The Nomad Cook / The Culinary Art of Cannabis / Life Beyond The Pop-Ups | Travis Peterson

The Nomad Cook / The Culinary Art of Cannabis / Life Beyond The Pop-Ups | Travis Peterson

From Fell Into Food Podcast by Jeff Fell

June 22, 2026 · 58 min · Episode 75

About this episode

Travis Petersen discusses his journey from oil and gas to founding Nomad Cook, a culinary cannabis brand, and his plans for the future.

Travis Petersen is the chef and founder behind Nomad Cook, a culinary cannabis brand that's hosted more than 1,200 cannabis-infused pop-up dinners in 117 cities across 37 states, and the person who helped the American Culinary Federation build its first cannabis chef certification course. He got his start on MasterChef at 31, years into a sales career in oil and gas — and built everything else from there. He bombed his tacos and got eliminated in the second episode, three minutes of total airtime. Ten days later, a recession hit his oil and gas company and he got laid off with a year's severance. That accident of timing is the entire reason Nomad Cook exists. He calls it the stars aligning; it's also just a guy who decided to spend a free year finding out if he could actually cook. We get into how a newspaper photo of a sold-out cannabis dinner sent him into his own backyard for his first pop-up, and how that snowballed into touring 20 days a month with 500 pounds of gear and a sous chef in tow. He breaks down what terpenes actually are — sativa and indica only describe how the plant grows, not how it makes you feel. He's also walking away from the touring life at the height of…

People in this episode

Host: Jeff Fell

Guest: Travis Petersen

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Nomad Cook, American Culinary Federation

Places: Miami

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