Cooking Beyond Sight: Debra Erickson's Blind Kitchen Revolution

Today , we're going to be talking about adaptive cooking , as I am joined by Deborah Erickson . Deborah is the executive chef and founder of the Blind Kitchen , where she uses adaptive culinary tools and other adaptive tools to be able to cook safely despite vision loss .

Deborah suffers from RP , and we'll let her explain to you what that is and how she gets to cooking down at the Blind Kitchen . So , deborah , thank you so much for joining me today .

I was also the only blind student blind student in culinary school , so that meant I had to solve a lot of problems and after culinary school , when I got the time , I organized all that information into different categories and that's how the blind kitchen came to be .

I am blind , I have retinitis pigmentosa and very , very little vision left in one eye Not really anything usable , but I'm not completely blind . So that's kind of who I am . Well , explain to the listeners what RP is Resistant people no , just kidding .

It stands for retinitis pigmentosa and it is eye disease where the first symptoms are night blindness and then a loss of peripheral vision and then eventually

that vision just closes in and takes away your central vision . There's no cure for it at this point in time , but they're working on it . But I'm you know , I've just learned to deal with it and I was diagnosed at 28 . So I was driving and it came right out of the blue . There was no history of blindness on either side of the family .

My parents were obviously recessive gene carriers and so I had worn glasses as a kid because I had astigmatism in one eye , and my older sister wore glasses and so did my dad . So about once a year we'd all get in the station wagon and go to our country doctor . Dr Korn Can't make this stuff up in Indiana , thank you very much .

So when I was diagnosed we went back and retrieved the records . We went back and retrieved the records and we found there was a note in my medical record that said Deborah is showing signs of decreased peripheral vision , and that was at 17 .

It wasn't a big gourmet meal , but she kept us fed and cooked and I'm very grateful to her . She was an amazing woman . But so my part of helping with dinner was to set the table , peel 10 pounds of potatoes and help clean up . So I didn't grow up cooking .

And when I got married I had kids , and my youngest son is six foot five but I did not cook well for them . He grew that tall in spite of me not because of me and the way I would cook was to open cans and boxes and I'd follow directions or put something in the microwave because that's the only way I knew how to cook .

And then I went on to teach as a professional career and when I had my vision lost , when the last part fell and I had to go to the Oregon Commission for the Blind to get my orientation and mobility skills Mission for the Blind , to get my orientation and mobility skills , I learned to read braille , learned to use adaptive devices , you know , with swipes and

gestures and keypad keyboard commands , and I was taking a meal prep class and I she was teaching me how to cook and how to use an oven safely and stuff like that and a light bulb went on my head . I said I think I'd like to teach this . I'm enjoying myself right now and you know I'd love to learn .

And then the light bulb went back off and I'm like but I don't know how to teach cooking , I don't really know anything about cooking , and so they , they and I'm very skills oriented as a teacher , and so they did allow me to go to culinary school and I was the only blind student there and the chefs were absolutely fabulous and there were a lot of problems

to be solved and I didn't get everything right . I was always slower than the other students and you get points knocked off , because if you're in a restaurant and waiting for your steak and your baked potato and you know , an hour and a half , two hours pass by and you flag down your server and say , hey , where's my steak ? Oh , the chef is blind .

She's a little slower than other people . People don't want to hear that . There are certain standards that they are training you to meet , and if I couldn't meet that standard , it was not a big deal , and they always said if you can't finish on time , finish strong . And that was very helpful to me , and so I just let that part go .

You know , I need to come out . It's more important for me to come out with a good product , an attractive presentation , seasoned well , than to get it to them quickly if it's not right .

So yeah , so that was culinary school , and when I got out , all I really wanted to do was teach at the Oregon Commission for the Blind or perhaps another vision loss related , because I wanted to teach people with vision loss , because that's what I knew new , and I went to work for the commission in June of 2019 . And in March of 2020 , covid hit .

So I was basically sent home for a year and a half to twiddle my thumbs , and that's when I started putting all the information together and organizing it . So , and that's how the blind kitchen ended up to be , and then I was doing both for about a year . I had once they brought me back in , but I was starting to drop balls

at both ends and I knew I had to choose one or the other and I felt that my influence and my ability to help people was more in the blind kitchen than teaching one-on-one , which is a fabulous career and I would have done that forever and been fine with it .

But when forced to make a choice , you have to look at the different parts that are playing and what the effect of this decision or that decision would make . And the blind kitchen . I have not regretted that decision , although I do miss in-person teaching .

But the most used tool in my kitchen is the work tray , and what they are is basically standard cafeteria trays . So they are . They have little raised edges , you know , like you've seen in school or a hospital they're . They're just those regular trays but a little bit bigger .

And the reason they are are so helpful to me is if I'm doing something and even when I could see there were times when I would spill things , knock it over , move too fast or whatever , and I'm very , very careful , but it's going to happen . If you're going to be cooking , you're going to spill something every now and then .

So let's say , I was measuring out a cup of milk on my counter and then I accidentally knock over the milk . Now it's running across my counter , down the front of my cupboards onto the floor . It's going to be a mess and that's no fun .

