The Kitchen Show

00:05S1

This is Studio One on Vision Australia Radio.

00:15S2

Hello, I'm Lizzie and I'm Sam. Welcome to Studio One, a weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view here on Vision Australia Radio. On this week's show, Cooking Blind. Can we do it without injury or embarrassment? Sam talks to Deborah Erickson from The Blind Kitchen and Katrina Taylor from BCA's National Women's Branch.

00:37S3

As we always say at this point, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of any of the issues covered in this episode of Studio One, or if you think there's something we should be talking about, you never know. Your story and your insight may help somebody else who's dealing with something similar.

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Please contact us via email at studio-1-at-visionaustralia-dot-org. That's studio1@visionaustralia.org

01:00S3

Or perhaps drop us a note on the stage.

01:02S2

Sam, how are you going?

01:03S3

I'm very good. It seems like only a moment ago we were talking before anyway.

01:09S2

It does, it does, it does.

01:10S3

The listener. We are recording these shows in, well, in a condensed format, because I've at this very moment, I'm actually on a cruise ship. 

01:20S2

Are you! Where are you going?

01:22S3

To the Pacific. So, to Noumea... Mystery Island and, to a few parts of Fiji. So that was booked a long time ago before I took over this role. Now, so it's.. damn it, I just can't get out of it. I have to go on a cruise ship.

01:41S2

I'll miss you already. And you haven't even gone.

01:43S3

So this week we are covering cooking now. It's not quite the episode we had planned. I had planned a cooking competition. And guess what? We are going to be doing that later on in the year when we have got more preparation, because it's just such a wonderful thing to do. I love cooking competitions, especially when I'm not in them.

02:00S2

Oh, I love cooking competitions, even when I'm in them.

02:03S3

So we're talking to Deborah Erickson from The Blind Kitchen. Now. She covers a few things that might be nice and close to your heart. Lizzie, it's, how to cook when you can't actually see and how to not get yourself injured. I think it's rather cool. A lot of the stuff that she covers. Have you had any specifically spectacular kitchen mishaps?

02:25S2

Oh, mate, it happens to me all the time, and not so much that what comes out is disastrous, but the mess. Oh my goodness. My kitchen ends up looking like the scene of a crime. It's terrible. Like I can't even make a smoothie without destroying the kitchen. It's crazy. So I mean, if she can give me any cleaning tips, I'll certainly be in for that.

02:48S3

Are you the main cook of the house, or is Stephen the main cook of the house?

02:51S2

I am very lucky to say that Stephen is the main cook of the house, but in years previous, when I lived independently, I had to rely on myself for cooking. So I don't know how I got by. To be honest, I'm not that great of a cook.

03:05S3

I am actually the main cook of our house, and that is because I like a wide variety of foods. And, Heidi sort of has a limited repertoire, so that's the main reason there. Otherwise, she's perfectly confident at cooking. But, yes, it's my job to cook and, yeah, she cleans up the mess afterwards.

03:22S2

Yeah. I think anything that I can make in one pan, one pan dinner, especially savoury mince, it's. I can do that without too much trouble. But, you know, if it's, like shepherd's pie or something that takes more than one pan or any baking process or, like steak. Don't ask me.

03:40S3

You're gonna like this. There is a recipe a an odds on good way of actually cooking steak in this interview. So without further adieu, here's Deborah. So one of the more important things about learning how to do things in the real world, in inverted commas is, well, coping with supposedly difficult situations. And there's nothing more difficult than an environment where you've got hot things and sharp things, and that's just the normal kitchen. I'm talking to Debra Erickson from The Blind Kitchen, and this is pretty much your raison d'etre, isn't it?

04:17S4

It is. It is.

04:19S3

So to start out with, at the time of recording, it's 10:00 in the morning and you're in America. Whereabouts?

04:25S4

I'm in Portland, Oregon. It's on the west Coast, just above California.

04:29S3

And what's it like there? At the moment.

04:31S4

It is cold and rainy and we're expecting snow. And we only get snow like every six years or so. So it's a little bit a little bit unusual.

04:41S3

What made you decide to create this website?

04:44S4

So Covid was actually the culprit? I was teaching meal preparation at the Oregon Commission for the blind, and then I started teaching there in June of 2019, right after I finished culinary school. I was the only blind student. So then I was only able to teach till March of 2020. And then I was laid off for a year and a half while we tried to figure out, how do you teach, you know, remotely and stuff like that. And so I decided to see if I can organise it and put it together, and it grew from there.

