Volume 43, Number 2 Special Issue on Cooking
A magazine for parents and teachers of blind children published by
the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults in partnership
with the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children.
Deborah Kent Stein, Editor
ISSN-0883-3419
Copyright © 2024 American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
For more information
about blindness and children contact:
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place, Baltimore, MD 21230 • 410-659-9314
https://nfb.org/nopbc • [email protected] • [email protected]
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A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Escape from the Tiny Kitchen
by Deborah Kent Stein
GETTING STARTED
Cooking Madness
by Carol Castellano
Kitchen Memories
by Rebecca DeGeorge
The Apple of My Pie: My Culinary Journey
by Cricket X. Bidleman
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
Charcoal and Challenges
by Dr. Marc Maurer
Making Espresso and Related Drinks Nonvisually
by Justin Salisbury
Step up to the Stove: Mixing Together Independence, Confidence, and Safety
by Elizabeth Rouse
“Oven Open!”
by Lauren Altman
PASSING IT FORWARD
Cooking for an Army
by Melba Taylor and Jim Papania
Dinner for Sixty: Building Skills and Confidence at the Colorado Center for the Blind
by Maureen Nietfeld
From Fear to Passion: A Blind Chef's Culinary Journey
by Cameron Loehr
Of Jams and Pickles
by Serena Olsen
MasterChef and Beyond
by Christine Ha
All Things Culinary
by Regina Mitchell
DINING
It's All about the Fellowship
by Eileen Rivera Ley
Savvy Tips for Blind Diners
RECIPES
Recipes from the Monitor
REVIEW
How to Communicate
by John Lee Clark
Reviewed by Jessie Kramer
NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
A Brief Recap of the National Association of Blind Students Mid-Winter Seminar
by Lauren Altman
Braille Readers Are Leaders
by Lisamaria Martinez
Unlocking Independence with a Free White Cane
Announcements
Are you the parent of a blind/low-vision child? Don’t know where to turn? Have you ever wondered what your child will be capable of when he or she grows up? Are you concerned that your child’s future will be limited by blindness or low vision? Do you have questions about how to parent a blind child? We are here for you.
Founded in 1983, the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC), a proud division of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), is a membership organization of families, friends, and educators of blind children. We have thousands of members in all fifty states plus Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.
We have a very inclusive definition of blindness which includes children who have some usable vision. Instead of focusing on what the child can or cannot see, we focus on the child and what she or he wants to be.
NOPBC is for families, educators, and friends of blind children, including those who have some usable vision. We welcome all families of blind children, and many of our children have both blindness and other disabilities.
We help families and blind children themselves maximize the child’s abilities and opportunities; we hold high expectations for all of our children, regardless of any additional disabilities they may have.
As a division of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the largest and most influential organization of blind people in the world, the NOPBC is well informed about the societal, legislative, and technological issues that affect blind people. We enjoy the resources, support, and expertise of fifty thousand blind people who can serve as mentors and role models for us and our children. When we as parents join the NOPBC, our children belong to the Federation family.
The NOPBC:
Most states have an NOPBC affiliate chapter. You can find your state chapter at http://www.nopbc.org. If your state does not have a chapter and you would like to start one, please contact us. We may be able to offer training and other assistance to start a state NOPBC chapter.
We have been where you are, and we want to support you and your blind child. We know that blindness does not define your child's future. We can connect you with other families and blind adults who can serve as positive mentors and role models. They can teach you the attitudes and techniques that will enable your child to become independent and to succeed in life.
The NOPBC offers hope, encouragement, information, and resources for parents, families, and educators of blind children. NOPBC provides:
We offer a wide variety of programs, activities, and training to families, children, and youth. One of our most exciting activities is our annual conference. Every year since it was established, the NOPBC has conducted an annual conference for parents and teachers of blind children as part of the national convention of the NFB. This conference has grown to include five exciting days of workshops, training sessions, activities for all family members, including sighted siblings, and countless opportunities to meet blind adults and other families and children from around the country.
Contact Us:
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
[email protected]
www.nopbc.org
by Deborah Kent Stein
My Aunt Autumn once paid me a compliment that I have always remembered. I was visiting her for the weekend, and she had invited some friends over for dinner. We spent the afternoon in the kitchen, preparing an elaborate meal with soup and salad, meat and vegetables, and a rich, creamy dessert. As I stood at the counter chopping celery, Aunt Autumn commented, “It’s such a pleasure working in the kitchen with you! We share space so easily and comfortably! There’s an intuitive feeling about it—we never get in each other’s way.”
Aunt Autumn’s comment was unique and wonderful to me. For most of my life I had heard statements that were quite the opposite when I offered to help in the kitchen, no matter whose kitchen it happened to be. “Don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control in here. There really isn’t enough space in this kitchen for another person.” “There’s no room in here for you to help me. You can wash dishes after we eat.” “There’s hardly any counter space. I can barely move around in here myself. Just sit at the table and talk to me.”
The kitchens of the world seemed to shrink the moment I approached. The message was unavoidable; my help wasn’t needed or welcome. In all those tiny kitchens, I would only be in the way.
My mother was a bit of a perfectionist, and it was hard for her to watch me in the kitchen without swooping to the rescue. Fortunately, she came up with an original way for me to get some cooking experience on my own. Every Thursday, when Mom took my brother to his weekly piano lesson, I was in charge of preparing a simple family dinner. Mom would set out the ingredients and give me careful instructions before she and Gordon headed out the door. Then I had the kitchen all to myself, and I reveled in the sense of being in charge.
Despite those weekly forays into cooking, I didn’t really experience the joys (and occasional disasters) of the kitchen until I had my own apartment, a third-floor walkup on the rundown side of Boston’s Beacon Hill. I purchased ingredients at the neighborhood market, experimenting as I went along. With no one standing by to warn me about the pan sizzling on the stove or fly to the rescue when I picked up a knife, I had the freedom to learn through my mistakes and successes.
At that time I had only one Braille cookbook. It was called Cooking without Looking: Food Preparation and Techniques for Blind Homemakers, by Esther Knudson Tipps. The brief introduction explained that the book was “Taken from a Master of Science Thesis from the University of Texas, August, 1956.”
The book was embossed in three soft-cover Braille volumes, with recipes that included breads, casseroles, cookies, meats, and vegetables. Sometimes Ms. Knudson Tipps was needlessly timid, as when she advocated baking hamburgers in the oven to avoid frying them on top of the stove. Overall, though, her book was an excellent introduction. I was thrilled to know that there were other blind cooks out there in the world. I wasn’t alone as I mixed and stirred and waited breathlessly for the results.
Over the years the kitchen lost its mystery. I didn’t live to cook, but I certainly cooked to live. By the time NFB President Mark Riccobono suggested that Future Reflections publish a special issue around cooking, my early adventures in the kitchen were a distant memory. Was there really anything to say about cooking that was especially relevant for blind children and teens? Did parents and teachers of blind children really need a cooking issue? How much interest could there be? What was there to say?
When I sent out preliminary queries, however, the response was overwhelming. To my surprise and delight, our readers were eager to share stories about their cooking challenges and triumphs. Clearly President Riccobono was onto something. An issue on cooking was long overdue.
The contributors to this issue represent people with a wide variety of perspectives. Carol Castellano explains how she exposed her children (one blind and one sighted) to cooking before they started school, letting them help out as she prepared the evening meal. Justin Salisbury describes his search for a fully accessible machine that would allow him to make espresso at home. NFB Past President Dr. Marc Maurer explains how he learned to grill hamburgers. Several authors share their experiences learning to cook and teaching cooking to blind children and adults.
Some of the contributors to this issue, including Melba Taylor and Jim Papania, cook professionally. MasterChef Christine Ha shares her story of becoming a celebrity cook.
Of course, cooking is only the first step in the dining experience. Eileen Rivera Ley writes about the etiquette of dining, a topic she has studied extensively. As she points out, preparing a meal is only the first step. In the end it's all about the fellowship.
I hope you enjoy reading this special issue of Future Reflections as much as I've enjoyed putting it together. I hope these stories will help more blind young people make room for themselves in the kitchens of the world. Those kitchens are not so tiny after all.
by Carol Castellano
From the Editor: Carol Castellano is a longtime leader of the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC), and she is the founding president of New Jersey Parents of Blind Children (NJPBC). An earlier version of this article appeared in the Fall 1989 issue of Future Reflections. Carol is the author of four books, including Making It Work: Educating the Blind/Visually Impaired Student in the Regular School and Getting Ready for College Begins in Third Grade.
Why anyone would want to spend two or three afternoons a week cooking with a couple of little kids, I don't know! (Serena, my blind child, was four-and-a-half at the time, and John, my sighted one, was two.) But then again, if I didn’t cook with them, supper simply wouldn’t get on the table, because at four-thirty or five o’clock my two formerly pleasant, reasonable children turned into ClingOns. That is, they would wrap their now whining, tearful bodies around my legs. It is difficult to move briskly about the kitchen weighted down by sixty pounds of baby! Ordinarily I would give up and go play with them on the living room floor until my husband came home, whereupon he would either relieve me, go call for takeout, or, in desperation, cook supper himself.
Then I discovered cooking with my two little dumplings. They really loved it, and their dad was happier, too. SO ... everything took three times as long. SO ... we made quite a mess. We did eventually get a decent meal on the table, and my kids were gaining a good knowledge of cooking tools and terms.
First they'd drag chairs over to the sink for washing hands. I’d run the water so Serena could hear where to bring her chair. (The layout of our house was a bit confusing, and it took some time for her to learn her way around.) Then they would scurry about gathering ingredients and searching for pots in the cabinets. “I need the very large pot way in the back,” I’d tell them. “See if you can find its cover.”
At the refrigerator we practiced with terminology such as “bottom drawer on the right” and “the compartment on the door.” Together we’d scrub the vegetables at the sink. Then the kids climbed up on their “cooking chairs” at the table.
The children usually began with peeling the skin from onions or cloves of garlic. If necessary, I’d get them started by making a slit with a knife. Serena could easily tell by touch when the garlic was completely peeled.
Then we’d put all the vegetables on a large cutting board. I'd tell them to choose one vegetable and get ready for cutting. We talked a lot about the fact that the blade of a knife can be dangerous and that they were never to handle sharp knives without an adult supervising them. Then I'd pick up the knife and put one child's hand on it over mine.
When we cut large items such as carrots, I would let the children hold the knives themselves with my hand over theirs. Serena liked to feel the tips and stems we were going to cut off. So she could really understand what the knife was doing, we’d pause mid-cut so she could feel the slit it was making. After the cut, I often pushed the carrot or potato back together and let Serena slide it apart so she could relate the whole to the parts. When we sliced small items such as garlic, I explained that the garlic was too small and I didn't want the knife blade to get too close to their fingers.
Sweet potatoes lent themselves well to math lessons. “Choose a potato, Serena. Now, let’s cut this potato in half. Here, see what the halves look like. Are they big or small? Yes, they’re still too big to go in the pot. Let’s cut them in half again. Make the pieces stand up on their flat end.” Slice! “Now look. They’re much smaller, but we still need to cut them some more. Make all the pieces lie down.” All this handling of the pieces helped Serena build a concrete knowledge of many concepts.
If the vegetables had to go right into boiling soup or water, I usually inserted the extra step of having the children pick up the pieces and put them into a bowl first. Serena checked to see if any pieces were still too big and made sure the cutting board was empty. Sometimes they loaded the vegetables into the upper section of the food processor (nowhere near the blade, and again, with much discussion of safety). Then together they pressed the start button (it took two of them to do it!). After I removed the blade, we examined the results of the processing.
I did all the work at the stove or oven, explaining to the children why they couldn’t use the stove yet. Then we talked about the sounds and smells of cooking. We listened for the water to boil; we noted the sizzle of sauteing food. I explained the various plops, splashes, and bubblings in the hot pots as I poured and stirred.
Dry ingredients were a lot of fun. The children opened all the containers, learning about lids, spouts, corks, twist-offs, screw-ons, push-ins, pop-tops, and pull-tabs while they developed their dexterity and strength. I gave each of them a measuring cup and spoons and a stainless steel bowl (good for noise!). Then we scooped and poured many more times than we actually needed to, listening to the sounds, digging in to feel the textures, and, yes, tasting, too. John preferred raw macaroni; Serena favored flavored breadcrumbs. There's no accountin’ for taste!
When the children opened oil and spice containers, we sniffed and enjoyed their pungency. Then we poured and sprinkled, letting the oil drizzle and the flakes filter over Serena’s fingers so she could learn what they felt like and how they came out. Of course, this appealed an awful lot to John, too. They took turns sprinkling the spices on. Serena’s turn. John’s turn. Serena’s turn. John's turn. They never forgot whose turn it was, and our food got awfully spicy!
We opened cans at our house with a primitive tool, the manual can opener. We worked hand over hand, and I explained as best I could how the wheel cuts into the can; it’s hard to feel. But the click as the cover detaches is very noticeable, and Serena certainly knew when it occurred. Again we discussed safety, and they learned how to handle the sharp edge of the top with care. Then little fingers dipped into the liquid within for licking.
Among the foods my children liked to cook the most were eggs and fish. Eggs make the supreme mess—I'm sure that was why. We cracked them hand over hand and then, I have to admit, I let them stick their hands into the slime below. They loved it! We washed our hands again.
Fish was fun to cook because the children got to slap it into the pan. The children really liked doing that. They even enjoyed having smelly hands. I made them wash up again.
For some unknown reason, both of my children believed that they should make the messes and Mom should clean them up. They were unanimous and unwavering in their opinions on this point. I never did conceive of an effective means of combatting their united stance. I did a lot of sweeping up of raw rice and elbow macaroni and couscous.
But then came the end result. When Dad came home, the sweet smell of supper was wafting through the air. The kids were hungry for food that they cooked. Our family would eat that night.
Epilogue: Well, the years went by, and the kids are now all grown up. John grew into a person who likes to cook. I have to admit to feeling a bit of pride when we arrive at his house and he is competently serving up a family favorite. On the other hand, cooking is not Serena’s favorite activity, but she does enjoy eating; so, alas, the task gets done.
by Rebecca DeGeorge
From the Editor: Rebecca DeGeorge grew up in Chicago during the 1960s and attended the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. She lived in Indiana for seventeen years, freelancing for the local newspaper. In 1985 she moved to California, where she taught Braille at the San Francisco Lighthouse and later worked for Guide Dogs for the Blind.
