Faux-reos

A few days ago, I stopped by the local grocery store to stock up on post-lunch dessert options: usually, a cookie of some sort, ideally to be dunked in milk, perhaps pre-coated in frosting. I had a hankering... an Oreo hankering. Much to my dismay, a week earlier I had seen the tell-tale orange cream middle of a new, seasonal variety of the chocolate-sandwich cookies: Halloween Oreos. On September 13th. I know, this is an old whine, but hopefully it ages well. As much as I desired the themed cookie, I couldn't bring myself to jumpstart my favorite holiday season a month in advance. Had I been jewish, this sort of mentality would've driven my forebears to celebrate my manhood at the first sign of upright urination.... and I now realize I've somehow gotten off-track. Oh yes: the faux-reo.

Since I could not abide by the pre-emptive spooky cream-filled chocolate cookie, I was forced into generic-brand-buying action. (And I promise never to use four hyphens in the span of a single sentence again.) This particular store sold their own version of Oreos, called "O'mazin' Os." Which, while clever, seems a tad redundant in their use of the product-shaped letter. The package exclaims: "Like Oreo(R) Chocolate Sandwich Cookies? You'll Love Us!*" (The asterisk leads you to the back of the package, with the disclaimer that Oreo is a registered trademark of Nabisco, and C & S Wholesale Grocers, Inc., [makers of O'mazing Os] is not in any way affiliated with Nabisco. I yearn for the day when a brand-name product asks, "Love Generic Fruity Circle-Shaped Cereal? Then why are you paying $2 more for a box with a tropical bird on it? Are you that much of an ornithophile?" or something to that effect.)

Anyway. The verdict? O'mazing Os, while at first appearing to lack the generous cream-to-cookie ratio of Oreos, stand up quite well to the Nabisco version. The chocolate has a solid dissolve-rate, so that when dunked in milk the cookie retains its form just enough to not fall apart, while aborbing enough of the liquid to ensure that soft, almost creamy texture when it dissolves in your mouth. This might have to do with the miniature floral design on the surface of the cookie itself--visually, a nice, subtle touch, with suitable ridges and depth to capture and hold the milk post-immersion, and not as self-promoting as Oreo's eponymous stamp. And something I've learned just now, while doing some research with the remnants of my morning coffee, is that O'mazing Os taste arguably better dunked in coffee--they remind me of one of my favorite ice cream flavors, "Coffee Oreo." Which, admittedly, makes a lot of sense. Just be forewarned: The heat of the coffee will make your cookie fall apart more quickly than when dunked into cold milk, as the faster-moving molecules will disseminate throughout the cookie with greater haste than the slow, lumbering H2cOw. Still, in my opinion, it's worth the risk.