05:18S3

Now I've had a brief look through the the website itself, and, uh, a lot of it is just basically basic cooking tips. I mean, so what would you say is the most important thing if you, I don't know if you're if you're blind or vision impaired yourself or if you are the partner or parent of a blind person, you want them to get them started in the kitchen.

05:38S4

You need to have basic, accessible measuring cups and spoons. Because it's hard to follow a recipe, you need to have things that will protect you in terms of cutting. Like we have a cut resistant glove that you can't cut through it. The other things are things like what we call sharps baskets, which is a basket that's found at your workstation or whoever's cooking. And then a basket is in the back at the back of the sink. So if I'm using a knife, I don't have time to clean it right now or I don't want to. Or maybe it has, you know, some kind of raw egg or cross, you know, raw protein on it. I can just take it over to the back of the sink and put it down, and I'm done with it for now. But the whole family has to make the agreement or the whole household, because if only one person has vision loss, other people can glance and see it. We can't. So it's just it's a strategy just to help keep everyone safe and organised.

06:33S3

And make sure no one changes anything around. There's nothing worse than having things organised and someone cleaning up, in inverted commas.

06:40S4

Exactly right. That that's very frustrating. So we have to train the people we live with.

06:46S3

Tell us a little bit about yourself. I mean, are you totally blind?

06:49S4

I am not totally blind. I have a little bit of very blurry vision left in one eye. I have retinitis pigmentosa, but I read Braille, I use jaws, I'm very functionally blind, no driving.

07:04S3

We're all very familiar with retinitis pigmentosa. It's supposed to be the the darkest of all the Harry Potter spells. Do... so when did you start losing your sight? I mean, has this always been with you or...

07:19S4

No. No, I wasn't diagnosed till I was 28. I'm one of 12 children from the same parents, and we were in Indiana, and I had a mild stigmatism when I was a child in my left eye. So I had to wear glasses. And I hated it because I was a tomboy and my right eye always did all the work. I couldn't tell the difference when I was wearing the glasses and when I wasn't. But once I got to be an adult, I, you know, but but. So when we look back at the records, once I was diagnosed at 28, uh, the country doctor that we saw, he saw six kids in one day. And in my notes, he, I was 17. And he said, Deborah has signs of reduced peripheral vision. She should see a specialist and that it just went undetected. They didn't not that they didn't care. They certainly that I was officially diagnosed. I was going in for glasses. 

You know, as we age, our eyes get worse. And I was going in to get some glasses and somebody looked into my eyes and said, an optometrist and said, you need to see a specialist. I think you've got a problem here. And that was the beginning of it. And now two of my brothers were. Then we all went after that. And two two of the brothers were diagnosed with RP as well.

08:26S3

So how long did the actual vision loss take? I mean, are you still losing eyesight or is has it pretty much got to the point now where, um, this is the way it's always going to be?

08:36S4

You know, they tell me they can't predict it, but the way it's been going, um, it was in my mid 50s that it really took where I started to have to use a cane and get training and things like that. But I still do get light perception and stuff like that, I can see. Howdy shapes moving by me, so I don't know. I'll hang on to what I have as long as I can, but I'm not... I did my training because I knew what the prognosis was.

09:03S3

So doing what you're doing now, is it actually easier to to some degree, the fact that you've actually had functional vision and been able to adapt to it? I mean, has that made it easier for you, or do you think it would have been simpler just to have the band aid ripped off, as it were, and just be thrown into this as a full on blind person? It did make.

09:21S4

Things easier for me. Meal prep at the Oregon Commission for the blind, and for students that have degenerative eye diseases where they probably the the likelihood of their losing their vision is there. I ask them to wear sleep shades. They don't have to, but most of them agree to do so. And if I'm introducing them to a new tool or new technique, I'll say take the sleep shade off. Look at this. Because I still remember pictures. I have images in my brain, and so I think it is helpful if you do have vision to to look at it first. Learn while you can still see and then then when the darkness comes, it's a little easier. But that's just my opinion. There's a lot of very high functioning people that are blind from birth that have never been able to see, and they do just fine.

