The smell of cooked butter on toast fills the cafeteria of Alphapointe, a nonprofit that serves people who are blind or visually impaired. Half of the room in this sprawling facility at 7501 Prospect Ave., Kansas City, Missouri, is filled with parents who sit quietly watching their kids try their hand at cooking for the first time.
All these pre-teens have some degree of vision loss or are blind. Most are stepping in to work in a kitchen for the first time. Nine-year-old Prophet Ndungu was nervous about cooking until he discovered the curriculum included his favorite meal of the day.
“I’ve never cooked before, but I do like some breakfast items, like some eggs or bagels,” Ndungu said enthusiastically.
At home, Ndungu has no problem finding his way around the kitchen, despite having progressive retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that causes gradual deterioration of the retina and a loss of peripheral vision. But when fire is involved, he gets scared.
“95% of the time, I’m pretty good. 5% I’m kind of scared of what I’m doing,” said Ndungu. “I know how to make some bread, but I’m scared of, like, burning it and setting off the fire alarm.”
Ndungu was struggling this morning, and even though he ended up with some slightly burnt French Toast, he felt he learned something. "It was pretty good," he said.
Alphapointe sponsors Kids in the Kitchen to help visually impaired young people become independent with key life skills in environments set up for sighted people.
The program teaches safety tips for cutting or peeling with sharp blades, handling hot pots and stoves. It's also designed to build confidence and promote independent living.
Drew Davies, volunteer culinary instructor, is General Manager of Grand Street Cafe, the Kansas City restaurant that co-sponsors the program with Alphapointe. He said that whether you are blind or not, kitchen fears are almost always related to fire.
For those who have difficulty seeing, the trick is learning how to use their non-visual senses to detect danger.
“Definitely focusing on the other senses is very important,” said Davies. “Then just teach them to kind of respect the fire but not be afraid of it.”
Davies said teaching this group isn’t that different from the training he offers his new employees. The kids here are taught to yell “corner” when turning with a plate of food in their hand, how to properly handle a knife and how important organization is as a strategy for success in any kitchen.
“I was just going over with this group a French term we use in the restaurant, 'mise en place,' which just means everything has its place,” he said. ”Basically, all that means is you put everything back in the same place every time.”
Instead of focusing on what the kids may or may not see, Davies said the term is centered around the kids' muscle memory, the same approach he uses in training at Grand Street Cafe.
But for these kids, each experience will be a new lesson, reinforced by repetition, on how to use different utensils, fry pans and burners. They'll memorize which ones are used for what recipes and the potential risks of each cooking project.
Upon completion, each student will be provided a goodie bag with everything they need to recreate recipes at home.
Finishing up the French toast he created with his friends, Ndungu said he’s open to the idea of a career in the culinary arts when he gets older, and he is eager to learn more recipes. He comes from a family that loves to cook, and eat, and he hopes to prepare them a more advanced meal in the future.
“I would like to bake some cake, probably some hard ones, like chocolate (cake), because it takes a while to learn how to do it.”
Kids in the Kitchen will continue every second Saturday at Alphapointe until May.