The kitchen in the house where I grew up was my mother’s domain. It wasn’t a fancy kitchen. It had no dishwasher or counter. It just had a sink with a drainboard on each side, a gas stove, and the Formica kitchen table where Mom put her cutting board. On that table she peeled, chopped, or sliced fragrant vegetables or mixed the ingredients for meatloaf in a bowl. We were a meat and potatoes, spaghetti and meatballs kind of family. Whatever my mother cooked tasted delicious—except, in my opinion, liver and onions.
Since I’ve always been totally blind, Mom told me that celery and lettuce are green, carrots are yellow, and meat is brown when it’s done. What mattered to me was the taste and the pleasure of coming home from school to the mouth-watering smell of whatever was simmering, baking, or frying.
One day when I was five or six years old, Mom asked, “Want to help me make a chocolate cake?” I was thrilled about chocolate cake and about being asked to help.
“You can grease the pans,” Mom said, “but you need to wash your hands first. You always wash your hands before you cook.”
Mom put a small dollop of vegetable shortening on each of the two round layer cake pans. She showed me how to spread the shortening all the way to the sides.
“It’s got to be even,” she explained, “or the bottom of the cake will stick, and we don’t want that.”
Mom showed me the box that contained the small envelope with cake mix and read the directions out loud. I could smell chocolate! Yum! After showing me the nested measuring cups, Mom measured out the necessary ingredients. She cracked an egg into a bowl and let me scramble it slightly, guiding my hand so I learned to keep the tines of the fork flat.
“Now we’ll stir it up,” Mom said. With her hand over mine as I held the wooden spoon, that’s what we did.
“This is fun!” I said. I felt grownup, proud to be allowed to help.
In some ways, Mom was a perfectionist. Things had to “come out right.” I think she felt too worried to let me get up close and personal with the stove. During my grade school and high school years, I often heard the clink of measuring spoons and the rattle of measuring cups, but I was the kind of kid who’d rather read than cook, and Mom didn’t insist. Even as an adult, cooking is something I do because I need to, not because I can’t resist the lure of the kitchen.
At age eighteen, before going away to college, I spent a few months at an agency that used to be called the Illinois Visually Handicapped Institute. In one class a very patient woman taught us to iron, sew on buttons, and cook. I finally learned to measure, slice, chop, and use the top of the stove as well as the oven. I learned to label cans and jars with Braille and to keep tools organized, always putting a knife in its place with the blade pointing to the back of the drawer, the sharp edge to the right. The instructor stressed safety and orderliness when cooking—no dangling long sleeves, no ties getting near the burners, no paper towels or other objects lying on the stove top. We practiced standing in front of the center of the oven door and getting pans in and out while the oven was cold. Then we did it when the oven was set at the correct temperature. We learned about putting tactile markings on the oven dial at important, frequently used temperatures. We did the same with burner dials, knowing which dial related to which burner. We learned to use Braille cooking timers. I loved finding Braille cookbooks!
One afternoon when my parents were out, I decided to make peanut butter cookies. I spread newspaper on the table, got out the bowls, and lined up the ingredients. Then I put my Braille copy of the recipe on the fridge with a magnet so it wouldn’t get spilled on. I measured, stirred, mixed, and rolled, placing the cookies carefully equidistant from each other on the cookie sheet. Then I slid the cookie sheet into the oven.
Long before, Mom had shown me where the point of the oven dial would be when the temperature was set at 350 degrees. Why she told me this I can’t remember. Maybe I didn't set the dial as precisely as it needed to be set. Perhaps timing the baking with my watch, since we didn't have a tactile timer, wasn’t precise enough.
After several minutes, just about the time when I was ready to take the cookies out of the oven, I began to smell smoke. Then, as I opened the oven door with a potholder on each hand, I heard the key turn in the front door lock.
“What are you doing!” My father’s quick, loud steps and loud, angry voice almost made me drop the cookie sheet.
Coming home to a house full of smoke would be a jolt for anyone. Still, my parents’ reaction left me feeling deflated, disappointed, and embarrassed. The cookies didn’t taste very burnt, but I felt I could never experiment in Mom’s kitchen again.
When I went away to college and eventually got my own apartment, a home teacher of the blind encouraged me to pick up the wooden spoon and spatula once more. That encouragement, along with reading cookbooks written for blind people, got me going.
Years later, the first meal I cooked for my husband was spaghetti and meatballs. “Please stay out of the kitchen until the table is set and everything is ready,” I insisted, feeling nervous and self-conscious. Fortunately, the meal turned out well, even though, by the time it was ready, I felt exhausted!
When each of my sighted daughters turned eight years old, I began to teach them to cook. We started with cookies, since that's something kids love! We “graduated” to more complicated baking and preparing main dish meals such as chili. I was always the main cook until they grew up and left home, but over time, each girl began preparing meals, which made us all proud. They taught me things as well. For example, I learned that foods like macaroni and cheese and corn do not make appetizing plate mates.
The biggest change I've experienced in cooking is the invention of the microwave oven. Marking it with Braille or tactile icons and teaching your child to use that appliance safely may be the best way to begin the cooking adventure. Neither you nor your child needs to become a clone of Julia Child. The goal is to teach your child to prepare tasty, simple meals safely. Whether you bake cookies or bread with your child or prepare main dishes together, there's no rush, no pressure.
National Braille Press sells a number of books related to cooking in Braille and other alternative formats. Check out www.nbp.org. The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) offers hundreds of Braille and recorded cookbooks. Under a new NLS program, patrons can request up to five Braille titles per month to keep indefinitely, so you can easily build a wide-reaching cookbook collection. And, of course, you can invent your own recipes as you go.
Remember, practice, not perfection is the goal. If you burn the bottom of your peanut butter cookies the way I did, it just shows that we learn by doing, not by trying to be perfect. Have fun!
by Cricket X. Bidleman
During my sophomore year in college, I decided to teach a class on baking. It would be a class with only a few students, but I thought it would be a great opportunity for me. At that time I wanted to enter a doctoral program and eventually teach at the college level. The problem was that I had never done much baking myself, much less taught baking to others. Sometimes turning dreams into reality starts with more of a dream than one realizes.
My journey into cooking was circuitous at best. I loved to read cookbooks growing up, but my parents never allowed me to cook. They actually prevented me from cooking, learning to do laundry, and taking public transportation, despite endless recommendations from my teachers of blind students. My parents believed I should make enough money someday that I could hire others to do those things for me. Considering the widespread unemployment rate among blind people today, this notion was highly unrealistic.
Food was the catalyst for my severe issues around body image. For my mother the ideal body was one that many would consider unhealthy. Since I couldn't see what the people around me looked like, I didn't have a strong concept of what it meant to have a healthy body. There were times in my childhood when I was fairly overweight, but there also were times when I was forced to lose weight at an unhealthy rate. Honestly, I'm still not sure what a healthy body should look like. I never have a scale in my apartment because I know it would bring back some old anxiety.
Although these issues were deeply troubling to me, I couldn't discuss them comfortably with my parents. I think there were aspects of raising a blind daughter that they simply couldn't understand.
That being said, I truly loved food, and I still do. Food brings people together—everyone has to eat, after all. The regional differences between similar types of food are intriguing—falafel in one city differs from falafel in another city within the same country. The more my parents drove me away from cooking and food, the more deeply I was drawn to cooking intellectually. However, my lack of exposure to cooking made my connection with food purely cerebral.
In my senior year of high school, I knew that I had to attend a training center where I could learn independence skills—alternative techniques that would allow me to be successful as a blind person. I was going to college soon, and then I'd be an independent adult. I didn't know which college I would go to, but I knew for sure that I'd have to do my own laundry. I didn't need to have other people seeing those weird peanut-butter socks my grandma sent me! Seriously—those socks had logos for some obscure peanut-butter company whose name I don't remember anymore!
I was very comfortable with my identity as a blind person. Nonetheless, pursuing training at BLIND, Inc., a training center based in Minneapolis, was one of the hardest decisions I've made. I was sure that my desire for independence would fracture my already-tenuous relationship with my parents, and I was right. We're now estranged, but training at BLIND, Inc. built the foundation for self-confidence and independence as I entered adulthood. In other words, if I could go back and make a different choice, I would not. During the summer of 2017 I had the opportunity to learn to live independently, to grow as a person, and to work with some wonderful mentors.
During my summer at BLIND, Inc., I discovered how much I love cooking. I also discovered how much I (like many others) despise doing laundry, and how much I needed to improve my travel and public transportation skills. Being around so many successful blind people filled me with the determination to succeed and to be like them. I aspired to pass forward the love my blind mentors showed me.
My Federation mentors are still an integral part of my life. Until I started seeing a therapist during college, I leaned on them far more than I should have. They were always there for me, helping me build self-confidence, responding to my endless texts and calls, and extending the empathy that I didn't experience growing up. I really think my emotional growth started when I met them.
My mentors prepared me for self-advocacy in college. Dealing with the Office of Accessible Education and the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation is complicated, to say the least. Getting the technology I needed for college was quite the battle. Once I was in college, getting the accommodations I needed from my instructors was also difficult.
In December of my freshman year I faced my first-quarter exams. Final exams were scheduled to be three hours long. I was allowed double time as an accommodation, which meant I'd be writing essays for six hours. I ended up taking the exams at different times so that I wouldn't be writing late into the night.
My dormmates and I all had one exam in common—we were in a literature/philosophy program together. I asked them what I could do for them while they took the exam I was taking at a different time. Was there something that I could make to help ease the post-exam stress? Someone suggested that I make hot apple cider.
I had no idea how to make apple cider! I realized I could buy some, but my campus wasn't close to any stores. Besides, it didn't seem fair to take a shortcut while my friends were furiously writing essays for three whole hours.
I looked up a recipe for apple cider, and ended up boiling apples for three hours in a pot of water with a bunch of spices. That first batch wasn’t great. I should have used less lemon juice and fresh spices instead of powders. But I managed to make it, and that was an accomplishment. My friends were very hungry after the exam, so they thought it was great. I've made hot apple cider many times since, and each time it gets better.
It was during the following year that I decided to teach baking. With infinite cleverness, I called my workshop “Apples to Apples.” As I’m sure you can guess, we made apple desserts. When it was time for us to bake apple pie, I honestly had no idea what to do. I looked up recipes, gathered ingredients, and figured it out. The pie was great, and I've been an avid baker ever since.
Since then, I've done lots of baking, and I've explored the alternative techniques that blind people use in order to succeed. I bake regularly for friends and for the staff at the National Federation of the Blind, which is where I work. I'm even growing a sourdough starter, which I named after one of my colleagues as a joke. The name stuck, so the joke's on me.
Many people, both blind and non-blind, think that cooking is very visual. How can you tell when a steak is done? How do you know if cream is whipped to stiff peaks? How do you tell when sourdough starter has doubled in size?
You can tell when meat is done by the texture—cooked meat feels tougher, firmer, and of course hotter. (Or you could use a talking thermometer.) When cream has reached stiff peaks it feels different, and the mixer attachments make a different sound. If you mark your container of sourdough starter with a rubber band or a piece of tape, you can check how far the starter has risen. Often the alternative techniques I use are not as complicated as you might think, but they do take practice.
My message to parents in general, and especially to parents of blind children, is that kids should start learning to cook early. A passion for food is not bad, despite some of the bizarre and sometimes unhealthy perceptions that exist. Blind children need some extra passion to help them get beyond those moments when they’re told that they can't do something; for us, those moments are far too many. Blind kids can and should dream big. And they can, and should, turn dreams into reality.
by Dr. Marc Maurer
From the Editor: From 1986 until 2014 Dr. Marc Maurer served as President of the National Federation of the Blind. The previous NFB President, Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, was his long-time mentor and friend. Dr. Jernigan loved to grill meat, and outdoor grilling became a rite of passage for first-time visitors to Federation headquarters in Baltimore. In this article, Dr. Maurer remembers how Dr. Jernigan introduced him to the art and challenge of grilling.
I became a student in the program of rehabilitation at the Iowa Commission for the Blind in 1969. At that time Dr. Kenneth Jernigan served as director of the Iowa Commission, and he had created the most innovative program of its kind in the United States.
A few weeks after I got there, Dr. Jernigan told me that we were going to cook some hamburgers on the grill. He showed the grill to me and handed me a bag of charcoal, inviting me to put some in. Each time I poured some charcoal into the grill, he would check the pile and say, “More.” Soon most of the bag was in the grill.
Then Dr. Jernigan invited me to clean my hands and form hamburgers from a package of meat he had brought. Each time I made a burger he would say, “Use more.” Soon the burgers were enormous!
Dr. Jernigan showed me a cooking rack and asked me to put the burgers in it. Then he asked me to put some lighter fluid on the charcoal. When he thought we had enough, he told me to light it, which I did.
In a short time, a lot of flame was coming out of the grill. Then Dr. Jernigan handed me a pair of welding gloves, instructing me to put them on.
“Now,” he said, “put your hand in the fire.”
I thought he had lost his mind, but he had his own hand in the fire, so I put mine in, too. I discovered that it is possible to put your hand into the middle of a fire if you are wearing a welding glove and if you don't leave your hand there for very long.
After we had placed the cooking rack over the charcoal, we added the burger rack. We cooked the burgers for a few minutes, until Dr. Jernigan instructed me to turn them over. It is easy to turn burgers in a cooking rack without having to turn each one separately.
After a few minutes the burgers were done. They were some of the best I have ever eaten!
Later we experimented with cooking steaks. A fairly gentle fire is good for cooking hamburgers because the grease drips down from them and catches on fire. The grease makes the flame too hot for burgers unless the fire is gentle.
Steaks demand a much hotter fire. They should be sealed on the outside and have a juicy center. The fire does the sealing.
Cooking on a charcoal fire was one of the lessons Dr. Jernigan used to demonstrate the capabilities of blind people. Often we are told that many aspects of life are too dangerous for blind people to approach. Yet these experiences are not dangerous at all if the blind person uses good techniques. I have taught hundreds of people to cook steaks. I still cook burgers on Christmas Eve over a wood fire when a grill is available. A grill is always available at my house.
by Justin Salisbury
From the Editor: Currently Justin Salisbury is a graduate student and graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education at the University of Wisconsin/Madison. He has taught cane travel, Braille, home management, and NFB philosophy classes at residential and nonresidential training centers for the blind. He works to bring the knowledge of the National Federation of the Blind into research, policy, and university training spaces.
Some devices that we might seek out are built especially for the blind. At other times we can adapt a mainstream product and make it nonvisually accessible, adopting principles of universal design. In such cases there are multiple ways of receiving, interacting with, and responding to information that comes from the device. These devices are often sold in places such as the NFB Independence Market, which are geared to blind consumers. However, such products can be used perfectly well by our sighted friends and family members. If these products were sold in mainstream markets and their inaccessible counterparts simply did not exist, we would not even think about them as blindness-specific products.