10:05S3

I do know a lot of people who do function quite nicely without any special aides to the kitchen, for example, so that they can get by pretty easily. But one of the first things I did notice is no one uses gas stoves anymore because they are just way too unpredictable.

10:23S4

Yeah. And also like there's a whole environmental movement now against gas stoves. And I don't do politics, so we'll stay away from there. But the hardest stove I think to learn but it can be learned is a glass top stove because there's no tactile information there. You can turn it on and wave your hand above it and get where the burner is. But after that, there's no tactile information for you at all. But there are ways, I mean, as an example of that, like this is how I teach my students that are learning to cook on a flat top. So because that's what they have at home. And so we want them to be able to practice and do their homework. So what you do is you make sure the pan is bigger. The bottom of the pan has to be bigger than the heat source. So if you've got a little pan on a huge burner, it's not going to work. And it's dangerous anyway because now the heat's coming up the side of the pan and the handle. 

So you want to make sure that the the pan, you pick the right burner, that it covers it. And you can touch the top of a pan for just a second, as long as there's no food on it, as long as you can touch it for a second, pull it back and it's going to immediately cool. You're not going to get burnt. You can't touch the burner for just a second. You can't touch a gas flame. You can't touch hot, hot food for even a second, because the food will come back with your finger and it'll continue to burn. But you can touch the top of a pot very safely and very easily. Just tap it. So the way I teach my students is if that pan is centered above the heat source, the top of the rim of that pan is going to be completely equally hot all the way around. Touch it for a second, but let's say I'm stirring like spaghetti sauce or something like that, and I accidentally bump it and I don't know it. 

Okay, the part of the pan that is now exposed to the heat source, because the heat is now traveling up the side of the pan, it's no longer covering it. So when I touch the top right side of the pants, go like, oh, this is hotter than the left on the heat source at all. And it will also slow down its cooking. You'll be able to hear it not cooking as much. So then all you have to do is to correct it is to move it towards where the pan is the hottest at the top to once again get it underneath and you just keep checking. Nope, I didn't move it far enough. Let me do it a little bit more. Oh, I moved it too much. Now the left side is too hot and eventually you can get it safely and confidently that the that the pan is now centered again.

12:45S3

So as far as cooking tips go. So I think that one of the most difficult things I've encountered from anecdotally anyway, is cooking something as simple as a steak, for example. Because you don't you don't get a lot of feedback from when you're cooking it. Do you have a ultimate hack to cooking a decent steak if you can't actually see it?

13:07S4

Yeah, I do actually an indoor grill. So a there's a I'm not going to name any brands, but there's a common boxer that made these grills. And what it is is it cooks from both sides at the exact same time. So you plug it in, it's 350 degrees. It doesn't have any any controls. It's either plugged in and on or it's unplugged and off. And it's all about timing. And, you know, it also depends on how cold the meat is when it goes in there. You've just got to practice with it. But, um, talking thermometers can help you assess it. But usually most steaks, if you like the medium rare, are like 2.5 minutes and it's done. So part of the thing is to make sure everything's consistent, including the. Temperature of the meat an inch thick. Steak is going to take a lot longer to cook or significantly longer than a quarter inch steak. A cold steak is going to take longer to cook than if the steak is at room temperature. 

So it's all about consistency and timing. And and you can you can figure it out. But but the nice thing about the George George Foreman Grill is that it um, but there are the companies that make them. Is that you don't you're not required to flip it. Yeah. It's a nice, nice touch. We use those for our students all the time. We teach them that. I make my steaks always on a George Foreman grill.

14:30S3

Any sensory feedback, for example? I mean, if you can smell something or uh, or. Um. Yeah, mainly if you can smell something. Is that a good tip to actually, you know, either turn it off or turn it down? Yeah.

14:42S4

For some foods there is that information. But steaks, not so much. Steaks not so much. I mean, you could smell the char on it. You certainly can smell that the meat has started cooking. But to really be able to assess by smell or touch, if it's done in the middle where it's safe to consume steak doesn't lend itself well to that other foods do. But but steaks are too dense, I think is probably the problem.

15:06S3

And they can they can vary as far as how thick they are. So I mean, something may seem cooked on the outside, but might might be, uh uh, read as or as all hell in on the, in the very middle of it and raw.

