Culinary arts student Troy Peters earned the opportunity of a lifetime over the summer, using his years of experience in the kitchen to teach disabled foster children in Montenegro how to cook.

“It was really fun to see an entire kitchen of people really working together,” said Peters, now back at City College, majoring in culinary arts and education. “Every day that I was there, they were really happy to see me.”

He and his instructor, Chef Randy Bublitz of the School of Culinary Arts, taught the youths to cook simple dishes, such as chicken and meatballs.

As a result of cooperation between the Santa Barbara City College and the Santa Barbara Sister City Group, a new working program was designed to give training in the art of modern cooking.

Peters applied for the chance to go to Kotor, Montenegro.

“The internship came up in class and I wrote a small letter just to introduce myself,” Peters said. “They got the information and fortunately they interviewed later on in the process, and once I interviewed with them, they decided to ask me to go.”

Montenegro, a small nation in Southern Europe, was part of Yugoslavia, and then of Serbia, but declared its independence in 2006. The country has struggled through the global economic crisis because of a drop in demand for its major export, aluminum.

Montenegro was specifically chosen for this program because of its war-torn past. Many children have grown up in foster homes, and the goal with this trip was to give them an experience that will help them to a richer future.

Peters and Bublitz agree it took “patience and communication” to teach the youths.

“The kids were physically impaired,” Peters said. “There were four kids that were essentially deaf, and there were a couple of other kids who were pretty fluent in speaking with them.”

Peters said he also became a better cook himself because of the experience.

He describes Montenegro as a beautiful country with beautiful people, and he wouldn’t have changed it for anything in the world.

“I have never been to another country,” he said, “so when the opportunity came I just jumped at it.”

Something that surprised him, he said, was the fact that a lot of people actually spoke English, and were happy to practice it.

And he also learned a little bit of Montenegrin, the official language in Montenegro, which could be described as a mix of Serbian, Croatian, Italian and similar languages.

Bublitz said these kinds of trips will continue to be offered to advanced Culinary Arts students, sponsored through the Santa Barbara Sister City Group.

“It was a great opportunity and I hope that another student gets the chance to go and have this experience,” Peters said. “It was great.”