MONONGAHELA WOMEN HUNGRY TO SET RECORD FOR WEDDING COOKIES
This wedding cookie table will be one for the record books
Leona Cole knows cookies.
She baked about 2,600 of them for her granddaughter Emily Giovannucci’s wedding a few years ago, and her Italian biscotti, pinwheels, tassies and so many other varieties are always the centerpiece of any family get- together, party or social gathering.
She knows Monongahela like the back of her hand, too, having grown up in this Washington County city and raised her three daughters there. Her husband, Ken, was a fixture in local government for almost 30 years — 20 as councilman and nine as mayor.
Thus she was all in when her friend and neighbor Laura Magone, the beating heart behind The Wedding Cookie Table Community on Facebook, announced the group was going to cement its stature in the cookie world with a landmark event on Aug. 11: Set the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest wedding cookie table.
No one has ever before attempted this sugary feat. So technically speaking, the group will establish rather than set the record when members gather with their cookiefilled trays, decorations and statements of authentication at Chess Park on West Main Street, on the last of a four- day celebration of Monongahela’s 250th birthday.
They’re excited nevertheless, says Ms. Magone, noting that cookie makers from as far away as Florida, Texas and Oklahoma have registered.
“It’s just taken off,” she says of the event she’s been mulling for more than five years. “Which is just unbelievable for a town of this size.”
Founded in 1769, Monongahela is thought to be the oldest city in Washington County. That merited a blowout party on its sestercentennial, the details of which members of the nonprofit Monongahela 250 organization announced in January. Events range from a parade down Main Street to musical performances, children’s activities, a street fair, art show, food trucks and a costumed
re- enactment of the ending of the Whiskey Rebellion on the bluff at Whiskey Point. ( They’re still recruiting the 226 rebels to march in the parade; you can find details by searching “Albert Gallatin & The 226” on Facebook.)
Ms. Magone hinted at the Guinness event at the group’s second “cookie college” on May 5 at DoubleTree by Hilton at Meadowlands, where the mystery of Hershey’s tipless Kisses was ( finally) resolved. But organizers still had a lot of logistics and details to work out before they could announce it officially on July 6.
“It’s a tremendous amount of work, and there are only four us planning the 250th,” explains Ms. Magone, who also is a member of the Monongahela Area Historical Society. She laughs before adding, “This event in itself is keeping us plenty busy.”
Guinness records don’t come free and so the society is raising money to pay for an adjudicator, one of which was last in town in 2014 to verify the world’s largest pierogi at Rivers Casino. ( It weighed 123 pounds and since has been beaten.) The goal here is 1 million cookies, which sounds ambitious but might actually be attainable, given the group’s passion. Many will be donated to charities and local responders after the final count, and attendees also will be able to purchase boxes to fill. Cookies from the licensed bakers who attend also will be sold, with proceeds going to local families in need.
Hershey also is on board. The Facebook cookie table community developed a unique friendship with the candy maker last December when members took the company to task for packaging its iconic Hershey’s Kisses with broken and missing tips. It has developed four new cookie recipes for fall, and is giving the group a sneak peak so it can test them and provide feedback. It will give the first 1,000 members who bake two batches of each for the event a custom Hershey’s apron. And because this is a wedding cookie table competition, the event also will feature a few real weddings, said Ms. Magone. Five couples have signed up so far to say their vows in Chess Park beginning at 2 p. m. They’ll be feted with a professional violinist, singer and donated flowers.
The ceremonies will be short, “but every couple will have their moment,” she says, after which the giant cookie table will be opened up to the public to celebrate.
Interested in making history? The Guinness event is free, and you can enter any kind of cookie in any of four categories: home baker, teams ( maximum five members), licensed baker or church/ social clubs. A minimum of 10 dozen earns you a keepsake ribbon, and anyone who additionally makes all of the Hershey cookies also will get their name in a cookbook Ms. Magone is writing.
“People are just so excited,” she says.
That includes Mrs. Cole, who on a recent Thursday gathered with her daughters, granddaughter and great- granddaughter, Saige Giovannucci, in the house she and her husband bought in 1968 on Third Street, to prepare several batches of apricot- walnut biscotti. They also make what her daughter Bonnie Bezy calls “old people cookies” — datenut pinwheels, cut to size with the Cutco knife she got at her 1959 wedding.