15:19S4

Exactly, exactly right. And also how much fat is marbled through it. I mean, fat cook says, a, a different cooks at a different pace than, uh, protein does. So if you're fat is going to make a difference to how much is in marbled into the steak. It's the piece of meat itself.

15:37S3

So as long as you're safe, is there anything that you've got to really remember when you are actually in the kitchen? As as long as you've don't cut yourself, as long as you don't burn yourself, is there anything else that you find is important that you know we don't fail at? Because everything is trial and error. So is there anything else? Yeah, yeah, I.

15:55S4

Think it's like even if when I learned how to ride a bike, they didn't just put me on the bike and send me on my way when I learned to drive a car, you need to be taught. And so we have to give ourself grace. Of course, especially, I would say young girls are taught to be in the kitchen and cook at a young age. And maybe if you're going blind now and you knew how to cook and you're in your 60s or 70s, and maybe you were the the person that cooked for your family, everybody loved that you did the barbecue or that you did the, you know, Italian dinner or whatever, and now you've lost your vision. It can be very humbling and scary to try and get back into the kitchen and cook. Like, how are you going to do stuff that you used to use vision for? And so I think granting yourself grace and saying, hey, I had to learn this once with sight. Now I've got to learn it without sight. You know, just being able to grant yourself grace. And there's so many helpful tutorials and videos and stuff out there. The information, even like you were talking on cooking a steak, the different if you can listen to all kinds of different podcasts or listen to, uh, videos on YouTube, and it's amazing the information you can learn.

17:10S3

And don't be afraid. Right.

17:12S4

Well, I would say being afraid is a healthy thing. I, I would read loop that in my mind where I'd say, okay, I'm afraid I'm, I'm about to reach out and touch a very sharp knife and I'm going to cut this food. I wear a cut resistant glove on one hand to make, but it's still going to be scary. And it's same thing with the opening and oven. For the first time, I've taught many students that are just out of high school, and they've never been allowed in the kitchen or to be near a hot stove, and they're literally trembling. And I say to them, notice what your body is doing right now. It's afraid because you are in a potentially dangerous situation. But there are safe ways to do this is how it works. This is where the heat comes from and they always use an oven on the first day of class. They always are able to successfully cook. We bake bacon in the oven. And so the thing is, is to reclassify that fear as something that's keeping you alive. But you can manage it. It's doable.

18:12S3

So if people are listening now and they want to know more, I found you on the internet. What is your website? 

18:21S4

OK, it's called The Blind kitchen - dot - com. And you can get on there. It's very screen reader friendly. No popup ads or anything like that. It's very easy to navigate technically. You could also write to me at info at the Blind kitchen.com, or if people want to, they we can arrange a zoom call if they like in other countries or whatever and would like to talk because one thing I love doing is consulting. Like if you come to me and you say, Deborah, I want to be able to make. A steak and I am not really able to do that. Then I could say, well, you should probably get a talking thermometer. You should probably get a double spatula, you know, just point you to the the different things that you need. You... nobody needs everything. And there's usually 12 right answers to any question as to how to flip a steak. There's probably way more than one way to do it. It depends on what what what you're used to, what you're comfortable with. A lot of times, what your budget is, what your knowledge base is.

19:25S3

But also you do provide sets as well for of some useful equipment. I've noticed that as well I do.

19:32S4

So we have what we call collections, and those are usually purchased by agencies that  teach people with vision loss how to cook. So like in the cutting and chopping collection, it's got 15 different items. Everybody's not going to need all of those items, but some will need some of them. So those are nice to have if you have a client and you're trying to figure out what would work best for them. We also have, a grilling and barbecue collection, which has ten tools that are related to grilling outside on a barbecue. It's, I love that collection. And we have a pie maker collection that has everything to do with pie crusts and doughs and apples and peeling and just, crimping crusts and pie dough bag. They're all of it. So there's nothing on in the blank kitchen that is not specifically adaptive for blind and visually impaired people. I'm not selling pots and pans. I'm not selling, you know, plates. 

And then there's an associated video on the website. So let's say you're you want to get the I talked about the cut resistant gloves. So we called the cut glove. It'll come in its own package marked. And then you can go to the website and find the video called Cut Glove. And in the videos and they're very audio described. If I'm not talking somebody else is. But I do most of the descriptions and I tell you what the tool is, what it does, why it's blind friendly and how to use and care for it. And every there's a written explanation of every item in the blind kitchen as well.

