Debra Erickson: 0:00

The best emails I get are from people who thought that part of their identity was gone. You know, they're the one that cooks on Memorial Day. They do all the grilling for, you know, fourth of July, and now they thought they'd never be able to do it again. And somehow they find the blind kitchen and so it gives people that part of their identity back.

Announcement: 0:25

Time to fire up that grill. From smoked pork to smash burgers, outdoor cooking just tastes better. This is the Okie Smokin' Podcast, and here's your host, John Barry.

John Berry: 0:45

Welcome back to the Okie Smokin Podcast. Today I've got a very special guest, a chef as well, an executive chef and the founder of the Blind Kitchen. Her name is Debra Erickson. She was one of the only blind students in her class, a former instructor with Oregon Commission for the Blind. How are you doing today? Welcome in.

Debra Erickson: 1:08

I'm doing good. Thank you for having me.

John Berry: 1:10

Now. So how did you get the idea for the Blind Kitchen?

Debra Erickson: 1:14

Well, I am blind myself and I like to teach, and I graduated from culinary school in 2019. And in March of 2020, and so I was teaching at the Commission for the Blind, teaching legally blind adults how to cook safely. And then COVID hit, and so I found myself at home for a year and a half not able to do teaching. So I went ahead and organized all the different things I'd learned, and grilling was part of what we had to cover in. You know, all types of fabrication of meats and things like that, so I knew a lot about adaptive cooking tools. If you do have vision loss and you want to grill and in fact, we have a grilling collection on the website Quite a few tools have to do specifically with outdoor barbecuing, grilling, smoking.

John Berry: 2:07

And are those tools different? That you need for the grill or for just a regular indoor oven and stove, or different?

Debra Erickson: 2:14

No outdoor grill. So if I'm cooking indoors, if I'm broiling or something in my oven, I have a certain pair of gloves. There's a different one for outside, because your arms are over, directly, often over the heat source In the kitchen. You can avoid putting your hands in the oven, but you can't outside putting because it's going to be over the coals or over the flame. So the tools are specifically for outdoor grilling and barbecuing. Some of them.

John Berry: 2:41

Right, because I know if you're using the oven you can just gently, you know, maybe pull it closer to you and just reach in and grab the pot or pan without actually going over the fire and on the grill. You don't really have that option.

Debra Erickson: 2:56

You're exactly right. That's why the gloves are different.

John Berry: 3:00

Gloves have to be longer? What if you have some kind of a searing up or you know, sometimes the fire can get a little too hot. Is there a way for you to identify that?

Debra Erickson: 3:13

It definitely can. You can hear it usually, and certainly you can feel it. And so then you would have the controls marked and it's very easy to do it. They're called bump dots. Of the controls marked and it's very easy to do it. They're called bump dots and you put them in predictable places like maybe at 300, maybe at 350, maybe at 400. And that way, if I'm doing it, depends on your controls. But if I'm doing a dial, I have to know where the tip of the dial is pointing to and it usually forms a point. They're almost all manufactured that way, and so if I want the 350, I'm going to go until it lines up with that second bump dot that is located on the grill itself. So that's how I control the temperature and so if I need to bring it down, I bring it down.

Debra Erickson: 3:56

And the other thing is that a very small percentage of people who are legally blind are completely blind. It's a very, very small portion. Most people do have light perception. So if the light gets brighter or aflame, as you're talking about, we do have some visual information. It won't be as clear as yours, but it'll still be information that's useful to us to help us make sure we can keep doing what we still love to do.

John Berry: 4:23

Right and I assume you would use your, you would listen and you could probably start to hear it ramp up. You know, because when you get the, you do have some flame noise coming out of it that you can detect and, of course, the heat of it as well.

Debra Erickson: 4:38

Sure, you would use all three of those senses and whatever vision you, if you're lucky enough to have some.

John Berry: 4:50

What are some of the more common fears that you would suspect someone?

Debra Erickson: 4:52

visually impaired would have when cooking in the kitchen or on the grill. Okay, so for the grill specifically, I mean we could talk about preparation cutting, and people are afraid of cutting themselves and burning themselves, of embarrassing themselves by looking messy or, you know, uncoordinated, or also by producing unattractive food for their guests. You know, I'm handing you a plate of food, I can't see it. But for grilling I do want to stick to that. It's mostly fear of burning yourself or fear of not being able to manipulate the food on the grill, not to know when to do it and not to know how to do it. So I'll tell you about some of the information I'll be giving you is based on tools, and some of them are just strategies. So another fear people have is making people sick, and you know because we undercook the food, like especially poultry or seafood.

