Tim Tam in tum tum? If you hail from Australia, New Zealand or New Caledonia -- or if you like cookies that are almost candy bars -- you'll be happy to know about Tim Tams, from Pepperidge Farm.
First things first: Tim Tams are thick, milk-chocolate-coated, rectangular sandwich cookies (the cookies themselves are chocolate-flavored) with two choices of filling: chocolate creme and caramel.
Next most important (if the first part was important): They are said to be available for a limited time, and only at Target.
Third, and only of interest to those Australians, New Zealanders and New Caledonians: Yes, the Pepperidge Farm cookies are genuine Tim Tams. Arnott's (the "real" baker of Tim Tams) and Pepperidge Farm are both owned by Campbell's.
Not exactly berries When Special K Red Berries appeared in 2001, Mr. Tidbit assumed that "red berries" was a sly way of intimating that the cereal contained strawberries when it really didn't.
But in fact Special K Red Berries contains actual freeze-dried sliced strawberries. So Mr. Tidbit had to assume that new Special K Blueberry -- a name much more specific than, say, Special K Azure Berries -- contains actual freeze-dried blueberries.
It doesn't.
As the package front says in small type, the cereal is "naturally and artificially flavored crunchy blueberry, rice and wheat flakes with oat and blueberry clusters." Mr. Tidbit would describe the flakes as having tiny dots of blueberry, and the ingredients list tells us that the closest we get to blueberries in the "blueberry flavored bits" contained in the "blueberry flavored clusters" is some blueberry purée concentrate.
The box of Special K Blueberry contains 11.4 ounces, compared with Special K Red Berries' 12 ounces, and they sell for the same price, so the not-actually-blueberries cereal costs 5 percent more per ounce than the cereal with actual strawberries.
AL SICHERMAN
