Kitchen Prep: Mise en Place

Get Organized:

Label your stove dials, oven controls, microwave buttons, blender panel, and all other appliances in an accessible way. I use puff paint at each mark on the stove dial and microwave button. I have enough vision to use my iPad camera zoom feature to read the oven controls. Remember: the Braille labeler is your friend! You can’t possibly memorize every control, bottle of seasoning, or tool, so don’t try. Memory mistakes can leave your dinner guests gagging at best, and hospitalized at worst. If the space you’re trying to label isn’t large enough for a full Braille label, use this handy technique my roommate, the microbiologist, cooked up. Just Braille label (or large print) a single number. Then refer to that number on an accessible spreadsheet or computer document that contains the corresponding entry. Ergo, 1) Basil, 2) Thyme 3) Cayenne pepper, etc. If the labels are interchangeable, like with magnetic label tape for cans of soup say, don’t let your mischievous friends mix them up on you as a gag. Instead, use the same ones and just change the spreadsheet as needed.   Thanks, roommie! Why didn’t I think of that?

I definitely do NOT recommend using the Raizen Braille labeler. If you can find a 3M model, let me know where.

Keep handy wet wipes and some all-purpose cleaner. You’ll be using your hands a lot to locate sticky, gooey, and otherwise fun-for-kids textured items. There will inevitably be spillage, so make a game of how many things you’ll dump on the floor and laugh about it. Make a safe spot for your accessible recipe that has the least chance of getting splattered or short-circuited. I use an iPad that lives in the corner that I am assured will not explode or electrocute anyone. I keep a baby carrot in my apron with a notch on the end that I grab and use like a stylus to control the tablet. It keeps the screen from getting dirty and works just as well as your finger. Just don’t accidentally grab the pointer end, defiling it as well as your tablet computer.

There will be more tips mixed in with subsequent entries and entrees.

Kitchen Prep: On Pain

The next few entries are dedicated to making your kitchen as accessible as possible. It is not enough just to have a couple of fancy doodads that do stuff for you. It is insufficient to know just enough about your space and food preparation to get by. We can choose not to be bound by processed meals, pizza delivery, and fast food. After all, we aren’t GI’s behind enemy lines trying to just survive. We deserve to have a chance to thrive, and should be as good at this basic life skill as we are at creating humorous stereotypes about head-bobbing and mismatched clothing.

So let my guide dog get me safely off of this soap box, and let us begin!

Pain Avoidance:

At first, it may be a good idea to keep everyone out of YOUR kitchen until you get a familiarity with the environment and processes. This applies to your service dog, too. Think what he may do to you if you accidentally pet him, miss his face and poke his eye with cayenne pepper caked in your nails? Another blogger noted that others not accustomed to you in the kitchen may leave hot pot handles facing the wrong way, easily knocked off. OUCH! This same wise man demonstrated the need for working smoke alarms when a guest placed a dish towel on a cool stove burner without letting him know, causing a small conflagration when attempting to warm up some soup.

Also—knives are sharp. Keep them sheathed. Know them and their locations as you would your cane or guide dog harness. Try not to mix the two places up either. Poor puppy…

Preface

Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his inaugural speech of 1932 that “…the only thing to fear is fear itself.” Clearly he thought he was speaking for everyone, irrespective of disability, he being the wheelchair-bound authority on it. But as a past and future businessman, and an American who is legally blind, I’d like to point out another thing he mentions later in that same speech. “[The rulers of our material exchanges] have no vision, and without vision the people perish.” Rubbish I say—to both. Why? Because the paroxysms of terror that wrack my body at the thought of preparing food for others while seeing life through a piece of wax paper is a healthy and valid fear. My therapist says so, so it must be true. And since a specter is not the author of this blog--ghost writer…get it?--I have obviously not perished from this condition. With your help, though, I plan not to tear away the wax paper, but incorporate it into baking and cooking in ways other than keeping cookie dough off the countertops. Together let’s use our aggregate wiki-lectualism to shed light on the mysteries of the culinary arts that our sighted counterparts have been jealously guarding for millennia! (A shout out here to my sighted friends; woot woot! Who’s my cream puff?)