Here’s to your good fortune in 2023

Foreign foods that are actually American include spaghetti and meatballs with origins in New York, Chimichangas that hail from Arizona and Cuban sandwiches first served in Florida.What about the beginnings of fortune cookies? Surprise. They didn’t come from China.

The V-shaped, vanilla-flavored cookie containing a small slip of paper with a simple saying actually dates back to a confectionary shop in the 1870s near Kyoto, Japan. And the original “fortune crackers” were flavored with sesame and miso.

When Japanese immigrants arrived in the United States in the early 1900s, the ingredients were changed to the vanilla and butter-flavored cookies that became popular in Hawaii and California. Several immigrant businesses claim to be the inventor of the fortune cookie treat that was first served at San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, however it appears that Japan is where their history began.

To kick off 2023, we have originated some of our very own good fortune sayings that we wish for you this year. May they all come true!

• You achieve at least one or more items on your “Dream Big” list.
• Someone or something inspires you to make a change, try something new.
• Success and prosperity follow you wherever you go and whatever you do.
• You triumph at anything as long as you believe in yourself.