Independence in the Kitchen: Tools and Real-Life Skills with Debra Erickson

Luisa: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Through Our Eyes, where we share real stories from the visually impaired community, stories of grit, joy, creativity, and growth. Today I’m thrilled to introduce someone whose work is transforming kitchens and transforming confidence. Debra, the founder of The Blind Kitchen is a visionary entrepreneur who has created tools, systems, and support for visually impaired cooks of all ages.

Her mission is simple and powerful. Independence belongs in every kitchen. We’re excited to dive into her story, her heart, and the movement she’s building. Let’s get started.

All right. Well thank you Debra for joining us today. can you share a bit of your story and what led you to create the Blind Kitchen?

Debra: Yes. I have retinitis pigmentosa and I had signs of it when I was 17, but I actually wasn’t formally diagnosed till I was 28, [00:01:00] and I lost most of my remaining vision in my early fifties where I became, actually became blind and.

I had taught adults in, in other jobs as I was going through my life in my career, and I knew I wanted to teach adults, again, young adults or older adults, whatever, but I didn’t know what I wanted to teach them. And I was at the Oregon Commission for the Blind and I was taking a cooking class, a meal prep class, and I was enjoying myself.

I thought, yeah, I’d like to teach this, and then all of a sudden I said, but Deb. You don’t know how to cook. How are you gonna teach cooking if you don’t know how to cook? And so then I ended up as my voc rehab. I went to culinary school and I was the only blind student there. And my intention at that point in time was just to come back to the, to the commission and teach cooking.

And I was hired immediately. And that was in June of 2019. So in March of 2020, about six months later, [00:02:00] COVID hit. And so I was sent home for a year and a half while they tried to figure it out. Was it safe to be in rooms with people? Did you need to be outside? Could you be one-on-one? It it just, it was quite confusing for some time until they sorted it out.

And so during that time, I had a year and a half to be able to start. Because culinary school is very demanding. It’s six hours a day and there is a lot of memorization and, and tests and things like that. And so I didn’t have a time to organize all the stuff I was learning as I was solving the problems.

How am I gonna do this? Everybody else can flip an egg. How am I gonna do it where it looks nice and the yolk doesn’t break? And so I, I just started. Putting the information together so that I’d have it in place for my students when I was allowed to return to teaching, but I’d never dreamed it would be a year and a half.

So that’s how the Blind Kitchen got started. I wanted to share the information with other people with vision loss that wanted to cook. And, and the thing was, [00:03:00] there was a lot of stuff available on the web. There are a lot of good videos out there, some tutorials, but there was no one place where you could go, you, you.

It was hit and miss, you know, for videos and books and blogs and, and podcasts, and so that’s what the Blind Kitchen ended up being, was a repository for all the information I had gathered and learned.

Luisa: Sounds like a true visionary, tell me what gap did you see in the visually impaired community when it came to cooking and independence?

Debra: Yeah, I think the gap was. A place where all the information could be found. And I don’t know everything. There are things I still can’t do, like sauces when they break, I, I can’t touch them.

I, I can temp them. I can do chocolate. I’ve learned how to do that through trial and error. I know the time and temperature, but other things like Hollandaise sauce, that, that can be tough. Deveining a shrimp. There’s absolutely no tactile information available unless you get really lucky and find that digestive tract.

And it [00:04:00] doesn’t happen very often, but I found that most of, but I can buy my shrimp deveined and I can use Be My Eyes or my Meta glasses AI to, to be more confident that the sauce is where I want it and taste and, you know, things like that. I just saw that there were things and people will be like, oh my gosh.

Like, let me give you an example, like spreading butter on toast. That can be, without getting butter on your hands or your fingertips, that that can be difficult. But it’s important. People eat toast. So all you do is you take a pad of butter, the amount you want, you put it on a plate, a flat plate that you can put your toast on, and you microwave it for about eight seconds, depending on your microwave.

