Paths to Purpose, Wisdom to Share with Chef Tom Peters

The first skill that Chef Tom Peters teaches his students at Providence Culinary Training (PCT) is how to hold the knife correctly.

“I’m going to be watching you until you walk out that door,” he cautions. “If you’re not holding the knife correctly, I’m going to let you know.”

With a lifelong career in culinary arts, Peters understands the impact of getting this foundational skill right. It’s part of the comprehensive training PCT provides to support student success.

“When you put that knife in the hand, the way you hold it and use it, someone can tell if you have some form of training,” he said. He tells the students that during a job interview, the interviewer might roll an onion to them and say, “Dice that up.”

“What I try to stress when they first put the chef’s knife in their hand is that it’s not the hand the knife is in, but the skill hand, the hand next to the knife, that is guiding how fast, how thin. How fast you move your hand over, the angle—it should come as second nature when you pick that knife up. These are the tools we use, just like a carpenter or a plumber, and this is how we utilize them.”

And the training goes beyond the basics, to timing, plating and more. For example, “You can’t take an hour to make a bowl of salad,” Peters said. “If dinner’s supposed to be ready at 6, it needs to be ready.”

Peters began volunteering at PCT shortly after the program began in 2006, and he’s known for his no-nonsense approach.

“We have people that come here that have different challenges and obstacles in their life,” he said. “We work with people as to the best of their abilities. I ask students in the beginning, ‘Do you want to be just OK or good or very good?’  It starts right here with the fundamentals. Can you cook rice pilaf? Can you make a vinaigrette? An emulsion so it doesn’t separate in five minutes? The end result is that plate right there. I tell them in the beginning, ‘I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not going to tell you something’s great if it’s not.’”

“We teach the difference between a chef and a cook: a chef is someone who prepares the food and manages the operations of the kitchen. They learn the less glorious part, too, because if you can’t handle the money, you’re not going to make it. A lot of the things I teach them are not in the books.”

PCT’s chefs have hundreds of years of experience among them to benefit students, and his coworkers have said that his gift to the program is “wisdom.”

“The end result is what makes it all worthwhile,” Peters said. “Watching people finish the program and leave with a skill and say a simple, ‘thank you Chef Tom.’”

Early interest in culinary arts

Peters grew up in Washington, D.C., and he signed up for the food/nutrition classes in high school as soon as they were offered to males, around 1973 to 1974.

“I was working in restaurants since I was 10 years old,” he said. “I was getting paid $2 a day out of the guy’s pocket. I saved money for clothes, tennis shoes. I was sent to work to keep me out of trouble.”

He enjoys creativity, including building furniture, art, and planting flowers.

“I wanted to be the guy who planted flowers on the side of the highway,” he said. “Flowers make life interesting.” However, culinary arts paid the most money for him. “When you have a family, you have to start thinking about that.”

He incorporates his art interest into the culinary skills he teaches.

“Different sizes, shapes, color attract the eye naturally,” Peters said. “The plate is like a canvas: Avoid having busy patterns on the plate. Red and green are complimentary colors; they make each other look brighter. That’s what I teach the students.”

After working all through high school in kitchens at various restaurants, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, where he also worked in the kitchen. He earned the rank of Second-Class Petty Officer, which is considered management, the same level as a sergeant the U.S. Air Force or U.S. Marines, he said.

He later worked for Walt Disney World in Orlando, where his children were born, and then moved to North Carolina to work for corporate Marriott. He served as corporate chef for Burlington Industries and connected with fellow American Culinary Federation (ACF) members who recommended him for teaching opportunities at Guilford Community Technical College, The Stocked Pot in Reynolda Village, Greenhill Arts Center in Greensboro., and N.C. Cooperative Extension offices.

Peters has been an instructor and teacher for more than 30 years, and he’s been a member of the ACF for 38 years. He was named their 2007 Chef of the Year.

ACF encourages its members to give back to the community, and Peters started the “Chef and a Child” summertime program for at-risk kids in Forsyth County; the program has expanded to 15 North Carolina counties.

For Peters, giving back comes naturally.

“I was raised that way by my parents,” he said. They taught him. “God gave you two good hands: one is to take care of yourself; the other is to reach out. It’s rooted in my childhood. It’s got to come from inside.”

Connecting to Second Harvest Food Bank

Through ACF, Peters crossed paths with Second Harvest Food Bank’s Chef Jeff Bacon. Peters was kitchen manager and chef at a Greensboro retirement community, and he encouraged the business to make a donation to help fund Bacon’s vision for Triad Community Kitchen, a culinary training program that prepares people with employment challenges for a career. Peters recalled that on his lunch break he attended the 2005 groundbreaking ceremony for Triad Community Kitchen, which later became Providence Culinary Training.

“In the beginning it was just Chef Jeff,” Peters said. Bacon invited guest chefs to teach to supplement his lessons.

“Chef Tom Peters was one of the original guest chef instructors at Providence Culinary Training (then TCK),” Bacon said. “His professionalism and extreme skill at garde mange was a big hit with the students. He did guest instruction for many years until the opportunity came to bring him on board as a full-time instructor. He is one of the anchors and cornerstones of our program.”

Peters began as a volunteer, then was hired part-time, and he came on staff in 2018. When COVID hit, he never missed a day, he said, and worked even when he wasn’t scheduled.

“We tells students to treat this school as if it were a job,” Peters said, “We teach life skills and emphasize that respect is something you earn. It’s not something that comes automatically with titles, medals, or certifications. I learned that in the military.”

He tells students, “I can’t make you do anything. I can grade you on not doing something. You’ve got doors all around this place; you can walk out of here any time.”

Students learn to meet expectations for timeliness, proper attire and working well with others.

“The program was started for people who were chronically unemployed,” Peters said, however, he also sees how it benefits the culinary industry, which often struggles to find qualified employees. “It’s a win-win situation: you’re helping others, and you’re helping the industry because people are always going to eat.”

He’s seen multiple generations within families complete the program, and it’s not uncommon for him to be greeted in the grocery store by his former students. Some students find employment at the Second Harvest Food Bank on the Providence Catering or Community Meals teams.

“We have such a good culture here, a lot of people don’t want to leave,” he said.

Over the past two decades, the program has evolved so students can compete amid the changing needs of the industry.

“I believed in the program then, and I believe in it now,” Peters said, “Because, first of all, we’re helping our industry right now. As we speak, the talent pool is very thin. When this program first started, a lot of them had been in jail, had been recovering from addiction and in homeless shelters, things like that. Then people started hearing about it. We’ve had older ladies who just wanted to learn better skills for their church. Everybody’s here for a different reason, so you’ve got to cover all the bases.”

At the beginning of each new class, Peters asks students what they hope to achieve by the end of class, so that he can help them succeed. He recalls one of his favorite speeches at a graduation ceremony. The woman had said at the first class, “‘I just want to cook better meals for my husband and church,’” Peters recalled.

“At graduation, she said, ‘I’m a 59-year-old woman. All my life I’ve been told, you have a learning disability you can’t, you can’t, you can’t. But I did.’”

“Tell me you wouldn’t feel good to be a part of that.”