But if I happen to spill something , an ingredient , wet or dry , and I'm working over a work tray , chances are that tray is going to be able to contain the spill , even to the point where I might , with a funnel , be able to direct the contents of that spill back into the jar or the box that it came out of . I also use those for cutting boards .

I have never seen one cut through . We used them at the Oregon Commission for the Blind and we would . We had three cooking instructors with two or three or four students in one day . They went through a lot of washing and stuff and we never had one break . So I use those for a cutting board

. People ask me does it dull the knife ? I suppose it does , but so does a wooden cutting board . Anytime you're going to be putting a smooth blade against a surface , it's going to start to dull it , but then you just have a knife sharpener and you just sharpen it .

So I would say the work trays and the other nice thing about them is a lot of my customers are people with age-related vision loss , so they still have some vision . They used to be able to be able to see and they were the cooks of their family , but now they don't know how to get back in the kitchen .

So the other nice thing about those work trays are that you can use them to organize , get all the ingredients out .

If you're making cookies , you know , if I'm working with chicken which can grow bacteria quickly at room temperature , then all of those juices and stuff are going to be contained on that tray , and so we sell a white one and a black one , and that way , if you have some residual virgin left and you're going to cut a white onion , it'd be smarter to pick the

dark cutting board so that you could it'll pop out at you more . Or if I'm cutting a red onion which is dark in color , I might use the light colored tray , because that's going to give me the maximum vision that I can get for that particular task .

So some tools that you can use to organize are a Lazy Susan , which is a platform that you can spin around , Because if I need a can of something or a box of something in my cupboard , it's going to be in the back every single time . Even if it's the last thing I put in there , it is going to magically go into the back of it .

So instead of me reaching over the things in the front to grab that one item I need in the back and then pull my hand out of the cupboard while I'm holding , I'm going to knock a whole bunch of more stuff over . Now all I have to do , if I have them on this little . It's only a 10 inch Lazy Susan .

You don't want one much bigger than that , because then you're layering things again . If it's a 10 inches , it's a nice for cans and most boxes and stuff , and all I have to do is use my fingertip to rotate it 180 degrees and now anything that was in the back of that cupboard is now in the front and I'm not going to be knocking things over .

And if I've got it labeled in braille or whatever , now my fingers can much more easily access it . I also use a lot of bins , baskets , you know containers to put like things in , like my Asian related cuisine , like rice wine , vinegar , soy sauce , sesame oil , sesame seeds , anything that I think I might need If I have chosen an Asian inspired dish .

I can just pull that out and I'll have all that stuff there without having to look through every single one of my bottles . So those are some ways to keep you know clean and organized , so that you know where things are at .

The other fears are fear of cutting yourself , fear of burning yourself , and those are very real fears . You're standing in front of a hot pot or a hot stove , or you have a sharp knife somewhere near you and you can't see it .

If you aren't afraid , you're going to be taken out of the gene pool pretty quickly because those are dangerous items that could cause you harm . But with the right tools , the right strategies , the right information , you absolutely can master using them .

But you've just got to be very careful and know how to do it , and that's part of what the blind kitchen does . The other fear falls in the third category of embarrassing yourself . So , and that kind of falls into two subcategories . One is the fear of looking messy or disorganized . You know you're knocking things over . Oh , my gosh , I'm losing everything .

My dishes are dirty . You know , I didn't see that . Or , you know , maybe I'm not going to be able to do this right . There are strategies and tools to help you get over that fear and to be very confident that you are organized and not looking messy

, looking messy . And then the other fear of embarrassment is the fear I can't see . I'm going to prepare a plate for you or , you know , for people to feed them , and I can't see it . I can't see what's on the plate and I give it to you . You can see it . What if it doesn't look good ? What if it doesn't look appetizing ?

But there are strategies that you can use to have beautifully presented foods in equal portions on different plates . It's creativity . It's part of the reason I love cooking now . It's because it forced me to consider creative alternatives , and that's what the blind kitchen has done .

So the principle that you need to remember in order to do this task with confidence and safely is that you can touch the top rim of a very hot pan for just a second and then literally a tap and pull your finger back and you're not going to be burned .

You can't hold it on there for any length of time and you can't touch hot liquid or hot food , because if you touch hot liquid or hot food and you just tap it for a second , it's still going to come back with your finger and you can get burnt .

So this only applies to a clean top rim of a pan , and that doesn't matter how deep it is or how shallow it is , it still applies . So let's say I'm standing there in front of my on my stove .

What I'm doing , curtis , the most , is to tap the top of my pan , maybe at two o'clock , maybe at four o'clock , six o'clock , ten o'clock , you know , and that's what I'm doing . And if it is equally hot , each of my taps all around the pan are basically the same amount of heat .

I'm going to know that that heating element , the heat source , is centered underneath the pan . But what if I'm stirring and I accidentally nudge the pan and I don't realize that I've done it ? But what if I'm stirring and I accidentally nudge the pan and I don't realize that I've done it ? The next time I go to check and see if it's centered ?