You pull it out. Now you’ve got a puddle of butter, and you can take your toasted bread and just set it down on the butter and twist it around, and, and you’ve, you’ve got, your toast is buttered and your fingers are clean. And I didn’t invent that. Somebody else did. Do you know how many people have said, oh my gosh, that’s genius.

[00:05:00] And that’s what the Blind Kitchen is. It’s, it’s all kinds of little, well, there’s the tools are bread and butter. We sell them and people buy them, and that’s how we keep our, our website running. But the, but. Library of the Blind Kitchen is, is its heart. And that’s where you’ll find tips like that. I, I’m not gonna sell you a a a plate, I’m not gonna sell you a microwave.

A lot of the stuff we all have at home, but we’ve never thought to do it that way. And that, and the Blind Kitchen gathers that information and makes it public for people to be able to access it.

Luisa: Oh, I love it. I love it. Um, my next question was gonna be around those early days, like when you were figuring out tools, techniques and accessibility.

Is there anything else you wanna add to this bread and butter? ’cause I think I’m gonna try that.

Debra: It’s a good tip. Well, there’s another tip that I give and that is when I go to cook. First thing I do is run a couple of inches of soapy water. And this can go for people with or without vision, but it helps people with vision loss because [00:06:00] let’s say I’m touching raw eggs, I’m cracking them, and my fingers get some of the juice on ’em.

Or I’m seasoning chicken thighs and my fingers get on ’em. If I have to touch the counter all the way across and then touch the water control, touch the faucet, touch the soap container, and then I wash my hands. That’s all good. But now I’ve gotta go decontaminate all those places I touched because bacteria can grow at room temperature, harmful bacteria at quite a fast speed.

But if I have that sink of soapy water waiting for me, I can use my forearms or the back of my hands to find my way to that sink, plunge my fingers, and now I’m free to touch anything I want and I can get my hands cleaned and rinsed and go right back to cooking.

Luisa: That’s a great tip, and you’re right, that could be for anybody. What part of your work, uh, brings you the most joy?

Debra: I think the part of my work, it’s gonna begin, begin with young adults who have not been allowed in the kitchen.

Their parents, rightfully [00:07:00] so, are afraid that they’ll get cut or burnt, and a lot of the parents of these children are sighted, so they don’t know how to teach blind cooking skills. Some do, but, but a lot of them don’t. It’s kind of a mystery to them. And so I have a tutorial to help the. Or curriculum to help these parents make their.

Kitchens accessible. And then I also can tell them some of the tools available in the Blind Kitchen, so their child at a very young age, even as early as three or four, can participate safely. Of course, under the supervision of the parent. You’re not gonna put a 3-year-old on a chair in front of a stove.

That’s not appropriate. But, but you could give them a cut glove and, and a slicer, like a mushroom slicer and let ’em slice hard boiled eggs or something, or strawberries or bananas. There’s tools that can help them. And so that’s always having a young person say, wow, I can be part of this family dynamic.

And especially around the holidays and such, when [00:08:00] so much family stuff goes on in the kitchen, you know, maybe Easter and you’re making a turkey or a ham, or you know, doing all the things you do for, for that meal, if you’re not allowed to participate, you, that there’s a loss there, A loss of, you know, family and storytelling and culture sharing.

So it’s nice that that can open a door. At least, a bit more for the young adults. And at the other end of the spectrum are older adults who have age related vision loss, which it’s very common to have right now. The baby boomers are aging and they are losing their hearing. They’re.

Losing their sight, they’re losing their hips, they’re losing their knees. It’s, it’s just something that comes along with aging. But there’s a lot of really fabulous cooks out there that were always the cooks for their family, but they don’t know how they can get back into the kitchen safely now that they can’t see.

The stove top now that they can’t, you know, see [00:09:00] that if the cake is done or not. But there’s a lot of different, and I get a lot of emails from people who say, thank you. You helped give me my identity back. That this is who I am. I am the person that cooks this Easter dinner and people love my, you know, apple pie or whatever they would make for, for that dinner.

And that’s very touching. That’s very touching.

Luisa: Oh, how wonderful. What’s something would you say people often misunderstand about visually impaired individuals in the kitchen?

