by Virginia Johnson

Angela Genco has been on this earth for 8 decades. Some of them in Southern Italy. Some of them in Tampa. And all of them in a kitchen. She is the go-to at Tampa's Italian Club for her cookie recipes—the sweetest part of the upcoming Festa Italiana. The 18th annual event, April 9-12, and is filled with food, drink and song. And the Pignolata cookie (pronounced /peen-yoe-lah-TUH/).

"They taste very sweet with the honey and sugar," said Genco, with an Italian lilt. "And we put sprinkle on top for decoration." It's a simple recipe of flour and egg dough cut into little square pieces, fried, coated with a hot sugar and honey syrup, bunched carefully into balls and topped with multi-colored sprinkles. She'll make hundreds and hundreds of these cookies and more before the Sunday festival in Ybor City's Centennial Park.

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Source: http://www.baynews9.com/