Sweet! Rockfordian, 81, plans to lick competition in Oreo contest

4 comments April 14th, 2009

Harriet Brown, 81, of Rockford served a traditional Easter meal on Sunday, including ham and potatoes, but the dessert was a bit out of the ordinary: Oreo cookies.

Her 19 family members at the dinner each twisted the cookie wafers apart from the regular and double-stuffed Oreos and licked off the frosting in the middle in a just-for-fun competition. The family practice run was aimed at helping Brown prepare for the real thing in late April in Miami.

(Brown practices Monday in her kitchen.)

Brown is the oldest competitor of 10 chosen nationwide in the Oreo Double Stuf Racing League “lick race.” The youngest is 21. She was randomly chosen after going online to dsrl.com and mailing in her name. She’d heard about the competition on a television commercial.

She, her 100-year-old husband, Stanley Stark, whom she married a year and a half ago, and one of her sons and his wife, are flying to Miami and spending two nights at a Ritz Carlton at Oreo’s expense. She also gets $1,000 in travel money. If Brown is on the winning lick-race team with four others, each on the team will receive $2,000. She hasn’t been assigned a team yet. But the Oreo Dunkers will be coached by football brothers Eli and Peyton Manning. The Oreo Twisters will be coached by tennis sisters Venus and Serena Williams. Brown and the other participants will get the stars’ autographs.

The first person to finish the race wins the $10,000 grand prize for their team. The rules: Twist open the Double Stuf cookie, lick off the creme, dunk it in milk, eat the cookie and drink the milk. Judges will make sure no one uses their teeth to take the creme off. If they do, the individual has to start over. And if the cookie breaks or crumbles, the individual has to get a new cookie, too.

Brown said if she wins, she’ll put the money toward living expenses and retirement funds. The competition is closed to the public, and promoters don’t plan to use the competition in TV ads, spokesman Dan Kurash said.

And now the answer to the question you’ve all been curious about: Does Brown like Oreos? Yes, but she’d rather eat the regular ones, not the Double Stuf cookies. “I prefer the wafer to the frosting,” she said.