Debra Erickson: 5:50

So there is a tool out there that was not made for blind people. It's called a talking thermometer, and mostly it was created for nighttime grilling when you can't see the display very well. Most of these have a backlight on the display, but it's still very hard for a lot of people to see at night, and so that's why this talking thermometer was created and you can toggle between Celsius or Fahrenheit and all you have to do is push a button an educated guess as to how close in the center it is, but it's an educated guess when you're doing it, even if you can see perfectly well. You can't see into the meat, but you put it and then you press the button and it'll tell you if your chicken's at 165 or not, whether it's safe to consume. Because most of us, if we are afraid of making our family or friends sick, you're gonna overcook the food to be safe.

Debra Erickson: 6:43

But this talking thermometer lets me cook. Get the same information you're getting through your eyes, through my ears. So, plus, if I do have, you know, any vision loss or if it is dark and I can't see well in the dark and I got to get my face close to the display, now my eyes are near the food, my nose is, my mouth is. It's not a safe place to be. So if you can get the information through your ears, I think everybody should do that.

John Berry: 7:13

Right and, like you said, it's a kind of a guess of where you're going and even when you can see it, you might want to put it in a couple different locations of it, because when you read it you may get a different temperature and you could put it, you know, in a couple of different locations and make sure that it's cooked thoroughly in multiple locations if you're cooking a bigger item on the grill.

Debra Erickson: 7:35

No, you're exactly right, because you want to. It's the thickest part, closest to the bone, of that cut of meat is going to be the last part to cook, so you want to make sure that you're getting it into the right spaces. But, absolutely, multiple probings are important.

John Berry: 7:51

And you mentioned that that talking thermometer is made for everyday people at nighttime rather than those visually impaired. Which of the tools would you say are actually for maybe everybody, not even thinking of those that need it in that manner?

Debra Erickson: 8:10

Okay for grilling specifically. I think all of them are made for the general population. They just lend themselves well to cooking with vision loss. So I'll tell you about another one A problem. So flipping a hamburger, flipping a steak, it can be difficult if you have vision loss because it's hard to slide it underneath and get it. So, number one, I've got the grill gloves. I'm sure you're familiar with these. They come up your arm, up your forearm, you know, like probably six or seven inches, and they have a thumb and four fingers and they're made of cloth but they're covered with silicone designs, so that way that silicone helps protect you against the heat but it keeps the flexibility. Have you seen gloves like that?

John Berry: 9:02

Yes, yes, I've seen what you're talking about.

Debra Erickson: 9:04

Yeah. So those are really good because they give you tactile. But trying to get, let's see, that piece of chicken flipped over and knowing for sure that you flipped it over, it's hard to do if you can't see it. So we have something called a double spatula and it's made out of stainless steel and it's basically if a spatula and a pair of tongs had a baby. This is what it would look like. So you slide it under and then there's a second. So that rectangle is about four inches by three inches on the bottom. The rectangle on the top is smaller, probably about one inch by two inches. So when I get under that stake I can use my grilling glove or I could use a fork to hold it in place, so I can slide it underneath and know for sure I'm underneath it. Then I gently push down with the littler spatula on the top. They're attached, they don't come apart, and now I can pick it up, know that I have it on the platform and then turn it over 180 and put it back down and I'll know it's going to be almost in exactly the same place, because I haven't moved my hand anywhere. So that's something that also isn't made for and there's a lot of different versions of it on the market, but I like the one that has the smaller rectangle on top because it makes it easier to deposit that hamburger or that pork chop once you put it down.

Debra Erickson: 10:24

Another thing that I think is really useful not made for the blind or visually impaired, but it's called a skewer, a double skewer, because if you're cooking, let's say you're using bamboo skewers or metal skewers and you run like, let's say, for the hardest one, let's say we have like a row of cherry tomatoes For the hardest one, let's say we have like a row of cherry tomatoes. So they're round. As they cook on the grill they get hotter, the moisture gets released to steam. It makes the hole bigger that it's being punctured through. So when you go to turn it it can turn uselessly in the center, and I really can't know. But ours have two prongs coming out of them. It has a handle and then two I think they're about eight-inch prongs. So when I stick those same cherry tomatoes I make sure they go through.

Debra Erickson: 11:20

Now it's hitting on two holes. There's no way I can't turn that 180 degrees. It can't roll uselessly, and so that also works really good for like other foods that roll. So I can put sausages or hot dogs, impale them and then have them be a little distance apart so that they can. You know, the heat can get in between them and I can put depending on how thick the sausage or the hot dog is. I can flip four of them at the same time and know that I've turned them 180 degrees and they're not going to roll between the grate or anything like that. It's going to work out. So again, this was not something made, but it just lends itself well to us.

