All Great Ideas Are Simple

Mission Foods now packages tortillas in a reusable bag with a zipper seal. No more having to throw away the dried, curling top of the stack when you leave tortillas in the refrigerator.

Another Sports Breakthrough

This spring, Frozfruit, the frozen fruit bar company, will introduce the nation’s first sports drink frozen on a stick. PowerBurst, something like a Gatorade Popsicle, will come in orange, lemon-lime and berry flavors.

Hey, Don’t Squeeze the Software

Recipe filing programs for the IBM-type home computer are able to store recipes, look them up by ingredient, cuisine and so on, and then print them out with shopping lists. Among these programs, Gourmet Rapide has three big attractions: 1) The recipes don’t get out of whack after you’ve told the program to recalculate measurements a couple of times; 2) you can include long recipes (up to 20 pages of instructions per recipe, and up to a billion ingredients, if you can think of them); 3) there are so many error-checking and fail-safe features that it’s hard for a computer klutz to really ruin things. It’s $59 from Intuitive Software Solutions, (714) 556-4980.

Beware the Lily

Last year Gourmet Magazine called for a poisonous ingredient in a recipe. Then Carole Walter’s book “Great Cakes” (Ballantine Books: 1991) suggested decorating a dessert with lily-of-the-valley. Someone recently pointed out that eating this flower can cause symptoms ranging from upset stomach to irregular heartbeat and other circulatory problems. Ballantine has recalled all unsold copies and is advising those who bought “Great Cakes” to cross out the flower reference on page 499. Or they can return the book for a refund: Call (800) 726-0600.

Adios, Fat Newton

Last year was the centennial of the Fig Newton. This year, Nabisco will introduce, as its first no-fat cookie, a fatless Fig and Apple Newton.

Safe Cakes

It’s taken a little while for the news to reach us out here, but according to the Village Voice, in New York you can buy a new food accessory elegantly called the Cake Condom: a reusable plastic shield that keeps human germs from getting on the frosting--for instance, when somebody is blowing out candles.

El Ajo Viejo

There are several garlic salad dressings, but Cardini’s Zesty Garlic Dressing may have the longest pedigree. The Cardini company was started in the 1940s by Caesar Cardini, creator of the Caesar salad.