In my opinion, we tend to overlook products that naturally work for us from the beginning. They are just a normal part of life, and they don't require our further thought.
I learned many wonderful lessons during my training at the Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB). Just over ten years ago I was a student for nine months in the residential adjustment to blindness training program for blind adults. I took all of the classes that were included in the comprehensive training program. No matter how advanced someone is in a particular area, taking all of the classes together creates a symbiotic effect. The learning in one class complements the learning in another, and the knowledge from all of the classes becomes integrated across disciplines. The most important things we learn in training are not the physical techniques but the emotional lessons. Some people call it social and emotional learning.
Nevertheless, alternative techniques may not be obvious to all blind people. We can benefit from sharing these techniques with each other in a forum such as Future Reflections.
As one of the requirements in the home management class at the LCB, I had to learn to cut up a whole chicken. The instructor, who was sighted, told us that when she was first married, she and her husband were very young and did not have much money. They needed to stretch every dollar in order to live as well as possible. Many blind people can relate to this situation, as we are disproportionately economically disadvantaged. It's a good idea for us to acquire skills that can help us avoid spending money unnecessarily. Buying a whole chicken and cutting it up yourself is more economical than buying chicken legs, thighs, or breasts that have already been separated.
I admit that I have never cut up a chicken since the day I had to do it in training. However, that lesson taught me some new ways to think about food preparation. The same principle applied in the industrial arts class, where we learned simple home maintenance techniques, such as how to unclog a drain or fix a toilet. By mastering these skills, we wouldn't have to call a plumber for every little problem. Basic skills can save us money, and they give us choices and control in our lives. I have definitely used the home maintenance skills I learned, and I've been proud to teach them to others.
In the course of my lifetime, drinking espresso has become widely popular in our society. Today you can order espresso at coffee shops such as Dunkin', Starbucks Coffee, and Caribou Coffee much more easily than you could do it twenty years ago. I have lived on two continents and in eleven US states, and I find that coffee shops are springing up in places where they did not exist before.
America runs on coffee, and coffee is big business. Espresso has become a big part of that business, and espresso drinks are expensive. I know a lot of blind people with limited means who somehow manage to allocate the funds to purchase latte, macchiato, cappuccino, cortado, or some other espresso-based drink on a regular basis. I don't fault them for making that choice, but I would like to introduce another option. I would like to share a way for us, as blind people, to make our own espresso. Making espresso for ourselves can save us money and time, and it can give us more freedom of choice.
When I look for a new product that will work for me, I reach out to other blind people and find out what's working for them. This is one of the beautiful benefits of belonging to the National Federation of the Blind. I asked my blind acquaintances to share with me any wisdom they had about making espresso nonvisually. This might sound like an odd request, but allow me to explain why making espresso wasn't working out for me.
Many espresso machines for home use, especially the manual ones, require the user to watch for a light that will signal when the espresso shot is ready. In some cases the user has to look into the cup or miniature carafe and determine visually whether enough espresso has been brewed. In other instances the user has to watch a little gauge, something like some speedometers on cars, for an indication that it's time to turn off the machine. These approaches were not satisfactory for me as a blind person.
Even if I personally have enough vision to use one of these machines, I did not want to depend on my unreliable sight. I wanted to come up with a way to use an espresso machine without having to see it. When I reached out to my fellow blind people, I kept hearing that nobody made their own espresso. A fair number of people even lectured me about how it's not necessary for us to make our own espresso because we can just go to Starbucks and buy it. This notion ran counter to my reason for asking in the first place.
Some folks told me that espresso is only relevant in some obscure cultures. They claimed that it is not part of mainstream America. We're all entitled to our own ideas, but I operate under the assumption that most American adults have heard of a latte.
Finally I shared my dilemma with some coffee-shop employees. I explained various ways that an espresso machine might be nonvisually accessible. Commercial espresso machines are certainly different from the ones people use in their homes, but I figured that coffee-shop employees might understand the issues. Some told me they had heard of or seen an espresso machine that chimed to tell the user when to turn it off. That sounded great! I spent a lot of time looking for such a machine, but to this day I have never found one.
At last I decided to call the customer service lines of some of the big espresso machine manufacturers. I learned that there are manual espresso machines and automatic espresso machines. The automatic machines cost more, but they would allow the user to put the milk, the espresso beans, and the water into the machine; turn it on; and let the machine do everything else. This was certainly a step ahead of where I was, but those automatic machines were expensive. Besides, I wanted to climb to the top of this mountain of figuring out how to make my own espresso.
One conversation with a couple of NFB leaders really broke the door open for me. Grace Pires served as the national representative at a state convention about a year ago, and her husband Rob came with her. Grace is a rehabilitation counselor, and her husband Rob is a rehabilitation teacher. I knew that they both came from Rhode Island, a place where espresso is pretty normalized. I asked them if they knew anything about how a blind person could make espresso. By this time I had asked hundreds of people, and I was almost ready to give up. My conversation with Grace and Rob changed the dynamic of my search.
Grace and Rob had a system. They had a machine that was older than I was, and they still used it every day. They were able to talk me through the process, and they gave me a clear idea of what to look for in a machine.
Now I will describe the machine that I have today and explain how I use it. This machine can be purchased for less than one hundred dollars. If you use it to make one latte every day, it pays for itself in one month!
I have a Capresso 4-Cup Espresso and Cappuccino Machine, model number 303.01. It has one button, which is an on/off toggle switch, a rocker switch. It uses a little carafe that can hold four espresso shots. It has a little basket for espresso beans, a handle that resembles a giant spoon that holds the basket, and a steamer arm-bar. You add the water through a hole in the top. I bought a big bag of espresso beans for five dollars at an Ocean State Job Lot, which is a discount store that, ironically, originated in Rhode Island! This bag of espresso beans lasted me through my entire fall semester.
To get started, I make sure the valve for the steamer arm-bar is completely closed. I twist a knob clockwise, righty tidy, and that valve holds in the pressure of the machine. Later I will use the valve to release the pressure.
Next I take the carafe and measure the amount of water that will match the amount of espresso I want. According to the instructions in the manual, I should fill the carafe all the way and stop the brewing process when I get as much espresso as I want. However, I don't like that technique. I prefer to measure the water while it's cold rather than measuring the espresso while it's hot. This is a blindness technique. I measure the water in the carafe. Usually I fill the carafe halfway, thus making about two espresso shots. I open the cover over the hole in the back of the top face. Then I pour the water from the carafe through a funnel into this little reservoir, and I screw the cap back on over the reservoir's opening. There's a lot of pressure in this cap, but a typical adult has the necessary hand strength to remove it. It's nothing compared to opening a pickle jar!
Then I scoop out the espresso with a spoon and load it into the basket. Next I use a little tool that comes with the machine. It has a little plunger on the end, which I press down into the basket so the espresso is packed very tightly. There are raised markings inside the basket that show me how high to fill it, based on whether I want one, two, three, or four shots of espresso. I did not need to adapt these markings because they were already there for everyone's benefit.
After that I put the basket into the spoon-like holder, and I line it up underneath in front of the espresso machine. I have to put it in with the handle pointing to the left and then twist it to the right to lock it in place. The bar will point outward, directly at me. There's also a lever across the upper front face. When positioned in the middle, the lever allows the machine to brew espresso; when it's positioned to the left, it directs the steam elsewhere in the machine and toward the steamer bar. Moving this lever will later be the first step in ending the espresso brewing process.
I next add the milk that I want in my drink to the carafe. I position the carafe in its place underneath the brewing basket. Adding the milk this way is my personal choice. I like to allow my espresso to brew straight into the milk. Personally, I do not have any need for my drink to be frothed. I know how to do it, but it just doesn't matter to me. Also, I don't want my espresso sitting in the air. The chemical nature of the espresso changes as it reacts to the air exposure. If I brew straight into the milk, it mixes on impact, and the chemical composition of the espresso does not go through the changes that involve sitting in the open. It happens pretty quickly, so being able to brew straight into the milk heads off this chemical reaction. I think it tastes better this way. Try this out if you like, or don't, as you choose.
Anyway, I finally have a device that's ready for brewing. I keep the steam vent arm-bar swung all the way to the right so it sticks out, away from the rest of the espresso machine. When storing the device, a person might choose to put the arm-bar back in, but I leave it swung out all the time. The espresso machine lives on my counter. Underneath that steamer vent and valve, I keep an extra coffee mug to receive all that steam. I plug in the machine and switch it on with the little rocker switch. Then I hear the machine start to heat up. Water in the reservoir will be boiling, and it will be under a lot of pressure. Espresso works based on pressure.
Eventually, I will hear the espresso starting to brew into the carafe. That's a beautiful sound as I stand there, looking forward to my caffeine! As it continues to brew and approaches the point where there is no more water left to brew with, the sound of the machine starts to change. The hiss of steam becomes louder. When the sound changes, I know I'm done. Quickly I push the lever on the front face over to the left, directing the remaining moisture and air to the steamer valve, and press the rocker switch to turn the machine off.
Then, to start depressurizing the device, I reach over to the steam valve knob and start to turn it slowly in a counterclockwise, lefty loosey, direction. The steam starts to come out of the steamer valve and begins depressurizing the machine. I allow it to begin depressurizing. Then, I pick up the carafe and pour into a coffee mug. I enjoy my drink, and later I go back and continue depressurizing the espresso machine. If I need to turn the steamer valve knob any further to the left, or counterclockwise, I continue to do that. Once it is depressurized all the way and the sound disappears, I know I can twist the bar that holds the basket of espresso grounds. Also, I can twist to release the cap in the back of the device. I do not remove the basket or the cap until the steamer valve is completely depressurized. This is very important.
If you want to steam or froth the milk, just put the milk into a mug and put that mug under the steamer valve arm-bar. If you want the milk to be frothed, make sure the tip of the steamer is submerged in the milk. A good nonvisual way to do this is to start with the mug of milk sitting on the counter before beginning the heating process. Then lift it upward while the steam is coming out of the valve. You'll hear and feel the difference when the milk starts frothing. I've heard that the exposed metal of the steamer valve arm-bar gets very hot as all the steam moves through it, but I've never touched it to find out. I have no plan to do so.
The process that I have described here does not have a single visual component. I suppose a sighted person could run through it all visually, but there's nothing about it that is inherently visual. We can do every step of this process as blind people. The device doesn't require any modification. It just involves a few small nonvisual tweaks in the process.
By using this device, I don't have to go out to buy espresso. I can make it in my pajamas, and I save a whole bunch of money! Blindness does not stop me from making my own espresso, and it doesn't have to stop anyone else. I do not propose that I am the first blind person to figure out these techniques or to find this device, but it is important to me to take the time to write about it, to help make this process available to more people. I think it might also be a good idea for those of us who provide instruction to blind people in adjustment-to-blindness training programs to consider including the process of making espresso as part of that instruction. It will help a lot of blind people save money, and it will give us more freedom of choice in our lives.
by Elizabeth Rouse
From the Editor: Elizabeth Rouse graduated from Central College in Iowa in 2020 with degrees in English and theatre. While at Central she worked with other blind students in Iowa to re-establish the Iowa Association of Blind Students. Currently she serves on the board of the NFB’s Performing Arts Division and the National Association of Blind Lawyers, as well as two national committees. Recently she began a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in creative writing through an online university, allowing her to share her stories with the world.
If you had told me when I was ten that I'd grow up not only to learn how to cook independently, but also to love my time in the kitchen, I likely would have given you some sort of dazed and confused expression and rolled my pre-teen eyes. Back then, the only time I spent in the kitchen was when I sat down at the dinner table with my family. Occasionally, I baked with my mom, with the ulterior motive of licking the spatula before I escaped any real responsibility, such as doing dishes. However, in early middle school Chad, my teacher of the visually impaired (TVI), set in motion a journey that would culminate in my preparing a four-dish meal for forty people.
Chad was adamant that cooking was an essential part of independence. Over my protests he managed to convince my parents to incorporate cooking into my Individualized Education Plan (IEP) when I entered middle school. We started small, focusing on things Chad knew I liked to eat, such as smoothies and scrambled eggs. In my memory the main highlight of our time cooking together was finding a mouse in the sink of our school's resource kitchen! My fifth- and sixth-grade science teacher was the only person truly excited by this discovery!
Although Chad was successful in getting me to brave the kitchen during his biweekly visits, I dug in my heels at home. I refused to practice skills that likely would have served me greatly during my undergraduate years. Because my parents are both sighted, I don't think they felt comfortable pushing me to practice nonvisual techniques that they did not use themselves. I remember that watching me load and unload the oven and practice knife skills unnerved my mom to no end. Because she had never seen a blind person operate independently and safely in a kitchen, she didn't know what a little nudging could empower me to do. My foods teacher in high school did her best, too, but I was much more comfortable washing dishes and letting my groupmates handle the actual cooking tasks.
I left for college with the abstract idea that blind people could cook, but without the conviction that cooking was something I myself could do. Luckily, I chose an academic institution that required students to spend all four years living on campus. As a result, I never had to manage my own apartment and cook for myself.
During my freshman year I met and became close friends with two other blind students on campus, Katy and Marissa. Before the year was over, both of these young women left Central to undergo training in nonvisual skills at the Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB). They graduated from the program nine months later as completely new and improved versions of themselves. Through their respective experiences, they showed me how attending the LCB could transform a person's entire life.
The transformation of Katy and Marissa planted a seed that grew in me throughout my college years. Whenever we spent time together, they challenged me to think differently about my blindness in all facets of my life, including my time in the kitchen. We prepared meals together from start to finish—deciding what to cook, making a grocery list, visiting the store, prepping the meal itself, and (of course) cleaning up after we'd eaten. Their independence and self-sufficiency were addictive. By the time I graduated from Central, I knew I wanted everything they'd gained at the LCB.
My time in training looked a bit different from the experience of those who went before me. I attended the LCB in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the quality of my training was still top-notch. I started my days in the woodshop before I headed up to the West Kitchen to round out my morning. Conrad and Cameron, my home management instructors, slowly introduced me to the skills I'd need to complete the program. They began by teaching me to navigate the kitchen safely and create organizational systems to ensure that I grabbed my own materials instead of someone else's.
Later we moved on to harder challenges. I distinctly remember Conrad making me redo a cookie recipe two months into my program because I'd refused to waste time locating a mixer, opting to stir by hand instead. He encouraged me to think systematically when I searched for the mixer. The search involved opening and shutting twenty-three drawers before I could get on with my work. (Yes, I slammed some of those drawers, and yes, I still think the first batch of cookies tasted better!)
