There’s an art and a science to “Cookie Day” in the Dobry family house near Patterson Park in East Baltimore.

Two people hold irons with wooden handles over an open flame to cook small dough balls squished between the heated plates. This is how Beth Rannie learned to make pizzelles, traditional Italian waffle cookies, from her mother, Virginia “Ginny” Dobry.

Traditions run deeper than making some 200 cookies for Thanksgiving. For 70 years, the Dobry family has celebrated Thanksgiving in the same Kenwood Avenue home, cramming upwards of 35 people into the modest rowhouse built in 1920.

The annual gathering is a fulfilling blend that includes returning to a childhood home, welcoming new generations and adapting family recipes.

“I stick with tradition,” Rannie said. “I don’t know how to do it any other way.”

Rannie, 61, has made pizzelles for decades but still references Dobry’s recipe, penned in her elegantly slanted cursive on a scrap of browned paper next to a cottage cheese pie recipe.

Now, Rannie is beginning to pass the Thanksgiving torch to a fourth generation.

Last Sunday, she guided her 5-year-old granddaughter Micah Walker’s little hand as she held a red measuring cup filled with flour over a bowl of beaten eggs.

Cookie by cookie — the irons only bake one at a time — a small team stacked them on the kitchen table. Family lore insists that the finicky cookies are best with a gas stove and Domino’s Sugar. Making them during the summer or when it rains will jeopardize their crunch.

Some, including Rannie’s youngest daughter, Mattie Yoncha-Wawrzyniak, are quick to grab the extra burnt ones.

“I don’t think I would marry a man if he can’t survive Cookie Day,” Yoncha-Wawrzyniak, 27, said within earshot of her husband, who was on iron duty at the stove.

The cookies get wrapped in wax paper and placed in brown paper bags. Just like Ginny Dobry once did.

The Thanksgiving preparations require about a week of strategy and planning. It starts with a deep cleaning by Beth Rannie and her husband, Brian Rannie, who live in the Kenwood house. Relatives arrive from other parts of Maryland and Georgia to help offset hosting duties. There are 10 loaves of bread to cut up and several vegetables and chicken gizzards to dice for the stuffing. Rannie takes ownership of the desserts, referencing a three-ring binder she keeps of their past Thanksgiving menus and old recipes.

“Food is love,” Rannie said. “That’s how we grew up.”

The house on Kenwood

Ginny and her husband, Daniel Dobry Sr., bought the house in 1955. The couple, who both grew up in Baltimore, were adamant about living in the city and enjoying its amenities.

Ginny Dobry was known for advocating for the community and for bringing her famous pineapple upside-down cakes to new neighbors.

The Dobrys had six kids, five boys and one girl, who all grew up in the roughly 1,300-square-foot house, sharing one bathroom.

Daniel Dobry Sr., who worked at Bethlehem Steel, was handy and created extra closet space and a pocket door for one of the three bedrooms, Daniel Dobry Jr. said. The boys took the back room with two sets of bunk beds and a cot, and Rannie had her own room. She admits she didn’t necessarily like the solitude because she “wanted to be by the action” in her brothers’ room, she said.

“We had a pretty idyllic childhood. It was a great place to grow up,” said Daniel Dobry Jr., 69.

Today, the house continues to be a map of core memories from their childhood. The back door is original to the house, as is the knotty pine on the back wall in the kitchen. The basement, which now serves as storage and extra space for folks to eat during Thanksgiving, was once a hangout spot — perfect for hosting a teenage crush.

“If those walls could talk,” Matt Dobry, 59, said with a grin.

Many household and holiday memories lead back to Ginny Dobry and her three sisters, the Torre girls.

Ginny Dobry and her sisters all lived on Kenwood at the same time. Rannie has a framed photo at the top of the stairs that shows all four of their doors with “Sisters of Kenwood Avenue” written below.

“If it weren’t for them, I don’t think any of this would be the way it is,” Matt Dobry said.