John Berry: 12:04

Yes, because I can relate. I do grill a lot and you do have. We have flat tops and things or it's unlevel and you put it there and everything rolls and I always move it to the right spot, so that that's a great way to make sure it stays where it's supposed to. You have an entire grilling, barbecue and kitchen kit here and there's those double prongs. Is there any one of those? That's the? Is the most popular one going to be the talking thermometer there or the gloves?

Debra Erickson: 12:34

The gloves, the talking thermometer and, not surprisingly, there's something called a corncob cleaner.

John Berry: 12:40

Yeah, I'm looking at that.

Debra Erickson: 12:42

It is so cool and, again, not meant for the blind or visually impaired, but it's good for so. The other thing is is the population is aging and with aging often comes with some sort of vision loss. It's different for everybody, but there are a lot of people that enjoy outdoor grilling and then once they lose you know, macular degeneration or advanced glaucoma. They don't know how to get back, and that's what this is about. But the other thing that comes with aging sometimes is teeth problems, like you can't really eat a you know a corn cob anymore. So after you've grilled the corn, or you can do it when it's raw too, it depends on how you want to eat it. But you put what it is it's a long tube and it's only got four pieces in it to it, and it's only got four pieces in it to it.

Debra Erickson: 13:33

You put the corn cob, you husk it and then you get the silks off and then you put it in and now it's sticking up inside that tube straight up. The point of the corn is pointing towards the ceiling. There is a tube, a steel tube, that has jagged little teeth on the bottom. They're sharp enough to get the corn kernels off the cob, but they aren't sharp enough to pierce your skin, so you just put that on the top. Now the corn is being held upward, you push down.

Debra Erickson: 14:02

Sometimes you need to turn a little bit. All of the corn kernels come off and they stay in the tube tube, as do the starches that squirt, because that can be a real messy job. And I remember when I used to be able to see I grew up in Indiana and we had to do a lot of canning of corns and stuff like that and I remember it was easy to leave half of a corn kernel on there, you know, for a whole row. This thing does it for you really quick, really easy and really cleanly, so that's a popular tool.

John Berry: 14:33

I know when you first started is barbecue and grilling, which is really cool that you do that. Is it something that developed, maybe people requested, or how did you all of a sudden decide a barbecue kit is something to go ahead and add to your collection?

Debra Erickson: 14:51

Yeah, it was requested. One guy looked at my library and I have things on dining out, I have things on different cooking methods, I have things on labeling things and how do you identify things. And he said this is a great website, but you don't have anything on barbecuing or grilling. I was like, oops, you're right, and so then I started. My brother also has the same eye disease I do and he grills all the time. He's into sous vide and all that kind of stuff. So he was one of my original testers because he's very good at what he does. So that's yeah, it was a request and it's quite popular. That's. That's yeah, it was, it was a request and it's quite popular.

John Berry: 15:30

So it's kind of evolving over time because you know, in our motto here is outdoor cooking just tastes better. We just love to do this everything outdoors. And then as you get more people involved feedback, comments and those kind of things you kind of fine tune it as you go along.

Debra Erickson: 15:48

Exactly right. It's that feedback that helps make you better. Is that double spatula good for people? You know, maybe the handle's too long, maybe the handle's too short, maybe it shouldn't be stainless steel, but so far I've been getting really good feedback for these tools.

John Berry: 17:01

Yeah, I was also looking. You have several recipes. I like the way they're laid out. I was looking at a couple of them that I would definitely try myself and the way they go, but I also caught my eye there. You actually have some barbecue sauce.

Debra Erickson: 17:14

I do, and that was based on a recipe from Christine Ha. She is a blind cook that won the third season of MasterChef, and so I was trying to recreate some of her recipes in her book and that's where that one came from, so that's got a special place in my heart. And any kind of rubs or any kind of sauces, you can always tweak it. If you want it smokier, you could add more smoked paprika, or you could add liquid smoke. If you want it sweeter, you could add more brown sugar or honey, or however you want to make it your own. But the recipes on this website are a good start.

John Berry: 17:53

Now, do you have any favorite grill recipe yourself, or barbecue stories?

Debra Erickson: 17:58

Barbecue stories. Well, yeah, one of the things I was learning on is I had a, so I always have a work tray, which is a tray that keeps everything in one place for me. And then I had I had the grilling gloves, but I had a cloth, and the cloth I had it over my shoulder while I was working. I was wearing an apron and somehow the cloth came off and it started on fire, and so that was a little bit scary. But that's how I came up with the grilling clips that they are about four inches long and they have an alligator clip on one end and an alligator clip on the other end, made out of stainless steel. So now I clip a cloth to my apron or to my clothing if that's all I'm wearing, and it moves with me, which is nice too, and it's never going to end up in the flames.