While I grew in so many ways during my time at LCB, I think I had some of my greatest epiphanies in the West Kitchen. Conrad encouraged me to learn from my failures instead of allowing them to define me. He showed me that cooking for myself and others could be fun, even when I set off the fire alarm in my apartment. Above all, he served as my friend and mentor. He was someone I could turn to when I felt overwhelmed by the rapid self-growth I was experiencing. I knew that if I messed up or needed to cry, he'd be there with a terrible joke or an amazing recipe he thought I'd enjoy. His guidance, at least in part, pulled me back into the kitchen with a desire to try something new, in spite of the possibility that I wouldn't succeed on my first attempt.
Sadly for me, Conrad left LCB to pursue his MBA in the middle of my training program. While his departure was hard on me, it gave me the opportunity to work with Cameron, another wonderful instructor, who pushed me to achieve even greater and grander things. Cameron is the instructor who assigned me to complete my small- and large-meal challenges at the center. Each of these endeavors required me to prepare a protein, a grain, a vegetable, a dessert, and a beverage entirely from scratch.
I completed my small-meal and large-meal tasks in June of 2021. Part of the challenge was operating on a budget. My organization-driven mind flourished. I wrote out invitations with my slate and stylus, compiled grocery lists, and even chose playlists well in advance of D-Day. Preparing each of these meals proved to be both fun and educational. The reality of constructing my large meal will always be one of my fondest training memories.
Though I dove into the organizational tasks head-first, prepping a meal for forty people is bound to come with some unexpected twists and turns. To begin with, I had to move from the familiar West Kitchen to the East Kitchen, and I had to learn where all the dishes I needed were stored. Then I severely overestimated how much pasta sauce I needed to make. I visited my cane travel instructor's office to complain about sharing space unexpectedly with some students who were new to the center and didn't know enough to stay out of my way. Needless to say, I got ample practice in deep breathing, practicing patience with myself and others, and re-emphasizing the need for flexibility in one's preset plans.
Throughout my prep days, my close friends at the center lifted me up. They provided me with words of encouragement, sat with me while I cut up pound after pound of green beans, and offered to help with whatever clean-up tasks my meal accrued.
On the actual day of my meal, my mom, my aunt, and my mom's best friend, who happens to be my former Foods teacher, arrived in Louisiana to celebrate my accomplishment with me. I think watching me turn my plans into reality helped solidify their belief, as it did my own, that I really did belong in the kitchen. The friends who offered to help with clean-up came through, and I'll forever be grateful for their help. Without it, I might still be there cleaning, almost three years later.
I don't cook as much as I did while I was in training, but I rest easy in the knowledge that I can cook just about anything, confidently and safely. It's likely that I watch more cooking and recipe videos on TikTok than anyone I know. I don't hesitate to bust out my wide array of saved videos when the opportunity presents itself for me to cook for my friends and family. Without Chad starting me on this path and all the guidance and mentorship I received at LCB, I would have let my fear keep me out of the kitchen.
Ten-year-old me can roll her eyes all she wants. I'm glad I was finally brave enough to put on an apron and step up to the stove. I hope my story helps parents and educators see that blind students can accomplish far more than one might expect. Do what you have to do to get us started, even if it's something as simple as letting us lick the spoon!
by Lauren Altman
From the Editor: Lauren Altman currently serves as president of the National Association of Blind Students (NABS). She is studying psychology and special education at Ramapo College of New Jersey. She has a passion for education equity, especially for blind students.
“Oven open.”
“Walking with a plate of food.”
“Alexa, set a yummy yummy brownie timer for twenty minutes.”
These are some of the most common phrases I said during my time in the West Kitchen at the Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB). During my nine months of training at LCB, I made dishes ranging from rice to three-tiered wedding cakes. I learned to conquer my fear of deep frying, charcoal grilling, and using spices other than oregano. I became more comfortable exploring new environments with my hands and challenging myself to take on new projects.
Although I am a far cry from a culinary expert, I grew up learning to cook. My family doesn't make homemade meals very often. Like many others, my parents always worked long hours, so we ate a lot of pasta and hot dogs—both of which are comfort foods. We did most of our serious cooking on holidays and for other special occasions. Whether I was helping my bobbie (my grandmother) cook one of the many dishes that she made for the new year or asking my dad to teach me to make challah French toast yet again, the best thing my family did for me was support me in my eagerness to learn.
Adults often flinch at the idea of a blind child (or adult) using knives or open flames independently, and they'll simply opt not to let them try. The truth is, of course, that those things can be dangerous. For a person (blind or sighted) who doesn't know how to use them, sharp knives and open flames certainly can be unsafe. But when a blind person is given the opportunity to learn to use kitchen equipment, vision doesn't play nearly as big a role as one might think. It exhausts me to see a parent or blindness professional dissuade a child from learning to cook because of the misconceptions they carry. Natural curiosity needs to be fostered safely, and safety and curiosity are not mutually exclusive.
Because I went into training with an understanding of basic kitchen skills, I was able to focus on branching out and trying new types of recipes. One of my favorite projects that I completed during my time at LCB was my small group meal. The task is to make a meal for eight to ten people that includes a drink, a protein, a vegetable, bread, a dessert, and homemade invitations. Inspired by some of the creative meal designs previous students reminisced about, I decided to base my meal around the theme of the board game Clue.
I Brailled out invitations that read as though I was inviting people to a fancy dinner party. Everyone was given a character to play, complete with invented biographical information. For the meal itself we had vegetarian beef Wellington, roasted asparagus, strawberry kiwi water, and turtle brownies. The mood music was a mixture of classical symphonies and horror-movie scores. I had a ton of fun with my meal, and I've since recreated the murder mystery game three times for a club on my college campus.
I loved adding my personality to the projects I took on. Cameron, my ever-patient and fabulous instructor (also known as Professor Peacock), was very supportive of my endeavors. Contrary to what most people might assume, Cameron gave me a lot of space when I was cooking. He would check in every now and then and be right there if I needed help, but I had the freedom to problem solve and trust my own abilities. As in all the other areas of Structured Discovery learning during training, this freedom was very impactful in my ability to apply the information I already knew to new projects.
Sure, I stuck a plastic pan in a hot oven one time, and sure, I spent the next class period researching how to get melted plastic off a wire oven rack! But I promise you, that mistake wasn't caused by my blindness; it was caused by my attempt to make three dishes at once without considering small details such as the composition of the baking sheet I was using.
I would never call any of the classes at LCB particularly easy. However, because I was exposed to cooking at a young age and I had confidence in my abilities in the kitchen, cooking quickly was the class that came easiest to me. Now that I'm no longer in training, I find myself cooking less overall, but I appreciate the comfort of knowing that is by choice. Half of the joy in having cooking skills is having them as a tool in my toolbox, a tool I can pull out whenever I want it. I have the autonomy to decide when I'm going to start on a roux for homemade mac and cheese, when to pull out a box of Wacky Mac, and when to make use of my meal plan.
by Melba Taylor and Jim Papania
From the Editor: In 1936 the US Congress passed the Randolph-Sheppard Act, which established the Business Enterprise Program for the Blind (BEP). To this day BEP provides blind people with the opportunity to own and operate vending and dining facilities on federal property. Over the years the Randolph-Sheppard program has been expanded, and today facilities in most states are included as well.
Some Randolph-Sheppard workers operate shops and vending machines. Others run snack bars, cafeterias, and restaurants at facilities such as courthouses, prisons, and military installations. In this article two Randolph-Sheppard entrepreneurs describe the work they do and the challenges they meet every day.
Melba Taylor began eighteen months of Randolph-Sheppard training in 1997. “The training was very thorough and extensive,” she says. “It covered every aspect of running a business—bookkeeping, hiring and managing employees, following health and safety regulations, and learning every aspect of food preparation.” Her first job under Randolph-Sheppard involved operating a café that served breakfast and lunch to employees at the US Census Bureau.
“Today I'm a government contractor, managing a dining facility for the US military,” Melba explains. “I oversee the preparation of twelve hundred meals a day, every day of the year. I'm quite literally feeding an army.”
Jim Papania is Director of Food and Nutrition Services at the Workforce and Technology Center in Baltimore. The center is under the Maryland Department of Education, Division of Rehabilitation Services. “It's a school for students with physical and emotional disabilities,” he explains.
Melba and Jim each had positive early experiences in the business world. Melba has retinitis pigmentosa (RP), an eye condition that causes progressive vision loss. Her grandmother and her mother had the same condition. Melba learned to cook from her grandmother, who taught her to use techniques that didn't rely on her limited sight. Melba's mother ran a greenhouse, raising flowers and plants for a nearby florist. She encouraged Melba to learn bookkeeping and other management skills.
“My involvement with food preparation goes back to when I was in college,” Jim recalls. “I was majoring in psychology, but I got a job as assistant manager at a chain restaurant called Hardee's. After I graduated I kept on working at Hardee's, even when I got married and started a family.”
Eventually Jim teamed up with a couple of partners and opened a Dairy Queen. He also bought a pizza shop and a full-service dining restaurant, which he passed along to his son.
Jim attended culinary school in the late 1990s, and he got involved with the Business Enterprise Program around the year 2000. In addition to his job at the Workforce and Technology Center, he teaches culinary arts to blind students.
“Some special kitchen tools for the blind are quite helpful,” Jim points out. “Today we can use talking thermometers and talking scales, and most of those tools are very affordable.”
For the most part, however, Jim teaches his students to use mainstream equipment. “My students learn to use all of the equipment available in a commercial kitchen, including the slicer,” he explains. “A blind person can use any piece of equipment in the kitchen, regardless of how much or how little vision they have. The important thing is that they respect the equipment. Actually, culinary schools teach their sighted students to use knives entirely by touch.”
Jim contends that no aspect of cooking inherently requires sight. “You can use touch to tell when eggs or hamburgers are done—you can judge by the firmness. And when you wipe down a countertop, your hands will tell you whether it's clean.”
Timing is also a great help to blind cooks, Jim explains. The cook will know how long it takes to cook a chicken breast or a soufflé at a particular temperature. “If you use a timer,” Jim says, “and if you're careful about the temperature, you won't have a problem.”
Melba oversees forty-seven employees, so most of her job is managerial. “It's all about hiring good people,” she says. “I have a wonderful team, and I have tremendous trust in them.”
Melba spends most of her time placing orders, following supply chains, and attending meeting after meeting. Not too surprisingly, the military has rules and requirements that affect every aspect of the work. “There are even rules about how you clean the floors and run the dishwashing machines,” Melba says. “Step by step we have to follow recipes that the military has approved.”
As far as accommodations are concerned, she uses ZoomText, a screen enlargement program. She turns to human readers when she has to deal with handwritten documents or complex charts and tables.
As supervisor Melba has to know every aspect of the job, from ordering food to cleaning floors. If someone has to miss work on short notice, Melba is prepared to fill in wherever she's needed. “My employees all know that I'm blind,” Melba says, “but many of our customers do not. I know every square foot of our kitchen. Because it is so orderly, I easily find everything I need.”
When the dining hall gets crowded, Melba stands near the front of the line to interact with the customers. It's a chance for her to get to know them and to hear their compliments and complaints. “I'm always glad to hear ideas about how we can make our service better,” she says, “and it's very rewarding when people tell me we're doing a good job. That makes all the work worthwhile.”
Cooking is not entirely free from hazards. “I’ve been cooking professionally for fifty years,” Jim says, “and it's true, I've been burned a few times. It happens to all commercial cooks at one time or another, whether they're blind or sighted. If you have a burn scar, we call it ‘the Mark of the Dragon.’”
Like Melba, Jim emphasizes the importance of organization in a commercial kitchen. “Always put your utensils in the same place. Keep your knives in a knife block or a rack on the wall. It's frustrating dealing with a lot of my employees. They don't always respect my sense of order. Their attitude is, ‘Find a drawer, shove it in.’ That doesn't work for anybody! In commercial cooking, speed is of the essence. You don't want to waste ten minutes hunting for a spatula!”
Jim handles about seventy-five percent of the cooking for the students and staff at the Workforce and Technology Center. As manager he sets the tone for the establishment. “It's not often that anyone questions my ability due to my low vision,” he says. “When someone comes into my kitchen, they see me as capable; I'm the guy in charge. The same was true when I worked at Hardee's and when I made pizza.”
Jim strongly encourages blind people to get involved with the Business Enterprise Program. “They train you, and they believe in your abilities. A lot of us have picked up fears and negative attitudes from the sighted people in our lives. We've heard so many messages about all the things we can't do that we begin to believe we're helpless. I want to show my students that we're fully capable of working in food service at every level. In the Business Enterprise Program we get the chance to step up to the challenge.”
by Maureen Nietfeld
From the Editor: Maureen Nietfeld describes herself as a person with multiple disabilities. She is Director of Student Services at the Colorado Center for the Blind, a position she has held since April of 2020. She serves as second vice president of the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado and president of the NFB of Colorado's Denver Chapter. She and her husband David have a five-year-old son, Logan. Maureen is active in Colorado's Blind Parents Division, and she says being a mom is her absolutely favorite thing.
After I went blind from a rare genetic disease called Von Hippel Lindau syndrome, I had zero confidence, no blindness skills, and abysmally low expectations for myself. In 2009, hoping to get my life back on track, I decided to attend the Colorado Center for the Blind (CCB) to learn how to live as a blind person. I was very nervous about taking this major step, but the Center transformed my life.
Most of the instructors at the CCB were blind, and they served as wise and patient role models. My blind instructors instilled me with the knowledge that blindness techniques were practical, safe, and effective. I got excited about the idea of working in the blindness field myself.
In 2010 I was offered a job at the Colorado Center for the Blind as a home management instructor, a position I held for close to nine years. It was incredibly rewarding to watch people's progress, to see the growth in each person during their time at the Center. I felt honored to work with so many people from all over the world and to be a part of their journey as they gained their independence.
One of my most treasured experiences was working with a student I will call Anna. When Anna arrived at the Center, she already had fabulous skills in Braille and access technology. However, she had very limited experience with cane travel and home management. Anna had no experience at all with cleaning or cooking. In fact, she had never even used a microwave.
We dove right into training, starting with the very basics such as pouring drinks. We prepared hot drinks such as cocoa, and we used the microwave to heat up frozen meals. We made sandwiches, and we used the toaster to heat waffles and bagels.
At the Colorado Center for the Blind, we use the Structured Discovery method of teaching. All along as we worked on these tasks, we explored our environment and worked on problem-solving. We focused on cleaning techniques as we went along. We always discussed how we would transfer these skills to other environments and other tasks.
