Lenore Lindsey did not consider herself a baker when she opened Give Me Some Sugah at age 50 in 2008. Neither did Vamarr Hunter when he took over the South Shore bakery this year at the same age.
The late-in-life knack for baking isn’t the only parallel in their stories, first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. Hunter never dreamed he’d be running a bakery when he first walked into Give Me Some Sugah over a decade ago, nor that the chef behind his favorite creations might be his birth mother.
The mother and son met as shop owner and customer in 2010 when Hunter and his then-fiancee began frequenting the neighborhood bakery at 2234 E. 71st St., famous for its potato chocolate-chip cookie.
He immediately respected Lindsey, now 67, for being “very straightforward.” Rather than taking advantage of his sweet tooth, she would look out for his health and call him out for overly ambitious ordering.
“‘Hey, that’s too much. You don’t need to eat all of that, honey,’” he recalled her saying.