21:09S3

It is very accessible. I've gone through it myself and had a had a bit of a look. So, thank thank you for giving us a small amount of your time today and have a good evening.

21:19S4

You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. And happy cooking.

21:23S1

This is Studio One on Vision Australia Radio.

21:29S3

And that was Deborah Erickson. What we found is that there are new things out there, as in, yes, fantastic websites that gives us ideas. And there are lovely YouTube videos that will give us hints on how to cook when we can't actually see what we're doing. Have you ever followed any of these websites or any of these recipes from the interweb?

21:55S2

Yes. So actually, I did make chocolate chip peanut butter cookies, and I did it using my Google Home. So we have a Google Home, set up a Nest Mini in the kitchen, and I got it to find me a recipe. And every time I'd get an ingredient out or I'd complete a step, I just tell it to give me the next one and it would. So I think that's the closest I've got to following a recipe.

22:18S3

So next up we're talking to Katrina Taylor who's the president of Blind Citizens Australia's national women's branch. Now quite some time ago and we're talking probably early. Oops. They brought out a cookbook okay. And it's in a word document. It's a yeah, it's  either a... you can either get it as a word document or an MP3 that's on a thumb drive. So it's pretty low tech. But the general idea of this is that there are no measurements in kilograms. There are no measurements in millilitres. It's all in cups, teaspoons and that kind of thing. So it's easier and more accessible to do it sometime in the near future. We will be trying some of these recipes out and seeing how we go with that. So anyway, over to the National Women's Branch. So now I'm joined by Katrina Taylor from the National Women's branch of Blind Citizens Australia. Hello, Katrina. 

23:24S5

Oh, hi Sam. And thanks for letting me loose in the kitchen today.

23:26S3

You've said earlier, the National Women's Branch is actually not just about cookbooks. I mean, you've released this wonderful cookbook. It's been around for quite some time, but there's more to it than that. What is the National Women's Branch? What do you guys do, and are there any particular issues that you are dealing with right now?

23:45S5

And that's actually a really timely question, as last year we finally did a revamp of our branch bylaws, and in that we really had a look at our branch purpose. So our focus is on women and girls who are blind or vision impaired in Australia. Also people who are feminine identifying and non-binary as well. And it's looking at how we can reduce people women's isolation, increase their access to resources and strategies, promote leadership, promote other connections with other women and girls who are blind and vision impaired. Now we're nationwide, so we don't tend to do anything face to face, but we use Zoom an awful lot. So whether that's a workshop... so, for example, our workshops last year included living alone when you have a disability, growing older when you've already got a disability, dealing with transitions in your life. So that's the changes that might occur. 

But the transition is, how do you deal with that significant life change - what or whatever that may be. And we find that branch members really contribute and get into those discussions and are free to share with each other because it's an environment where what we say in the workshop stays within the workshop. We're very much into creating that. That's safe space, because it's not always easy to share things that are happening in your life. Or if you're from an indigenous background or a cultural background, there might be some other considerations around how you can share or would you share, which is why all of our events are women only because it's women supporting women.

25:34S3

I'm guessing there would be a quite a difference in the backgrounds and the age group of your members.

25:41S5

Well, exactly. There is. So we've got over 460 members. Please don't ask me to name them all. And they age in range from our youngest member I think is about two now. Her mum actually joined her up as a member once. She was diagnosed with a vision impairment, right through to members that are into that, well into the 90s and everybody in between.

26:11S3

There's nothing like actually talking to somebody who has actually been through something similar or, or is in the same sort of category, you might say, as you. So I mean, if you're an older person, you've just lost your sight. You're not necessarily going to want to talk to someone like me, for example. You are going to want to talk to somebody who might have some understanding of that, I'm guessing...

26:30S5

Yes, it's that peer sharing. Once you start to talk with other people that have gone through similar experiences, you start to realise that, no, actually this happens to other people. I'm not an idiot because I can't do this. It's a common occurrence and there are other women who have come up against that issue before that have some great strategies that they then share. But also when you see that other women in your situation and managing those things, you think, yeah, maybe that's something I could manage as well. It's not completely impossible because as you can appreciate, there's a lot of negative stereotypes and messaging that goes around blindness and vision impairment.

