If you google "free things to do in the Bay Area," chances are that a tour of a fortune cookie factory will pop up at the top of the list. Always game for free AND food-related activities, I hopped on the chance to find out just how they got those hidden messages tucked safely inside the folds of the wafer. <br /><br />Paranoid as I am about arriving at a place after hours or on an off day, I called ahead to inquire about the day's schedule. The man on the phone was clearly not a native English speaker; he merely kept repeating, "We open till 7 pm. You come any time." "Ok," I thought to myself, "This is kind of bizarre, but what do I have to lose?"<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_0mNacsCO8PI/TKdUOVgwE8I/AAAAAAAAAck/-ZiRay45cQY/s1600/avo+dip+2+050.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 264px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_0mNacsCO8PI/TKdUOVgwE8I/AAAAAAAAAck/-ZiRay45cQY/s320/avo+dip+2+050.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523476073262617538" /></a><br />Several BART stops later, I found myself wandering through the brightly colored, lanterned maze that is Chinatown in San Francisco. 9-5ers raced through the streets around me as I desperately tried to keep stride with the New Yorker that accompanied me on this adventure. Guided by her I-phone (god knows I don't have one), we turned down an alley that looked more like a zone for illegal abortions than fresh baked delights.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0mNacsCO8PI/TKdU6A4iZvI/AAAAAAAAAcs/jbjx2adDyt0/s1600/avo+dip+2+061.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0mNacsCO8PI/TKdU6A4iZvI/AAAAAAAAAcs/jbjx2adDyt0/s320/avo+dip+2+061.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523476823639484146" /></a><br />And then we saw it. On the right hand sign was a miniature sign indicating that we had indeed arrived at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. In an airy, open storefront the size of a postage stamp, we were immediately greeted by the three employees and entire operation! <br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0mNacsCO8PI/TKdWe2gx75I/AAAAAAAAAc8/AO6YQhPogX8/s1600/avo+dip+2+083.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0mNacsCO8PI/TKdWe2gx75I/AAAAAAAAAc8/AO6YQhPogX8/s320/avo+dip+2+083.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523478556022271890" /></a><br />The same man who answered the phone stood by the doorway offering the rejected cookies as a sample of their wares and ensuring that anyone with a camera paid the requisite 50 cents for a photo of his ladies. This included the Floridian man, armed with a video camera, who kept referring to the edibles as "egg rolls" while filming! <br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0mNacsCO8PI/TKdV_cgLqZI/AAAAAAAAAc0/2yqsVjP54xI/s1600/avo+dip+2+067.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0mNacsCO8PI/TKdV_cgLqZI/AAAAAAAAAc0/2yqsVjP54xI/s320/avo+dip+2+067.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523478016464497042" /></a><br />Behind him, two women worked the assembly lines, making sure the batter was loaded into the dispenser, discarding cookies that didn't meet their exacting standards (boy, there seemed to be a lot of them), and carefully plucking off the prime tuiles from the hot iron press, filling them with a message, and folding them to fully envelope the surprise. Together, these two women made thousands of fortune cookies everyday, and I am pretty sure that they were all the nuts and bolts of the operation.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0mNacsCO8PI/TKdXgwKLu-I/AAAAAAAAAdE/qMet3Ke8Hqo/s1600/avo+dip+2+023.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0mNacsCO8PI/TKdXgwKLu-I/AAAAAAAAAdE/qMet3Ke8Hqo/s320/avo+dip+2+023.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523479688188247010" /></a><br />Satisfied with our discovery, we paid for a bag of adult fortune cookies and went on our way. A word of advice: don't spring the extra 50 cents (or whatever it was) for the naughty notes - out of about 10 that I ate, 9 were the same nonsensical and non-naughty message!