By Stephen Witt
The Year of the Dog kicked off with some howling laughter at Borough President Marty Markowitz’s annual Chinese New Year feast for charity. That after the fortune cookies which were supposed to contain popular Brooklyn slogans turned out to have X-rated messages. Markowitz held the New Year’s celebration at two of the more popular Chinese eateries in the borough – Diamond on 8th Avenue, at 61st Street, and Ming Gee at 618 62nd Street. “What happened is we ordered five boxes of Chinese fortune cookies with 10 of the most popular Brooklyn slogans to be printed on the fortunes,” said Markowitz. Markowitz said after handing out the cookies at Diamond on 8th Avenue, he headed to the Ming Gee Restaurant feast where the other cookies were handed out. “After we handed them out, I hear Dr. Daniel Ricciardi and he yells out to me, ‘Did you see the fortune cookies?’ and I said, ‘Of course, I selected them,’ and then he said, ‘You better take a look at this,’” said Markowitz. “They were obviously meant for a bachelor party or Scores in Manhattan. Of course I apologized to whoever was in the restaurant,” he added. Reportedly, one of the fortunes told a reader that their private parts smelled like a lotus flower. Markowitz said he didn’t have a clue how the mix-up happened and he stopped distribution of the cookies as soon as he found out. “A lot of people had tears in their eyes and they were howling with laughter, but I can assure that’s not our type of party,” said Markowitz. “The motto is you can cross every t and dot every i and things still happen, but it did add to an unintentional spicy new year and it wasn’t even a Szechwan Chinese restaurant,” he added. Ricciardi, who is chief of rheumatology at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn Heights, said he hoped the cookies weren’t sabotaged to embarrass Markowitz. “We actually opened them up and chuckled, but I felt bad for Marty,” recalled Ricciardi. “He turned white when I showed them to him.”