As I worked with Anna I noticed immediately that she was a sponge. It was clear that these skills weren't already part of her life because she simply wasn't given the opportunity to try them out. Anna quickly moved on to preparing more complex meals. She went grocery shopping independently, and she made it very evident that she was quickly gaining the ability to live on her own.
At the CCB one of the requirements is that students prepare a “mini meal” for fifteen guests. Students need to plan every aspect of this project. The mini meal is usually completed around the midpoint of a student's program, which means they have been at the Center for about five months. Anna prepared a wonderful blackened chicken over fettuccine with a homemade Alfredo sauce, garlic bread, and dessert. In just five months, she went from never using a microwave to cooking a complex meal for fifteen people! The meal went off flawlessly, and she needed almost no assistance from me.
When students are ready to graduate from the Colorado Center for the Blind, they prepare and serve a meal for sixty people. Anna made chicken tortilla soup, a black bean salad, and key lime pie, all from scratch. I remember walking into the kitchen to check on her. She was preparing her key lime pie like an expert. I said, “Well, you don't need me anymore.” That's exactly what I hope to say to every student when they graduate from the Colorado Center for the Blind.
I really learned so much from working with Anna! The most important thing I learned from her was that blind kids need the opportunity, the space, and the freedom to get in there and cook and clean and learn just as sighted kids do. Anna made the decision to receive training at the CCB because, as a student in college, she was really struggling because she didn't have the skills to live independently.
Too often people think that blindness is a barrier to being able to learn the skills of home management. At the CCB we know that is not the case. If you are a parent and you think your sighted ten-year-old should be able to prepare their own breakfast and make their bed, then your blind child should be doing those things, too. We need to set our expectations high so our blind kids are prepared for a future of independence, confidence, and success.
by Cameron Loehr
From the Editor: It is all too common for sighted adults to discourage blind children from helping out in the kitchen. The blind child is likely to absorb the adults’ anxieties, concluding that the kitchen is a scary and dangerous place. In this article Cameron Loehr recounts how, with his father's help, he overcame his fears and developed a passion for cooking.
I'm an instructor in daily living skills at the Louisiana Center for the Blind in Ruston, Louisiana. One might find it hard to believe that I, who once feared the kitchen, now teach others the art of cooking.
Growing up as a blind child, I was seldom allowed to be in the kitchen. I was never asked to help out when my grandmother or my father cooked. Even when I reached my teens, they gently pushed me out of the kitchen or shooed me away from the grill. While everybody else was preparing food for family functions, I was sent off to supervise the younger children. Over time these experiences filled me with anxiety and fear about being in the kitchen, a place that was wholly unfamiliar to me.
Then, when I was sixteen, my dad realized I should learn to cook for myself so I'd be prepared when I eventually moved out on my own. That summer Dad spent nearly every evening instructing me on how to cook and introducing me to a variety of family recipes. I didn't enjoy it at first. I thought I had better things to do with my time.
Learning to cook was definitely not easy, and I made plenty of mistakes along the way. Once, when my dad was teaching me to make fried chicken, I mistook the powdered sugar for flour. The chicken certainly didn't taste right, and the sugar really didn't stick to it. My dad quickly figured out my mistake and laughed it off. That night we had sandwiches for dinner.
I discovered that I enjoyed cooking when other people enjoyed my food, so I kept going. A few years later I lost my dad to illness. Cooking became a way for me to honor his memory and preserve our family recipes.
When I was in my early twenties I started to lose my remaining vision. I needed to learn to cook entirely without vision. I enrolled at the Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB) and completed intensive training in blindness skills. I regained the skills I'd previously learned when I had limited vision, and I built upon those skills using nonvisual methods.
My self-confidence soared as I recreated dishes I'd once made using my limited sight. I dove into cooking dishes I had never prepared when I had some usable vision. I even ventured into baking, an area that had always intimidated me. The first time I baked chocolate-chip cookies from scratch, I found that I could tell when they were done by checking their texture when they came out of the oven. Baking cookies was a huge confidence booster for me!
After I completed the training program at LCB, I knew that the cooking skills and dishes my dad had taught me would not disappear. I could continue to share those dishes with my family.
My passion for cooking grew as I began working as an instructor in daily living skills and when I became a parent. My child is now five, and she is also blind. Already I have begun getting my kid to help in the kitchen. Right now her jobs are to pour ingredients, throw away trash, mix stuff together, and cut up fruit if needed. My goal is for her to feel comfortable in the kitchen, for the kitchen to be the heart of the home. I want her never to know the feeling that the kitchen is a strange and scary place because it's unfamiliar to her. I want us to share the bond that I once had with my own father.
Cooking has become more than just a hobby for me. It is a way for me to connect with others, preserve traditions, and create lasting memories.
by Serena Olsen
From the Editor: Serena Olsen loves the artisan bread baking class she's taking, and she is actively looking for work as a culinary professional. She aims to improve her sourdough skills and up her cupcake game. She stays busy with volunteer work in her community, focusing on food and natural resources. She believes that most of the world's problems can be solved through more love, feeding people, and planting trees. Currently Serena serves on the board of the San Francisco Chapter of the NFB of California. You can learn more about Serena and her work by following her blog at https://itstartswithquiche.com.
“You should work with blind people,” so many people have told me along the path of my career development. Indeed, they continue to press this idea upon me to this day. And so I did. Working with blind people was the path of least resistance, and I could justify its relevance to my graduate work in International Policy and Nonprofit Management. However, my younger, aspirational self wasn't interested in teaching anything to blind people. I was learning to be a confident blind person myself so I could step out into the world and make my own choices. Teaching other blind people is just the path that well-intentioned, nondisabled people expect blind people to follow, quite possibly for their own comfort. The message seems to be: you belong over there; then I won't have to deal with you over here.
After I left graduate school I did become a blindness professional for many years. The career choice was an easy fit for me, drawing upon my own growth into the competent blind person I am today, thanks to the National Federation of the Blind.
I was the first person in my family to go to college. I was a struggling low-vision student at Santa Barbara City College when the internet started to take off. A chance encounter with the California Department of Rehabilitation got equipment into my apartment and brought me a connection to the Worldwide Web. I searched for scholarships, as any starving student would do, and I found the NFB. Thanks to the savvy recruiting practices of our state student division, I went to my first convention, Atlanta 2004. My life would never be the same.
I wanted to live the expatriate dream, doing community-based work as a development professional. I was a linguist interested in language policy. I was passionate about the plight of child soldiers, the trade in small arms and light weapons, poverty, women's empowerment, and the rights of children. But people kept telling me, “You'd be really great at working with blind people.”
Indeed, it was other competent and successful blind people working in nonprofit agencies serving the blind who were willing to hire me and give me a chance. Still, I had a nagging, a tugging sense that I'd drifted in my ambitions. The tension is real, for who is better equipped to serve the blind than competent, successful blind people? Yet, the necessity for us to continue pushing into nondisabled spaces, where we belong yet where we are often marginalized, is a powerful gravitational force.
Around 2012, things aligned for me to pursue a dream I'd had since I was a teenager: to serve in the United States Peace Corps. In the spring of 2014 I departed for service in the Kyrgyz Republic, deep in the heart of Central Asia. Thanks to the soft bigotry of low expectations and hard-to-prove discrimination in the placement process, I'd reverse engineered my assignment, networking my way to some folks in Bishkek who were building a Federation-based training center. I was still working with blind people, but this time it was in a context I was sure would be a pivot toward my goals in international development.
Finally I was living my expatriate dream, only to find that this life wasn't the fit I'd thought it would be. Years of career dreams and goals seemed to vaporize, and I was sitting with the great chasm of an unknown future before me. It was a pickle, a jam indeed, to find myself middle-aged, sitting with the career goal I'd been working toward for years, yet never feeling so adrift.
And I went into the kitchen.
I didn't grow up with an obvious culinary background. I could barely cook for myself as a newly liberated young adult. It wasn't for lack of blindness skills. I was just culinarily inexperienced. Then a dear girlfriend from my early Santa Barbara days planted the magic seeds. She showed me not only how good food can be and how to make it. Beyond that, she taught me about the vital role that food plays as social glue. By the time I moved to the Bay Area to launch my career in 2010, I was solidly on the foodie path. I dove into wine tastings and got to know other people who loved the food experience. I had my first taste of steak tartare and foie gras. I loved to eat, and I loved to cook.
Then, when I got to Kyrgyzstan, I spent most of my first year living with host families. They did all the cooking, despite my best efforts to insert myself into family food preparation or even to cook for myself. Between language and cultural variables, the ongoing construction in the tiny, crowded house where I lived, and various other logistical issues, feeding myself felt like an uphill battle. In fact, for a short time, I barely ate at all and lost a dangerous amount of weight.
For a number of reasons, the Peace Corps determined that I should move out of my host family's house into my own apartment on the south side of town. My apartment was right across the street from the best bazaar in all of Bishkek. This independence was exactly what I needed in order to flourish in my Peace Corps experience.
The trolley into my neighborhood dropped me on one side of the bazaar, and I traveled a winding path among the stalls. I gathered needed groceries from the friendly vendors I was getting to know. I sharpened my language skills bantering over pleasantries, inquiring about that day's offerings, navigating transactions, and inquiring about offerings in other areas of the bazaar. I bought milk by the liter in a plastic bag for making a fermented drink called kefir. I condensed milk in my rice cooker to make the instant NesCafé I drank every day a little more palatable. Produce was plentiful year-round in Bishkek, providing plenty of opportunity for me to shop around. Nevertheless, I went back to the same stall again and again because the folks there were playful and fun to talk to.
I always went to the same grain guy for buckwheat because he was kind and inquisitive. Buckwheat tasted like cardboard, though it was cheap and full of protein and iron. I shopped around a lot for peanuts and raisins for snacking. They were on the expensive side, but I learned to buy from the more expensive sellers; the cheaper options often came with surprise little clods of dirt that weren't pleasant to chomp on. Finally, if I had a hand free to carry them very carefully, eggs nestled delicately in a plastic bag from a little free-standing structure near the place where I exited to cross the street to my apartment.
With regular consultation and support from my language tutor, I had the best kefir culture blooming in my apartment, despite cold temperatures. I made jams and flavorful Kyrgyz condiments, and I learned the ins and outs of traditional Kyrgyz food preparation techniques. I bought salt, vegetable oil, and precious lemons to indulge myself in a bath scrub, and I used the lemon peel to make limoncello, a vodka-based liqueur. I made jars and jars of refrigerator pickles. I made the traditional kosher style pickle with the abundant summer cucumbers, and created salads of shredded cabbage, carrot, and onion—vegetables that were affordable, healthy and usually abundant.
Every time I was avoiding responsibility or simply decompressing, I was in my cramped, very sparsely appointed kitchen, playing with food. I brainstormed what my next steps were going to be, usually running them by the pigeon that hung out on the ledge outside my fourth-floor kitchen window; I affectionately referred to him as my neighbor. I was in a jam; I was in a pickle; and out came more jams and pickles, of a delightful and edible sort. Life gave me some lemons, and I made limoncello. I was middle-aged and single, and I felt I had no career. It was a bleak feeling, yet at the same time I felt the vast expanse of open possibilities that lay before me. I had a clean slate upon which I could emboss any future of my choosing.
Then Sterling, a fellow volunteer, came into my kitchen on a layover to another province with a few other fellow volunteers, and he started cooking and cleaning. I was smitten. When he left me with a plastic water bottle full of the rum he'd acquired at the bazaar for our burrito party the night before, I promptly poured it over raisins.
To find myself again, I planned to attend a yoga retreat of unknown duration in India after my Peace Corps service. Instead I brought this boy from Missouri back to California with me. We married, bought a home, and adopted two very anxious and adorable cats. We share in all the cooking and cleaning, experiment with food projects of all kinds, and enjoy lots of tasting adventures.
I went back to working with blind people. This time I got to do all the fun stuff—managing social and recreational programs, building community. Not surprisingly, I put food at the center of my work.
In the upheaval that was 2020, my slate was again wiped clean. I began to rebuild from a little blog project I'd launched at the beginning of 2019, “It Starts with Quiche.” I began to take a deep dive on this long journey I've had with food and how it connects to happiness. I jumped at an opportunity to take culinary arts classes at a local community college. I was already committed to pivoting into culinary endeavors, though I wasn't entirely certain what that would look like. I still had lingering uncertainties about how and where I'd be able to insert myself, not only into nondisabled spaces, but into spaces full of hot things and sharp things and low expectations about the appropriateness of blind people being in the kitchen.
Laney College Culinary Arts has given me a test lab to figure out what working in a commercial kitchen really will be like. As one might expect, it's hot, fast, and noisy. I started on the savory side, the program that focuses on restaurant kitchen work and management. In my second semester, I took a baking class on the pastry side as an elective, and I fell in love. On the savory side, knife skills are fundamental, and despite lots of practice, I still struggle there. It's not necessarily a blindness thing, but making precise, restaurant-quality knife cuts and doing it quickly is a legitimate challenge. Try cutting carrot matchsticks that are exactly two inches long and 1/16 inch square, or slicing an inch of carrot into sixteen even slices. Or just consider cutting round things into squares with minimal trim. You've got to do a lot of that, too, and swiftly! In addition to the knife work, another challenge I struggled with in my savory classes is that a lot of the work is on the stovetop. I'm working right under a commercial oven hood that is whirring away, effectively cutting in on my sense of hearing, which I use a lot in my home kitchen to follow the progress of my cooking. I completed my savory classes successfully and got A’s. I definitely learned a lot about the culinary profession, though finding a position I can truly enjoy and excel at in a commercial kitchen will be tricky.
In the baking lab, on the other hand, there is much less knife work and much less noise. Baking feels less complicated in some ways, and it allows me to focus on the tasks at hand. While complicated in its own right, making baked goods is somehow more straightforward than whipping up a serving or two of a complicated fine dining plate.
Meanwhile the planets have aligned for me to lean hard into my job search and return to full-time work. While I stay enrolled part-time in Laney College baking classes for professional development, I'm deep in all the trappings of an employment search. I'm writing cover letters, preparing resumés, filling out applications, networking, and doing research. This time I'm taking the leap into a relatively unknown space, the world of a culinary professional. Fortunately, I've been well trained in Structured Discovery. I'm gathering lots of information. I'm problem solving my way through new territory, getting lost and found, and trusting my skills and my network. Bring on more jams and pickles!
