New product Wednesday, at Dallas-area stores: California Pizza Kitchen Pizza For One

by Teresa Gubbins

Do you buy frozen pizza from the supermarket? If you're shopping for $5 pizza, California Pizza Kitchen is a solid contender with yupscale toppings and nicely-done crust (I especially like its thin crust line).

Frozen supermarket pizzas usually claim to feed three people, but that's a stretch; you can certainly down one if you have a healthy appetite.

For this reason, CPK's "For One" line seemed like it wouldn't be enough for a meal. But if you're a light eater, it turns out to be an acceptable size.

There are four varieties: 1. four cheese 2. CPK's signature barbecue chicken, both with regular crust; and 3. Sicilian 4. Margherita, both with thin crust. As the photo shows, these are just under 7 inches tall. They come with a microwave baking rack and take about 3 minutes if you nuke them, or else 12 minutes in a regular oven.

The Margherita was the lightest, with cheese, tomato, and basil (and with four kinds of cheese, it was hardly a traditional Margherita, but this is frozen supermarket pizza we are talking about); still, the fact that it was sufficiently filling was reassuring. IE, you will not STARVE TO DEATH.

CPK's pizzas are made by Kraft. Kraft also makes the less upscale Tombstone and DiGiorno frozen supermarket pizzas. So it's no coincidence that, at the same time earlier this year that Kraft introduced the CPK "For One" line, they put out a DiGiorno "For One" line, too.

Are the two quite likely nearly identical? Probably. (Sorry, a more thorough reporter would have also sampled the DiGiorno.) But there are two differences: 1. in place of CPK's gourmet toppings, DiGiorno has pedestrian items like pepperoni and sausage, and 2. DiGiorno doesn't have the CPK name, which for some of us, has emotional and/or cultural value that makes it seem to taste far far better than the competition.

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