Oreos, the desire of my eyes and the light of my life. My love affair with Oreos has spanned many years, so it seems only right that I take a moment to honor March 6th, the momentous National Oreo Day.

I didn’t grow up eating many packaged foods at all, but I have two distinct childhood memories containing Oreos.

1. One day in passing, my mom sighed that life never contains enough cookies. Next thing we knew, my dad came home with a grocery bag crammed full of all the cookies from the grocery store that we seldom ate – Chips Ahoy, Little Debbies, Swiss Rolls, and of course, Oreos. Glorious day. We reveled in those rare, chemical, artificial treats, and enjoyed them with all our might and main.

2. The church we attended when I was a child had a practice of having children’s lessons in the middle of the Sunday service. After the singing, the front few pews would be cleared out and all the children who were not too embarrassed to go forward would go up for a brief story or object lesson, taught by one of the random men in the church. The adults in the back rows listened (and judged) along, since this was one of the more interesting parts of those hourssss-long services. Some of the men were very poor teachers, and quite unable to control the more outspoken of the children seated there. My memory springs to one child who raised her hand to loudly proclaim to the church that her mommy wanted the president to come to their house, a fact which had nothing whatsoever to do with the lesson being taught. Others kept the kids riveted, and their object lessons stuck in the impressionable minds like burrs. The Oreo lesson was one of the latter.

John brought a pack of Oreos to the front of the church, and after discussing various preferred methods of eating them, he told us that the Oreos were like two people, and the frosting was the love that held them together. Without frosting-love the cookie-people just fell apart. My family and some of our friends latched onto this illustration, and for years to come it gave us an excellent reason to gift each other packs of Oreos for any and every special occasion, as a symbol of love. Usually they were double stuf, because double frosting is double the love, obviously.

Since then I have acquired a husband who knows my love of Oreos, and even though he is not a big fan himself, it is not uncommon for him to throw a package into our grocery cart for me, despite my protests. (“We need to save money! I’m too fat!”) And despite my protests, I eat them all up happily, and feel just as loved as I did when a childhood birthday gift bag contained a precious package of double stuf Oreos.

There are many preferred methods of eating them. There are the people who take a bite and wash it down with a swallow of milk. There are those who twist them apart and eat out the frosting, a method I do not like, since it ruins the crunch-creamy-crunch textural delight of the cookie, but to each his own. Then there are the dunkers, my own people, who like to soak up as much milk as you can before the cookie unceremoniously breaks and splashes into the cup. It’s a learned skill, an art form, if you will, to know exactly when to quickly pop the soaked cookie into your mouth, and it gives me great pleasure.

You can crush Oreos to make a rich crust for a decadent French silk pie. You can stick them atop your cupcakes for a festive and delicious decoration. You can crumble them into ice cream, and I will admit there are few ice cream desserts I prefer over a McDonald’s Oreo Mcflurry, even though I only have one every few years. But my favorite way to enjoy them is still, and always shall be, a simple stack of double stuf dunked into a glass of cold, whole milk.

I think my friend and I might hit up Chelsea Market this year, which is said to be where this illustrious treat was invented in the year 1912. They’re supposed to be holding some kind of celebration with Oreo treats available throughout the market. I’m thinking some Oreo gelato might be just the ticket…

However you choose to celebrate, may your milk be creamy and your Oreos as plentiful as the love that surrounds you.