Like an Iron Chef" is scheduled to premiere in July.
Other shows making their U.S. debuts on the Cooking Channel include "Food Jammers," "Indian Food Made Easy" and "Caribbean Food Made Easy."
Triple-grain triumph
Plocky's Three Grain Tortilla Chips might be good for their diabetic-friendly healthfulness, but the chips will make the whole crowd happy. The rounds stand up to a variety of dips, and the whole-grain corn, cracked whole wheat and whole brown rice meld deliciously.
The 7-ounce bag is available for about $3 at plockys.com and in natural food stores nationwide.
Wonders never cease
Wonder Bread has introduced a new white bread that has as much fiber as whole-wheat bread. The new Smartwhite has the color and soft texture of white bread, but it has 5 grams of fiber in each serving of two slices (52 grams). That serving has as much calcium as an 8-ounce glass of milk but only 100 calories. The new bread also has 25 percent less sodium than regular white bread. The bread is made from refined wheat flour, cottonseed fiber, wheat gluten, soy fiber and other ingredients.
The suggested retail price for a 20-ounce loaf is $2.99 to $3.99.
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Minicream cheese
The folks at Kraft have a new cheese product, and if you have been deeply troubled by your inability to tote around a comparatively small amount of cream cheese in its own little tublet, instead of having to lop off that 1¼ ounces from the regular 8-ounce block of cream cheese, well, are you ever in luck!
Now, you can buy Philadelphia cream cheese (regular, strawberry, chive & onion and one-third-less fat regular) in four-packs of Philadelphia Minis.
Of course, you will pay extra: At one discount supermarket, the regular 8-ounce package of Philadelphia cream cheese costs $1.99. So does the 5-ounce four-pack of Philadelphia Minis, so the Minis cost 37 percent more per ounce.