Debra: People are, don’t mean to be unkind, but when I tell them I’m a chef, they really don’t believe it. At some level, you know, I don’t run around showing them my degree, but that I am a trained cook.

And the reason they do that is ’cause they don’t. They don’t know how they could possibly do it. How could they possibly cook if their eyes were closed or they were blindfolded and, and keep themselves safe? So it’s just a matter of educating people, but it, but it [00:10:00] is a misconception that people with vision loss.

We can cook safely and confidently, and I’m not the only person that can cook. There are a lot of us out there, but there’s no real strong community yet. That’s part of what I’m trying to build with the Blind Kitchen, but I’ve gotta get my wheels under me first before I can, you know, branch out to social aspects of it.

But I am so antsy to do that.

Luisa: Uh, given the pace you’re in, I’m not surprised that it’ll come sooner than you think. Uh, that’s wonderful. Is there a favorite tool or a technique? I know you’ve shared a few things. You even mentioned the Meta glasses. But is there a favorite tool or technique that you love just introducing to new cooks?

Debra: Yeah, well, probably the most important tool that I use in my kitchen are work trays. And what they are are like standard cafeteria trays that you’d find in a school or in a hospital or a fast food place. But ours are a little bit bigger. They’re, I think, [00:11:00] 16 by 18, so you have more workspace. But what those do is they provide a predictable.

Place where I can set my stuff down. If I put a lid down, if I am getting out my ingredients for my, for the sauce I’m about to make, I, I can have them in this predictable work tray that’s set off to the side. But I, I use a work tray every time I cook. That’s whether I’m mixing, measuring. Cutting. I use it actually for cutting board.

You, you can feel where the knife has hit it, but it never cuts through it. I’ve never had one break and I’ve never had one cut through, but it, it keeps the pieces confined because you’ve got that small. Edge on it, that that helps keep things in.

And if something rolls, it’s gonna roll there. And if I’m measuring something and when I used to be able to see, I would knock things over. Everybody. Everybody does. Whether you can see or not, it’s more likely it, like if it’s, let’s say I do doing a quarter cup of oil for a cake or something, and I accidentally spill it.

In the [00:12:00] past it would go roll right down my counter, down the front of my cupboards, onto the floor and just be a mess to clean up and no fun. But in theory, if that work tray will probably contain that much, that’s not that much liquid for it to be able to contain. And if it’s like one of the first things I’m doing.

I could possibly even salvage it by putting a funnel back in the bottle and tipping the corner of the work tray and directing the contents back into the funnel. So the work trays also, like if you’re wiping your dining room table, and there’s crumbs and stuff like that, instead of running it into your cupped hand or if you’re cleaning off your countertop.

Put a work tray under the edge there, and now you’ve got about an 18 inch target. So that’s one of the tools that I probably couldn’t live without. And we send a dark one and a light one so that if you have contrast available to you, you can choose the one that’ll make the food stand out for you better.

Luisa: Oh, that’s, that’s interesting. A light one and a dark one.

Uh, what would you [00:13:00] say to a parent or a caretaker who’s nervous about allowing their visually impaired child to help in the kitchen?

Debra: I would say you are right to be worried. It is your job to protect your child. But at one point you learned and you probably cut yourself and you’ve probably burned yourself on the way up.

And so you, you can’t protect your child from everything. But there are ways that you can introduce safe ways to them and so that they can grow up to be independent and not just do DoorDash, you know, every time they want to eat, once they’re living on their own. So one such thing that I think would bring parents much peace of mind is called a cut glove and it’s a relatively thin glove. A little bit stretchy, but it’s cut resistant. It Can you cut through it? Yes, if you want to, but not with normal activities. It’s used in commercial kitchens. That’s how I found out about it. And so the child, even at a young age or at an older age, if you need [00:14:00] cheese grated, you’re maybe making a family pizza.

They can wear that glove on the hand holding the food, and they can use a box grater. And even young children can do that because the box grater decides how big the shreds are, depending on the side you guide them to use and if their fingers should accidentally make contact with those blades, ’cause box graters are wonderful tools, but they’re weird.

