PITTSBURGH — Raising a child is never easy, but it’s especially difficult for parents of children with autism.
“The world is not kind” to socially awkward kids who have limited language skills, said Melissa “Missy” Terrell of Homewood, whose son Anthony “Tug” was diagnosed with nonverbal autism at age 5. She remembers the public meltdowns that sometimes accompany the neurodevelopmental disorder.
“I’d go shopping alone at 2 a.m.,” she recalled.
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The single mother never imagined that some of the ingredients she bought on those grocery trips would help her connect with her son. Or that the simple recipes she learned from her father would jump-start her career as a culinary professional, and lead to a business with her now 12-year-old son.
Teaching Tug how to make the applesauce and apple butter not only helped the youngster learn how read, write and do basic math skills, she said. It also helped him learn how to talk and develop social skills like making eye contact.
When they started cooking together seven years ago, Tug’s speech was hard to understand. A complete sentence was two or three words max, his mother said.
On a recent Wednesday, however, Tug confidently greeted customers at the bake stand they set up a couple times a week at the corner of Sterrett and Idlewild streets in Homewood. With a little help, he was also able make change.
“Shake it, shake it,” Terrell encouraged her son as he counted out $3 and handed it to Diamond Miller after she bought a $7 pound cake. Then, when Miller handed one of the bills back, his face broke into a wide grin.
“Do you know why?” Terrell asked.
“For a tip!” he exclaimed.
Tug was just as excited when Thelmika Griffin and Lawanda Long, repeat customers from Homewood, stopped in front of the blue pop-up tent a short while later, rolled down the window and asked, “What you got today?”
“Pound cake,” he shouted. “Regular and pumpkin.”
“I just love Tug’s treats and support everything he does,” Griffin said as Tug handed her one of the buttery loaves.
“They always put a special touch in it — love,” agreed Long. “And anytime you put love in something, you can’t ask for more.”
Their business is dubbed Tug Butter, Terrell said, because her son couldn’t say “apple butter” when they started.
The right choice
Tug was about to enter kindergarten when Terrell, who holds a degree in musical theater from Point Park University, finally came to terms with the difficulties faced by the youngest of her three children.
Nicknamed a shorter version of tugboat because he was a big baby — he weighed 9 pounds when he arrived a month early — Tug showed signs of autism early on. He walked on his tiptoes as a toddler and was extremely sensitive to loud noises.
As a mental health worker for a therapeutic program, Terrell often saw kids with autism in the field. “But I continued to say, ‘No, not my son,’ and second-guess myself,” she said.
As he grew, Tug missed childhood milestones, especially in his speech. A pediatrician put it plainly in 2018: She could continue to support others through her work, or she could stay home to help the most important client in the world — her son.
The choice was easy.
It was a struggle making ends meet on just Tug’s disability assistance and food stamps, but being home 24/7 allowed Terrell to find ways to accommodate his sensory needs and provide the one-on-one attention he needed. Cooking her father’s old-school recipes together became the key to helping her son progress both academically and socially.
They started during the coronavirus pandemic with apple butter and applesauce made from produce bought at Trax Farm Market. The drive to Finleyville was fun for Tug, and counting apples and measuring out sugar and cinnamon built his math skills and ability to follow directions.
Eventually they began making simple baked goods like pound cake, brittles, fruit “yummy” cups and cookies. Their first customers were fellow members of Baptist Temple Church in Homewood.
The baked goods were so popular that, with the church’s support, Terrell decided to start selling them on a corner near her home in Homewood a couple times a week for extra income.
By 2021, business was so good that she thought about selling to a wider audience, “but I didn’t know how to start or run a food business.”
A Google search in 2021 led her to three free culinary programs. Hazelwood-based Community Kitchen Pittsburgh, which provides free life skills and culinary training to adults with high barriers to employment, was the only one that called back and assured her she’d be able to succeed.
In fall 2022, Terrell enrolled in the 12-week culinary program.
“They gave me everything I needed to get on my feet and learn what I needed to learn,” she said. “It was a gift wrapped in multicolor bows for me and my family.”