The sisters supported each other and held a family-first mentality. The Dobry siblings don’t recall any family disagreements escalating. The Torre sisters set an example of how to be a good sibling. And they always pitched in to make each year’s Thanksgiving possible.

There was Aunt Paula’s party potatoes with a medley of dairy products, Aunt Edna’s baked mushrooms and Aunt Kay’s lasagna, which attracted a line of kiddos. Rannie makes sure these remain on the Thanksgiving menu.

“Turkey is really not the star of the meal,” Rannie said. “For us, it’s the lasagna.”

As her kids married, Ginny Dobry made sure to ask the in-laws if Thanksgiving could remain a Dobry family holiday.

The Torre sisters have all passed now, but a strong sense of family remains. And they’ve needed it.

Daniel Dobry Sr. died in October 1981. Ginny Dobry still hosted Thanksgiving that year. Thanksgiving in 2012 was also a “beginning of the end,” when the Dobry siblings first noticed that their mother was having difficulty spelling and writing, Rannie said. Ginny Dobry had a brain tumor and opted out of treatment to live out the rest of her days at home; she died Feb. 3, 2013. The Dobry siblings would also lose their brothers Frank and Joe.

Soccer morning

The Thanksgiving reunion also gave way to another tradition that began over 50 years ago when Daniel Dobry Sr. decided to get the young crowd out of the house that morning, Matt Dobry said. They headed to nearby Patterson Park with a soccer ball and played a pick-up soccer game, with neighbors joining. That continues each year, weather permitting.

Generations of original neighbors, friends and family hit the field, splitting into two teams: The Dobrys and the Bombers. There’s a trophy, post-game serving of stuffing and Kielbasa sausage and a toast with Wild Turkey — a Daniel Dobry Sr. special, his daughter said.

The Dobrys have jerseys with numbers that reflect when someone entered the family. The distinction is preserved for Dobrys, their partners and kids — with one exception, Dan Dobry Jr.’s best friend, Carl Hyman, whom Ginny Dobry considered a bonus son.

Aaron Wawrzyniak, 26, who married Rannie’s youngest daughter, Mattie, received his jersey at their wedding this past summer. Wawrzyniak came from a small family and always thought the Dobry family traditions and size were impressive.

“I thought I would be afraid of it, but they’re awesome,” he said.

For Frank Dobry’s daughter, Katie Walker, the soccer game comes second to the “excitement of seeing all the cousins,” she said.

Walker, 38, who grew up in Highlandtown, plays in the annual soccer game, only missing one when the family insisted she couldn’t participate while 30 weeks pregnant.

Squeezing in

The newest team numbers, 46 and 47, are going to Matt Dobry’s twin grandsons, and 48 and 49 are in the queue for Rannie’s grandchildren, both due in January.

Rannie finds she is becoming more like her mother, preparing the traditional cookies, getting the stuffing and sausages ready for post soccer game.

She and her husband don’t usually get a chance to sit down and eat as the hosts, but Brian Rannie enjoys seeing everyone together. They bought a Lovesac couch they can disassemble and move around to make room on Thanksgiving.

“Everybody really does love each other,” said Brian Rannie, as Micah Walker and her little sister frolicked around cushions and pillows that their imaginations had turned into lava.

Brian Rannie can remember the Thanksgiving gatherings back to the 1980s.

He dated then Beth Dobry in high school before going off to college in Florida.

They more recently relit their high school flame and got married in 2016 at the pagoda in Patterson Park, where they also had their first date. An entire wall in their living room is filled with paintings and other renderings of pagodas.

The house needs some work, but it’ll remain the Thanksgiving hub for as long as possible, Beth Rannie said.

For Dan Dobry Jr., the entire day of Thanksgiving is an experience with each moment complimenting the last. The 3 p.m. dinnertime has no servings of politics or other controversial topics, he said.

“My family are my best friends,” he said.