I personally have had severe panic attacks this week, as you could probably tell, over the new Keebler® Town House® Flipsides™ Is it a cracker or a pretzel? You might say, well, whatever, but I grew up in Pretzel City and am, well, a cracker. I just don't see the appeal of that product. Is nothing holy anymore? The state of the soft pretzel is in such a state of debauched mutation that it just breaks my heart a little to see greasy limp soft pretzels covered in silliness toppings. The Pretzel day episode of The Office was funny as hell though.

Second weird food of the week: Make Your Oreo. Don't know the actual name and the Oreo web page started giving me a seizure when I tried to distinguish among the 46 different Oreos. So you get a tiny little package and inside is an Oreo top and bottom about the size of large quarter, a tiny bin of cream filling, and a tiny tiny plastic stick for spreading the cream. Assemble and eat. Ridiculous.

Lady E, can we assume that Gailor will be cooking for you, her mother, on Mother's Day?

I am the mother of two sons. I'll be lucky to get a phone call. Sniff!

Gack. EL

I'll come over and we can all make tiny Oreos.

"gack" at Gailor cooking, or the phone call?

Dahlink - I'll call you.

At Gailor's cooking, of course. Although even she could make tiny Oreos. EL

Its not that Amy's "magically appeared on store shelves," its that the mass-market supermarkets finally woke up and realized that their customers wanted natural, organic prepared foods. Actually, we've been buying Any's pot pies and the like for many many years at Giant. They now have a much larger variety and choice.

Has anyone noticed that all ice creams are shrinking? What used to be a half-gallon box is now 1 3/4 quarts, or sometimes even 1 1/2. Of course, the price didn't shrink at all ...

I'm suspicious of any food that needs a label to tell us what it is. Or that is named after a person, real or imaginary.

Betsy Crocker my mixing bowl....

After a pretzel at Pub Dog Friday night in Columbia I have new hope for soft pretzels. I love the new Keebler Flipsides especially with Cheese Whiz. I used to buy Amy's products in Wild Oats back in Clayton, MO almost 20 years ago.
I found out today that Dogfish is looking for a location in Columbia. I suggested the shuttered HOPS in Owings Mills and the manager in Gaithersburg wrote down the info to give to the real estate guys. Imagine how fat I will be if I can walk to a Dogfish Head Ale House.

WildBillFan -- I made the same point about ice cream sizes two weeks ago, as per this post (scroll down to my comment at April 29, 2008 6:38 AM).

The incredible shrinking food size affects more than just ice cream. I expect some of them are scaling back the size and keeping the price the same hoping that not too many people will notice rather than raising the price and having everyone notice.

I'm in another seminar this weekend so I'll try to catch up tomorrow.

I am so happy that I am not the only person who is unhappy with the shrinking ice cream carton. I was in the grocery store this week and noticed how much the 'half gallon' carton had shrunk. Now intellectually I had processed the change a long time ago, but the visual processing had not quite kicked in. There in the case was a Turkey Hill special edition carton sitting strangely alone on the half-filled shelf. It was so tiny that I stopped to really look. Well, it was 48 ounces. This is a difference not to be sniffed at. Coupled with the 3.69 per gallon cost of gasoline and it is just too much for a mere mortal such as I. I am going back to bed to await my Mothers Day breakfast. But since the two chefs are still asleep, maybe I will make my own.

As I put the groceries away Friday, I realized that the Hellman's mayo was now only 30 oz instead of 32. Luckily, it was a BOGO or I would have been more upset.

Piano Rob--you're too sweet! I'll have you give my sons lessons in appropriate Mother's Day behavior.

I have a supermarket story to relate. Last weekend I bought some lovely scallops at Wegman's. When I started to cook them, however, I noticed that the fish man had charged me the price for the grilled scallops sold at another counter--almost twice the price. I whipped out my camera to document the raw state of my scallops and saved the container, which I returned yesterday. They cheerfully refunded the difference and apologized--and I didn't even need to produce my digital photo as proof.

I have had two occasions to return things to Wegman's. My money was refunded almost before I finished my story. Their customer relations/service is exceptional.

Has anyone tried to find one-pound cans of fruits or vegetables lately? How about one-pound bags of frozen foods? Good luck! They're almost all 14 or 14.5 ounces. And 28-ounce jars of pasta sauce have shrunk to 24 or 26 ounces. It's gettin' harder and harder to feed a family on less food for the same amount of money.

I have returned several things at Wegmans and have received a refund, no questions asked. And two of them were produce. Great customer service.

I was shopping at Wegman's on Saturday. While checking out, the clerk said my frozen scallops didn't have the price/bar code on them and "they" went to look up the code. After about a 5 minute wait a manager told the clerk to just give the scallops to me free of charge and apologized for the long wait. I wasn't being impatient but they felt my wait was too long. Love Wegman's service.