Today we’d like to introduce you to Terri McClernon.
Hi Terri, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Brief Timeline:
1970’s—living off the land in NY, cooking with what we grew or was wholesome from the co-op; fav cookbooks Diet for a Small Planet, Vegetarian Epicure, and Julia Childs Mastering the Art of French Cooking when I inherited it; worked in a health food store; starting a family.
1980’s—bought and ran a health food store; divorced and remarried, 1 more child; stay at home mom; continuing to cook last minute creative dinners for family of 4
Early 1990’s—raising my children; teaching tap, ballet, jazz, Hawaiian & African dance; sold advertising for The River Reporter; radio voiceover work for local radio station; dancing in a small dance company; creating a system for cooking healthy and delicious meals for friends for income; living in a small town near Monticello, NY; had third child; making 3 meals a day for family of 5.
Mid-late 1990’s—moving to NC with 3 children ages 19, 14 & 6; working for Wellspring; starting personal chef company with less than nothing; son taught me computer programs; sadly threw a lot of egg yolks away in the low-fat era.
1997-1998—hired first chef, contractor UNC student-chef; several “angels” (clients) offered to loan me money to get a decent car and to keep the company growing; quit Wellspring (too soon).
1999-2000—Southern Living found me and did an article; not much new business, mostly other woman wanting to do what I had done; learned to do everything I would need to know to run a business in order to hire someone else to do it; paying back loans.
1997-2012—children fledging; buying my first house as a single, woman business owner.
2008-2009—creating a “Cook-a-long” video DVD “Cook Once Eat for Weeks” & still have some in the attic; becoming friends with single mother/videographer; losing 70% of clients overnight; miraculously surviving the economic crash.
2009-2018—recovering from crash; hiring more chefs, scheduler & bookkeeper; co-writing a handbook; steadily evolving company; all 3 children becoming happily married; 2011 friend/videographer passing away from cancer; happily inheriting her 17yr old daughter; grandchildren being born; having time to travel.
2020-2022—losing 75% of clients within weeks; applying for and receiving both PPP 1 and 2 that were forgiven; paying my staff and myself enough to survive and even thrive; audit from NCDOR said I was a caterer and owed sales tax, health dept defines our work as personal chefs, not caterers, and no sales tax necessary; Fighting “city hall” aka NCDOR; going digital reducing paper; creating a new website and CRM program; planning to build a commissary and starting a non-profit.
2022-2023—building a commissary; researching and development for Meals on the Fly (80% plant based, 20% animal, menus to meet all variety of diets for pick-up); Achieving non-profit 501(c)3 status; losing fight with “city hall” aka NCDOR; attorney suggings Offer in Compromise; settling to pay $214,000.00; still a survivor!
2024—losing chef / manager who was to manage commissary and co-create Meals on the Fly to a Massachusetts company offering health insurance; commissary building completed & certified; re-structuring and re-prioritizing companies; renting commissary to Equiti; continuing to maintain & grow personal chefs; assembling 9-member board; holding 1st board meeting for Food Fairy Mobile Soup Kitchen 501(c)3.
2025– growing rental of commissary to small businesses; expanding commissary for Food Fairy catering and looking towards reviving Meals on the Fly; hiring catering manager to grow off-site cooking for hybrid personal chef daily faire services and event catering; non-profit creating officers, bylaws, policies & procedures; filling freezer with ingredients for making first few batches of soup; Terri enjoying harvesting produce as a gleaner for The Society of Saint Andrews and either passing produce on to food pantries or prepping it for future soups; completing logo & website for 501(c)3 by end of 2025; planning fund raiser for spring 2026.
2026-2031—hiring CEO for Food Fairy Personal Chef; hiring Executive Manager for Commissary; Terri growing as Executive Director of Food Fairy Mobile Soup Kitchen; envisioning 8 “Soup Trucks” (like an ice cream truck) delivering free soup to neighborhoods in Chatham, Bladen, Scottland, Robeson counties and beyond; enjoying life, children & grandchildren, friends, flowers and food, cooking, painting, traveling.
Long Version
In 1996 this company was started by me, a single mother of 3, living in a new state for a mere 2 months, an ad in a free newspaper and even with a bad knife and a post-divorce debt of $11,000. Twenty-nine years later we are a thriving business plus now 2 more businesses.