They’re angled and they have different kinds of blades on each side and different numbers. But if it touches, the kid’s just gonna stop. If. They hadn’t been wearing the glove by the time their brain got the information that their knuckles, and it’s always gonna be, your knuckles have made contact with the blades on that box grater.

It’s gonna be too late. They’ll already have been cut. This just provides an extra layer of protection and if. You’re wanting to teach them more advanced skills, like perhaps peeling potatoes or cutting potatoes, things like that. We have something, our peeler [00:15:00] is a special model. It’s, it’s three inches by three inches square.

It’s a piece of plastic. It has two rubber rings on the back of it. So what you’re going to, and the blade runs down the center of the front on the opposite side where those rings are, and it’s gonna sit in the palm of your or their hand. It’s gonna be held in place by the rings ’cause they’re gonna wrap around your fingers and then your fingers are safely behind that while you’re peeling your carrots or your potatoes or your turnips or whatever.

And the other hand that’s holding the potatoes, wearing that cut resistant glove. If, if you feel contact when you don’t expect to feel it, you just stop. They’re really game changers.

Luisa: Wow. Thank you. I’m seeing a trend here. I ordered some of your products that we’re gonna showcase at our Family Connection Conference in April. And the work trays and the cut gloves are two of the tools that I already have. So I’m excited to hear this.

So what would you say are a few safe or simple first tasks that families can [00:16:00] introduce?

Debra: Most people are familiar with like a hard boiled egg slicer where it uses wires and you just press down on a platform and it slices the. The hard boiled egg attractively into even slices.

We have something called a Wired Slicer XL, and it’s a big one of those. So even a very young child, they can’t cut their fingers. They can put a strawberry on there. Pull the handle down and the strawberry will be sliced very quickly with one push of the handle, no contact with the blades for the child, and then they can put that into the bowl.

And before they even do that, there’s another tool we have called the Shark. And what the Shark is, it’s basically like a teaspoon. More like a half a teaspoon. You know the size of your pinky finger, the cavity is, but it has jagged teeth around the edges made of stainless steel, and the teeth are not sharp enough to cut your skin, but they’re sharp enough to cut through the strawberry hole and [00:17:00] take out very, just, they just have to turn it in a curve, kind of like a a, a melon baller where you just make a little circle and pull out.

Hold the thing. They can do that without cutting themselves, and then they can slice a banana on the same thing and put banana slices. Then we have another thing called a Aerator, and it’s basically a handheld, non-motorized whipped cream maker. It can do other things too, but we’re talking about children.

You put in, you know, a little bit of heavy cream, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla. I add just a touch of salt too, and then the kid pumps up and down on it. And that is what incorporates the air. Instead of beaters whipping air into the the fat of the heavy cream, the kid is doing it and you can actually feel it gets harder to do as the cream stiffens up.

And then you can have them cut like little mint leaves. In a little bowl. You take the leaves off the mint put ’em in a, a little bowl, and give your child a pair of scissors and they cut downwards into the bowl. Their fingers are not near the blades and they cut the mint up [00:18:00] and then they dish it up that we have portion scoops that, and you probably have ’em at home ice cream scoops where they can give each family member the same amount of food. Top it with whipped cream. I, we use a. A one ounce scoop and a wide mouth funnel to place the funnel on top of the food that you want the whipped cream on.

And then you just drop it through the opening. You pick the, wide mouth funnel straight up and it’s exactly where the child had set it. And they can do each of those the same way and then sprinkle the top of it with mint and they’ve made an elegant, attractive, beautiful dessert and they can’t get hurt.

I’ve got a recipe book that I’m putting together to do that. Uh, another thing I would say is use appliances slow cookers. A child could put in chicken, we have a safe can opener. They can open and drain a can of black beans, a can of corn, open a jar of salsa, put it in there, and then put the lid on it and just let it bake.[00:19:00]

They never have to touch the hot food if you’re not comfortable with them doing it at their age or developmental level. But they made the dinner, they’re the one that put it together when everything was cold. So they get to take credit for it, and they are participating in the dinner.

