Petrina Peart’s culinary journey started in one of the most unlikely of places: Wyoming. Not in a restaurant kitchen or a bakery in Jamaica, but in a dorm room at F.E. Warren Air Force Base 20 years ago. 

Peart was born in Jamaica and spent her early childhood there before moving to the East Coast of the United States with her mom. It wasn’t until enlisting in the Air Force that Peart began cooking for herself.

“That was my first time away from my family, away from home, away from my mom’s cooking,” said Peart, Executive Chef to the Governor of Wyoming and independent business owner. “It meant I had to now take care of myself.”

Although her culinary journey began out of necessity, it soon became a hobby and, eventually, a passion.

Alone in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Peart started experimenting with recipes, testing them on friends and even dates.

“Everyone was my guinea pig,” Peart said. “If they liked it, I kept that recipe. If they didn’t, that one got tossed out.”

Her process of trial and error, and her curiosity about the reactions of those who ate her food, sparked the beginning of a lifelong journey for Peart.

As a child, Peart had, ironically, avoided the kitchen, choosing the more exciting option of joining neighborhood friends her own age.

“My grandmother would be like, ‘Come in the kitchen with me,’ and I just thought it wasn’t fun,” Peart said. “Everyone else was playing outside.”

Peart’s grandmother worked in a local bakery and would bring home fresh loaves of bread that filled the house with the smell of warm yeast.

“I have an obsession with fresh-baked bread because of her,” Peart said. “I do a really good herb focaccia and sourdough. That’s all her influence.”

Peart later learned her mother had gone to culinary school in Jamaica.

“I didn’t even know that until later in life,” Peart said.

Not only did Peart draw inspiration from her maternal role models, but also her generational peers.

“My sister and I both graduated from Le Cordon Bleu together,” Peart said. “She did pastry, and I did savory. It’s just really embedded in my family.”

Before the Air Force, before Wyoming and before her dive into the culinary industry, Peart wanted to be a writer.

“I was passionate about journalism,” Peart said. “I loved reading, loved words… Throughout high school, I started taking classes in the Air Force for journalism, writing and American literature.”

Now, she looks to blend these two passions – food and writing – by creating her own book that would be part memoir, part cookbook.

“[I want it to have] big, beautiful pictures and stories from my life,” Peart said. “Modernized Jamaican recipes and vegan dishes anyone can make. It would be a book from the heart for anyone who loves food, stories and growth.”

The Air Force gave Peart more than discipline; it gave her perspective. While traveling the world, from Prague to Italy, she developed a fondness for communal dining. She discovered that there is a type of connection that only happens when sharing a meal.

“In Prague, you could sit anywhere, with anyone, and just enjoy your meal,” Peart said. “Strangers became friends over food, and by the end of the night, we all knew each other. We would have never met otherwise.”

This experience, and others like it, inspired Peart’s dive into a genre of hospitality that she made her own: intimate dining.

“A lot of what I do now is based on smaller groups, maybe eight people, five courses,” Peart said. “They can be friends or complete strangers, but by the end of the night, they’re connected.”

That approach to finding community in food evolved into The Supper Club, a monthly dining “experience” Peart recently launched in Cheyenne.

“It’s something I started to bring creativity back into cooking,” Peart said. “Each month has a theme. Maybe a blindfolded dinner, maybe food from Greece. I wanted it to be open to the whole community, not just my regular clients.”

Peart aims to offer more than a meal. She wants to offer a gathering that fosters connection, artistic expression and risk-taking.

“It’s about trying something new. It’s not what you’re used to, but it’s still going to be delicious,” Peart said.

After appearing on television in popular shows such as “Yes, Chef!” and “Beat Bobby Flay,” Peart faced new struggles pertaining to her sense of perfectionism.

“You go on TV and everyone wants to do their best,” Peart said. “But when things don’t go perfectly, and everyone sees it, you have to learn to stand in that light anyway.”

She took advice from Chef José Andrés, acclaimed restaurateur and founder of World Central Kitchen, and has been actively working on incorporating it into her day-to-day life: it’s okay to falter.

“Someone’s going to watch this and be inspired by it,” Peart said. “So now I just say, ‘Okay, that wasn’t my best, but what’s next? How can I do the next thing better?”

Looking ahead to the next thing to do “better,” Peart hopes to open a culinary studio. This would allow her a space to educate people about food they may not have thought to cook before, or teach people how to improve more basic recipes. She also wants the space to be a place where aspiring cooks, or people who need something a little different in their lives, can express artistic freedom and have a safe space to brainstorm ideas.

“I’d love a space for cooking classes, dinners, cake decorating – a creative hub,” Peart said.

She also hopes that the space could help her educate herself about other people and learn from them.

“Every person you meet has something to teach you,” Peart said. “I think of it kind of like a video game. Everyone has a clue you need to finish the quest.”

Peart specializes in vegan and vegetarian cuisine, but labels herself as “vegetable-forward” and intentional.

“I’m not against meat. I think two things can be true at once,” Peart said. “[But] I start in the produce section. That’s where the color is, that’s where the inspiration starts. I usually cook to the preferences of whoever I’m catering to at that moment, but a lot of my clients, they’ve trusted me over the years enough to say, ‘Just make us some food on the table, and whatever it is, it will be good.’”

Her approach to food and her standards of quality for produce can be traced back to her upbringing in Jamaica.

“Growing up in Jamaica, I remember picking mangoes and limes from trees,” Peart said. “When I went back years later, the garden behind [my family’s] kitchen reminded me that nothing beats that freshness.”

Her journey into vegan cooking began out of empathy.

“There was someone on staff who was a vegan too, and while I didn’t understand her, I noticed that,” Peart said. “[At the restaurant] we would have what’s called family meal. A lot of times, people would forget to accommodate for her, so she would be left out and not eat anything. I just felt really bad about that, so I started to incorporate something, either on the side, or the majority of what we’re eating to be vegetable-focused, so that she could have something.”

That state of mind still guides her today: food should be for everyone at the table.

This sense of empathy and desire for connection has motivated Peart to continue her journey, no matter what life throws her way.

“[Cooking] started as a necessity, and then it became a curiosity,” Peart said. “Then, the more people that fell in love with the things I did, the more of a passion just started growing.”

What started in a Wyoming dorm room evolved into a lifelong pursuit of creativity, community and passion. Peart built her life around a microcosm of community: the dinner table.