I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and my relatives were mainly from Kentucky. My mom was a very good and creative cook. Eating shrimp cocktail, blue cheese dressing, whole artichokes and Mexican food were not unusual in our 1950’s household.
Out of high school I became an Ophthalmic Medical Assistant. I was also interviewing to be an “airline stewardess” and almost made it. I ended up meeting the man who would be my first husband in Ibiza Spain. Within 7 years, together we built a house on 10 acres in the Catskills of NY. Living off the land, making do with what grew, was put-by or affordable from the co-op I helped start I truly began my learn-as-you go culinary training. Our first son born at home in the woods grew up on the most wholesome, home grown foods and has become a great cook in his own right.
Sadly, leaving that man and that life behind I bought and ran a health food store in the early 1980’s. It was a joyful manifestation of my passion for sharing wholesome food. Later marrying my second husband and living a small village life, two more children were born at home and I always fed us whole foods made with my love, passion for the earth, the food and love of my family. Having released the store and attempting to boost our family’s income and still be a stay at home mom, I created a semi-profitable system for cooking for my friends. Turns out that system was the basis for my future personal chef company.
When my husband and I decided on a friendly separation, I sought to leave the northeast. I read an article in a 1995 issue of Vegetarian Times about the 10 most vegetarian friendly cities in the US. I wasn’t a vegetarian but always a foodie! I drove right from RDU to Weaver Street Market, then claimed to be “Paris of the Piedmont”, and I fell in love! I even bumped into someone who used to shop at my health food store in South Fallsburg NY in the early 80’s. A sign I was in the right place.
My x-husband agreed the schools were better and so in August, 1996, I moved to a 2-bedroom apartment in Chapel Hill. I am a southerner in my blood and I immediately felt at home.
In order to make a stable living, though not a living wage, I got a job as kitchen retail manager at Wellspring. I also did late night work for UNC Highway Safety, sold my platelets for $25 and all the while maintaining a loving and healthy home for my children and starting a personal chef business. I slept an average of 3-4 hours per night on a futon in the living room for 5 years while the foundation for this company unfolded.
I got two calls in October 1996 from that free ad in the Village Advocate and they both became clients. I had no idea who Linnea Smith and her coach husband were when I did the in-person interview. When I got home afterwards, my x-husband who was visiting, informed me her coach-husband was “…almost a God in North Carolina”. I cooked weekly for the Smiths until 2023, for 27 years, and still prepare special dishes every now and then.
In March, 2000, Southern Living did an article about The Food Fairy® and I wondered if I’d still be around 9 months later when the article came to print. I was! We were! It was very touch and go. At a Women In Business seminar, I learned the value of “working on a business rather than in the business”. One day I might want to visit my grandchildren and still receive a pay check. Good idea! I began to seek other moms who might like to use their talent and passion for cooking for others and be home when school is out for the day. That also has had its ups and downs but mostly ups!
In 2008 we survived the economic crash and in 2020 the pandemic! My SCORE mentors called me the “PPP Poster Child” for I wasn’t going to let this company dissolve. The Food Fairy®, a trademarked name, as a personal chef company is now employing 8 talented chefs and still cooking all around the triangle daily. It has expanded beyond even my own wildest dreams!
In 2022 I was inspired to build a commercial kitchen ever since visiting a small town in Brazil 13 years ago who gave away soup. That’s why I built a commercial kitchen, to make soup and give it away! April of 2024 our non-profit, Food Fairy Mobile Soup Kitchen, received official 501(c)3 status. It took over a decade of imagining and then several years and bundles of money and low and behold, in June, 2024 our certified commercial kitchen opened in the woods just outside of Pittsboro, NC. The commissary is also available to rent for chefs in Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Hillsborough and more.
To sum it all up, we are personal chefs preparing meals and party-food, too, in client’s kitchens and have been loving it since 1996. In October, 2026, we will be 30 years old!
AND we have a commercial kitchen which is rented to other budding businesses and most notably Equiti Foods who do more than their share in wholesomely feeding our communities. The Food Fairy also uses the commissary for catering and intends to offer Meals on the Fly in the near future. We will offer mouthwatering masterpieces that cater to many varieties of dietary needs, just like our personal chef services have these almost 3 decades. There will be meals for pick-up and delivery.