Luisa: Yeah, thanks. You shared some tips for folks that can use tools they may already have at home as well.

How can parents shift from being protective or protecting to really empowering their child?

Debra: I think it takes a lot of self-reflection. I have children and taking ’em to kindergarten, the first day I, I was full of fear.

You know what would happen? I’d miss ’em. All the, all the stuff. It’s normal to feel fear, but I don’t think parents should feel more fear for their vision impaired child than another child. Is that child gonna have different challenges? Absolutely. And is it the parents’ r esponsibility to help make sure the child is successful.

Absolutely. [00:20:00] So you can start out slower and then move your way up to it, but it, it takes a lot of self-reflection to say, is this my fear or is it theirs? And of course, your child has to have a respectful fear of heat and knives and things like that. But I, I think it is a mistake for parents to wrap their kids in bubble wrap and never let ’em in the kitchen because there are ways and it’s an important rite of passage.

Not only for adulthood, but for being a family member. Everybody has to eat. And that’s a common celebratory thing as well. I would say if you are not allowing your child into the kitchen, maybe there’s a very good reason for it that I have no idea and I would have to trust your judgment.

But if you can’t come up with a reason. You’re hearing from somebody like me or another parent of a blind or visually impaired child that their child can get into the kitchen and can help. And you can start out very limited. Like for example, I, I’ll give you another [00:21:00] one. We have something called a locking lid pan, and it’s basically a pan that strains the food.

The lid locks on with the handles, and then there’s strainer holes. And so you bring it to the sink. The lid is locked on it, but the food stays in the pan and the water. Goes into the sink, you don’t get, so it’s usually used for pasta or potatoes where you’re boiling something in hot water. You don’t have to start out with having your kid travel with the boiling water heavy pan full of potatoes and move them to the sink.

You can start out with a little bit of cold water, no, no heat at all, and have them do that. Walk from the stove to the sink without dropping it. Without spilling it. You can increase the weight of the water. You can increase the temperature of the water. Move to warm where they’re not gonna get burnt if a mistake is made, but they can make it.

Until you feel comfortable and they feel comfortable that they can make it to the sink and then add cold pieces of potato that’s gonna, when they get to the [00:22:00] sink, now that there’s potato in that water, chunks of potato, it’s gonna shift. It’s gonna be a whole different feeling when they tip that pan.

Away from them, but try to strain it out. It’s gonna change everything so you don’t have to start deep frying, you don’t have to start with that. There are a lot of other incremental tasks they can help with. Um, and until you’re comfortable and they’re comfortable completing those tasks.

Luisa: You’ve already covered a little bit of what my next question was gonna be around, which is how can families set up their kitchen so that it feels confidence building rather than intimidating?

Debra: That, that’s a good question, and it actually is a, a bit of a different answer.

It depends on the size of your kitchen and, and things like that, but if your child is the only vision impaired member of the family, they need to know where things are at. And it, let’s face it, if you’re living in a family with multiple sighted members, it’s not as important them to put it back in the same place.

So if [00:23:00] you can designate a place for your child’s needs, like we have adaptive measuring cups where they just have to count the bumps on the handle to know what size it is. Family members that can see don’t need to use those, those can be put away in a safe place. The work trays can be put away in a, in a place.

Um, the cut glove can be put away or you can buy ’em for all kinds of members of the family. But I think designating a space, if you can give ’em a cupboard, excellent. That’s even better. But, but a lot of times you can’t, so maybe you can just get a wicker basket or some type of a bag, like a beach bag where they put their cleaned equipment in there and they’re the only ones that are allowed to have it.

And you can even put some things in there like, uh, garlic powder and onion powder so even if salt, pepper, spices, cinnamon, move around the kitchen freely with the sighted people, they would have their own designated bottle. It wouldn’t be that expensive to do that. They’re less than $2 [00:24:00] usually in some of the bigger stores.