27:14S3

Oh well, yeah. So here are a lot of people saying, I can't think of anything worse than losing your sight.

27:19S5

Well, exactly. Or on occasions when I've travelled to Melbourne and I don't know what it is about me being on a tram as a long cane user, it seems to evoke a discussion somewhere nearby of people deciding whether they'd rather be blind or deaf. And one day I'm going to go over to those people and say, you know what? I agree with you. I'd rather be deaf too, because then I wouldn't have to listen to this stupid conversation. Oh, yeah. It's, you know, it's one of those things. It's like, well, neither is great, but neither is a death sentence either. So it's hard sometimes. But having a vision impairment or being blind, as you know, isn't totally impossible. And in fact, there are some upsides to it.

28:04S3

Indeed, indeed. And you said that the, one of the main reasons for the group's existence is for peer to peer assistance. And some time ago, the National Women's Branch took this to the next degree and came up with a cookbook. How old is this a wonderful thing?

28:26S5

I've actually been trying to ascertain the age and everyone says, oh, it's been around for ages, which for me, that's more than ten years, I would think. I can't quite pinpoint when it was. It was also at a time when there was less access to recipes online, as well as not so many people having access to one talking scales.

28:51S3

Yes, yes. I mean, you do see a lot of... YouTube, and other articles, and they do really rely heavily on the talking scales. And this seems to be one of the beauties of this particular book is there's not a measurement to be seen in litres or kilograms. So it's all in your measuring cups and your spoons and things like that.

29:14S5

Yes. Exactly. Which the measuring cups and spoons. So something that everybody has in their kitchen drawer, whereas not everyone's got access to scales, a talk or a sighted person who can read the scales for them at the time they want them to do. 

29:30S3

So yes, I've got a set of talking scales in my bathroom and I don't use them because she lies.

29:35S5

Oh, I agree, talking bathroom scales. I say rude things. So yes, they do get ignored.

29:41S3

Do you have a particular favourite recipe or something that you actually do go to? More than other...

29:49S5

Times in our scales are I cookbook, I have to say my go-to recipe because it was actually a recipe I remember my mum making when I was a kid, but she's never been able to actually give me the recipe for. And that's porcupine meatballs. So they're the meatballs where you put the rice through the mixture. You cook them up in a sauce in a casserole dish, and it's such an easy dish to do. I also vary what I put in the meatballs or the sauce, depending on what's floating around in the kitchen, in the pantry. But yeah, I just find that that's a really good recipe to do, particularly in winter. Cook it up as a batch. Everything cooks in together in the casserole dish. You don't need to fry off the meatballs beforehand and boom, you don't. You just need some pastoral rice to go with it or some veggies, and meal sorted.

30:44S3

And that would be the sort of thing if you double the thing, you can reheat it the following day.

30:48S5

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Depending on how much you eat and how many people are in your household. Yeah, exactly. And they reheat quite nicely as well. Just pop them back, leave them in the sauce and pop them in the microwave for a couple of minutes till they heated through. And it's all good.

31:04S3

The politics in some ways behind this is quite interesting because it's as a male who likes cooking myself, it was fascinating to see that yes, it was the National Women's Branch that brought this out, whereas, I mean, it could that be a sign of the of the times when this thing was brought out? Because I've got a few things to say about that. I mean, maybe it's just that men don't follow recipes, but, uh, we do cook sometimes.

31:28S5

Honestly, I wasn't part of the branch committee at that stage, and wasn't particularly involved in the the branch as much then, so I'm not sure, but I guess it was seen as one meeting, a need that was out there, particularly when your site changes and you're not necessarily doing lies in the same things in the same way as you would previously, but also it's used as a fundraiser as well. You know, it's a $20 charge for the for the book in either a digital word format or in an MP3 format, if audio is your preferred format for accessing info. So yeah, it's also what we use as a fundraiser because we don't have a membership fee any longer. So it's our main means of raising funds for the work of the branch.

32:24S3

I found it fairly easy to get my hands on a copy of it. So all I did really is, there was a few email addresses listed in the website once you actually just Google the National Women's Branch or even the title of the cookbook, and you email that and someone got back to me and said, What would you like? How would you like it? And transfer the money and voila! I have got a word file here with a whole lot of interesting recipes on it.

