Fried Oreos, brisket and sausage dogs, oh my!

In case you missed the memo, this is Fire Ant Festival Week in Ashburn, Ga.

Starting Monday, my days often start around daylight and end after dark, sometimes well after dark each day.

What I lose in sleep I more than make up for in the food.

To start, fried Oreos.

I do not know who created this. I do care. I want this person to be healthy, wealthy and wise.

If you have never tried a fried Oreo, I am at a loss. How do you adequately describe something as ordinary as an Oreo dipped in funnel cake batter and fried to a golden brown?

It is like being a Dad or Mom. No one can explain being a Dad. You just cannot understand. Once you hold that newborn baby for the first time, you absolutely get it and you cannot explain it.

A fried Oreo is not quite as life changing as being a Dad, but you can certainly see Being Dad from where you stand while chomping the hot wonderfulness that is a fried Oreo.

This is the only time of year I get fried Oreos. This is a good thing. If I could get them more often, I would and that would NOT be good for my health.

Is it possible the novelty and delight of a fried Oreo would wear off if I got one regularly?

No. I can eat hamburgers, pizza and peanut butter & cheese crackers every day and be happy.

In fact I’ve only had 2 foods that I burned out on. Prime rib, because when I lived in the Las Vegas valley, prime rib was dirt cheap. Ate too many. The other is king mackerel, which i do not eat to this day even though the last bite I had was 30 years ago.

A close second to the fried Oreo is a fried Snickers. I had one years ago. Since then, the idea of eating a plain, not fried Snickers just has no appeal.

Why are so many things better when deep fried? Maybe it’s because I’m Southern born and Southern raised.

And then the sausage dogs.

Piled high with onions and bell pepper and dripping enough grease to buy a guarantee from a politician and good mustard. Oy. There’s just something about a festival sausage dog that cannot be beaten. I’ve tried to cook ‘em at home and they are just not the same.

As a professional food judge, I get to judge the BBQ contest. I may judge hamburger. I hope so.

I really want to judge brisket. A properly cooked brisket…

Lemme put it this way. When we get to heaven, I expect to see St. Pete standing at the Gates grilled brisket and sausage dogs for everyone who is just arriving.

You can have either one or both. I’m getting both. When you eat that, you get fried Oreos for dessert.

The folks who don’t make it to Heaven have to watch the rest of us eat. They have to make do with deep fried king mackerel which is then smoked over pine tree limbs.

I’ll explain that one some day.

Anyway, if you have never been to the Fire Ant Festival, come see us. If you want to look for, I’ll be on a golf cart wearing a gease-soaked red Festival Staff T-shirt.

If you ask very nicely, I might share a fried Oreo.