And then you can put bump dots on them, like one bump dot on the garlic powder, two bump dots on the lid of the onion powder. There are things that you can do to make sure that. Everything is predictable ’cause it’s very frustrating if you’re a cook with vision loss and you can’t, you’re spending all your time trying to find stuff that has been misplaced.

That’s a way you can set your child up for success or your young adult.

Luisa: Ooh, you dropped some great nuggets there. Some great tips. I love it. Talk about organizing, and creating space for them. That’s beautiful.

Debra: I have another thing that I would encourage parents to do if it’s a mixed vision family. Is that a word? I dunno. It’s now I just coined it. The way I set up my work area and it would work for your kids probably too, is to set a work tray in front of them, whatever that work counter, whatever it’s going to be.

At that moment in time, we have something called sharps baskets. [00:25:00] What they are really are like drawer organizers, but they’re extra long so that they can hold longer sharp knives and things like that. And in my home, my husband can see, I cannot, if that sharp object, peeler greater, whatever it is, is not in my hand and it’s not in his hand and it’s not put away, it’s gonna be either in the sharps basket above my work tray.

That, that way I know any, anytime I get near that basket, which is distinct, it it, that’s gonna contain sharp things. I better slow down and be careful. And there’s one at the back of the sink always in the same place. So if I, I’m cutting something and it, and it’s dirty. I can’t put it back into like maybe cutting chicken or something.

And I can’t put it back into that dish with other clean things, then I just move it to the back of the sink until I’m ready to clean it. And the other thing I have there is a bowl. Rachael Ray sells them for like $60 and she calls ’em a garbage bowl. I just take any [00:26:00] bowl in my home that that makes sense for that workspace and put it to the left and that becomes my scraps bowl.

So if I have packaging, eggshells, I don’t have to walk across to the garbage. I don’t have to move the garbage next to me, which I used to do and I’d always forget it was there and I knock it over. But, but now I’ve got this handy bowl for any wrappers, any peels, any eggshells, that’s gonna save me time and keep me cleaner and neater at at my work area.

So those are some other good ways to set up the work area. And again. When you’re done with those, you, you wanna make sure you put them back. You can leave the sharps basket at the back of the sink. ’cause that’s not not gonna hurt anything. Your child’s gonna know it’s there, and that’ll be a pre predictable place so that your family isn’t dropping knives in the bottom of a sink, or, you know, a potato peeler or a can opener or something that your child could get cut on it.

It makes it more predictable and safe for the whole family.

Luisa: Some real gold there, [00:27:00] boy, any, anybody can use that. What’s a misconception that some family members or caretakers have, and what’s the actual truth?

Debra: Well. Their, their concerns are that their child is gonna get cut or burnt or make a mess.

And that is actually, could be very true all, but it could be true for their sighted children as well. If they’re not being careful. The truth is, your child can. Participate safely and confidently in cooking activities if they are taught correctly and have the right tools, strategies, and information.

Because just like the running the couple inches of soapy water, that is a strategy that can help keep your child cleaner. And the other thing I didn’t mention was, uh, let’s say I am measuring a teaspoon of vanilla, I’m making cookies or something like that. I’m finished with the tools associated with that, and I can just drop ’em in the sink.

So [00:28:00] cleanup’s already been started, and that’s something kids need to learn as well, that cooking isn’t just cooking and then you leave, you eat and leave the kitchen, you know, it’s all over. Cleanup is another important skill for them to learn.

Luisa: Thank you. Let’s go on and let’s talk a little bit about children and young adults. How do we encourage them? So if a child or a teen feels unsure or they’re scared, what would you tell them about getting started?

Debra: I would, first of all, not everybody likes to cook. Not everybody is motivated, so don’t try and force it if you don’t have to.

I mean, a lot of grown adults that can see perfectly well live from freezer to microwave it, you know, it’s not ideal, it’s not healthy, but I have found in my travels. Rarely is there a child or young adult that does not want to cook. That’s a rite of passage into adulthood. And even if they find out they don’t like it, they’re eager to try it.