Food Fairy Mobile Soup Kitchen is on a mission to alleviate hunger and food insecurity by empowering NC communities with knowledge and possibility while offering free culturally inspired soup. It is not quite mobile yet so in the meantime, before the end of 2025, we will be offering free soup to local food pantries for distribution. Dreams do come true!
The Food Fairy® in all her different guises always works from a foundation of truth, kindness and the ultimate good of all, embodying a vision of a collaborative, altruistic world where everyone’s basic human needs are met. As a team of exceptional chefs, we simply seek to nourish people and our community with love-infused food and there is no end in sight.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Staffing, finding the people who can truly listen to their clients needs and not impose their egos, their personal opinions about what one should or shouldn’t eat.
Maintaining that staff
Three times in 29 years chefs have decided to leave and invite their clients to follow them. With 2 of the 3 dispite my willingness to communicate clearly and honestly and to work out a reasonable form of repayment to The Food Fairy for finding the clients to begin with, both chefs left with 2/3 of their clients.
The economic crash of 2008
Pandemic of 2020
Being in a comfortable and relaxed postion with the personal chef company and then deciding to go into debt to buiild the commissary and start the non-profit, I have dumped the proverbial apple cart. Its like I’m back in the late 1990’s but I’m 74 years old, not in my late 40’s. I am healthy, thankfully!
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about The Food Fairy, Inc?
The Food Fairy, personal chefs serving the Triangle for 29 years, offer a wonder-full kind of delicious magic! Just imagine…..after an in-depth interview and scheduled starting date, your personal chef customizes a menu plan, shops, cooks, packages/labels, cleans-up and leaves behind meals made with love to nourish you and your family for a week or two or even for a month!
Our staff of chefs specialize in creating delicious and wholesome meals for those on any kind of diet or meal protocol, even a non-diet! We also specialize in preparing tasty meals for those with allergies, diabetes, renal issues, heart disease, auto-immune, paleo, keto, vegan, vegetarian, and more! We are a delightfully welcome gift for new parents, folks recovering from surgery or seeking to age in place!
Having a food fairy is a great reason to celebrate and be a guest at your own party. We customized those menus, too! As personal chefs we prepare the most memorable, delicious and beautiful party food in your home, serve and cleanup, too. The aromas are inviting and stimulate appetites and our delightful chefs are engaging and fun to be around. Guests at weddings often tell us it is the best food they have ever had at a wedding!
Also, we have a catering kitchen now! We can plan and prepare a menu suited to you, your guests and the mood of your celebration and all done offsite for pickup or delivery! The best of personal chef and catering worlds all in one magical package.
We offer a wooden cooking tool, a “fairy cooking wand” designed just for The Food Fairy. It takes the artisan 30 minutes to hand make each of these kitchen tools. He personally selects the maple which comes from timbers farmed ecologically by an Amish family in Monroe, Wisconsin. If a tree has to come down, a new one is always planted. This family also runs an old time sawmill where the wood dust is used on the fields for germinating wheat.
What other personal chef company is also giving back with a non-profit specifically geared to feed our neighbors who are struggling with food insecurity? The Food Fairy Mobile Soup Kitchen is doing just that because we love our neighbors, we love food and soup is so comforting!
Our food fairies help make your mealtimes and celebration feasts feel full of grace and ease? We love what we do and you can taste it!
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I am a professional Hawaiian dancer
I lived off the land for 7 years
I once drove through fast food restaurant and asked for a burger without the burger
I generally eat a whole foods and healthy diet. When I get a hankering for some junk food I drive through Burger King and get an Impossible Wooper, fries and a Dr. Pepper (flash from the past when I was 20 yrs old)
I have studied acrylic painting for the last 7 years and have created a few what I call “masterpieces”. My work and my classmates work are part of Carrboro’s Art walk at Moxy Fox November and December 2025.
That I am 74 yrs old
That I speak a little Portuguese, French and Spanish
I adopted 17 year old Annie when her single mother died 14 years ago
I like to make a family recipe (Transparent Apple Pie) for my birthday every year. Sometimes I end up eating the whole pie (not in one sitting!)
I studied drama when I was in high school and wanted to be an actress
Contact Info:
- Website: https://foodfairy.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefoodfairycooks/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/foodfairypersonalchefs/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-mcclernon-6aa4844?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Twitter: non profit will be up this year…. https://foodfairyfreesoup.org
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-food-fairy-chapel-hill
- Other: https://gofund.me/06cd7fb6c
