Courtesy of Mona’s Unique Shop
A Pittsburgh Cookie Table
Volunteer bakers from Pittsburgh and Texas are currently preparing to assemble several traditional pittsburgh cookie tables in Uvalde, Texas, following the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that killed 21 people, including 19 children, and injured 17 others.
Members of The Wedding Cookie Table Communitya locally born Facebook group of over 100,000 people, plans to provide cookies to Uvalde mourners, hospital workers, first responders, journalists, father and son team who created 19 custom caskets for the funerals of the victims and the community of Uvalde at large on June 26-27.
“My wedding cookie table community is full of kind-hearted people,” said group founder Laura Magone of Mongahela Pittsburgh City Paper. Magone and other local bakers are coordinating with Facebook group members on the ground in Texas to purchase, bake and/or ship likely thousands of cookies. The group plans to post signs in English and Spanish with information about the Pittsburgh Cookie Table tradition and a message of support and love.
Magone says the group has determined that there are at least four Pittsburgh cookie table staples that they don’t have in Texas and the group will focus on sending: ladylocks, a cookie with a long puff pastry shell and a sweet cream filling; Italian peach cookies; gobs, a regional variant of the Amish whoopie pie; and buckeyes, balls of peanut butter dipped in chocolate. They work with a professional baker to coordinate refrigerated shipping as needed, she says.
Magone started the Facebook group in 2015 after unsuccessfully trying to research the history of the cookie tables. Cookie tables are common fixtures at community and family events in Pittsburgh, but little is known about the origins of the tradition.
“I grew up with the tradition of the cookie table,” Magone says. “And it’s occurred to me over the years that people take cookie tables for granted and don’t document their cookie tables.” The Facebook group, which has more than 100,000 members, has become a place to exchange recipes, images and advice.
When it comes to offering coziness by cookie, this isn’t the band’s first rodeo. Starting in 2018 after the mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha congregation, the group also focused on sending cookies to communities facing tragedy.
Magone hopes the cookies will let Uvalde know “that people from all over the country who they’ve never met and probably never will care about them and send them love and best wishes just as much. as possible”.
Group members also plan to send stuffed animals, copies of a children’s book on grief and handmade notes. Anyone interested in supporting the effort is encouraged to join the Facebook group.
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