{"id":3936,"date":"2007-02-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=3936"},"modified":"2016-02-02T09:38:48","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T17:38:48","slug":"how-about-a-cookie-with-bite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=3936","title":{"rendered":"How about a cookie with bite?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a9 Karcich | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images<\/p><\/div>\n

I consider myself a connoisseur of all things take-out.<\/p>\n

When I got married my mother’s friends (my fairy godmothers of wishful thinking) gave me a recipe shower, where each of them contributed a recipe and a kitchen item to start me off on my merry married way. It’s now almost 13 years later and the only card that is even a teeny-tiny bit grease-splattered is the one from my sister-in-law, which lists the “recipe” to call for take-out at Empress Palace, China Pavilion<\/a>, Madame Wu<\/a>, Pick Up Stix, and Jimmy’s House of White Rice and Brown Sauce.<\/p>\n

In other words, we eat a lot of Chinese food at my house.<\/p>\n

While the Kung Pao quality and the Won Ton worth can vary from place to place and night-to-night, one thing remains consistent in all of my experiences with Chinese food–the fortune cookie fortunes almost always bite.<\/p>\n

First of all, 97.37% of the time they aren’t even fortunes, they’re sappy little aphorisms like, “The sun will come out tomorrow,” or “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” Things that make you go “duh,” even when you try to spice them up by adding “between the sheets.”<\/p>\n

And on the rare 7.59% chance that you do get a fortune that actually aspires to tell you something about the future, it’s inevitably something uninspiring, like, “You won’t win any math contests,” or “A pleasant surprise is in store for you.” A “pleasant” surprise doesn’t exactly conjure up fantasies of “You won the lottery,” or “You’re really the long-lost princess of Kamchatka.” A “pleasant” surprise is more like, “My son’s shirt has very few bodily fluids on it,” or “Look, his aim is improving.”<\/p>\n

Let’s face it, fortune cookies have become kind of, well, vanilla.<\/p>\n

Imagine how different things would be if after you’ve had your fill of Moo Goo Gai Pan, your cookie read: “You lack social skills, and your skull is oddly shaped.”<\/p>\n

Sure, after you stopped laughing you might be a wee bit insulted when you friends don’t stop nodding their heads, but you’d certainly be riveted by the next guy’s fortune. Especially if it read, “That wasn’t really chicken,” or “If you leave us a tip we’ll stop peeing in your food, dude.”<\/p>\n

I think that mixing in some of these misfortune cookies with fortunes like the one my husband once got, “You will meet a handsome stranger,” would make getting Chinese food a lot more fun. Just think of the fortune cookie pairing possibilities.<\/p>\n

One person cracks open their cookie to find, “Your true love awaits you–at Match.com,” while their dining companion gets, “Someone will find great prosperity and happiness by stealing your identity.”<\/p>\n

At the next table over, a group of friends reads, “You are very loving,” “Your girlfriend is sleeping with Tom,” and “Are you Tom? Cut it out.” Talk about some interesting post-dinner conversation.<\/p>\n

Of course there is a downside (“Confucius says, “there is always a downside to every great idea”) to mixing up the fortune cookies with the misfortune cookies. Do we really want to give our waiters and waitresses that much control over our destinies? What if they use x-ray vision into your wallet and see that you don’t have enough cash on you for more than the used-to-be-standard-but-is-now-considered-cheap 15% tip? Do you really want to risk opening up a cookie that says, “You will have good luck for the rest of your life, as long as you do not break the cookie.”<\/p>\n

Maybe that boring, old, non-future predicting fortune cookie advice– “Ideas are like children; there are none so wonderful as your own”– wasn’t so bad after all.<\/p>\n

What’s the best “misfortune cookie” you ever got? Email Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com.<\/h6>\n

Originally appeared in the\u00a0Santa Barbara Daily Sound<\/a><\/p>\n

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