Hot Dish

When I was a brown-bagging kid, the school lunchroom was divided into two parts: Oreo-eaters and Hydrox-eaters. Both camps regarded their chocolate sandwich cookie as the best; the Oreo-eaters, of course, were correct. Oreos were a rich, deep-chocolatey cookie, the connoisseur's cookie of choice, whatever your age. Hydrox was a pale imitation. (Can I get in trouble for this? Does this fall under the new Food Slander Act?) So, although I usually use this space to point out a treat you might have missed, I feel duty-bound to use it to dis this new Oreo--the low-fat version. Beware of it on your grocer's shelves: it's packaged in the same messy, ineffective cellophane wrap, and only a tiny blue label reveals the travesty inside. These dry, boring, crumbly, hard cookies never melt into that mouth-filling chocolate-ness of an Oreo. In fact, they remind me of a Hydrox. In short, better no Oreo than a low-fat Oreo.

--Mary Brown Malouf