The Right Way To Eat A Red Velvet Oreo

Did you all know that Oreo just came out with a new, limited edition flavor: Red Velvet ?

Since Opie absolutely loves red velvet anything, I got him a package the first weekend they were available.

I'm like the Vanna White of Oreos over here

And, as often happens with all things sugar, I immediately loved them more than he did. I mean, he liked them but he didn't have what I consider the appropriate appreciation for their amazing sugary goodness.

Seriously, what is up with my thumb?
It looks deformed.

"They're good," he said. "But they almost have too much stuffing."

Which, honestly, might be the craziest thing he has ever said.  In fact, it might be the craziest thing ANYONE has ever said.  EVER.

Because, yes, they do have more stuffing than your average Oreo:

This was the moment in the photography process
 that I realized I don't have a future in hand modeling.

But the stuffing is clearly THE BEST FREAKING PART OF THE ENTIRE COOKIE. There can never be too much.

And that's when I decided to show him (and, apparently the rest of the world) the RIGHT way to eat an Oreo. Any Oreo, actually, but especially a Red Velvet Oreo.

Step One: Remove the Lid:

Yes, I call the top to the cookie the lid. It's
the  lid covering the  sugary goodness.

"THAT'S the best part," Opie said.  "Not the stuffing."

But, as has already been established, Opie is clearly insane when it comes to Oreos. Plus, he is an amateur. I, on the other hand, am an Oreo-Eating Expert. If Oreo Eating were a sport, I would probably win the World Championship.

Because it's all about the technique.

Step Two: Eat the Lid. Then, carefully fold back the icing on top of itself:

Now my whole hand looks both deformed and wrinkled!
Is this how it always looks?? How come no one ever told me
about my horrible hand problem??!!

This creates a fabulous double-layer of stuffing:

At least I have a good manicure going on.

But--and this is important!--don't dig in yet. The Oreo is better but still doesn't have the appropriate cookie-to-stuffing ratio.

Step Three: Bite off the half moon cookie portion that has no filling on it, leaving yourself a half-moon of cookie with a double layer of stuffing:

Ok, yes, this picture isn't the best but I was
getting impatient. I've never taken this long
to eat an Oreo in my life.

"You are a lunatic," Opie said. "That's way too much filling, you can't even taste the red velvet anymore."

This is why he will always be an amateur when it comes to Oreo eating: he lacks vision.

Step Four: Take a big drink of milk to cleanse your palate and prepare your taste buds for the perfect taste explosion of cream cheese stuffing and hint of cookie crunch.

Pretty sure "hand-modeling" isn't the only modeling
 I can eliminate as a career choice.

And that, my friends, is the right way to eat an Oreo.

Now I'm just waiting for this blog to go viral, catching the attention of the Oreo magnates, so I can finally embark on my career as a professional Oreo Eater.

Photojournalism in Action

Well, Opie got me an amazing camera for Christmas and I think it’s safe to say that I have never been more annoying. I mean, I'm  pretty sure I was annoying before--I am the one, after all, who essentially crawled down the side aisles at my nieces and nephew's First Communion masses and took surreptitious pictures--in one case, in direct defiance of the priest.

(It's interesting to note that several people told me I wasn't being surreptitious at all during these events yet still cheerfully accepted all copies of the pictures I tool.)

In any case, I'm even worse now--as anyone who has been at a family celebration with me in the last few months can attest to.

The thing is, this camera has a lot of amazing features that I'm still trying to figure out, including the ability to take action shots.

Which means that as soon as I got it out of the box, I asked Opie to run around the yard as fast as he could.

"I don't really want pictures of me running around the yard like an idiot," he said.

"I'm not going to take pictures of you," I promised. "But if you start running, the dogs will run after you and I can get some shots of them."

He looked at me like I might be a little crazy but I'm used to that look so it didn't even faze me. "I'm not going to get tired of asking."  I assured him. And proved it by saying "Come on, just run.  Just a little jog?  Would it kill you to run a little bit? Come on! Please?!" until he caved.

Which was great because then I was able to test the burst motion shot thingy and get this picture of Bubba and Sassy.

Please note that I was true to my word,
you can't even see Opie's shadow in this!

A few more weeks of this and I think I'll be ready to start shooting for National Geographic.

And you might think this makes Opie a saint and me an unreasonable freak show but that’s because you don’t know all the things he refused  to do.

I mean, sure he’s been going on long nature walks with me and hauling my camera bag all over the place and even posing as I hone my skills for National Geographic:

(How about the squirrel photobomb?)

But after I got this shot:

And suggested that he run through the woods, crashing through the underbrush as fast as he could, so we could flush out even more birds, he said no.

Then when I mentioned that it would be even cooler to get a picture of these guys flying off the water:

He wouldn’t even consider jumping off the dock and doing a cannonball right into the middle of the lake.

And when I hinted that he could probably lure this hawk into an amazing, attack-mode pose:

By waving his arms in the air and rushing at its nest, he acted like I was kidding.

And when I told him that he should run through this flock of ducks:

like you see people do with seagulls on the beach, so I could get a shot of him surrounded by hundreds of birds flying in the air all around him, he reminded me that I had forced him to do that exact thing the last time we were in Florida (when I only had the little point and click Kodak) And not only did the birds NOT fly off like they do in the movies, they actually got in his way and then started chasing after him.

“I hope you realize that you’re stomping all over my dream of becoming a photojournalist,” I told him.

And you know what? He didn’t seem one bit sorry.

So, who's the unreasonable freak show now?