Suddenly S'mores Jump From Campfire To Micro

SUDDENLY S'MORES

$2.89 per 10.5-ounce package of eight packs of two cookies each.

CAROLYN: As someone who defines the great outdoors as the distance between my front door and the car, I've never been a big fan of scouting. Still, I am grateful for Girl Scouts for two things: delivering cookies to my door once a year and the invention of S'Mores.

S'Mores are a campfire treat that involves cooking a marshmallow over a campfire, then sandwiching it between a graham cracker and chocolate bar. Nabisco's Suddenly S'Mores are a mosquito-free version of this gooey treat designed to be cooked in the microwave. In the package, they resemble any number of other chocolate-marshmallow cookies, including Pinwheels and Mallomars. When heated in the microwave, though, the marshmallow grows into a threatening white blob and the chocolate melts into a glistening sea of syrup.

The only problem with these is the cookie. It is heavy and overly serious for such a lighthearted treat and only offers the slightest hint of a graham taste.

BONNIE: I have another problem with these. It's the way Nabisco is trying to turn a special occasion food into an every day one.

Since the cookies are smaller than the original campfire ones, they have fewer calories and less fat than S'Mores made with two graham cracker squares, a Hershey chocolate bar and a roasted marshmallow. But they lack the ambiance that makes the combination taste so good and the special occasion that allows for indulgence. Plum pudding with hard sauce is to Christmas as pecan pie topped with ice cream is to Thanksgiving as S'Mores are to summer campfires. All are acceptable to eat every once in a while, but none were meant for every day.

KRAFT SPREADERY CHEESE SNACKS

Garlic & herb, mild Mexican, garden vegetable, medium cheddar, port wine and classic ranch. $2.29 per 10.5-ounce tub.

CAROLYN: It's as if Kraft tried to borrow all the different flavors used as dips or appetizers and turn them into a single line of cheese snacks. In the case of the ranch and garden vegetable Spreaderys, the transformation didn't seem to work. To me, ranch should be the consistency of a salad dressing, not a thick cheese. The garden vegetable one tastes as if some dip and a few vegetables were thrown into a food processor, making the vegetables so small you can hardly taste them. So the effect is mainly visual, like those new frostings with colored sprinkles.