32:49S5

Yeah, exactly. It's an even easier process than that, because also you can phone the the Blind Citizens Australia office, leave a phone message for the branch saying that you would like a copy of the cookbook. They'll pass that message onto me with contact details and we will get that organised. Or you can email the branch itself at our email address, which is in WB-at-BCA-dot-org. Hey, everything's lowercase. I get those emails as president and we can sort a copy of schools away easily. People have bought them as birthday presents. Christmas presents present for themselves. It's just another resource to have as well.

33:39S3

So apart from cookbooks, so is there any issues at the moment that the women's branch is grappling with? Is there anything that seems to be more urgent than anything else at the moment?

33:49S5

Yeah, that's a very good question because we've only just started into the year. Um, certainly I think one of the ongoing things is ensuring that women who are blind and vision impaired have a seat at the table when various issues are discussed, particularly around disability and disability access. So, for example, a couple of years ago when the federal government were looking for feedback on its draft document to end violence against women and children, the women's branch held a forum to provide feedback to the relevant staff member and the Blind Citizens Australia office to say, hey, this is part of our submissions. So we looked at what would we need if any of us had to access a women's shelter, for example, what would we need if we had to flee a violent relationship? How would we access information in our preferred format, but also in a way that's going to keep us safe and not put us at greater risk? 

Because often there's a lot of talk about disability access, but blindness and vision impairment aren't on the list, and particularly women who are blind and vision impaired often don't get, um, considered in service planning, etc. so we drew on our knowledge base to see how we could influence that, and we're looking for wherever such issues are discussed, whatever they are, that women who are blind or visually impaired have always got a seat at the table, because it's so important that we do so.

35:25S3

To end off... so if we've got any listeners here who are not involved, but who are interested in being involved, or may have a sister or a mother, or even a grandmother or even a child who is blind. And we think that they might really benefit from being a member of the National Women's Branch... how would we get in touch?

35:46S5

Okay, so firstly, to be able to join the National Women's Branch, you need to be a member of Blind Citizens Australia. So they do have the application form on the website. Or if you phone the office on their 1-800 number, which is 1800 0360, one of the staff can fill out the form for you. There's no membership fee to join BCA either. Ah. And then part of the questions will be do you want to join the National Women's Brain. And obviously you would tick Yes. That application form then comes through. And then a welcome letter is sent out via email or other means. If someone doesn't have an email address. And then we follow up with one of the committee members giving people a call about a month or so later to say hi, we know you've got just joined our branch. What sort of things would you be liking to get out of your branch membership, or hope to get to get from it as a way of starting to connect people as well?

36:57S3

And I'm presuming you can be as involved as much or as little as you need or want.

37:02S5

Oh, absolutely. Some members are just happy to sit on the branch email discussion list, which is where we advertise our upcoming events, but also members post different issues and people can reply with their suggestions. So for example, I did a post about World Braille Day the other day, the 4th of June, and we've had about six members talk about how they've used Braille in their lives. Some have learnt, they've learned a small children, whereas others have learned as adults after, um, sight loss and talking about the different ways that they've made use of Braille. So yeah, it's as much or as little as you like. You can come to all the workshops. That'd be fabulous. Or you can just read the emails as they come through. It's it's your choice.

37:52S3

Katrina Taylor, thank you very much for helping us out today. We look forward to perhaps talking to you in the future if, if and when we things pop up that need to be talked about. So again, thank you.

38:03S5

And thank you much for the opportunity, Sam. Greatly appreciated.

38:12S3

And that's a wrap for this week. A big thank you to Katrina and Deborah. What they've been to two very different and very interesting interviews. And of course, thank you for listening. We will be taking a break for a week, but when we come back, it's over to you. Lizzie, what are we going to be doing?

38:28S2

I'm going to be having a chat with a few tandem cyclists about having to rely on others to participate and compete in sports.

38:37S3

Something that's actually very close to a lot of people out there, because we are very reliant on other people as well. But between now and then, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of any of the issues covered in this episode of Studio One, or if you think there's something we could be talking about, what is that email address?

38:52S2

Studio One at Vision Australia- dot -org. That's studio1@visionaustralia.org

38:58S3

And bye for now. I could say that I'll be thinking of every one of you, but no, I'll be relaxing on a cruise ship. Bye bye.

39:06S1

Vision Australia Radio gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio One.