When I first began to suffer from low vision, I could get by in the kitchen as long as I didn’t make it too complicated. Keep it simple was my approach to the problem then. When I became totally blind, it was necessary to make a lot of changes and learn new ways to do things, well actually, practically everything. Along the way, I made some pretty horrible concoctions. Not on purpose but because I didn’t have food items marked properly or didn’t concentrate on what I was doing. Some of the simplest things suddenly seemed so hard. I once made macaroni and cheese from one of those little boxes. My daughter came in and asked what it was. When I told her, she just told me that she wasn’t going to eat that. She had always liked this, so I didn’t understand the problem. Then she told me that I was ever so carefully measuring strawberry cream cheese into the milk and cheese rather than margarine. Yep! It tasted pretty horrible and we ended up having peanut butter and jelly for dinner. In those first early days, we had a lot of peanut butter. It really does get better and here are just a few hints for you to try. Please feel free to forward your own ideas to us and we will be happy to put them on our web site to share with others.
Be very organized in your kitchen. Put your utensils and other kitchen tools back in the same place each time you use them. It is frustrating to always have to look for something. We keep a peg board on the wall behind the stove and hang the most frequently used kitchen tools on it.
Use some kind of system to keep your food stuffs organized. You can label with Braille if that is an option, but there are also other ways you can remember the food items if you don’t know Braille. One of them is to keep like items together. Such as, canned fruits on one side and vegetables on the other. Rubber bands around a can helps to jog the memory. I buy some items in cans that are readily identified. I purchase canned fruit in the large 29 ounce cans to tell it quickly from the canned vegetables. Purchasing tomato paste and sauce in the small cans may not be the most economical way to buy them, but they are easy to identify at a touch. In addition to these non-technical methods there are many scanners on the market to assist with finding the right food product. One of them is the Voila Scanner from Maxi-aids it is a bar code scanner with labels that you can use for a variety of functions. I use some of the labels for food items and when I need to know what a can is, I just scan it and it tells me. There are at least two others that are even more impressive, but they are more expensive. You get what you pay for.
One suggestion I tried was to put all the items that I would need for a casserole in one of those plastic store bags until I actually made it. That way all of the items were still together from the day I shopped at the store.
Don’t depend on the sound of a product to know what it is. I once cooked macaroni for one half hour trying to get it done. When I knew it had been way too long for macaroni I poured it into the strainer. Guess what? It wasn’t macaroni. It was popcorn. Well, when I shook it, it sounded like macaroni.
Take the time to mark in some way your spices. Personally I use a spice rack that is a carousel. The top of each spice container is labeled with a bar code label. I locate what I want and then all I have to do is turn the knob on the front one click for each ¼ teaspoon of spice needed. There are other ways to do this. Touch dots affixed to the spice bottle will let you know the most frequently used ones. Once again, rubber bands can help with this. Even a small piece of Velcro. Just remember what you put on what spice jar. I bought my spice carousel from Maxi-aids.
Don’t force yourself to remember all of those recipes that you have been making for years. Ask a friend or relative to record them on to a cassette tape and when you want to cook something and need the recipe, just locate it on the tape which you will already have in a special spot in your kitchen.
I love to bake. I found it to be a great help to have all the usual baking ingredients together in the cupboard. I took a large rectangular plastic container and placed all the items I use to bake with. Then when I want to bake something, I just lift out the whole little box and everything I need is in one place.
To avoid a mess on the counter top, I spread a large bath towel along the counter I am using. I try to keep most of the mess on this towel. I like to bake, but I do not like to clean up.
Owning an extra long pair of oven mitts will protect your arms from burns when reaching way back in to the oven, which is where everything seems to turn out to be.
I use a special holder for baking potatoes. It is circular and has places to spike the potatoes on. This will hold four, and keep them in one place in the oven and cook them in half the time.
My talking cookie jar lets me know when the cookie monster is visiting. It is a policeman, who says “Stop! Get away from the cookie jar.” Not necessary, but fun.
I use the same brands repeatedly. That way, I already know the measurements and I don’t have to find someone to read them to me.
Keep in mind that the phrase “out of sight out of mind” takes on a whole new meaning when you cannot see. I wish I had a dollar for every gallon of milk I neglected to put away when I was finished with it. If you are using refrigerated products, put them back as soon as your are finished. You could possibly forget to return them to the fridge.
An omelet pan is a wonderful little gadget. It not only makes an omelet but if you are cooking a single hamburger and you don’t have a double spatula, you can just flip it over and cook the other side.
Before you pour anything into a bowl or pan, find the inside of the container with your right hand and then pour it in with your left. It is so much easier than pouring where you think it is and then cleaning it up off the counter, floor stove or worse all of the above.
All of your appliances can be marked, in one way or another so that you know what the temperature is on the stove, settings on the microwave, dishwasher or any other machine. There are several different items on the market for you to try. One is the spot line pen and or touch dots. Another idea is Velcro. These can be used on your washer and dryer as well.
I purchase items in bulk and then break them down to manageable sizes. This saves on trips to the store and the risk of running out of something. It is really amazing the things you can freeze. Milk, cheese, and butter to name a few. I always try to keep a backup of everyday items and when I start to use that backup item, I go buy two more.
To keep those canned goods from sliding around in the cupboard, I relined mine with the soft foamy like shelf liner. The cans don’t move unless I pick them up. So they can’t get confused with the others by sliding around. This is nice for glassware too.
What is the one thing you should have in your kitchen? A FIRE EXTINGUISHER!!! You just never know when you might need it. Accidents do happen. Learn how to use it. It won’t do you any good propped in the corner.
Hello Cathy, Just another note from my house to yours. I would like to share an idea I came up with. Perhaps others already do this. I had a problem of, when I was dusting the house, and the telephone would ring, I would lay my dustcloth down and then not be able to find it when I returned to my task. I came up with the idea that everytime I laid my dustcloth down, I would hang it on a doorknob. Then, I could always find it by checking all the doorknobs. I also clean the house barefoot and can feel the dirt with my feet. With carpet, that is a little more difficult. Have a great day.
Judith and Madera