After spending two weeks in southeastern Europe as a cooking instructor to hearing-impaired high school students, a culinary arts assistant professor leaves humbled and inspired to do more for the community.

Carrying his passport and a jam-packed duffle bag with a passion for cooking and teaching, Charles Fredericks boarded a plane to Kotor, Montenegro five hours after giving his last final exam on May 18.

The trip was a part of the Santa Barbara Sister City Project.

“It was fun,” Fredericks said.  “I was basically just showing them some different ways to do food, but more importantly, it was fostering that exchange among peoples and letting this group of 14 kids know that we care about them.”

Both Fredericks and his wife, who accompanied him to Montenegro and helped in the kitchen, graduated from the Culinary Institute of America where they met.

The biggest challenge Fredericks faced was the immense language barrier between him and the students.

“It was English to Serbian first,” he said. “And then Serbian to sign.”

Even after practicing Serbian sign language prior to the trip, Fredericks said when he began teaching in Kotor, the sign he had practiced did not work and communicating became laborious.

“Luckily cooking is a very physical thing,” he said.  “So when you are sautéing something, you can look at it and tell [students] what to do with it.”

All the students he was working with, ages 13 to 17, had experience with cooking and knew they wanted to be working in kitchens in their profession said Fredericks.

“With the European model, people figure out what they want to do a little earlier at the ages of 14 or 15,” he said.

Fredericks taught the students how to make gnocchi, bread, fry pork cutlets and butcher whole fish.

“We did a menu that we could sit down and eat everyday,” he said.  “We did a meat, a starch, a sauce, and a vegetable.”

Eight hours each day were devoted to the students; their time in the kitchen was very busy.

“I had no problems with motivation,” Fredericks explained. “These people showed up early, they stayed late, and they wanted me to come in on Saturdays. I didn’t have to motivate these students at all, they motivated me.”

Efforts to contact Frederick’s source in Kotor were unsuccessful because of a nine-hour time difference and conflicting schedules.

The Santa Barbara Sister City Organization provided funds for lodging and airfare.

Map created by: Øystein Grønvold, Photo Editor