Debra Erickson: 18:51

And the other thing I do is my grilling gloves. It's really easy to put those down and then they move as you're doing things. But I use those grilling clips glove clips. They attach to my apron and then they attach to the gloves, so they move around with me wherever I go. So I've always got them.

John Berry: 19:09

Now there was something else I saw on here that I actually want. I'm going to probably get these, and this would pertain to anybody grilling or cooking indoors alone, and I actually have a couple of cuts right now on my finger. Last time, about a week ago, I was cutting and I pricked my finger a couple of times now on my finger. Last time, about a week ago, I was cutting and I I pricked my finger a couple of times and you've got I see these chain mail or they're uh gloves that you can wear when you're cutting so you don't have to worry about cutting yourself, because, uh, when you're grilling, a lot of times you'll be prepping chicken in cubes, uh, slicing up onions to throw on smash burgers, whatever you're doing, and are those pretty, something you'd recommend not just visually impaired, but anyone to really have.

Debra Erickson: 19:55

Oh, absolutely. And the way I learned about those. I was working in a commercial kitchen. I was the only blind person there, the only blind cook. But the insurance company required all cooks to wear them before I'd ever gotten there, before they even knew they were going to have me apply, and so all the cooks had to wear them. Chain mail is a good word, but these are much thinner than that. But they're a level five, which means they're flexible, but they're not going to be really bulky Like the heat gloves and the grill gloves are quite bulky. They're flexible, but they're not going to be really bulky like the heat gloves and the grill gloves are quite bulky. They're going to be thicker.

Debra Erickson: 20:32

So the other thing that thing is good for is remember I was telling you I need to make sure if I'm cooking like a chicken breast or anything, I need to have that thermometer tip at least at one point in when I'm probing it and I do do it multiple times is that I want to have it in the thickest part of the meat, closest to the bone, depending on how it applies.

Debra Erickson: 20:58

That cut glove is not expected to protect me against heat, but it does. It's better than my skin, so I can put that cut glove on and now I've got more flexibility, more tactile information and I can actually touch that meat for just a couple seconds because eventually the heat's going to get to me. It's not meant to protect, but that's the other good use for that. So, like when I'm flipping that hamburger I'm talking about, I'll put that glove on my left hand so that I can hold the hamburger and then put that underneath it, and then I know I've got it on the platform. It just gives me more tactile information, even if the food is hot.

John Berry: 21:36

So what you're saying is we have like a blackstone griddle, a 22 inch griddle that you heat up and sometimes while we're cooking on it, it we can cut additional food on it now, not directly on the the griddle itself, but we have a kind of a heat resistant it's. It's kind of like a cutting board, but it's it's got feet gets on top of it and you can cut with that. So if you had those gloves on and on that cutting board, you're kind of close to the griddle, they're going to protect you from the heat and cutting yourself kind of all in one.

Debra Erickson: 22:10

Oh, I'll have to check that out. That sounds like something that would be useful.

John Berry: 22:14

Yeah, because you can get on there and say you want to dice up some additional onions or something, and you can do it right beside there and just go ahead and slide it right onto the griddle. Food and things like that.

Debra Erickson: 22:26

Without messing up your nonstick surface. It sounds like.

John Berry: 22:29

Yes.

Debra Erickson: 22:30

Yeah. So just a little kind of fun tip here. Have you ever seen a George Foreman grill?

John Berry: 22:37

Yes.

Debra Erickson: 22:39

I think we may even have one. So that is hugely popular with the blind community, mostly because, well, usually they only have one temperature. Some of them have more controls, but they usually are at 350 and it's preset, so we don't have to worry about the dials or controls. When it's plugged in, it's on. If it's heated up, it's 350. But the other nice thing for a lot of people is you don't have to flip the food. It closes up like a suitcase, and so that's a real popular thing that I've used, especially with people that wanted the grilling experience per se, but they were afraid of cooking over an open flame and it's not for everybody and it is intimidating. Until you do it a few times and realize that you really aren't going to get burnt. That's a really good tool, and I wanted to also tell you something that you might like.

Debra Erickson: 23:37

So in culinary school I learned this they have something out there called finger cuts in a first aid kit, so we sell these little first aid kits with Band-Aids.

