What cookies do you look forward to most on your holiday cookie platter? For me, it’s always the anise cookies. Okay, that’s not true. I also look forward to chocolate crinkle cookies ...

“I hope you like the flavor of anise,” I said to our news editor, Liz Baumeister, earlier this week as I held out plate of holiday cut-out cookies, fresh from the Times Leader test kitchen.

At the holidays, I always think of my great-grandmother's hands rolling pasta and baking anise crescents. They looked like powdered sugar-coated Italian wedding cookies, but with a secret: anise ...