Cookie baking is a treasured tradition among these women. Mrs. Cole grew up baking alongside her mother, Mary Marraccini, whose parents were born in the Italian region of Calabria. She, in turn, taught her oldest daughter, Deborah Masa of Finleyville, Bonnie and her twin, Barb Petrosky, both of Monongahela, the finer points of making sweet treats.
Unlike her mother, who never measured an ingredient, Mrs. Cole is a meticulous cook. She gently guides Saige’s tiny hands as she shows her how to first flatten and then roll a blob of biscotti dough into a uniform log. “Use your fingertips,” she tells the 4- year- old. “And remember — 12 inches,” she says, pulling out a wooden Westcott ruler to measure.
Back in the day, Mrs. Cole says, wedding cookie tables were less ornate. “People simply brought cookies,” she says, without thinking. For granddaughter Emily’s wedding, she spent weeks baking more than a dozen varieties to add to a tables that groaned under some 7,000 cookies.
She and her daughters and granddaughter will participate in the Guinness event as a team, under the name Cole’s Corner Cookie Table, in tribute to the corner grocery store she and her husband used to run in town.
Nancy Barlow of East Liverpool, Ohio, is another Facebook member who’s putting together a team entry, and they’re going to go all out with a tent, lights, flowers and cute signs.
As soon as she heard about it, “I just wanted to be part of it,” she says, and not just because Ms. Magone is her cousin.
Like Mrs. Cole, Mrs. Barlow’s grandmother also was from Calabria. And she, too, grew up baking alongside her mother, Eleanor Lanever, and has contributed to many a wedding cookie table.
She and her cousin, Bridget Rayl, and daughter- inlaw, Angela Rayl, last week hit 100 dozen peanut butter and chocolate no bakes, peanut blossoms, snowballs, anise springerle and raspberry meltaways. So now, they’re shooting for 2,000 cookies on Aug. 11.
“It’s many man hours, but it’s fun!” she says, noting that she bakes “whenever I get a burst of energy.”
For Ms. Magone, the cookie event is not so much about setting records as celebrating a tradition that’s been an act of generosity and love for thousands of people for the better part of a century.
When you celebrate the wedding cookie table, she says, you’re celebrating the ethnic and blue collar roots not only of southwestern Pennsylvania, but also eastern Ohio and northern West Virginia.
“You’re sharing the region’s heritage,” she says.
Now, the details, which are still being finalized and subject to change:
• Participants can drop off their cookies, trays and any decorations at Chess Park beginning at 10: 45 a. m. Aug. 11. There is no charge to attend, but bakers must fill out an online entry form and also bring with them on event day a printed- out affidavit confirming the number of cookies, which they’ll be asked to sign in front of a notary public after showing a state- issued ID. ( Both
forms are available at theweddingcookietable. com; link is on upper right.)
• Chess Park has limited parking, so all entrants should park at Ringgold High School after dropping off their cookies and take a free shuttle back to town. It runs from 11 a. m- 4 p. m.
• Guinness will make its announcement at around 2: 45 p. m., following the wedding ceremonies. Then, it’s cookie time. Bakers will be free to exchange or give away their good, and the historical society also will sell boxes attendees can fill with cookies. Leftovers will be donated to first responders and various charities.
• There will be two cookie competitions — for best lady locks and best chocolate chip cookies, with United Dairy providing milk for the “dunkability” portion of the contest. There also will be a “People’s Choice” trophy for the best wedding cookie table design. Winners will get their photo in Ms. Magone’s cookbook, and anyone who bakes enough for a Hershey apron also will be in a group photo.
The Guinness Record attempt is the culmination of a
four- day festival that also includes ghost walk tours on Aug. 8, a performance by the Washington Symphony Orchestra on Aug. 9, and a 5K run/ walk and lightedboat parade and fireworks on Aug. 10.
There also will be a grand parade on Main Street beginning at 11 a. m. on Aug. 10 with bands, floats and 226 men dressed as the 1776 whiskey rebels Albert Gallatin exhorted to “lay down your arms and go home” on Aug. 14, 1794 to end the Whiskey Rebellion.
And after the record is announced on Aug. 11, there will be closing ceremony at 3 p. m. followed by a blue grass concert with Jakobs Ferry Stragglers.
Note: It will be impossible for organizers to keep the event gluten- free, so if you have wheat allergies, beware.
For more information on the 250th anniversary celebration, visit 222. MonCity250. org or search “Monongahela Area 250” on Facebook.