Sad news for anyone who grew up in Chicago:

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For lifelong Chicagoan Ron Hall, a bite into a Maurice Lenell cookie brings flashbacks to his younger days — from grade school field trips to the former cookie factory on Harlem Avenue in Norridge to walking his beat as a police officer while snacking on the sweets. But soon, Hall and other Maurice Lenell fans will have to find other ways to satisfy their nostalgic cookie cravings. The company that has been producing a limited supply of the cookies since the Maurice Lenell Cooky Company went bankrupt in 2008 has pulled the plug on pinwheels, jelly stars and other sentimental favorites. "We don't want to be the bad guy that discontinued the tradition and legacy," said Roy Jasper, vice president of sales and marketing for private labels at Ohio-based Consolidated Biscuit, which took over production seven years ago. "It just didn't make sense for us anymore."

Neil Steinberg mourns:

No more almonettes. No more raspberry jelly swirls. No more pinwheels.

There was always more to Maurice Lenell than cookies. The crinkly red paper nest the cookies sat stacked in. The logo, a lucky boy who had somehow found a cookie jar larger than himself and climbed inside. The cookies were all of a size, about a half dollar, came in two dozen varieties. Not that the varieties were equal: there was a hierarchy. On the bottom, the Chinese almond—boring. Next, chocolate chip—always a disappointment, never really very chocolaty. Better: the hexagonal cookies topped with coarse red sugar, and the raspberry jelly swirls, with their tongue-pleasing ridges and a glob of red goo that would embed itself in your molar to be picked out with a fingernail. And the empyrean, the best-selling pinwheel. A dense disc of swirled chocolate and vanilla, with an improbable pink trim.

No more pinwheels? I'm distraught. My brother has been dispatched to secure me one last box before the cookies of Chicago kindergartens, school lunches, christenings, and funerals are gone forever...


...but so far no luck. [sad face emoji] And now I'd like to dedicate a song to my fellow heartbroken Chicagoans...