Natural Woman

restaurants and caterers. Hank’s Seafood and Salthouse Caterers, whose exclusive clientele enjoy fine cuisine with unforgettable desserts were St. Honoré’s first large volume clients.

With a newly rented wholesale kitchen and production at it’s peak, the pandemic hit forcing many businesses to modify and adjust. Hardest hit was the restaurant industry. The mandated closures had a trickledown effect that impacted not only the servers and onsite staff but the distributors as well. St. Honoré was left with a pantry of ingredients and freezers full of desserts, Claire reached out to her neighbors, friends and Summerville residents via social media offering homemade baked breads, biscuits and desserts for pick up at Hutchison Square. The restless community once again surrounded Claire with support. To meet the requests of her clients, St. Honoré started posting a weekly menu on Facebook that included more savory items: chicken and tomato pies, quiches, soups, chicken salad, and pimento cheese along with desserts, breads, and pastries. All handmade using locally sourced produce. “Summerville really backed and embraced us. Without their support we would not have survived the pandemic. We were able to tread water and stay afloat other businesses were going under”.

The epitome of slow and steady wins the race, she is modest and humble with a genuine smile that radiates thankfulness and gratitude for both her culinary network, Summerville community, friends, and family. Measured and consistent she never felt under time constraints accomplish a major goal by a particular date, nor did she desire to bake to meet financial obligations. Instead, she patiently made from scratch sustenance, hand rolling breads, crusts, and biscuits; delicately creating sugar flower masterpieces to adorn her wedding cakes, she finds a sense of peace. Instead of forcing herself, she sauntered along, preparing for the arrival of opportunities to continue doing what she loves, baking. AM

St. Honoré can be found at the Summerville Farmers Market on Saturday, online at St. Honoré Pastry. Pre-orders can be picked up at their production kitchen at 2408 Ashley River Road in the Pierpont Shopping Center in West Ashley on Friday and Saturday from 9:002:00. Walk-ins are welcome.

NATURAL WOMAN The Song Remembers When

Somewhere deep inside us, memories lie waiting for the right notes to release them

by Susan Frampton

t is summertime, and the ocean's salt air

Iteases the breeze coming through the open car windows. The radio is turned up loud, and the music of Crosby, Stills, and Nash fills the car before spilling out to float in my wake as I cross the bridge to Tybee Island. I am seventeen and singing along with CSN's Suite: Judy Blue Eyes as though auditioning for the band. The world around me is golden. I am young and yet to realize that I am as carefree as I will ever be. It is my last summer before college, and the future is as limitless as the blue skies before me.

The music ends, and so does the vivid daydream. The moment was so real that I still felt the sun on my skin, and I searched the air for one last whisper of the sea. Sheepishly, I glance around me to take in the fifty shades of gray hair that adorn the heads of the audience at tonight's concert at Charleston Music Hall. Short of an AARP conference, one would be hard-pressed to find a crowd topped with as much silver. I'm gratified to see that no one looks at me askance. From the dreamy looks on many of the faces around me, it appears that Graham Nash's music has enabled a fair amount of momentary time travel.

Whether we choose it or not, music has its place in almost everyone's memory. Maybe it's the whine of rock's electric guitars; perhaps it's the swinging rhythm of beach music. It might be country, classical, big band, folk, hip-hop, bluegrass, or any genre we've ever heard. Like nothing else, music has a magical power to access the place in our heads where our most vivid memories lie and to unlock the sights, smells, and emotions of a moment in time.

I've become fascinated by the subject. A late-night trip down the Google rabbit hole introduced me to the award-winning documen-

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tary, Alive Inside. The film chronicles a social worker's gift of familiar music to nursing home patients no longer able to connect with the world around them. Amazingly, many responded by singing along or dancing. Those capable of speech could recount when and where they first heard the tunes. Watching the film added a new poignancy to the words of one of my favorite Trisha Yearwood hits, The Song Remembers When.

In my mother's final hours, my brother put his phone on her pillow to play The Jitterbug Waltz. It was her favorite, and I like the notion that she remembered the joy that music brought her and that she waltzed her way out of this world. The House at Pooh Corner can still put my daughter to sleep in a minute flat, and the memory of her grandfather's whistled version of Moon River drove her decision to walk down the aisle to its dulcet notes. So vividly did the music conjure sweet memories that in our minds, we heard the single ice cube clink against his heavenly glass as he joyfully raised his scotch to toast the day.

But music's ability to move us sometimes plonks us down in places we'd be better off avoiding. As anyone who has looked over their shoulders for a fin slicing through the water can tell you, the ominous notes from the movie Jaws bite us right in the psyche. And who among us hasn't had the hairs stand up on their arms at the universally scary music that tells us the guy with the chain saw/butcher knife/ chloroform-soaked rag is in the basement/backseat/dark alley? Perhaps that is our brain's subtle way of telling us that any situation that prompts that music in our heads means it's time to get the heck out of Dodge.

That's not to say that vivid memories evoked by music always end well. Sometimes they can be pain-