Tidbits: Getting Kraftier

Is your cheesy dip or other New Year's Eve cheese-based snack not creamy enough? Don't give it a second thought. Kraft, which manages to offer the same several cheeses in a stunning variety of shapes and combinations, has an amazing new one. Now you can buy bags of three varieties of Kraft shredded cheese -- Mozzarella, three-cheese (Monterey Jack, Colby and Cheddar) and Mexican four-cheese (Cheddar, Monterey Jack, Asadero and queso blanco) -- with "a touch of" another cheese. It's Philadelphia cream cheese, "for extra creaminess."

Mr. Tidbit might have mentioned this development anyway, but what makes it amazing is that the 8-ounce bags of the new mixtures that include Philadelphia cream cheese don't cost any more than the 8-ounce bags of the versions that don't! Wow!

Oh. Wait. At the store where he priced them, all of Kraft's shredded cheeses were $3.39 for an 8-ounce bag, and an 8-ounce block of Philadelphia cream cheese was only $2.29. So the bags of cheese diluted with (cheaper) cream cheese should really cost less! If the bag contains, say, 7 ounces of regular cheese and 1 ounce of cream cheese, it should cost only $3.26.

Never mind.

New crackerz Combing through his vast files (which he does because he no longer has any hair to comb), Mr. Tidbit discovered that he apparently hasn't mentioned two recent cracker developments from Keebler: Cheez-It Duoz and Town House Flatbread Crisps.

Duoz (you can tell they're hip: they don't end with an S) are nothing more than two different flavors of Cheez-Its packed in the same box. (You have your choice: sharp Cheddar and Parmesan or smoked Cheddar and Monterey Jack.)

On the other hand, Flatbread Crisps are not much like regular Town House crackers. They're smaller; they're fluted rectangles, not ovals; and they're thinner and crunchier. There are two kinds: sea salt and olive oil, or Italian herb. Where he found them, the 9.5-ounce box had the same price as the 16-ounce box of regular Town House crackers. (Surprised?)

AL SICHERMAN