So I would encourage the parent to [00:29:00] find something they’d be comfortable with. Go to the Blind Kitchen website, see what the tools are. Say, okay, I, I would be comfortable using this, this, and this with them. Find a food they like. That’s the other key. Find a food they like and then help them to prepare it using these safe tools and techniques because the motivation’s built in.

In fact, when I was an instructor at the Commission for the Blind, there was a technology instructor that would just work on computers, jaws and screen readers, and Zoom and all the different software. And so she’d be teaching them and it would be. My attendance was better in meal prep. And she’d be like, well, at the end of your class you get to give ’em a cookie.

I don’t, I said, you could buy ’em a cookie. Give ’em a cookie. I said, I said, you’re right. So with cooking activities, it’s not like teaching them how to scrub the toilet. It’s not like teaching them how to mow the lawn. There’s a built-in reward at the end of the activity. So [00:30:00] it it, I have picked the perfect career in terms of being a teacher.

Because my students are always motivated. Is there fear there? Absolutely. Sometimes I’ve had, we taught adults at the Oregon Commission for the Blind. You had to be a legally blind and a high school graduate. And so some of ours were 18 or 19 years old, getting prepped to ready to go to college, but taking some time to get more adult blind skills in their lives.

And I would have, they’d be quivering. They had never been allowed in their home kitchens, and here they are adults. You just have to take it very slow and do everything cold to begin with. I start with the oven when I’m teaching a, an adult that has never cooked before how to cook or newly blind and not sure how to do it.

And, and we explore the oven while it’s cold and I promise them, I’m not gonna turn it on until you and I agree that you’re ready for it. So they explore the broiler. The different racks, pull ’em in and outta the oven. This [00:31:00] is how it works. This is halfway. Do you feel where it catches?

That’s important. You know? Um, feel the bottom element. Uh, touch the burners on the stove. Glass top stoves are a little trickier, but I just had like cardboard circles, like pizza plates or cake plates. You know, that they come on. That, that are cardboard, and I would have them on the stove top we were using, if we were using the glass top stove, so they’d have a tactile idea of what.

That stove top, what that geography was like. And there’s other ways to know if your pan is centered without touching anything except the top of the pan. There’s a video on the website, but I, I, my point is you have to feel confident and. And spread that confidence to that child that, yes, you can do this.

I believe in you. I know you can do it. We’re not gonna start out with the oven screaming hot. We’ll start out with a cold. Let’s explore it. Tell me what you think. And maybe they won’t. Maybe it’ll take three times in the kitchen with a cold oven before they say, [00:32:00] okay, I’ve moved this baking tray in and outta the oven.

I used to bake bacon with my uh, students. Or veggie burgers, you can use kind of whatever you want. Something not liquidy is ideal, where they can move it in and out of the oven, get a sense of the balance of the trays. If something drops, no big deal, you pick it up and you start again and do it. So it’s just introducing them.

So very gradually, and then to the point where, I mean, 150 degree oven isn’t gonna hurt anyone. If you just put your oven on warm to begin with, you still put their heat protection on. You still have them open the door and pull the rack out so the food comes out to them. Their arms never go in the oven.

The food comes out to them, and then they can practice moving it in and out of the oven and closing the door. And I’ve had, a mother wanted her 6-year-old to be able to use the oven. The mother was right there. I, I wouldn’t do it if the mother was not there.

But the 6-year-old was able to do that safely and comfortably.

Luisa: Well, before we wrap it up, I wanna ask, [00:33:00] what message would you give to kids about independence in the kitchen and in life?

Debra: I would say, I ask ’em a question and I would say, how do you eat an elephant?

Elephants are big. They’re huge. The answer to that question is one bite at a time. You break it down into manageable tasks. Um, and so I, or maybe I should say the world’s biggest donut, I don’t, I’m gonna switch my elephant I to, to the world’s biggest donut.