Community Kitchen Pittsburgh also provided her a uniform, shoes, the occasional meal when things were tight and even gas cards to get her from Homewood to Hazelwood. The nonprofit also replaced her hot water heater when it broke down unexpectedly.
After she earned her certificate in December 2022, Terrell worked for friends in a few local restaurants before being hired in 2023 as production and catering manager for Pittsburgh Public Schools. On any given day, she was responsible for overseeing upwards of 7,000 meals.
In August, she returned to CKP as a full-time chef instructor, ServSafe instructor and proctor.
“I truly couldn’t be more thrilled,” says executive director and founder Jennifer Flanagan.
“Missy is an incredible woman. She is passionate about her work and never stops seeking opportunities to learn and advance her craft.”
Terrell loves CKP right back.
“It was the way they (took care of) a struggling single mother who just wanted better for her child,” she said. “I was learning culinary skills not just for business but to sustain my family.”
Tug Butter evolves
Terrell readily admits she was afraid to embark on a new career path with so many unknowns. But her education was two-fold, she said, because she taught everything she learned during the 12-week program to her son.
Community Kitchen Pittsburgh gave her the confidence to grow the business to the point where they now attend the occasional festival or pop-up and can do small catering jobs.
“We’re a staple for the neighborhood on weekends,” she said.
Tug makes enough money to pay for treats like going to the movies or a recent trip to Splash Lagoon.
“His cakes got better and he learned the ‘whys’ around food,” his mother said. That in turn helped with other skills.
“He learned how to talk to people, answer phones, send text messages and read,” she said.
Now a seventh-grader at Pittsburgh Classical Academy, “he’s behaviorally on track,” she said. He still works with his beloved therapist after school on what Terrell calls “coping skills” — how to navigate public spaces and handle meltdowns. He even played football last year with a local youth team.
Mom has prospered as well. The Jacques Pépin Foundation, which provides grants to Catalyst Kitchens and its individual member programs, in 2023 awarded her a Gloria Pépin Memorial Grant. The annual $5,000 award is given to an outstanding female graduate of a JPF-funded organization.
The money allowed her and Tug to buy everything they needed for their nascent food business — knives, piping sets, baking pans and turntables for decorating pastries.
“Every day is a new adventure,” Terrell said in a video for the foundation. “I get to dig into something that maybe I didn’t know the day before. I get to express what I feel like on a day-to-day basis through my food, and it makes people happy.”
Last year, Terrell also received one of 24 fellowships from the Chef Ann Foundation, which allowed her to travel around the country to learn about best practices for healthy school food so she could share them with colleagues at Pittsburgh Public Schools.
“Missy is such a great example of why it is so important to think of people not as numbers or stats,” said Flanagan. “When she came to the program as a student back in 2022, on paper, she was an unemployed single mother on cash assistance. It’s easy for people to make assumptions about what they think they know about women like Missy.”
While her father Bill’s recipes are a core component of Tug Butter, Terrell has found others as a member of the Wedding Cookie Table Community on Facebook. She’s also working on getting an online certificate in culinary physics from Harvard University to advance her baking skills.
“It will prepare me for teaching others how to be the best culinarians they can be,” she said.
Becoming a chef instructor at Community Kitchen, she said, has allowed her to come full circle in her food journey.
“I had some incredible chefs who gave it all to me, so why not pay it forward?”
As one of CKP’s rock stars, “Missy brings grace and light to whatever room she’s in,” said Flanagan. “She truly believes in and espouses the power of food to heal and teach and provide both subsistence and opportunity.”
Terrell is keeping the business at Tug’s pace intentionally, but is glad it’s taking him places she didn’t know he’d want to go or meeting people he never expected to meet. When former first lady Jill Biden came to Pittsburgh last year, Tug helped plate the red velvet and butter cookies served at an event.
“It’s been a very emotional, crazy and beautiful ride,” said Terrell, who has become an outspoken advocate for families with children with autism.
The multicolored bouffant she wears while cooking features colorful puzzle pieces that represent inclusivity and optimism.
“I’m just so proud of her,” said Gail Brown, an early taste-tester who sings with Terrell in their church choir.
“She’s saving the world one baked good at a time,” Brown said.
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