Debra Erickson: 23:47

The problem is, if you just cut yourself, you know just a little bit and you just want to put a Band-Aid on it. When you're cooking or grilling, your hands often get wet, either from the steam or from the sweat or, you know, from washing your hands. So if you can't see, especially, or if it's dark outside, that rubber band could fall down into the food or the Band-Aid and you don't even know it's there. So what this does, it's kind of like I'm just going to say the word. You put the rubber band on or the Band-Aid on and now your finger's dry, it's on, but now you want to get back to cooking quickly. It's kind of like a finger condom. That's the best way that it unrolls over your finger and it's tight. It's uncomfortably tight, but that's so that it holds on, that you're not going to lose it, and that enables you to keep that bandaid on and get back to cooking really quickly without worrying about that bandaid falling out.

John Berry: 24:44

Oh, real cool.

Debra Erickson: 24:46

Yeah, it is a good one.

John Berry: 24:48

Now you have all these adaptive tools. Now do you also do any classes or coaching or anything like that? Or you pretty much just give the product to help those that need it?

Debra Erickson: 25:01

Right, the products are the main thing, but I also do workshops and public speaking for people and I also do like presentations at conferences to just help get the word out and let people know that it's there.

John Berry: 25:14

And if someone was per se into grilling or something, what is the one advice or what would you recommend to them?

Debra Erickson: 25:24

So it depends on their skill level and their comfort and their vision. But there's another tool I didn't tell you about that I think people will like, and it's called the grill basket and basically I think it's about 16 inches wide and 12 inches tall and about one inch deep and it's literally like a suitcase. But it's a grill basket. It's the. You know the I can't think of the right word it's grilling material. You put it in, it's going to be exposed to the flame or the heat source, whatever your heat source is, and then you can put like four hamburger patties in there, or you can put four small petite steaks, if you wanted to put them in there, and then you close up the basket and you lock it.

Debra Erickson: 26:10

But now remember, air and heat can get all around this basket, and so you cook it for the amount of time you want for your steak, maybe four minutes on one side, depending on the thickness and how cold it is at the time you put it on, and then you can flip it over. All four of them are contained within that basket and they all flip at the same time, so that's a pretty handy one to have too. Where the food is contained, you know where it's at, it's predictable, and that's a pretty good tool for people to have, especially people that are just beginning, that aren't wanting to be chasing their food all over the grill if it rolls, or something like that started.

John Berry: 26:48

That would be very helpful for, do you think, most of the people. Are you helping those that are very new and beginners trying to cook blind, or are these intermediate older, more experienced people?

Debra Erickson: 27:14

I'd go intermediate to more experienced, because if you lose your vision, grilling is probably not going to be the first place you go to for a new hobby. But most of these are people that were able to see and love doing it for their friends and family and now, because of vision loss, age-related or otherwise, they don't know how to get back to it. How can I possibly, like you were talking, those flare-ups of the flames if I can't see it? How am I going to control it? And so these tools help them, get the confidence that they can do it, and you get into it slowly again.

Debra Erickson: 27:51

But you know, the best emails I get are from people who thought that part of their identity was gone. You know, they're the one that cooks on Memorial Day, they do all the grilling for, you know, 4th of July, and now they thought they'd never be able to do it again. And somehow they find the blind kitchen, and so it gives people that part of their identity back, and that's a good thing to hear, because I like to do things that I used to like to do when I could see better. Of course I can't drive, but I can cook, I can do other things, so I would say most of the people that purchase this are either people or agencies that teach people with vision loss how to cook, or people that used to be able to cook and now want to get able to cook and now want to get back to doing what they love to do.

John Berry: 28:45

Have already been enthusiasts of cooking or grilling or whatever what it is they're doing and unable to, and are looking to be able to bring that passion back.

Debra Erickson: 28:54

Exactly right. I mean, think about yourself. You obviously have a passion for this, and if you were to lose your vision, you'd lose a big piece of who you are in terms of grilling.

John Berry: 29:05

Now you mentioned people can email you. Well, could we go ahead? And what do you want to give out your email or information website?

Debra Erickson: 29:13

Sure. So you can go to theblindkitchencom and it's got a lot of detailed descriptions and it's a very easy website to navigate, because we use screen readers and magnifiers and if we have pop-up ads and different things going on it makes you insane. So it's a very clean website and you can write to me at info at theblindkitchencom and if I don't know the answer I'll ask my brother, because he knows a lot more about it than I do and is there anything you're working on now?

John Berry: 29:43

I mean, you know we talked about how you originally started and then grilling was a suggestion or a recommendation, or you need to be able to help me do this. Is there new things evolving that you haven't done yet? That the future? What is the future of the blind kitchen?

