dnL Fruit Flavor Blast Soda. $1.19 per 20-ounce bottle.
Bonnie: The 7UP company is standing on its head to increase sales. You'll see what I mean if you stand on your head to read the name of its new dnL drink.
Original 7UP is a clear, caffeine-free lemon-lime drink packed in green bottles; dnL is green and caffeinated (about as much as Dr Pepper), and has an odd citrus flavor. Both are carbonated. And both the upside-down and right-side-up versions contain 110 pure sugar calories.
I often advocate trying odd new products as a conversation piece. Not this time. Consider that I shared one 20-ounce bottle with six other people, and had half a bottle left that I ended up pouring down the drain.
Carolyn: The 7UP company is marketing this new drink as 7UP turned on its head. The better comparison is to Mountain Dew: dnL is its copycat in both color and caffeine. Its taste is a cross between Mountain Dew and Fresca. The dominant flavor is lime.
It's not as bad as Bonnie would lead you to believe, but it's also not as good as Dew.
Kellogg's Pop-Tarts Snak-Stix. Cookies & Creme, Caramel Chocolate and Double Chocolate. $1.99 per 11-ounce box of six pastries.
Bonnie: Regular readers of this column know that I'm no fan of chemical-laden snacks like Pop-Tarts. I like Pop-Tarts Snak-Stix better than conventional Pop-Tarts only because they're breakable into three sticks. Call me a dreamer, but I have high hopes that most folks will stop after eating a single stick.
Carolyn: Today's bakery cases abound with chocolate doughnuts and muffins. Why not chocolate Pop-Tarts? Because Pop-Tarts use such cheap chocolate that they hardly taste like chocolate: The flavor is just generically sweet. These Snak-Stix are also not very appealing aesthetically, unless your idea of high art is finger-painting. The frosting looks like it was applied by small children. Small children are also the only people who will probably want to eat these.
Campbell's Select Italian-Style Wedding Soup. $2.09 per 18.6-ounce can.
Bonnie: The name of this soup piqued my interest in its history. I scoured my vast culinary book collection yet was surprised to find very little written about it other than recipes. I had the same experience when surfing the Web. Those recipes confirmed that the traditional meatball soup contained escarole and rice, instead of the spinach and pearl pasta found in this new Campbell's.
Origins aside, I found the soup an enjoyable alternative to traditional canned ones. Like most other Campbell's soups, Italian-Style Wedding is modest in calories and fat, and a bit high in sodium.
This soup may not be festive enough for wedding fare, but add a salad and bread, and you'll have a nice light meal for a cold winter's night.
Carolyn: I've lived among Italian-Americans all my life, yet this is only the second time I've had the chance to try Italian wedding soup. The first time also wasn't at a wedding.
I didn't have much more luck finding information about this soup than Bonnie did. But it's apparently not called wedding soup because it's served at weddings but because of how well the flavors of the spinach, meatballs and chicken broth "marry."
I will vouch for that and for it being a great medium-weight soup. Too often the only choices in soups are between a hearty stew or a thin and insubstantial broth. This soup deserves to be at least as popular as minestrone. And with Campbell's now making it more widely available, perhaps it soon will be.
© Universal Press Syndicate