"Take all the eggs the chickens laid today.Stir in enough flour that it isn't sticky.
Add some sugar until it's sweet enough.
Stir in some crushed Anise until it smells right.
Cook until they are done."
Sounds easy enough! My cousins Susie and Mary Lou worked with this until they got an actual recipe that comes close, although we all admit, it still isn't quite perfect yet, but no one can figure out how to get it exactly the way we remember.
Cooking the Pizelle is a labor of love, for sure. You have to cook them one at a time over a burner or flame using an ancient, long-handled Pizelle Iron. These irons were made by blacksmiths with the center of the waffle iron bearing the initials of the owner on one side and the date the iron was made on the other. The waffle plates are attached to two, long, scissor-jointed handles to keep the baker far from the heat of the fire. My cousin has our family iron, but I stumbled across one at a flea market a couple decades ago, so we nibble someone else's initials. 
To cook, you form the "not sticky, sweet enough, anise scented" dough into finger-size logs, place one in the center of the iron, and clamp it closed to squish the dough into the crevices of the iron. Then hold it over a burner or gas flame for a couple minutes, flip it over and toast the other side "until it's done."
For those not raised with these hard, crunchy little treats, they have the same culinary appeal as a communion wafer - dry and sort of tasteless. But for those of us with happy childhood memories of nibbling off the rows, breaking them in half and eating the flat center first, of crunching an anise seed, and of pestering Nana until she opened the tin allowing that wonderful spicy-licorice smell to escape, Pizelle is our favorite cookie.
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