AT LUNCH WITH: Cindy Adams; Listen Up: Lady Plugs Self, Dog, Not Stars

GET this, kiddies: Woman in big jewels and Russian-call-girl, dictator's-wife red lipstick walks into Le Cirque, daintily holding a red-leather leash, at the end of which trots a five-pound Yorkshire terrier wearing a sable coat custom-tailored by the furrier Dennis Basso.

The dog gets his own chair at a primo corner table, and the woman orders a plate of grilled chicken. Not for herself, for the dog. Waiter doesn't bat an eye.

Then, as the lunch crowd moves to the front of their seats, their eyes simply popping, the distinguished Sirio Maccioni, owner of Le Cirque, saunters over to the lady, cocks an eyebrow toward the mutt and asks, ''Would he like a glass of wine with lunch?''

As Cindy Adams, the owner of said dog -- and gossip columnist for The New York Post -- might say: Only in New York, kids, only in New York.

''People steal it all the time,'' Mrs. Adams said of her trademark line while she fed her Yorkie, Jazzy, bites of free-range chicken at Le Cirque last Wednesday. '' 'Only in Alabama,' 'Only in Texas.' Go ahead.''

Mrs. Adams, who has just published a memoir, ''The Gift of Jazzy'' (St. Martin's Press), is one of two senior stateswomen of gossip at The Post; the other is Liz Smith, who celebrates her 80th birthday today.

While Ms. Smith's column has focused on literary celebrities and A-list Hollywood, Mrs. Adams's column has been known as the province of society troublemakers, politicians gone bad, Liza Minnelli arcana and third world dictators. (She is still good friends with Imelda Marcos, and in 1965, even wrote a book titled ''Sukarno: An Autobiography, as Told to Cindy Adams.'')

''Look, I am fiercely loyal,'' she said, talking about why her column gravitates toward some favorite characters. ''If you have ever been a friend to me, I will do anything, but anything, for you.''

Mrs. Adams's new book, putatively a story about her dog -- a gift from friends after her husband died in 1999 -- is more a memoir about her life and career, and her marriage to Joey Adams, a borscht belt comedian and humor columnist. They were married in 1952.

''When I started in this business, I was the new kid on the block,'' Mrs. Adams said, explaining how she found her niche. As she spoke, her eyes scoured the room for famous faces. ''Somebody was doing society already. Liz was doing literary people and Hollywood. So I began to -- if you care, there's Andrew Lloyd Webber over there -- take up the cudgels for whoever was going to the can.''

That reputation was sealed in 1991 when Mrs. Adams was the host of the 80th birthday party for Mr. Adams at the New York Helmsley Hotel.

The guest list included Bess Myerson, the New York City cultural affairs commissioner who was once engulfed in an influence-peddling scandal; Leona Helmsley, later convicted of tax evasion; and Mrs. Marcos, who sang ''Happy Birthday'' to Mr. Adams.

''Gotti was there,'' Mrs. Adams said over her black sea bass. ''Leona was on her way to the can, Stan Friedman was either going in or coming out.'' (Stanley Friedman, a former Bronx Democratic leader, went to jail after he was convicted on racketeering charges.)

''Joey got up and looked around the room at all these folks and said, 'If you're indicted, you're invited,' '' Mrs. Adams said.

That line is one of Mr. Adams's most memorable, and his wife still has a soft spot for the indicted. Last year, she published exclusive interviews with Lizzie Grubman, the public relations executive who served a prison term for rear-ending a nightclub crowd with a Mercedes-Benz.

''When the city desk called me and asked me, 'Can you tell us where Lizzie Grubman is?' well, of course I couldn't tell them where she was, because she was sitting in my living room at the time,'' Mrs. Adams said. ''But they didn't ask me, 'Do you know where Lizzie Grubman is?' They asked me, 'Could you tell us?' ''

Mrs. Adams convinced Ms. Grubman to be interviewed with the intimation of sympathetic coverage.

''I always told her that no one could possibly believe that she would back her car into a crowd on purpose,'' Mrs. Adams said, adding that Ms. Grubman didn't deserve such a thrashing by the media. ''People love it when a woman goes down. I mean, Martha Stewart is going to jail and O. J. Simpson is out playing golf? That makes sense.''

Jazzy sat in his chair obediently. Mrs. Adams had removed his sable coat and he was outfitted in a black sweater emblazoned with a red heart, and a red leather collar with Austrian crystals.

On Feb. 13, Ms. Adams will be the host of a Macy's party, where her dog's boutique, Jazzy's of Park Avenue, will open. ''The best dogs are coming,'' she said. ''Bryant Gumbel's Maltese, Cujo. Barbara Walters's Cha-Cha. Henry Kissinger's dog.''

When they married, Mrs. Adams was working as a model and Mr. Adams was an established comedian who was friends with Milton Berle, Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope. So she learned that Mr. Hope had 70 pairs of golf pants, and that Mr. Berle never traveled without a pillow his mother gave him when he was a child.

One subject she doesn't write about is her age. (She's 72, according to several Internet biographies.) She said not to bother to ask. ''I lie about how much I make, I lie about what I weigh, I lie about my sex life and I lie about my age,'' she said. ''That's all I lie about. I hate liars.''

She said -- and wrote -- that Sir Howard Stringer, chief executive of the Sony Corporation of America, lied to her in recent weeks when she asked him if Tommy Mottola, the chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment, was on his way out. ''He's a knight, and I don't think they are allowed to lie,'' she said.

Sir Howard said he would not dignify her remark with an on-the-record response.

If Mrs. Adams sounds like she holds a grudge -- and uses her column to broadcast them -- that's true. Her offerings can be filled with petty jabs, like a rant last year about Aer Lingus, which lost her luggage.

The Irish Voice in New York responded by pointing out that Mrs. Adams misspelled the names of several Irish locations and wrote, ''We thinketh the beehived old girl needs to give the wisecracks a rest and get herself a fact checker, and fast!''

Mrs. Adams said that if anything, being a gossip columnist has given her a thick skin. ''These celebrities get their knickers in a knot if you write that they were loud somewhere,'' she said. ''Please!''

The one subject that penetrates her skin is her late husband. ''People were unkind at the end,'' she said. At a March of Dimes party at the Plaza, she said, Mr. Adams was too tired to walk around the room with her as she did her reporting.

''So we got something for him to sit on,'' Mrs. Adams said. ''And this woman who was as big as an S.U.V. walks by and says in this loud voice, 'She's still schlepping Joey around?' '' So Mrs. Adams called her a fat pig. ''So I'm acerbic,'' she said.

She added that those people will get their just desserts in the end. It won't be karma payback; it will be Cindy payback.

''Do I blame them?'' she asked. ''Will I get them back? You bet your life I will. Put it this way: I have never lost an enemy.''