Let's say it's very hot at 10 o'clock , way hotter than 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock or 6 o'clock . What that is telling me is that the pan has moved and instead of that heat being trapped underneath the pan , it's traveling up the side of the pan at 10 o'clock .

And so then I know I've got to nudge the pan very gently towards where the pan is hot so I can get it back over the heat source . And so I'll do it just a little bit and then I'll check again . Give it another minute or so , it's still hot over there by 10 o'clock I better push it a little bit more .

And then I just keep doing it until I'm back on track again , with the pan being equally hot at the top , with my taps all the way around .

Like if you're making a peach cobbler , I talk about frozen peaches versus canned peaches versus fresh peaches , and so that gives you the information that you need to make what will work for you . And then the other thing I do is if it says you know , mix one cup of flour , one egg and one half cup of sugar .

In the directions it'll often say mix the flour , sugar , one egg and one half cup of sugar . In the directions it'll often say mix the flour , sugar and egg , but that doesn't give the amount .

So then we've got to navigate our way back up to the top to find out the three of them unless you're better at memorizing than I am , because I am not good at it , and I put those numbers right in the directions as well . So that's a nice helpful thing that saves us a bit of time . The other thing I really want to do is create a community .

There's a lot of us out there , not a lot of blind chefs , but a lot of blind people who love to cook , and it's a bridge between people . Food is culturally storytelling holidays . Food is a very strong motivator and connector , and so I would like to .

I know that a lot of people with vision loss because travel can be difficult to arrange , difficult to do , a lot of people don't get out as often as I think they would like to .

So I am trying to figure out a way that I can connect people with vision loss who like to cook , maybe do cooking contests or maybe just have a virtual , you know dinner , I don't know . We've got . I've got to get the business up and running , for I mean , it is running . We've been open since October of 22 .

So we've got to keep the packages going out and stuff like that . But once we hit the tipping point where I can then focus on more things that don't generate income but generate a good community , that is , I am so looking forward to in some way building community , and so if anybody has any ideas , feel free to reach out .

I'm juggling a lot of things around right now in my head .

It's very clean , there are no pop-up ads , it's not cluttered , it's very screen reader friendly and very magnifier friendly .

The other thing is , for every tool like , let's say , we talked about the work trays they would come to you in a package that is labeled both in large print and braille , and it reseals so you can put them back in if you want to , but with them . If you say , oh , I don't remember what she said , what all I could do with these , let me look it up .

There's an audio described video on the website that tells you what the tool is and what it does , why it's blind friendly and how to use and care for it . Because I don't sell things that aren't especially adaptive for people with vision loss . I'm just not selling pots and pans or , you know , dinner plates .

The things that you'll find on the store shelves address some

challenge that is faced by people with cooking loss in the kitchen .

Hundreds of us , not thousands of us , are doing it , and the blind kitchen part of the mission was to let you sit back in the comfort of your own home and take in the information on the website , whether it's the audio described videos , or if you use magnifiers , whatever it takes , so that you can find out where your challenge is , and there's so many

challenges like measuring , picking out the one about centering a pan on the stove . I get asked about that all the time . How do I ground meat ? How do I know when it's cooked ? I can't use a talking thermometer for that , and so we have a video on that . How can you fry an egg or make pancakes ?

Because when you put liquid into a pan or a grill , it's going to go wherever the heck it wants if you don't have a way of controlling it .

And so for all of these things I've talked about in measuring wet ingredients that can be a nightmare for people , and that we have a really nice set of measuring cups and spoons on the website that are also marked , but they're marked with their stainless steel and the handles . If it has four dots and they're part of the handle .

They aren't bump dots , they're not tactile paint , they are actually part of the steel handle itself . Then you've got a quarter of a teaspoon or a quarter of a cup . If there's two , because two it's going to be a half , because two is on the bottom of that fraction , and if it's three , it's going to be a third .

So you don't have to read Braille , you just have to be able to count and hopefully you have enough sensitivity in your fingertips to be able to count . So these don't work for everyone , especially if you have other conditions that might neuropathy and things like that that might affect your ability to feel .

But I've had a lot of people say that this really has made a difference . So I would challenge anyone who thinks that they can't cook safely and independently . I would challenge to think that you probably can , you just don't know how yet .

So that would be my message to people , and if you want to reach out and talk to me , you can write to info at theblindkitchencom and I would love to have a conversation with people and serve as kind of a consultant .

If you're a baker , your needs are probably and challenges are probably going to be different than someone who cooks on top of the stovetop versus in the oven . We all have our different preferences and our different styles that we enjoy

. So not everybody needs everything in the blind kitchen not by any stretch but there are some things that might absolutely make your life easier .

Visit our new website for living the dream , wwwcurveball337.com , where you can leave your feedback and leave comments and all that good stuff . Thank you for listening and supporting the show . Deborah , thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining me . No , thank you for having me . I enjoyed the conversation .

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast , visit wwwcurveball337.com . Until next time , keep living the dream .