Cheesy Puffs and Oreos

You don’t need a nutritionist to know that you should not eat anything that turns your fingers orange or your teeth black.  Unfortunately, those are the things that have been tempting me this summer.  Cheesy puffs and Oreos.  Salty and sweet.  These stick-in-your-teeth snacks are as delicious as they are deadly, and I have been dying to eat them.

I am in my forties.  I have more refined tastes than these cravings would indicate.  I love olive tapenade.  My mouth waters just thinking about lemongrass soup.  I even enjoy goat cheese, beets and asparagus tossed together with balsamic vinaigrette.  But in just the past two days, I caved to my inner-ten-year-old and ate a fist full of cheesy puffs and a healthy stack of Oreos.

I hope now that I fed the beast, it will go back into hibernation, but I fear that in feeding it, I only made it stronger.

It started with the Oreos.  I think I saw them at an end-of-the-school-year party.  I didn’t have any, but the thought of them stuck with me.  I imagined dunking the chocolate cookie in milk just long enough for it to reach the perfect degree of sogginess to compliment the creamy filling.  The craving was so strong that I verbalized my inner dialogue to my daughter in the grocery store one day.  “Those things are poison and I know that if I buy them, I will not just have one or two.  I can’t resist them and I just can’t have them in the house.”

My daughter didn’t even want Oreos until my little speech peaked her interest.   The forbidden is all the more tempting.  She suggested that if I got them and just had a few, my craving would go away.  She offered to eat the rest so I wouldn’t be tempted.   I didn’t get them, but only to save my child from the sickness that she clearly inherited from me.

A few days later, I bought a small package at a gas station.  I didn’t have milk and the cookies were stale, so they were not the flavor sensation I was hoping for.  I ate two and tossed the rest, not willing to waste the calories on a second-rate Oreo experience.  I hoped that my daughter’s theory would hold and that the little taste I had allowed myself would be enough.

Last night at a birthday party, a giant bowl of cheese balls ignited a new junk food obsession.   The tiny orange puffballs taunted me for hours with the promise of a savory crunch.    I waited until the end of the party and took a handful, just to test my daughter’s theory again.  If I took just a few, the craving might go away.  Like the gas station Oreos, the pool party cheese balls were stale and disappointing.

Having tasted junk and recognized it as just that, I was ready to return to my world where Greek yoghurt with berries is a sweet treat and cucumbers dipped in hummus serve me well when I need a salty crunch.

I was safe, that is, until I told my daughter we could make homemade ice cream.   I thought we’d add some strawberries or peaches, but she saw an opening and seized it.  She found a recipe for cookies and cream and knew I could not say “no”.

When I emailed my husband to pick up the ingredients for our ice cream experiment, I included Oreos.  And this time, I had milk to go with them.   When they aren’t stale, Oreos are perfect.  I ate too many.   Now I just need to find a recipe for something that calls for crushed up cheese puffs.