Debra Erickson: 30:01

Well, the future of the blind kitchen I want to create a community around it, kind of like you've done. You know where people can come to one place. I don't know if that looks like a podcast or if it looks like a cook-along or whatever something like that, but yeah, the idea is to create a community. But the next thing for barbecuing and grilling is I want to get sous vide up there, because that is one of the safest way to cook. You know that chicken is 165 or 162, whatever you chose to put that in when you put it in the water the vacuum sealed bag in the water, and so it's one of the safest ways for blind people to be able to cook.

Debra Erickson: 30:46

It's already you know. You already know it's safe to consume. You've programmed it to where you want it, to what makes sense, and so I really think that would be a valuable technique for people with vision loss, and so I'm going to push that out when I can. But that requires purchasing equipment, or there's actually wands out there that you can get, but not many of them are accessible visually, so it's going to take a bit of expense of me getting different tools to find out which ones are going to be the most accessible for people with vision loss, and I cater to the most blind person in the world. I don't. I want anyone that visits my website to be able to use any of the tools that are on it. It's really important.

John Berry: 31:35

Of course, you've been doing all this, blind yourself for the duration of this whole project.

Debra Erickson: 31:41

Oh yeah, oh yeah. The blind kitchen was nothing. I've been a teacher in the past, a teacher of adults. So when I did lose most of my available vision, I didn't know what I wanted to teach. I knew I didn't want to go back to teaching what I was teaching because I thought it'd be frustrating. And so I was in a cooking class and, my dear friend, I said this is fun, I enjoy this and maybe I could teach cooking. And then immediately I said I can't, I don't know how to cook. I don't know how to teach cooking Because my mom I'm one of 12 kids, so my mom didn't have time to put each of her seven daughters in front of the stove.

Debra Erickson: 32:23

So my contributions to dinner were like peeling 10 pounds of potatoes, setting the table and cleaning up. So when I raised my family, I got things out of boxes and cans. I could follow instructions and you know macaroni and cheese or hamburger helper. But I really had no love for cooking and no real interest in it. But when that light bulb went on in my head at the Commission for the Blind, I said what's the best way to learn how to teach cooking? And to learn it is to go to cooking school, so I had planned to just teach after I got done with that. That would just make me a better teacher. And then, as I said, when COVID hit, that's how the blind kitchen came to be. I was looking for a way to still be able to reach people, even if I couldn't teach them in person.

John Berry: 33:12

So the culinary school is kind of what sparked you into cooking as you do now.

Debra Erickson: 33:19

A hundred percent, as you do now, a hundred percent. So Chef Earl and Chef Aaron Chef Earl loves barbecuing and he's from, I think, north Carolina and he is excellent at it. And they had a big, giant green egg. I had never seen one before and they allowed me to experiment on that. So no, that was absolutely. And growing up in Indiana, girls didn't barbecue. The girls stayed in the kitchen and did the salads and got things ready and the men did the barbecuing and took all the credit for everything. But it just wasn't a female role thing to do. So culinary school really did spark it in me. It's like, oh, this is fun, yeah, so culinary school really did spark it in me. It's like, oh, this is fun.

John Berry: 34:02

Right on, I was sitting here and I was thinking because there's something that I use frequently that would be, I would think, for help for those blind, and it is because when you're cooking, sometimes we'll cook something for not just minutes or even an hour, but several hours.

Debra Erickson: 34:20

Yeah.

John Berry: 34:20

Half of a day. So I use a device that would actually be helpful for this, and I use it just so it will alert me if the temperature gets too hot, if the temperature gets too cold, and it has an alarm that goes off and that's for just. You know, regular people like me. But something like that would most definitely come in handy, because you know regular people like me. But something like that would most definitely come in handy because you know you can go take a nap and you can just have an app on your phone and it'll it'll start buzzing and it'll say you know, what it doesn't do is it doesn't say. What you have to do is click on it and you look at it and it will tell you the temperature.

John Berry: 34:57

Is the fires went out in the grill. You need to check it. Oh, wow, everything is done, or it'll give you information about. You can determine how far along the cook has gone, how hot the fire is. But it would be cool in this case is to if it were to actually not just you know set an alarm and you got to click on it to look at it, but it actually not just you know set an alarm and you got to click on it to look at it, but it actually told you, you know, spoke out and maybe there is a way, I don't know, but if it were to speak out to you and tell you what you need to know, that would be something real beneficial I think.

Debra Erickson: 35:34

I think can you tell me the brand name or not? So much.

John Berry: 35:37

Sure, it's, the one I have is Weber.

Debra Erickson: 35:42

Weber, the Weber one. Okay, there's another one.

