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All Our Baskets & Trays Are Certified Kosher Or Sanctioned by the Metropolitan Kashruth Council of Michigan 6716 Orchard Lake Road in the West Bloomfield Plaza Open Sunday 12 noon-5 pm Mon.-Wed. 9 am-6 pm Thurs.-Fri. 9 am-7 pm Sat. 9 am-6 • m Caffigg Pang Goet6 check out THE:EWISH NEWS CELEBRATION CONNECTION DIRECTORY 112 In The Market Place For Your Entertaining Needs! ow sit right down and I'll tell you a tale, a tale of a fateful trip, that started from this newsy fort as we suffered from post-nasal drip. In the soup was a mighty matzah ball, the broth barely clear, we started on this taste test for kosher keepers, dear, for kosher keepers, dear. Thank God we finished — it was getting rough, the remnants then were tossed, if not for the courage of our fearless crew, the results would be lost, the results would be lost. OK, I can't go any further with this. The part about the million- aire and his wife will just have to wait. Like many other members of the human race facing Decem- ber in less than temperate cli- mates, I am having all of my energy sapped by a cold. Trans- ferred to me by my 1-year-old son who spends his day picking up germs in a day-care center, the cold is, I am sure, just the first of the season. Like others, I will seek some comfort by ingesting large doses of coma-inducing cold medicine, by immersing my aching body in warm to hot baths and by drink- ing as many fluids as possible. Most of those fluids will be in the form of hot soup. To make all of your lives eas- ier, we at The Jewish News have decided to take the guess work out of which matzah ball soup kit to buy from the handful that line the shelves in the grocery store kosher aisle. To do so, we prepared and taste-tested the frozen offering from Tabatchnick, the powdered formula from Croyden House and the Manischewitz canned va- riety. Because the Tabatchnick offering contained a total of two matzah balls in each package, we added matzah balls made from Streit's mix. The Tabatchnick Chicken Broth with Noodles and Dumplings, a fleishig meal, had 70 calories per half package serving along with 2 grams of saturated fat, 13 grams of car- bohydrates, 20 milligrams of cholesterol and a whopping 830 milligrams of sodium. Tabatch- nick frozen soup, found at Farmer Jack, costs $1.69 per two-serving box. Croyden House Matzo Ball and Soup Mix had 40 calories, a half a gram of fat, no cholesterol, 9 grams of carbohydrates and an astounding 1,040 milligrams of by staffer Jennifer Finer. As the sodium per one-cup serving. It silky liquid satisfied my taste costs $1.89 per nine-serving pack- buds and slid down my sore age. throat, the matzah balls dis- Manischewitz's Condensed solved in my mouth and filled my Clear Chicken Soup with Three tummy (I think that is the tech- Matzo Balls (count 'em, three) nical term anyway). I could feel contained 80 calories per half cup my cold symptoms disappear serving along with 4 grams of fat, faster than if I had taken a large 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 880 dose of medications. This was the milligrams of sodium and 9 only one that completely disap- grams of carbohydrates. It was peared from the bowl. $1.39 per two-serving package t and was found at Lakewood Gro- cery Store. The Streit's mix, distributed in New York and made in the United States, did not carry a nutrition facts chart any- where on its package. It was found in the kosher aisle at Farmer Jack and cost $1.89 Chicken Broth per package. . The Rating: with Noodles & Dumplings 4JAN WCH ARMS,. WEIL 'AWE 11 First of all, packaged chicken soup mixes are not health food. While these were all rel- atively low in fat, the sodium levels leave something to be The staff; by and large, agreed. desired. A full cup of our favorite, Croyden House brand, contains Tabatchnick Chicken almost half the recommended Broth with Noodles and sodium for an entire day; the Dumplings same amount of the Manische- witz equals two-thirds the daily "Lacks character. Matzah balls limit. are too mealy, too." The preparation of the soups — Julie Edgar was simple. Even with my ap- parent culinary skill handicap "Noodles are yummy, but the (my faithful husband refuses to matzah balls taste very unnat- allow me entrance to the ural. You can definitely tell kitchen), I was able to follow the they're frozen. Carrots are a nice two-step directions for the Man- homey touch." — Lynne Konstantin ischewitz and the slightly more involved instructions for Tabatch- `The broth is a bit salty and the nick. noodles are bland. Na, forks That aside, the tastes of the soup varied greatly. The Man- down." — Debbie Schultz ischewitz had a light chicken fla- vor with manageable sized matzah balls which, while lack- ing in taste, more than made up for the shortcoming in texture. The Tabatchnick matzah balls Croyden House Matzo Ball were almost hard, and the broth and Soup Mix had a slightly manufactured taste to it. The Streit's `The seasoning in 401"4.0:, matzah balls, made by Se- the broth is really MATZO nior Writer Julie Edgar, were good. Very tasty. BALL the worst things I have ever The matzah balls eaten; if I wasn't in polite SOUP MIX are fabulous, good company, I most assuredly texture. This one would have spit them out on far exceeds the site and scraped the taste others." from my tongue. — Debbie The clear winner for me Schultz was the sky-high sodium of- fering, Croyden House, made KOSHER BITES page 114