Depending on how much you treasure the toppings on your pizza -- and on where you shop -- you might be pleased or alarmed to know that Tombstone now offers what it calls Double Top pizzas, with "twice the meat toppings" or "twice the meat and veggie toppings" of the corresponding flavors of its Original line of pizzas. Mr. Tidbit isn't sure how much the toppings weigh separately, but the total weight of each of the two varieties of Double Top pizza that he saw (pepperoni and Supreme) was significantly more -- 10 and 18 percent, respectively -- than that of the Tombstone Original versions.

At one store where Mr. Tidbit found them (they don't appear to have made it into many stores yet), the Double Top pizzas were priced 13 percent higher than the Original versions. That seems perfectly reasonable.

On the other hand, it seems perfectly unreasonable that at one of two online grocery-delivery stores Mr. Tidbit checks frequently (neither in the Twin Cities), a Double Top pizza was priced 34 percent higher than the Original, and at the other store it was 40 percent higher.

How sweet it is Mr. Tidbit just noticed a sugar substitute being sold by, of all things, a major manufacturer of sugar. C&H brand organic agave nectar comes in two versions, light and amber, corresponding to regular sugar and brown sugar. And then Mr. Tidbit noticed Domino brand agave nectar. For all he knows, sugarmakers have been selling agave nectar forever.

In any case, agave is a succulent plant with pointy leaves, varieties of which grow in Mexico, central and south America and parts of the American Southwest. Agave nectar is a tad sweeter than table sugar (2/3 cup could serve for a cup of sugar), and is slightly more caloric, but is high in fructose so it has a lower glycemic index.

But Mr. Tidbit would offer this as its most notable feature: At one store, where a pound of C&H cane sugar sells for $1.18 (3.2 cents per tablespoon), the 11.7-ounce bottle (15 1-tablespoon servings) of C&H agave nectar is $4.29 (28.6 cents per tablespoon).

AL SICHERMAN