Same mayo but more humane. Photo
courtesy Hellmann’s.

With more people attuned to what’s in their food and where it comes from, as well as the humane treatment of animals, certified cage-free eggs ensure that the animals are treated well.

The eggs are American Humane Certified, a certification program administered by the American Humane Association (AHA), the leading certifier of cage-free eggs in the U.S.

Hellman’s Light Mayonnaise is the first major mayonnaise brand to use 100% cage-free eggs. The product will be using approximately 3.5 million pounds of eggs per year.

Hellmann’s plans to incorporate cage-free eggs into its other products over time, including Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise. There just aren’t that many cage-free eggs in the U.S. to do it today!

Visit the company website for information, recipes and a $1.00 coupon (it’s under “Promotions”).

• Find our favorite mayonnaise brands in our Gourmet Condiments section.

There’s another bonus: Softened ice cream tastes so much better than rock-hard ice cream.

When it’s frozen solid, your tongue tastes more ice crystals and less of the flavor. That’s why fresh-churned ice cream, which is still a bit soft, always tastes so much better before it’s allowed to harden in the freezer.

Try it—you’ll like it.

Find our favorite ice cream brands, recipes and our Ice Cream Glossary.

Soften, then scoop. Photo by Agg | Dreamstime.

Our favorite: Cranberry Pecan cookies. Photo
by Erika Meller | THE NIBBLE.

The bakery makes sure everyone can be included, turning out gluten-free and sugar-free products as well. Kosher certification is by National Kosher Supervisors.

We recently tried a mixed box of cookies: Chocolate Chip M&M Cookies, Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Cranberry Pecan Cookies, Double Chocolate Walnut Cookies, Heath Bar Crunch Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies and Peanut Butter Cookies. Our favorite—to our surprise—was the Cranberry Pecan. It’s not a flavor we’d typically order; but the sweet-tart flavor of the chewy cranberries combined with the crunchy pecans to create a standout.

The box, in a festive blue design, announces that there’s a party inside. The box is made of very sturdy cardboard and is reusable to transport your own bake goods—it’s the perfect size for a pie.

• Find more of our favorite cookies and cakes.
• See our favorite gluten-free products.
• See our favorite sugar-free products.

If you want just a bit of onion flavor, you can mince the onion and sprinkle just a bit on your bagel. Or you can substitute chives, the smallest and most delicate-flavored member of the onion family. Native to Asia, it was purportedly brought to the West by Marco Polo, and has been cultivated in Europe since the Middle Ages.

Chives are one of the “fines herbes” of French cuisine, which also include chervil, parsley and tarragon. Most chives have lovely lavender flowers (others are white), which are also edible.

Chives lose their flavor when cooked for an extensive period of time, so they are primarily used in quick-cooked foods (scrambled eggs, for example) or as a garnish.

In addition to eggs, chives are a popular garnish for fish, potatoes, soups and finely chopped as a plate garnish. We chop them very finely and scatter them on dinner plates as a garnish, or place a whole chive across a piece of fish or meat (if they’re in flower, so much the better!).

Instead of onion, pass a bowl of chopped
chives. Photo by Claire Freierman | THE NIBBLE.

• Check out our favorite organic bagels, from French Meadow Bakery.

What a refreshing lineup! Photo by Hannah
Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

Such is the case of R.W. Knudsen’s Sparkling Essence. Essence of what? Look at the definition of the word, below, and let us know if you have a clue.

Nevertheless, we’re addicted to these flavored, unsweetened sparkling waters made from carbonated spring water. They’re also certified USDA organic.

Sparkling Essence is flavored with blueberry, cucumber, lemon or mint. The flavors are light and refreshing; there are no calories, added sweeteners or artificial ingredients.

The Lemon flavor tastes like lemon-flavored club soda, lemon Perrier and others of the genre. It’s nice, but we’ve had it before. The revelations are the other three flavors, which we’ve never seen in sparkling form: Blueberry, Cucumber and Mint.

And anyone who has ever infused the water pitcher with fresh mint will love this grab-and-go version.

In fact, our only complaint about the product, beyond the silly name, is that it’s in 10.5-ounce cans. They’re so good, we drink two at a clip!

Look for R.W. Knudsen Sparkling Essence at fine retailers. Check the store locator on the Knudsen website.

*From the Random House Dictonary:
1. The basic, real, and invariable nature of a thing or its significant individual feature or features: Freedom is the very essence of our democracy.
2. A substance obtained from a plant, drug, or the like, by distillation, infusion, etc., and containing its characteristic properties in concentrated form.
3. An alcoholic solution of an essential oil; spirit.
4. A perfume; scent.
5. Philosophy. the inward nature, true substance, or constitution of anything, as opposed to what is accidental, phenomenal, illusory, etc.
6. Something that exists, esp. a spiritual or immaterial entity.