Best Bites: Dining out in Dallas-Fort Worth June 15

by Teresa Gubbins

The pizza at CiCi's To Go is both ready "N" fresh -- preferable to not ready and/or stale.

This slice (heh) of pizza news may not be as "hot" as a trendy place like Olivella's, but it's about pizza, and that makes it inherently newsworthy. It's a new concept from the CiCi's chain called CiCi's To Go. It's basically a take-out place that sells the $4.99 15-inch "ready-now" pepperoni pizzas they were shoveling out the door at Papa John's last year. (CiCi's customers can also order a custom pizza that takes up to seven minutes to prepare.)

The first To Go outlet opened in Irving about a year ago; a second branch just opened in Plano. It's interesting that CiCi's -- based in Plano, with about 600 stores in 27 states -- is going this route, since their defining characteristic was the all-you-can-eat buffet. They obviously have decided their pizza's good enough for more than "trough eating." Foodie types have been known to frown on CiCi's, but that's possibly because they haven't eaten at Double Dave's, a similar concept so awful, it makes CiCi's seem edible.

Spaghetti Ice

On Sunday, June 17, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., GermanDeli.com, the outlet store in Southlake with more than 4,500 German and European grocery items, celebrates "SommerFest," a store-wide celebration with German beer, food samplings, prizes, and live music by accordionist Peter Baltheser. At 2 p.m., chef Uwe Rudnick of Chaparral restaurant at The Adam's Mark Hotel will do a cooking demo of summer meals and special German summer desserts, including "Spaghetti Ice" in which vanilla ice cream is pressed through a spätzle press to make "spaghetti" and then topped with strawberry "tomato" sauce and coconut "parmesan".

Sheila Lukins (left), Parade food editor and co-author of The Silver Palate Cookbook, was in Dallas on Wednesday to do food demos and cooking classes. Here, she's at the Milestone Culinary Center with Paula Lambert, big cheese of the Mozzarella Co.

Delicious conjugated linoleic acid

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that supplements containing conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) might help people shed fat. CLA is a fatty acid found in beef, lamb, and dairy products. People who took moderate doses (3.2 grams) lost an extra 0.2 pounds of fat per week. Researchers theorize that it affects the enzymes that store body fat. Tragically, the effect was not permanent; it faded after 6 months (whereupon the subjects ballooned to the size of elephants). If only there were an alternative to "exercising more" and "eating less."