I still hear about how great I'd be at working with blind people. I hear it from instructors at Laney and from my job coach. There's a double-edged sword here; there's no one better equipped to teach a blind person than a competent, successful blind person. Yet we belong in mainstream spaces, too. Working with blind people does not have to be our place. It is a noble profession, to which I owe much of my success and to which I have given and continue to give back. There is also much to be gained, for myself and for my blind peers, by stepping outside of this box. There will be much to surmount in this endeavor. Thanks to the problem-solving and self-advocacy skills I've acquired and honed over the years with help from the Federation, I am taking the challenge on gladly. I have a tremendous community of support, and I look forward to reporting from a hot oven somewhere with an armful of pastries and artisan breads.
by Christine Ha
From the Editor: In 2012 Christine Ha vaulted to fame when she won the MasterChef competition, hosted by Gordon Ramsay on the Fox TV network. Her triumph reverberated throughout the blind community, as she was the first blind chef ever to earn such acclaim. Over the past fourteen years Christine went on to publish a successful cookbook and to open two Asian restaurants. I am deeply appreciative that she made time in her busy schedule to contribute this article to Future Reflections.
I was born in Los Angeles, California. My parents were Vietnamese refugees who escaped Vietnam the day before the Fall of Saigon. Soon after I was born, they moved to Houston for my dad's work. I grew up in Houston, and I have lived most of my life in Texas.
I grew up eating a lot of delicious home-cooked Vietnamese food. Sadly, my mom died when I was fourteen, and I never learned to cook from her. Finally I started teaching myself to cook when I was a student at the University of Texas in Austin.
After my freshman year in college, I moved out of the dorms and found myself in an apartment with a little kitchen. I figured I had to learn to cook in order to eat, since I no longer could rely upon the dorm cafeteria. I bought a couple of Asian cookbooks and tried to replicate the flavors I recalled from when I was growing up. As a cook I am completely self-taught, and it took a lot of trial and error.
In 1999, when I was twenty years old, I began to experience blurred vision and a variety of other symptoms. The doctors thought I had multiple sclerosis (MS), but eventually I was diagnosed with a condition called neuromyelitis optica (NMO). NMO attacks the optic nerves and nerves in the spinal cord, so it can cause vision loss, numbness, tingling, and even paralysis. For a time I was paralyzed from the neck down. Fortunately medications, physical therapy, and occupational therapy helped control most of my symptoms, but I had to accept that my vision loss was permanent.
I received training in blindness skills from the Texas Vocational Rehabilitation program and Lighthouse for the Blind in Houston, and that was very helpful. Even with training, however, it took some time for me to rebuild my confidence in the kitchen. After I lost my sight, I had to learn everything again, from knife skills to how to work with fire. I took small steps—one day I finally was able to make a cold sandwich; a week later, I could somewhat scramble eggs. I got better at doing things the more I tried. Each accomplishment gave me confidence to try the next challenge in the kitchen. I learned to depend on my remaining four senses, and of course I added a few adaptive tools. I put raised bump-dot stickers on my stove and my oven and added Braille to label my spices.
I've always been a very organized person, and that helped make the transition relatively easy for me. My kitchen is extremely organized, so I know where everything is without relying on sight.
I was studying creative writing in graduate school at the University of Houston when I had the opportunity to audition for MasterChef. As a writer, I try to experience as many things in life as possible in order to fuel my creativity. I thought going on the show would be an interesting experience to draw upon. Maybe it would inspire me to write an entertaining short story or a humorous personal essay. My friends and my husband encouraged me to go for it. They said that the nation needs to see how a blind person still can cook independently.
The MasterChef producers wanted to make the competition fair for me. They provided adaptive kitchen tools and put raised bump-dot stickers on the stove. They got me talking thermometers and scales.
The producers also provided me with a sighted assistant. However, they drew up strict rules to make sure my assistant didn't offer me any unfair advantages. Lawyers from the network were on set, listening in on our mics to observe how we communicated. I was not allowed to ask my assistant to taste or touch my food. I only could ask objective questions such as, “What is the color of the meat in my pan?” If she replied red, brown, or black, I could deduce that it was raw, cooked, or burnt. If I asked her to run to the pantry and grab me a stand mixer, I had to step back from my cook station and not touch anything, even if it was on fire. My assistant was considered an extension of me, so if she was in the pantry grabbing a mixer, then it was as though I were in the pantry and away from my station.
A majority of the viewers were rooting for me and wanted me to win. I received an overwhelming amount of support. Of course, there will always be naysayers. Some people trolled me online and claimed I was faking my vision impairment. Some insisted that I had an advantage because I had a sighted guide.
The MasterChef championship brought me a cash prize of $250,000 and the chance to publish a cookbook. Recipes from My Home Kitchen: Asian and American Comfort Food from the Winner of MasterChef Season 3, was published in 2013 by Rodale, and the book was a New York Times bestseller.
I've been given a lot of great opportunities, and I'm very grateful for all of them. In 2019, I opened my first restaurant. Because it's a modern Vietnamese restaurant, I wanted to put a Vietnamese twist on the name. I was born in the Year of the Goat in the Vietnamese zodiac, and I'm known as the blind cook online. Thus the name The Blind Goat was born. In 2020 the James Beard Foundation selected The Blind Goat as a semifinalist for Best New Restaurant in America.
Over the years I have worked with various blindness organizations. My activities include teaching blind and low-vision students to cook and advocating for the blind at the United Nations. I've attended fundraisers and galas for all sorts of nonprofits in the blind and low-vision community.
For those with vision impairment who want to learn to cook I have several suggestions.
1) Celebrate the small victories. Begin with baby steps, and one day you'll think back and realize you've made progress. Perhaps you acquired a skill today that you didn't have yesterday, or a week ago, or a year ago.
2) Embrace your mistakes. That's how you learn. Failure is not always something to be viewed negatively. It's what you learn from it and how it propels you to move forward that's key.
To learn more about Christine Ha, visit her webpage at www.theblindcook.com. Her social media handle is @theblindcook.
by Regina Mitchell
From the Editor: Regina Mitchell studied for two years at the Seattle Culinary Academy. Later, under an eighteen-month fellowship, she trained with master chefs in Edinburgh, London, Paris, Barcelona, and Rome. Back in the US, she provided restaurant-style service in the homes of elite clients.
After she lost most of her sight due to the onset of lupus, Regina enrolled at the University of Nevada/Las Vegas. She received a National Federation of the Blind Scholarship in 2017. During the COVID-19 pandemic she began to teach cooking classes to blind people over Zoom. In many venues she continues to share her passion for cooking with blind people of all ages.
I was in the midst of a flourishing career, cooking for celebrities and high-end CEOs, when I lost most of my vision due to an autoimmune disease called lupus. Although I had lost my sight, I never lost my passion for all things culinary. I realized that many blind people are fearful about cooking because they have never been given the opportunity to get hands-on experience in the kitchen.
During the COVID-19 pandemic I began to teach cooking classes to blind adults and children over Zoom. With Zoom geography is no limit; the platform allows me to work with people anywhere in the country. My students come to class with the ingredients and the equipment they need, and we go through our recipe step by step.
After my vision loss I went for training in blindness skills at BlindConnect, a blindness rehabilitation program in Las Vegas. Today I'm the chef instructor for two BlindConnect programs.
At BlindConnect I teach as part of a ninety-hour program for adults who are dealing with recent vision loss. Before graduation the students have to cook a meal for six to eight people. Each member of the class chooses to prepare a particular dish, such as a salad or an entree. Once the meal is prepared, the students gather to eat and participate in a class on etiquette.
I come in toward the end of the students' training and help them hone their blindness skills in the kitchen. One of the coaches commented to me, “I can teach them the mom stuff, but you can take them to a higher level.” Actually, though, sometimes I teach them basic techniques, such as the best nonvisual way to wipe down a counter.
If we have a class of six students, I work with three on one day and with the remaining three on another day. By splitting up the class, I can spend more one-on-one time with each student.
I find that students need help in several areas. Knife placement is one area I emphasize. A lot of students are inclined to drop their knives into the sink. They're very surprised when I tell them that's not the way to do it! I teach them to tuck the knife under the cutting board or to wash it and put it away. Also I teach the students to put a paper towel under the cutting board to keep it from sliding around.
We also work on the use of small appliances such as handheld mixers, choppers, and can-openers. After all, you can't always buy a can with a pull top! A lot of less common gadgets also can help in the kitchen. For instance, I like to use a garlic press.
As a professional chef I often find myself having to wind back, to realize that techniques I take for granted are not everyday knowledge. In addition, I was a sighted person when I learned to cook, and I'm always discovering things that a blind person might not know. I can't take anything for granted.
Not every information gap is related to blindness, of course. I find that many of my students didn't know much about cooking, even when they were fully sighted. We live in a fast-food society. To a lot of people, cooking means popping food into a microwave. Our food is pre-packaged or delivered to our doors.
One of the simple techniques I teach is how to spread butter or garlic butter onto a slice of bread. Some people start on one edge and spread toward the center. Actually, the most effective technique is to put the pat of butter at the center of the slice and spread it toward the edges. The same holds true of pizza sauce when you're making pizza.
My own visual acuity is waning, and as time goes by, I find myself becoming more and more tactile in the kitchen. I was fully sighted when I bought my house, and I love the look of black marble. Now, though, my black marble countertops are a nemesis! I can't find anything visually! If I look with my hands, though, the color of the surface doesn't matter a bit. Most of my students are going through the process of losing vision and adapting to that reality.
I know that some of my students are not very likely to use the skills I teach them. When they go home their spouses or their parents will cook for them again. But if they need cooking skills, they'll have them. If they wish to do so, they'll be able to cook something delightful for themselves and for others. I find that when people choose to cook something, they're passionate about that choice. I encourage students to choose a dish they really like. Maybe they want to learn how to make a vinaigrette dressing for a salad. Maybe they want the fun of baking cookies. Even if a person is using pre-made cookie dough, they still need to learn to grease the cookie sheet and use their hands to measure how far apart to arrange the balls of dough.
When we plan our meal at BlindConnect, people's choices range from basic dishes to dishes that are very complex. One of my students made an African peanut stew. Someone else made a Filipino chicken adobo. I encourage them to try whatever they choose.
Through BlindConnect I also train BEN operators. BEN stands for Business Enterprise of Nevada, which is a program authorized under the Randolph-Sheppard Act. The act allows licensed blind and low-vision entrepreneurs to operate a business in the state, particularly in food service. I do the training that is required under the state program. It's a real honor! Over the past two years I have trained several operators so that they can become eligible to own their own establishments. I'm very happy that I can help prepare them for success!
I teach students in the BEN program to use the kitchen on a professional level. It's quite different from working with a home cook. I can draw upon all my professional experience and show them the skills they truly need. Cooking skills aren't optional in this business! The students need blindness skills, of course, but they also need to master health codes and kitchen safety.
Students in the program need to answer a number of questions. What dishes will you have on the menu? What will your food costs be, and how much do you want to charge? I work with the students for fifteen hours, and then they go through another sixty hours of training to become eligible for state licensing.
The sixty hours of training is called community-based assessment. We call it a pop-up café. The students create their own menus, and they itemize and estimate their costs. They're given a budget, and they go shopping. They do the pop-up café at BlindConnect, and they actually cook for the students there. The students can pay for the meal, which is a way for the entrepreneur in training to learn about accepting money and giving back change. They can calculate whether they have a profit—they don't always have one.
I do an assessment of their time in the kitchen. I look at their leadership skills, their punctuality, cleanliness, and organization. They work three days a week, six or seven hours a day. They also spend time on menu development, shopping, and orientation and mobility. When they cook I keep them on task. I monitor their organization and make sure they follow the protocol and safety measures.
At the end of the session we go over everything the students have learned. We itemize their food costs and all their other expenses. Finally I send my assessment to vocational rehabilitation, and the students move on to the next level of training. It's a very intense program!
Another project I'm working on involves the Independence Market at the NFB headquarters. Some people don't cook because they don't have the tools they need. We're putting together kits people can buy when they want to get started in the kitchen. We're creating kits around specific themes: a beginner's kit, a baker's kit, and a culinary kit. Each kit will contain five devices.
NFB also is working to find accessible countertop devices. We're working with various appliance brands to encourage greater accessibility. We hear a lot of complaints from blind people who have found that one appliance or another is not accessible. We want people to tell us about appliances and gadgets that actually work well for them. We can take that information to companies and say, “This works! We need more products that include these elements.”
Two years ago I demonstrated accessible equipment at the NFB National Convention. The room held about sixty people, and it was bulging at the seams! Last year they gave me a room double that size, and it was packed! Today many kitchen devices have inaccessible touch screens. Clearly blind consumers are very interested in finding kitchen equipment they can use.
Of course, accessibility is only one aspect of any cooking equipment. We also want to be sure that the equipment is a quality item that does what we want it to do, whether it's making toast, warming up pizza, or steaming rice.
Last summer I held some Zoom classes sponsored by the NOPBC (National Organization of Parents of Blind Children). I found that the children were a lot more daring in the kitchen than some of the adults I've taught! They were very open to taking part in a cooking class. The kids cooked along with me—peeling potatoes, making meatballs and sauces, boiling pasta, melting chocolate. They chose what they wanted to cook, and the most elaborate item they asked to make was a chocolate lava cake. It was so much fun to see their excitement! During our sessions the parents only came in at certain moments, such as taking food out of the oven.
These blind kids are the new generation. They won't face the obstacles that blind cooks have dealt with in the past. They want to eat yummy food, and they want to cook it themselves. I'm extremely proud of them!
These NOPBC parents understand that their children have real potential. They're on board with the program when it comes to teaching their kids to cook. They want their blind children to advance in cooking, just as they want them to advance in their use of technology and their ability to travel independently. They're learning along with their kids—it becomes a family project.
My next goal is to host an online cooking class for adults. I'll cook and people can observe me. I want to open the class to everyone, blind and sighted alike. As long as I verbalize clearly everything I'm doing, classes don't have to be separate. Everybody can learn together.
I also teach one-on-one cooking classes. I've taught blind couples and couples where one spouse is blind and the other is sighted. I'm working with a premarital couple next week, and I've done several young women's cooking classes. I love teaching, and I love having people cook along with me!
You can learn more about Regina Mitchell and her work at yourfriendinthekitchen.com.
An earlier article in Future Reflections can be found at https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/fr/fr42/1/fr420103.htm.
by Eileen Rivera Ley
From the Editor: Eileen Rivera Ley graduated from Harvard University and the Wharton School of Business, where she learned the fine points of communication in the business world. She first met the Federation when she won an NFB National Scholarship in 1986. For many years she served as editor of the NFB’s publication Voice of the Diabetic.
