Allergy free

Oakland Tribune, May 10, 2006

Allergy free

The number of foods people with food allergies cannot eat is huge, and it seems to grow every day, as more and more food labels include the phrase "manufactured on equipment that processes tree nuts, eggs and wheat." For one family I know, those words are important -- their children are so allergic to milk, wheat, eggs, soy and other foods that they will go into shock if they touch them.

When the box of allergen-free Enjoy Life products arrived, I delivered the nutrition bars, cookies and chocolate chips to the aforementioned mom. A week later, she was ecstatic. Not only had her two boys downed all of the snacks, but they loved the snickerdoodles ($4 for 6-ounce box) so much that she has placed an order for them.

She says while there are several allergen-free snack labels on the market, Enjoy Life makes the best cookies she and her boys have ever tasted. Enjoy Life makes oat-free granola, vegan cookies, snack bars, breads and bagels. The products are available at Draegers in San Mateo and Menlo Park. For information, go to http:// www.enjoylifefoods.com.

Chug the chicken

I have never really spent much time pondering chicken broth. I make my own when I have a carcass sitting around, but I also keep a supply of broth on hand to dump into whatever I happen to be cooking. Until now, which broth I bought was primarily based on price -- the cheaper the better. But last week I decided to try out some hoity-toity broth -- Emeril Lagasse's chicken broth. I pulled open a box of it and added some to my soup.

The soup was great, but the broth was just one ingredient, so I wasn't sure where the soup credit should go. I realized the only way I could seriously evaluate Emeril's broth is to taste it straight up. I picked up the carton and chugged. It was good. It tasted more like fresh-made chicken broth than any broth I have ever tasted. The vegetable broth was also a hit, good enough to stand in for chicken in any recipe. The broth sells for $3.50 to $4 per quart and is available online at http://www.maplegrove.com or at specialty markets.

For mothers only

OK, so maybe Cold Stone Creamery ice cream isn't just for mothers, but the deliously pretty Mom's Strawberry Sensation ice cream cake that they just introduced for Mother's Day definitely is for moms who like strawberries and chocolate. Two layers of red velvet cake are layered with strawberry puree, strawberry-chocolate chip ice cream and topped with strawberry cream -- AND chocolate- covered strawberries. The new cakes come in two sizes -- $20 and $29. The larger size is big enough to feed 8 to 12 hungry people.