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Chicken salad. Fried chicken. Potato wedges.* White house rolls.

All are great. But truth be told, the bakery takes hold of my appetite as soon as I walk through the door.

With the final sale looming on Monday, I decided to enjoy a few of my favorites in these “last days.” In no particular order:

• Tuesday: Glazed Donut
  Mmm. Terry’s Bakery in Farmville had some good ones. And a hot-off-the-conveyor Krispy Kreme has always been tempting. But Ukrop’s glazed donuts are great. Simply and fresh.
• Wednesday: Iced Brownie Bite
  I’ve never needed an entire tray (except my birthday last year when the church gave me one), but I always picked up 3 when they were stocked in the bakery case.
• Thursday: Chocolate Pie
  One of my favorite pies of all time. One almost always finds its way into holiday meals in Roanoke.
• Friday: Triple Chocolate Cheesecake
  I stumbled onto this one day a few years ago. It’s a chocolate cheesecake on Oreo crumb crust with chocolate chips and chocolate drizzled on top. I might be eating on this one for a while.
• Saturday: Rainbow Cookies
  Saving these for last [see yesterday's post].
• Honorable Mention: cinnamon coffee cake
  I don’t know if it was because it was Super Bowl week or because of the snow in the forecast, but I couldn’t find a coffee cake to save my life. Oh well.

And in true Ukrop’s form, I’ll take today off. And tomorrow, the landscape of Richmond will change, yet again. So long, Ukrop’s. It’s been a good ride.

*one of the top benefits of living behind a Ukrop’s store is that when their kitchen cranks up just before the dinnertime rush, the wonderful smell of potato wedges wafts over our front yard.

It was a long time before I met James R., but James R. sure knew a lot about me.

In the summer of ’04, James R. heard about my experience in Zimbabwe, and when he asked about the story, he heard about how we were detained by the authorities. When I wrote a story in a state newspaper, James R. read a copy.

The next summer, James R. knew I was going to Jamaica for a month, and when he asked, learned that we had made it through two strong, Caribbean hurricanes.

In between the summers, James R. wanted to know about my college journey, my start in youth ministry and my decision to go to seminary. All this in the checkout line at the grocery store.

For many, the Ukrop’s checkout line has been a city-sized version of an old country store. Catching up with friends. Knowing each other’s stories. And they carried your groceries out for you!

I finally met James R. Like many others throughout the years, he was a quality employee. For all those years, he was always working on my mom’s weekly Ukrop’s run. He packed her bags and carried them to the car.

Quality service and relationships will keep customers coming back, building a lifelong loyalty. It is the loyalty that has kept locals shopping in their small communities while the box stores crept in. And on those two pillars, Ukrop’s was built.

What are they? A sugar cookie? It’s a palette of red, yellow and green in a tasty treat.

But it’s more than a cookie, they are a memory.

For a long time, the Ukrop’s bakery kept a stash of these cookies for their youngest shoppers. When I was little (or maybe when Cameron was a toddler), I remember walking up to the bakery to ask for my cookie.

Rainbow cookies got me through trips to the grocery store.

I saw a stash behind the counter last week at the bakery, but it’s been a long time since I saw a kid ask for one.

Sometime last year at the Brook Road store, I asked for a few rainbow cookies from the bakery. I was going to buy them. I didn’t need a dozen, or a whole tub. Just a few would do, 5 or 6. But I think the lady at the bakery thought I was still a kid and I was just asking for my cookie. She told me she couldn’t give me that many, so she put two in a bag and sent me on my way.

When the sale was announced, rainbow cookies were the first Ukrop’s bakery product to cross my mind. Not my #1 favorite, but certainly at the top of my “twirler.”*

This snow storm is putting a wrench in my “plan,” but hopefully I’ll be able to have a rainbow cookie before the sale is final.

*twirler: a word I made up as a child to describe the old-fashioned slide show-type reel that I pictured was in my head.