Eileen Rivera Ley and her late husband, Tom Ley, who was a blind IT manager at UPS, recognized that blind people are at times challenged when it comes to navigating social settings. As innovative entrepreneurs they founded Blind Savvy USA to teach blind people skills that enhance community and professional engagement. All over the country, Blind Savvy conducts workshops that introduce blind people of all ages the nuances of networking, conversation, dining, etiquette, and more.
At Blind Savvy USA, helping blind people is our mission. We work on the premise that, by teaching essential life skills, we are making a real difference in people's lives.
Throughout our career journeys and our advocacy work with the Federation, my husband Tom and I had wonderful opportunities to network and collaborate, often during receptions and over meals. We realized that many blind people don't have practice navigating these social settings. Eventually we founded our company to provide workshops to train blind people in these crucial areas.
I grew up in a family of seven children. Three of us were blind, my sisters Millie, Suzanne, and me. We were rather poor, but we didn’t know it. Like most Puerto Rican families we subsisted on rice and beans, eaten with a fork or spoon. We rarely had meat that we would need to cut up. We never went to restaurants or other settings where we could observe people using knives and forks. As blind children, we also missed visual cues about table manners.
When I was five years old our dad used to say, “Keep your elbows off the table!” That admonition made me aware of table manners for the first time. My siblings and I were very competitive, and we worked hard to sit up properly at mealtimes. We always ate dinner together and were encouraged to practice our conversational and listening skills.
In the past, blind and low-vision children were typically encouraged to use their fingers or to hunch forward to figure out what was on their plates. But there is a better way to manage meals. Through our Blind Savvy workshops, we work on truly practical skills such as examining our plate nonvisually by using our knife and fork in the Continental style of dining and finding our beverage without toppling our water glass. In addition, we problem solve those minor catastrophes and blindness bloopers such as forking a lemon wedge into our mouths or managing an extraordinarily long piece of pasta.
One thing I had to learn as an adult was the correct way to hold a spoon or fork. A lot of blind kids hold silverware by wrapping the palm of their hand over the handle. Regrettably, we often find blind adults using this childlike technique. The palm is on top, and they use the fork to shovel the food in. They are never challenged to practice using a more graceful technique.
Parents, who are naturally protective, are too often tempted to cut up food for their blind children. Frequently they have so much on their minds that they can't make table manners a priority. They're focused on securing Braille instruction and orientation and mobility training for their kids. They're arranging transportation to appointments and after-school activities. They're handling family problems and dealing with issues at work. Parents simply don't have the bandwidth to focus on their child's table manners. They may not recognize the importance of social integration. Parents understandably become accustomed to the way their kids eat, and practicing table manners never gets onto the to-do list.
When I grew up I moved out into the wider world to go to college. I ate with enough other people that eventually I realized that proper manners made a difference. Some people were fun to dine with, and some people were not, either because of their table manners or their conversation skills. I discovered that most professional and personal relationships begin over food. Eating is a foundational aspect of how we connect with other people. I wanted to teach blind people to be successful in the sighted world, and I understood that dining could play an important role in that success.
With my husband's encouragement I started to study proper etiquette. I wanted to discover the right and wrong ways to do things in various settings. My husband and I pondered everything I discovered. Then we set out to teach what we had learned.
We did a lot of teaching through sessions we called practicums. We would break down each task into its various steps. How do you slice a piece of chicken? How do you get the right amount of food onto your fork? How do you eat spaghetti without making a mess?
One of our priorities is to teach the Continental style of dining, as seen on Downton Abbey. In this style, you hold the knife with your dominant hand, and your other hand holds the fork. You use the knife to explore your plate, much as you use a long white cane to explore your surroundings. I tell students, “Think of the knife as your white cane on your plate.”
When stopping for conversation, or to take a drink, you can rest your knife and fork on the upper edge of the plate. The tip of your knife might be at two o'clock, and the tip of your fork at eleven. I think of them as the tip of a pyramid. The utensils are always in the same place. You never have to search around for them, because you know exactly where you put them.
Another nice thing about Continental dining is that you use the side of your knife to push food onto the tines of your fork. When you pick up your fork, you will know by its weight whether it contains food.
Napkins are very important. I love teaching students to use cloth napkins. Fold the napkin in half like a taco. Wipe your fingers between the layers, keeping all the sticky mess in the middle, away from your clothes. That way, the outside part stays clean. If you need to wipe your mouth, pick up your folded napkin and use a clean corner.
Once we had the privilege of collaborating with a blind woman who was a national advocate and had been a model in Brazil. She was a very accomplished person. When I introduced her to the Continental style to cut her steak, she started to cry. She told me that whenever she attended an event, even if she was the keynote speaker, her mother would cut up her meat for her! She had always believed that blind people could not cut up their food independently.
Buffets and networking receptions are often part of social and professional gatherings, and buffet dining can be quite a challenge. It's hard simultaneously to balance a plate full of food, carry a drink, and use a cane to find a table. We encourage participants, “Don’t over fill! You can always go back later for more.”
As you go through the buffet line, it's perfectly acceptable for you to ask the person ahead of you what's coming up next. Usually the handle of the serving utensil is extended over the side of the bowl or platter. If someone offers to put some food onto your plate, it's perfectly all right to accept the favor. It's even fine for you to ask for help as you go through the line. The interaction can be an opportunity for you to get to know someone new. We want to be especially careful about spreading germs, so use a napkin to reach for and pick up finger food.
Keep in mind that dining with people is less about the food and more about the fellowship. We encourage people to think about conversation. One way to help people feel comfortable is to ask them open-ended questions. Most people are pleased when they realize you are interested in getting to know them.
When I teach we have practice banquets, and we talk about all the things that could go wrong. For instance, what do you do if you get a piece of gristle in your mouth? You can't spit it into your napkin; that would be gross! I suggest you bring your fork to your mouth, get the gristle onto the fork, and slide it off to the side of your plate. Fortunately, people aren't as observant as you might expect. Just remember where you put the gristle, so you don't pick it up again!
We conduct workshops all over the country, focusing on how to be savvy physically and emotionally. For instance, how can you make the maximum positive impact at a professional reception? At such an event, many participants will be milling around in a big noisy room. There are folks you'd like to meet, people who might help you professionally—but how are you going to find them?
One idea I suggest is to contact the event organizers ahead of time and ask for a list of participants. In that way you'll have people's names and the names of their organizations or companies. Then, when you attend the event, you can tell people who you are looking for. You can get people to tell you who's in the room and help you find them.
Never let someone stick you in a chair with a plate and a drink! Don't let anyone put you in a corner! And don't go to a reception hungry—you're not there for the food. Carry either a plate or a drink, but never both. You need to be able to use your cane in one hand so you can move around freely.
In a social situation such as a professional gathering, we can get our blindness to work to our advantage. We are noticeable, and we shouldn't be ashamed of it! If employers are in a room with a hundred people, who are they going to remember? They'll remember the person who is unique, the person who stands out from the rest of the crowd.
In Blind Savvy workshops we talk a lot about nonverbal communication. Your posture, your hairstyle, and how you dress communicate nonverbally about who you are. Take the initiative and offer a warm, friendly handshake. Say, “I'd like to shake your hand,” and hold your hand out to the other person. Once you shake hands with someone, you're in the perfect position to hold a conversation. You're facing them, and you're at just the right distance.
So now you're standing with someone you wanted to meet. What do you talk about? One thing you don't want to talk about is your blindness! If the person focuses on your blindness for more than thirty seconds, it's up to you to change the topic. You might transition to technology or travel. Show them you have many dimensions.
Naturally some people go home after our workshops and slip back into their old ways. But some people take what they learn and build upon it. We love sharing! We love that we've found a niche where we can make a difference in people's lives.
To learn more about Blind Savvy, visit https://blindsavvyusa.com.
Reprinted with Permission from Blind Savvy USA, https://blindsavvyusa.com.
From the Editor: Founded by Eileen Rivera Ley and her late husband, Tom Ley, Blind Savvy USA provides innovative low-vision and blindness training and consulting to businesses, government agencies, and community organizations. Blind Savvy offers training and workshops as part of pre-employment transition services, vocational rehabilitation, independent living for adults, and more. To learn more, email [email protected] or call 410-929-5728.
“Beautiful things begin over meals.”
We've found dining know-how to be an essential networking and job-seeking tool. When sharing meals with new friends and acquaintances, remember, it's not about the food, it's about the fellowship. Savvy diners promote pleasant conversation by:
1) Plan ahead to save time for conversation. Since Braille and large-print menus are scarce, we review restaurant menus online before dining out. Sometimes we call ahead with questions about specials, prices, and dietary concerns.
2) Request cane corners. We request a table near a corner so that we can prop our canes up and keep them from breaking, getting dirty, or tripping others. Booths work nicely as well.
3) Connect with the server. Make them smile. We ask (and remember) our server's name so that we can make requests respectfully.
4) Sit up straight. Good posture keeps our faces and hair out of our plates. Sitting up also allows us to face our dinner partners and promotes all-important conversation.
5) Use utensils skillfully. We like to use the continental style of dining. It allows us to use our knives as “little white canes” to gracefully locate and cut the food on our plates. It also helps us take reasonably sized bites, which also facilitates the all-important conversation.
6) Never ever touch the food on your plate with fingers (unless, of course, you are eating finger foods such as sandwiches and chips.) We use our forks and knives to explore instead.
7) Forget using bread as a pusher! It's nicer to secure food onto your fork with the side of your knife.
8) Dining with strangers? If there is no assigned host at business luncheons and banquets, take the lead. We help put others at ease about blindness by cheerfully introducing ourselves and by encouraging others to do the same.
9) Pay the bill. When we invite someone to lunch, we pick up the check. When eating with a group, we split the check rather than wasting time calculating bills to the nearest decimal.
10) Thank the server by name and tip generously. We do the math for a tip of 15-25%. Then we tell our server how much to write onto the tip line. To sign, we ask our server to line up the edge of our credit card or cell phone; then we sign.
Of course, Blind Savvy diners do what everyone who is sighted should do: Place napkin on lap. Chew with mouth closed. Keep elbows off the table. Avoid slurping, burping, and smacking lips. No coughing, sneezing, or blowing nose at the table. Eat quietly and do not scrape utensils loudly across our plate.
Finally, never ever forget ... Savvy Dining is not about the food but the fellowship!
From the Editor: In the early 1970s, Braille Monitor, the flagship publication of the National Federation of the Blind, launched a column called “Recipe of the Month.” By the 1980s this column had expanded to include several recipes in each Monitor issue. Often members of a particular affiliate were invited to submit recipes they thought Monitor readers would enjoy. Here is a small selection of recipes that were offered over the decades. You can discover the trove of past recipes by exploring the Braille Monitor Archive at nfb.org/publications.
by Sylvia Pearson
Des Moines Chapter, Iowa
Ingredients:
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 pound butter
2 cups bread flour
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
6 Heath candy bars (broken into small pieces)
1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped nuts
Method: Mix the brown and white sugars, butter, and flour like a piecrust. Set aside 1/2 cup crumbs. To the remainder, add the egg, baking soda, vanilla, and buttermilk. Beat well by hand. Pour into a long pan. Top with the 1/2 cup crumbs, Heath bars, and nuts. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.
From “Recipe of the Month,” Braille Monitor, February, 1975
by Kenneth Carstens
Iron Range Chapter, MN
Ingredients:
3/4 cup Grapenuts [cereal]
1-1/4 cup uncooked rolled oatmeal
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup peanut butter
4 tsp honey
2 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup water
Method: Mix water last. Roll into balls of desired portions and freeze. Very good for diabetics.
Reprinted from “Recipes,” Braille Monitor, June 1985
by Mabel Conder
Charlotte, North Carolina
Ingredients:
2 sticks butter or margarine, melted
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, grated
2 cups Rice Krispies [cereal]
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Method: Sift together flour, salt, and pepper. Stir cheese and Rice Krispies into margarine mixture and add flour mixture. Mix thoroughly. Roll into small balls and bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees.
Reprinted from “Recipes,” Braille Monitor, May 1995
by Gary Allen
Bristol, Connecticut
Ingredients:
2 cans crushed tomatoes
3 cans red kidney beans
2 packages McCormick's Hot Chili Mix
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp Allspice
1 bell pepper, chopped (for three-alarm chili, substitute 3 large jalapeño or 2 large habanero peppers)
1/2 to 3/4 onion, chopped
1-1/4 pound ground beef
1-1/4 pound sausage
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
Method: In large pan, brown sausage and garlic to render fat. Add onions, peppers, and remaining meat.
Cook, stirring frequently until it is browned. Add tomatoes, beans, bay leaves, and contents of McCormick spice packets. Simmer covered for a half hour to 45 minutes. Add remaining spices, except the parsley, and continue simmering for an additional half hour. Sprinkle in parsley in the last five minutes of cooking. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Reprinted from “Recipes,” Braille Monitor, July 2005
by Mike Klimisch
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Ingredients:
1 can sweet peas
4 cups macaroni
2 cans tuna
Cheese (either Velveeta or shredded cheddar) to taste
1/4 cup chopped onions
Salad dressing
Mayonnaise
Method: Place the noodles in a pot of boiling water and cook. When macaroni is fully cooked, strain macaroni, running cold water over it so the macaroni does not stick together. Strain the liquid from the cans of tuna and peas. Toss tuna and peas with the cooled macaroni. Cut Velveeta cheese into small cubes or use shredded cheese. Mix in chopped onions for flavor. Next add equal portions of your favorite salad dressing and mayonnaise to taste.
Reprinted from Braille Monitor, March 2015
by John Lee Clark
Reviewed by Jessie Kramer
From the Editor: John Lee Clark is an acclaimed deafblind poet and essayist. How to Communicate was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry. One of the judges commented that How to Communicate is “frank, funny, and utterly brilliant. The poems ... press back on the most basic assumptions of poetry and publishing, including how it is materially read. ... Clark expands what a poem can do, and reminds us of its most central calling of speaking intimately and broadly, all its ways of touch.” Reviewer Jessie Kramer serves on the board of the NFB’s Deafblind Division.
How to Communicate: Poems
by John Lee Clark
W.W. Norton, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-324-03534-3
104 pages
Available in alternative formats from Bookshare and the National Library Service (NLS)
I am not a scholar of poetry, but I am a person who enjoys reading poems. I very much enjoy these poems by John Lee Clark. He is a deafblind poet who writes about deafblindness from the inside. I like the rhythm to his poems and his rich sense of humor. I love the poem about the blockies, from his sequence of short poems called “Slateku.” He brought a smile to my face.
I love this author. He breaks down our disabilities to the simplest joys in life. Hooray! He talks of the irony of our disabilities, how people think we shouldn't be able to travel. There are simple joys that he expresses, such as eating different foods in different places. He celebrates the human condition. Bravo!
