SECOND HELPINGS

Gluten-free gluttons rejoice

Miller's Gluten Free Bread Company has opened in Rochelle Park.

The bakery, which caters to folks with Celiac disease, specializes in  breads, cookies, pizza crusts and pierogies, all without wheat or any other gluten.

Currently, the cash-only shop (162 Rochelle Ave., Rochelle Park; 201-546-7952) is open Wednesday through Sunday, but it'll take orders over the phone on Monday and Tuesday. In time owners Kim and Tom Miller also plan to sell directly from the Web site.

When Dibs isn't a good thing

If you like saturated fat, have we got a treat for you!

My family runs a miniature golf course in the Adirondacks during the summer, which does a pretty brisk novelty ice cream business on the side. Among the new offerings being pushed by the salesmen this year were Dibs, by Edy's. We passed because our customers tend to avoid premium products.

But after seeing a container of the bite-sized ice cream snacks in a convenience store, we could have passed for another reason. Most of the 11 varieties have 20 grams of saturated fat or more in a serving. That's a day's worth -- or more -- in this little container.

A peanut kind of day

It was 7 degrees when I left the house today, and even at 7:30 a.m., my mind turned to soup. Something thick to hold in the heat. Something smooth to go down easy. Something salty to make me crave more.

Peanut soup.

Unfortunately, I'm not spending my day in Williamsburg, Va. (I'll actually be at the International Restaurant and Foodservice Show in New York), so unless my family is reading this, I'll probably go without today. But you don't have to. This recipe, from John Gonzales (pronounced Gahn-ZAYLS), the former executive chef at the taverns in Colonial Williamsburg, has been a favorite for at least a decade.

It's not the most healthful of recipes, but the National Peanut Board will be the first to tell you that you can do a whole lot worse than a dish based around peanuts.

The donut's hole truth?

I was waiting for Amtrak in Manhattan's Penn Station early Saturday morning when I saw Krispy Kreme's sign for its new whole-wheat donut. "What the heck?" I thought, and ordered up one of those and one of the originals. The verdict: Pretty good. Even a tad sweeter than the classic, with a deeper, more caramel-like flavor (although I'm not sure people buy donuts for flavor depth).

But then I got to work this morning and saw KK's press release introducing the thing: "ONLY 180 calories!" the words breathlessly screamed from my inbox. "An alternative for health conscious consumers," a senior vice president added in the release.

Believe it or not, it's not the calories that make Krispy Kremes a nutritional no-no. An original KK has 200 calories; if you wanted to make it 180 like the whole-wheat donut, just pitch the last bite to your dog. To have the donut considered a reasonable alternative for health-conscious consumers, as the VP said, KK will need to figure out what to do with the original's three grams of saturated fat and four grams of trans fat.