John Berry: 35:45

I've heard of called iMeet.

Debra Erickson: 35:47

I've heard of that one too. Okay, so the question about these are and you're right, I need to look into this Are they accessible to screen readers on your phone? Because my phone, I use it with a blank screen completely and I use swipes and gestures and some apps are very accessible and others aren't. So I you know what I'm going to order. I'll probably order both brands and see if they're accessible and if they are, you're right, that would be an excellent, excellent addition.

John Berry: 36:15

Yeah, that is something. I don't know about the accessibility, but it would be something, if it's, that should be requested or told that it needs to be, because that would be a definitely helpful tool. The one I have is actually a Weber Connect.

Debra Erickson: 36:30

Weber Connect.

John Berry: 36:31

Yeah, you can actually connect it, or you basically charge it and you can connect it to Wi-Fi. You can even monitor it away from your home or in your home, but when it's sitting there, you can have a probe inside your grill so it'll keep. It'll keep known, you'll be able to continue to know the temperature in the grill, and you can also. It has three others that you can put in. You know, a piece of chicken, a piece of pork, and it will, each probe, tell you the temperature of each one. You can look at your phone and determine what the temperature of each piece of food is, as well as the temperature inside the grill.

John Berry: 37:11

But what I don't know that it does I haven't tested it is whether or not it would speak it to you. I don't know of any way, but that would be something I think would be helpful. I agree, because something like that, if I was unable to see it, it would be something that would definitely affect my ability or ways. Or you know, I cook things for 18 hours and you just sleep and the alarm will go off if something's going wrong.

Debra Erickson: 37:39

Oh, wow, that would be very helpful. Now let me ask you a question. So the probe is in the meat, or the four probes are in four different meats? Is it tethered? Is it the wire hooked to your phone? I mean, like, is there a platform?

John Berry: 37:59

The Weber Connect one actually has and you can use pretty much any. It is a wire. So each you've got a device that you set next to your grill and it has four probes that you put the wires in and you can put it in, say, probe one and you can put it in a meet. You can put it in probe two, you can put it in a different meet or a different location of the same meat. Then they have specific probes to where you can put a third one in and it just snaps on the grill and it just kind of lays there like a temperature probe so you can monitor the actual temperature in the grill.

Debra Erickson: 38:37

Oh, wow, okay, yeah, that would be helpful.

John Berry: 38:40

I'm not sure about the iMeet, when I've just heard of that. There are some I know there's Meter and a couple others that don't have a wire. You just plug it directly into the meet and some of them will actually the same probe detect the temperature in the meet and the temperature outside the meet because it's got a temperature outside of it. And that might even be better, as I wouldn't be experienced to say for sure, but both of those are pretty good devices and if it was just something to think about, that I thought of.

Debra Erickson: 39:13

I appreciate that. Thank you, yeah, it would be important to know if you ran out of propane.

John Berry: 39:20

And a story about I don't know. It's been several years. We had a lightning storm come through. I'm here in Oklahoma, so we're subject to storms all the time, and at that time I was using a pellet grill, so the electricity needed to run. And I have a pellet grill, I have a charcoal I've got about five or six out there and lightning came through and it had kicked it off. At that time I didn't have the weber connect or anything and I was in bed, white, put it on at, say, 10 o'clock, slept right through the storm, woke up at six in the morning, seven in the morning. It hadn't even cooked at some time during it triggered it. That was a 15-pound brisket. As you said earlier, you don't want to get sick. We ended up tossing it because we didn't. It didn't look like it had been cooked that long. It could have been sitting there for hours.

Debra Erickson: 40:14

Right at room temperature. Yeah.

John Berry: 40:16

And everything else in there. So those are definitely good devices and, once again, like we talked earlier, are really good for anybody in multiple situations.

Debra Erickson: 40:28

Yep, for sure. We have another device that's kind of interesting. I'll just. That's kind of the same thing. So it's for indoors, it's for boiling and it's called a boiler disc and it rattles when liquid is boiling in a pan. So it's not meant for people that can't see, but it's nice for me to know I can hear when the water starts to boil. So if I'm going to poach something or steam it, I can start the timer when I hear it. I'll know exactly and I don't have to take the lid off and lose the temperature. And so if I'm doing something like tamales or steaming something, if I don't hear that thing rattling, I know it's a problem because that means I've run out of water. So it's kind of the same concept you know, right, everything's dried up.

