Hi Alex and welcome to the list; congratulations for wanting to learn and
you asked really good questions. I will tackle a couple; I do have a little
more vision than you apparently because I can see the burner border through
the flat surface; however, I think if you turn the burner on for a few
minutes before putting the pan on it, you will be able to make a pretty good
guess on centering it by sensing the heat; it takes a little practice but
not too much; I expect your stove top is like mine where the largest burners
are the front ones and the ones for smaller pans in the back. As for the
oven, take your potholder or mitt and pull out the oven shelf a little, put
your container on it and push the rack in. You will possibly get a few hot
fingers at first but won't have to deal with the oven sides. As for
measuring oil, I keep mine in the refrigerator so that its temperature is
cold enough for me to tell how much I am using. I think the larger
containers for measuring spoonfuls is a good one; if possible, have the
handle bent so you can simply lower it straight into the liquid. I don't do
much baking but don't think in general that you have to be that careful
about every pocket. In my opinion, cake and other mixes are a great idea if
you want to eat that sort of thing, especially since at this point in your
life you just want to learn how to deal with the basics. I'll let the "real
cooks" handle those questions for you. There are lots of recipe books both
on BARD (audio) and on Web Braille (braille. Just keep asking; that's what
we all did in the beginning; often in recipes as for the meat in spaghetti,
approximate cooking times will be given, and you can always have a taste to
see if you think the meat has cooked enough. I don't broil so someone else
will have to answer that. I do use a George Foreman grill primarily for
fish and chicken. Good luck and keep asking!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Hall" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2010 5:17 PM
Subject: [CnD] intro and a few questions
Hi all,
I am Alex. I am a senior in college for computer science. My family
loves to cook, so I have never really had to learn. Growing up with
cooks, though, has provided me with many hints and ideas, though I
have never applied any of this "absorbed" knowledge to any cooking
projects of my own. I know I will have to learn to cook sometime,
though, and now that my sister is temporarily unable to cook (she is
the primary cook in the house) I figure that now is as good a time as
any.
I have a small amount of vision. I can see a bowl on the counter, for
example, but cannot see that I missed some sugar while mixing; I can
see where the stove (one of those annoying cooktop ones) is in the
kitchen, but I cannot see enough detail to see the sides of the oven
or where the "burners" are on the flat top of the stove. With that in
mind, here are the questions I have come up with, after today's
adventure of making a cake:
1. For those of you with cooktops (where there are no physical burners
but rather just one flat surface), how do you position pots or pans in
the right place?
2. Perhaps this will come with practice, but one of my biggest fears
while cooking with an oven is that I will hit the sides of the oven
with my wrists or forearms while putting something into or removing
something from the oven. How do you avoid this, as potholders or even
oven mits only cover the hands, not the arms, and the arms are much
closer to the sides than the hands?
3. How, when you are mixing something, do you tell if you have mixed
thoroughly enough? While mixing the wet ingredients for the cake
today, I was told that I had missed a few pockets of sugar, but I
could not have felt this through the wisk.
4. How do you pour liquids into measuring spoons? I can manage cups
well enough, though pouring oil is difficult as it is hard to feel,
but I cannot figure out a good way of pouring into spoons? I
considered putting things like oil or vanilla into larger containers
so I could just take a spoonful, but is there a better way that would
not require such large containers?
5. Tomorrow's experiment may be spaghetti (our family does not believe
in canned sauce, so it will be from scratch). How will I tell when the
ground beef is browned? Similarly, how would I tell if a hamburger or
steak was done? What about other types of meat being prepared on a
stove (as opposed to in an oven where a thermometer could provide a
good indication)?
6. Has anyone come up with a way to figure out where the teaspoon
markings are on a stick of butter? I had to have someone score the
butter at the teaspoon line so I could cut off the right amount. In
fact, before that, I had no idea that such marks were even on sticks
of butter; I always thought you just had to soften the butter and take
a teaspoon to it somehow.
7. Are there any good websites for recipes? By good I mean both
accessible with a screen reader and containing good-tasting dishes.
TIA for any help. I may not stay on this list long as school starts
next week and so I will not have much opportunity to cook anything,
but I hope to figure a few things out for this week and then try again
next time I am home on break.
--
Have a great day,
Alex (msg sent from GMail website)
[email protected]; http://www.facebook.com/mehgcap
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