And you would do it one bite at a time. And so that’s the same way with running a business. ’cause I, I have two hats that I wear. One, uh, three really. I’m a cook, I’m a teacher and I’m a business owner. All three of them have different skill sets. Some of them overlap, some of them don’t. And so I didn’t know anything about running a business, but you access resources if you are a young adult, generally between the ages of 14 and 22 and still [00:34:00] in high school, you have access to a lot of resources in general through the pre ETS programs and there are so many.

Voc rehab counselors and and counselors that want to help you be successful, that want you to believe in yourself, that you can get a job. There’s summer programs access those resources ’cause they’re not gonna be there forever. They get cut off at a certain point. Like when you graduate from high school, you may, you may be able to switch to like voc rehab or another program, but I would tell.

Young adults and children take advantage of the resources that are in your life at this time. Because at some point, you, you can’t come back when you’re 29 years old and say, you know, I wanna learn how to cook. Now you can do that. I, I’m gonna take that back, but wouldn’t it be nice if you were cooking from 19 to 29 before all that 10 years?

You already have it under your belt. Yeah. Access resources, that is, and self advocate for yourself. Definitely.

Luisa: [00:35:00] Thank you. Is there anything I didn’t ask that you’d like to share with, uh, with our listening audience?

Debra: Yeah, I’d, I’d like to a couple of things about the Blind Kitchen, for parents and for children, every tool that I’ve mentioned, and we have over a hundred tools in the Blind Kitchen right now. They come with, first of all, individually wrapped in their own resealable package, and it’s marked both in braille and large print. So anybody, regardless if you can read braille, you can get it, or if you can use magnifiers or glasses or read large print, you can definitely access know what they are and what, so what, let’s say work trays. What that corresponds with on the website is a video that says Work Trays and it’s audio described and it tells what the tool is, why it’s blind friendly, and how to use and care for it.

Many step-by-step parents. You can access this information. First, and you can be comfortable. You can say, okay, [00:36:00] that that’s a tool I’d be comfortable having my child use. Or you may look at another one and say, no way, I’m not there yet. I’m not there yet. And, and that’s perfectly fine too, but that, that, I just wanted to let people know that those are resources available to you so that, a lot of the other big box stores and other specialty stores don’t have those for you.

So this is a, a really good way for you to. For parents to teach themselves how to use it, and now they can more effectively and comfortably teach their young person how to use it.

Luisa: Thank you, and thank you Debra, for being with us today. Before we close, do you wanna share how people can reach you or your website?

Debra: Mm-hmm. So the website is the Blind Kitchen.com. Make sure you word, use the word the, um, or otherwise you could send to a cooking show in Boston.

It’s called Blind Kitchen, so you wanna go to The Blind Kitchen. Then, and it’s very screen reader friendly, very accessible for voiceover and, and magnifiers. There’s no, I have [00:37:00] no affiliate ads. I have no popup ads. It’s definitely very, uh, blind friendly. You can also write to me at info@theblindkitchen.com.

And I monitor that mailbox and I enjoy most the emails I get. Sometimes I get somebody cranky, but most of the time I, I, I really enjoy it and, and people give me so many more ideas. We’re constantly adding to the website. So you can also go on and then subscribe to our newsletter and that gives you special discount codes and stuff like that.

We try not to bother you too much. But, but people, we have a very low unsubscribe rate. People really like the newsletter.

It’s been one of the reasons we’ve been successful is because we implemented that. I was grateful to learn how to do it.

Luisa: Thank you Debra, and thank you for all the wonderful nuggets and the golden nuggets that you, you shared there towards the end. Um, thank you so much.

Debra: Oh, you’re more than welcome. It’s been a [00:38:00] collaborative effort from a lot of people with vision loss who have contributed to that whole body of knowledge, and I’m grateful for that as well.

Luisa: thank you for sharing your story, your wisdom, and your passion with. All of us today for parents and caretakers. I hope this episode gave you reassurance and practical ideas and to all the young people listening. Remember, the kitchen is your space. You belong here, and you are capable of more than you know.

To learn more about Debra and the Blind Kitchen, visit the Blind Kitchen.com. Thank you for joining us on Through Our Eyes. Until next time, keep learning, keep exploring and keep believing in what’s possible.