Clark has a great gift for pointing out oddities in the world. He writes about how the Deaf world will be extinguished if people won't teach their children to sign. I see the roots of this belief when he talks about mutants in the world, how we forget their gifts to the world. I think Clark teaches us as deafblind people that we need to have greater love for ourselves and our uniqueness. I love, love, love how he tries to educate the public about Braille! He puts it in a very realistic manner. The reader gets a little historical perspective.
I have always felt that my disability makes me aware of the differences in the world. I put this on a personal level, not on a community level, such as thinking about the blind and visually impaired community or the Deafblind community. I thank Clark for bringing that wider perspective to me. It will make me stand even prouder.
by Lauren Altman
Reprinted from Braille Monitor, Volume 66, Number 4, April 2024
From the Editor: Lauren Altman serves as president of the National Association of Blind Students (NABS). NABS held its annual winter gathering in Chicago during the weekend of March 22-24.
During the 2024 NABS Winter Seminar, the spotlight was on student resilience. Leaders were vulnerable in speaking about instances of discrimination and inaccessibility that tried to prevent them from fulfilling their goals and how they worked to overcome them. During a variety of speeches and panels, we learned tips for sharing your authentic story, heard about some of the many resources and opportunities coming up in spring and summer 2024, and learned from prominent leaders including President Riccobono, Justin Young, and Pam Allen. The end of the seminar was a bittersweet moment when Gene Kim announced that he is stepping down from his role as secretary of NABS. We wish Gene the best of luck with his future endeavors and thank him tremendously for the work that he has put into the student division.
by Lisamaria Martinez
Support for Braille literacy is one of the longstanding tenets of the National Federation of the Blind and its sister organization, the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults. For nearly forty years, with only a brief hiatus, the Action Fund and the NFB have sponsored Braille Readers Are Leaders (BRAL), an annual Braille-reading competition. Initially the contest was open exclusively to blind children in grades K-12. In recent years it expanded to welcome adult Braille readers.
The 2023-24 Braille Readers Are Leaders contest registered nearly three hundred participants. The contest ran from December 4, 2023 through January 23, 2024. Throughout this period, Braille readers logged the number of minutes they spent reading Braille each day. By the time the contest closed, participants in the combined categories read Braille for a whopping 711,196 minutes, or a staggering total of 351 days!
The 2023-24 contest added a new category for participants. In recent years the organizers received feedback from the teaching community, suggesting the inclusion of a Teacher of Blind Students category. We organizers loved the idea so much that we added a new category for teachers to this year's contest. The Teacher of Blind Students pilot category was very popular. Teachers can start practicing their Braille reading for the 2024-25 BRAL contest.
Many parents of contest participants shared their thoughts with us, and we were delighted to hear from them. “My fourth grader is loving the challenge this year!” one parent told us. “This is the first time she has finished a chapter book in one day, and she is enjoying becoming a more fluent reader. She commented, ‘I'm reading faster than the speed of light!’ Though she's not THAT fast yet, she is steadily making progress. Seeing her skills improve has been empowering for her.”
On the first day of the contest Jamie, a blind parent from California, wrote, “I read three short books to the kids in contracted UEB. Everywhere Babies; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?; and Goodnight Moon. One of these was super easy because I knew by memory what the words were supposed to say. The other two were much harder. Starting with the one I had memorized helped me decode some contractions I didn't recognize, and that helped a lot. My goal for the challenge is to read at least one book to the kids in Braille every day.”
If you have any thoughts, feedback, or comments about BRAL, feel free to contact us at [email protected].
Now let's get to the list of this year's winners. So, who are they?
Grades K-1
1st Place: Sawyer D., New York, 6,467 minutes
Tied for 1st Place: Zachary D., New York, 6,467 minutes
2nd Place: Max T., Maine, 1,496 minutes
3rd Place: Sawyer S., Georgia, 1,175 minutes
Grades 2-3
1st Place: Luise S., Virginia, 2,590 minutes
2nd Place: Mila C., California, 2,147 minutes
3rd Place: Zayden W., Florida, 1,837 minutes
Grades 4-5
1st Place: Shaindel E., New Jersey, 3,080 minutes
2nd Place: Maeve E., Utah, 3,000 minutes
3rd Place: Zora W., New York, 1,755 minutes
Grades 6-8
1st Place: Narjis K., Louisiana, 7,204 minutes
2nd Place: Gabriel W., Florida, 5,250 minutes
3rd Place: Freya S., Kentucky, 3,557 minutes
Grades 9-12
1st Place: Sierra C., Tennessee, 14,820 minutes
2nd Place: Amare L., North Carolina, 6,260 minutes
3rd Place: Samaija B., Tennessee, 2,936 minutes
Adult Novice
1st Place: B.J. Snyder, New York, 13,910 minutes
2nd Place: Alfonso Simental, Colorado, 12,360 minutes
3rd Place: Arianna Elizabeth Del Bene, New York, 10,035 minutes
Adult Intermediate
1st Place: Robert Gardner, Illinois, 8,366 minutes
2nd Place: Joseph Giacinto, Arizona, 8,000 minutes
3rd Place: Karen Larsen, South Dakota, 7,523 minutes
Adult Expert
1st Place: Angela Randall, Ohio; 18,840 minutes
2nd Place: Cassandra Xavier, Massachusetts, 18,774 minutes
3rd Place: Anna Trotman, Alabama, 18,240 minutes
1st Place: Meliza Lorenzo, Florida, 4,067 minutes
2nd Place: Debbie Wright, Florida, 2,510 minutes
3rd Place: Sarah Savell, Louisiana, 2,032 minutes
Each participant received a BRAL keychain and a T-shirt. Winners received additional cool prizes, such as a book in the Choose Your Own Adventure series or a tactile game.
We're very excited at this year's results, and we can't wait to begin next year's contest. It's coming sooner than you might realize!
“My white cane is like my credit card. I never leave home without it.”
For many blind people, the long white cane stands as a beacon of independence and inclusion. It's a tool that allows for exploration of a space and safe navigation as well as full participation. The American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults believes no blind person should be without one. This is the motivation behind the Free White Cane Program.
Through this program, in partnership with the National Federation of the Blind, a blind person can order a new white cane every six months, completely free of charge. Since 2008 we have distributed nearly 100,000 free white canes. As one recipient shared, “Without my cane, I wouldn't have the independence I have today.”
As long ago as the 1920s, blind people have used white canes to navigate. Today we are thrilled that even blind children who are just learning to walk can explore their surroundings with the help of a long white cane. For blind students, a white cane goes beyond its practical purpose; it’s a gateway to inclusion and empowerment. By mastering its techniques, students assert their presence and demand equal access to education and other opportunities. As parents, teachers, and supporters of blind students, your contributions are instrumental in fostering this self-reliance.
By supporting the American Action Fund, you’re not just helping a program; you’re investing in independence and creating a more accessible world for the blind community. Join us in our effort to ensure that all blind people have the ability to travel freely and safely with a long white cane. Together, we can push forward toward distributing the next 100,000 free white canes.
Learn more about our programs, including the Free White Cane Program, on our website: https://actionfund.org/programs.
Your support helps keep our resources free for blind children and adults. You can contribute to the Action Fund in three easy ways.
Make a gift online by visiting https://actionfund.org/donate.
Give over the phone by calling 410-659-9315.
Send a check made out to “American Action Fund” to 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, MD 21230.
Often the simplest and most significant way to make a charitable contribution is to plan a legacy gift. Creating a lasting impact is easier than you might think. Choose an option that works best for your circumstances.
You can plan to give all or part of a bank account, insurance proceeds, investment assets, real estate, or a retirement account. You can even give a required minimum distribution from your IRA directly to charity and avoid taxes on the distribution. After taking care of your loved ones, you can bequeath a specific dollar amount or a percentage of your estate to an organization whose mission is important to you.
The American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults Legacy Society recognizes and honors the generosity of friends who have chosen to leave a legacy through a will or other planned giving option.
If you wish to give part or all of an account, simply fill out a POD (payable on death) or TOD (transfer on death) form. For pensions and insurance assets, simply designate a charity as a beneficiary. If you would like to leave a legacy to the Action Fund in your will, please include the following language:
I give, devise, and bequeath unto the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults, 1800 Johnson Street, Suite 100, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, (EIN 52-1192529) the sum of $______________ (or) _________ “percent of my net estate” or “the following stocks and bonds”: ____________________, to be used for its worthy purposes on behalf of blind persons.
If you have questions or would like more information, please reach out to Patti Chang at 410-659-9315 or [email protected]. If you have included the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults in your will or have made some other provision for a future gift, please contact Patti so we can recognize you as a member of our Legacy Society.
Legacy gifts carry the values and ideals that have been important to you throughout your lifetime, and they provide for generations of blind children and adults. Please consider the American Action Fund in your future plans.
Kelly’s Kitchen
https://kellys-kitchen.org
Interactive Cooking Classes for People with Disabilities with Kelly’s Kitchen and the Color-Coded Chef
Classes: April-June 2024
Kelly’s Kitchen promotes healthy nutrition in the whole community, with a focus on providing education on ways to access healthy food, explore employment possibilities in the food and beverage industry for people with disabilities, ensure food security, and learn healthy preparation techniques. In 2023 Kelly received the Susan M. Daniels Award, which was established to honor those who are making a significant difference in the lives of youth and adults with disabilities through mentoring and raising awareness about the importance of mentoring individuals with disabilities. Kelly’s Kitchen is excited to partner with the Color-Coded Chef on an amazing opportunity for people with disabilities who want to increase their culinary skills. They are providing an accessible and inclusive cooking class series for individuals with disabilities. Join hands-on cooking classes with expert chefs! Classes are free and open to all skill levels. Each cooking class lasts ninety to one hundred and twenty minutes via Zoom. Classes are open to anyone in the fifty states and US territories. Recordings of all classes you miss can be provided to you, regardless of when you register.
Cooking in the Dark
https://cookinginthedark.libsyn.com/webpage/category/podcasts
Since 2007 Cooking in the Dark has presented a weekly podcast series showing that “you don’t need sight to cook dinner tonight.” Along with the folksy patter of the hosts, each podcast demonstrates the preparation of a recipe or an entire meal. The entire archive of Cooking in the Dark podcasts is available for free download.
National Braille Press
https://nbp.org
88 St. Stephen St.
Boston, MA 02115
800-548-7323
National Braille Press carries an assortment of cookbooks for sale. All titles are available in hardcopy Braille or BRF download. Titles include:
Braille Superstore
http://www.braillebookstore.com
800-987-1231
Over the past few years, the Braille Superstore has added more and more cookbooks, all filled with mouth-watering recipes. Select an area of interest and cook or bake to your heart’s content. Categories include Bestselling Cookbooks, Betty Crocker Cookbooks, and Recipe Cookbooks. The Braille Superstore’s Kitchen Corner offers a wide assortment of kitchen tools and gadgets including timers with raised markings, liquid level indicators, talking thermometers, salt and pepper shakers with Braille markings, and measuring cups with raised print and Braille.
Braille Bookstop
https://www.blindmicemegamall.com
This online bookstore, available as part of the Blind Mice Mart Megamall, sells Braille and digital cookbooks. Offerings include a series of books based on the Cooking in the Dark podcasts. Other titles include:
National Library Service
https://www.loc.gov/nls
The catalog of the National Library Service BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download) lists 604 cookbooks in the Braille and Recorded Book collection. Under a recently implemented program, registered readers may request personal copies of any Braille title in the collection; up to five requests per month are permitted. The most frequently requested titles under this program are cookbooks.
NFB Independence Market
https://nfb.org/independence-market
Contact: 410-659-9314, Extension 2216
[email protected]
The Independence Market of the National Federation of the Blind is an extensive store that offers literature and hundreds of products created by and for the blind community.
Located at the NFB’s national headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, the Independence Market is a helpful resource for anyone who is blind or losing vision. In addition to household and kitchen tools, the Independence Market offers print and Braille writing aids, magnifiers, accessible medical devices, and NFB literature. Shop by email or phone.
The Blind Kitchen
https://theblindkitchen.com
Contact: [email protected]
The Blind Kitchen offers adaptive tools and appliances for blind and low-vision people who want to cook safely, confidently, and independently. It also provides blind-friendly tips and strategies for the many aspects of cooking that do not involve a specific tool or piece of equipment. The Blind Kitchen Library contains videos related to ways blind and low-vision people can organize their kitchen and pantry, identify food items in closed containers, label items in their kitchen, and entertain guests with confidence and grace. All videos are audio described.
LS&S
https://lssproducts.com
145 River Rock Dr
Buffalo, NY 14207
Contact: 800-468-4789
LS&S provides products that enhance independence, safety, and confidence for blind and hearing-impaired persons. Visit their website to request a product catalog.
Keystroke Compendium
National Braille Press
88 St. Stephen St.
Boston, MA 02115
www.nbp.org
Windows Screen Reader Keystroke Compendium: Covering JAWS, NVDA, and Narrator
Compiled by Dean Martineau
This booklet contains commands for the three main Windows screen readers. Included are keystrokes for general screen reader use, for web and app browsing, and for Microsoft Office. This update applies to JAWS 2024, NVDA 2024.1, and Narrator Version 2023H2. (Braille-related keystrokes are not included.)
Braille Book Fair
[email protected]
Date: July 5, 2024
Each year the Braille Book Fair is a greatly anticipated highlight of the NFB National Convention. Blind children and adults browse among the free offerings of donated books to select titles to add to their personal libraries. This is a great opportunity for you to give new life to those Braille books you no longer need. The Action Fund is seeking books for readers at all levels and in most genres (it does not accept Bibles, magazines, or textbooks). It is especially seeking Twin Vision titles and Braille/print titles. If you have gently used Braille books that you would like to donate, please send them to:
American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Attn: Braille Book Fair
1800 Johnson St.
Baltimore, MD 21230
Educational Technology Survey
https://nfb.org/legal/surveys
The NFB is gathering information regarding the accessibility of educational technology used in our nation's schools (kindergarten through graduate level). If you are a student, parent, teacher, or administrator who uses screen access software or other accommodations to participate nonvisually in educational programs or services, or if you are the parent, teacher, or administrator of someone who does, please complete the Education Technology Survey once a semester and contribute to this important research.
Your advocacy makes a difference. The National Federation of the Blind tracks and reviews many platforms, websites, software applications, and products for accessibility. Given the vast number of inaccessible apps and websites, it is vital that we work together to report issues, educate companies, and help make many more products and services accessible. Learn about self-advocacy for accessibility and tracking inaccessibility.
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