Debra Erickson: 41:12

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

John Berry: 41:15

Now, sometimes you will also want to cook something. How would you go about? Because we were cooking. Actually, when I say outdoor cooking, we do it all. I baked a cake recently and put it in a pan, put it on our grill outdoors and had it grill up. But you've got to put a lot of, we had to put different ingredients in it and everything. Is there an easy way for you to be able to determine? You know that would be hard for me because you got to put a couple of tablespoons of this and that. How are you able to put a recipe together easily?

Debra Erickson: 41:51

Yeah, so we have several tools, so one of them. If we're talking like oil, you need it's often said put two tablespoons of oil into the cast iron pan or whatever, and we have a thing called an auto measure spout and it goes on top of a bottle. It's got to fit the bottle snugly. But I use wine bottles, empty wine bottles, and then I put the oil in there and then I turn it upside down over the bowl or the pan I want to go in and it'll dispense exactly one tablespoon of liquid and then it'll stop automatically even if I'm holding it upside down. They're meant for liquor bottles. If you go into bars you see they have so that the bar manager can control his costs. So they have different amounts that they dispense. But the most helpful one was for one tablespoon. For us I'm looking for a teaspoon one, but I guess nobody wants one teaspoon of alcohol. Apparently it's not a size.

John Berry: 42:50

Well, alcohol item turned into that. That's pretty cool, because I know when I turn it upside down I put a lot more than one tablespoon, so that would be real nice to have.

Debra Erickson: 43:02

Yeah, so it measures. It for me is the bottom line. But we have other measuring cups and spoons that like, if it's a third of a cup it has three dots on the stainless steel handle. If it has four, then it's a quarter cup or a quarter teaspoon. But the nice thing about the liquid ones is they are shaped like ladles. So when you're pouring the liquid ones is they are shaped like ladles, so when you're pouring the liquid and you're transferring it, you make sure it's underwater.

Debra Erickson: 43:27

Like if I let's say I'm doing, let's say, hot sauce and I need a quarter teaspoon, that's a terrible thing. But let's say I need a teaspoon of hot sauce in this particular sauce that I'm doing. I will find the one that has one dot on it. Now I know it's a teaspoon and I put in this little pitcher and then I overflow the cavity of the spoon with the liquid, not the little pitcher but the cavity of the spoon. So that way now if I lift it up and I'm lifting straight up, because the handle's towards the ceiling lifts straight up like a ladle and I don't hear anything drop off, I know I have exactly a level teaspoon there and then I can deposit that into the recipe and now the overflow that's in that little pitcher. I have a funnel that we send with it too, and you can just pour the overflow back into the bottle using the funnel, and you haven't wasted anything and you know your measurements are accurate. So there are ways to do this.

John Berry: 44:25

Okay, so it measures it, and then you don't waste anything and put it back. Now, for me myself, I would be the guy because I'm just crazy, spicy crazy. I would put it in there and say I just go ahead and throw the rest in too. I pick it on a double the notch, so I'm very bad about that. Something says put in what was that one cayenne peppers. I'll say, nah, let's throw some habanero in instead.

Debra Erickson: 44:50

Oh, you're more of a. I'm Irish. I'm trying to increase my spice meter because my mother's spiciest sauce was ketchup, so I'm still trying to educate my palate to be able to handle them.

John Berry: 45:05

And the cooking. It's a pretty good community. I've made tons of barbecue friends. We're just cooking people and we kind of just have a. I have a ton of online friends from doing this and they would be, and that's something that are you trying to evolve into a little bit.

Debra Erickson: 45:24

Oh yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. That's talking about cook-alongs. You know things like that, because the other thing I'll put that out there is if you have vision loss, it gets really hard to get to places, especially. You know transportation is always a barrier and then you know you're in a place. You don't know where's the bathroom. You know transportation is always a barrier and then you know you're in a place. You don't know where's the bathroom. You know a lot of people become socially isolated because life does become more challenging. It's not impossible, but there are problems to be solved that you didn't used to have to solve. So if I could get a community going whether it's around barbecuing or making pies or you know whatever, or cook alongs or cooking contests, I think a lot of isolated individuals would find a lot of pleasure in that and connecting with other people with vision loss that want to cook as well.

John Berry: 46:19

What an amazing conversation. The Blind Kitchen that was Debra theblindkitchen. theblindkitchen..

John Berry: 46:26

Be You can visit her website at theblindkitchencom. You can email her at info at theblindkitchencom. Be sure and check her out and keep on firing up that grill.

Announcement: 46:43

Be sure and check her out, and keep on firing up that grill. Thank you for listening to the Okie Smokin' Podcast. Episodes drop every Monday. Don't forget to follow this podcast or you might miss out on some delicious creations. You can also find us on our website, okiesmokincom, and on YouTube and other social media platforms. Until next time, keep firing up that grill.