Cooking Class: On The Edge – Knife Skills

Designed for beginning and intermediate home cooks and those new to blindness or low vision.

Each session takes place on Tuesday and Thursday of the scheduled week from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

With an emphasis on safety and organizational work strategies, students learn and practice knife skills on a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.  Are you planning to eat healthier after the holidays?  Sharpen your knife skills and practice techniques for even sizes while protecting your fingers!  Tuesday we prep everything for a soup and salad, and on Thursday we will throw it all together for a nourishing and healthy meal.

Come prepared to try new ideas and practice the following skills:

  • Holding and manipulating various knives, graters and other sharp gadgets
  • Hands-on guidance and practice mincing, slicing, dicing, chopping, and peeling, among others.
  • Deciding which tool is best for the job and why
  • Safer work strategies, building on tactile and sensory awareness

Great cooking is not about recipes – it’s about skill and technique!

There are three sessions of the same course, each with a different menu to be determined based on seasonal availability.  Students may wish to enroll in any one session or all three.

All classes are  $220.00* per session  and meet in Betty’s Room 1010 in 10th Floor Kitchen of the LightHouse Headquarters at 1155 Market Street.  Class is 4 hours with a short break. Bring a bag lunch the first day. You will be standing, cooking and working for most of the class. Please wear comfortable, closed-toe shoes and have long hair tied back.

*Each Class Session includes two classes for four hours (9:30-1:30).  The full class fee is $220 for persons 18-54.  For those persons who are 55 and older living in the counties of Alameda, San Francisco and Marin (and not a consumer with the Department of Rehabilitation or VA) the class fee is waived thanks to the State of CA Older Individuals Who are Blind (OIB) grant funding.  Student may be asked to bring in class materials, the instructor will notify if this is necessary.

All participants must be registered students of The Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired. To enroll as a Lighthouse student, please contact Debbie Bacon at 415-694-7357 or dbacon@lighthouse-sf.org. If you have questions about class content please contact Sydney Ferrario, Instructor, at 415-694-7612 or sferrario@lighthouse-sf.org.

As a division of the Independent Living Skills Program, culinary classes provide cooking lessons for the home cook with an emphasis on blind kitchen skills, including, but not limited to, orientation, organization, knife skills, measuring, food safety, and navigating the oven and stove top safely. Also included is a recipe access component for interpreting and replacing visual cooking terminology with cues for taste, touch and smell. The goal is to provide guided practice so students can replicate skills at home.

Note about ingredients: LightHouse recipes use common cooking and baking ingredients including various fruits, vegetables, nuts, meats, spices, dairy, eggs, wheat flours, etc. If you have a food allergy, please check with the instructor before attending the class. Adjustments to recipes cannot be made during class.

Special Dietary Needs?  For those with special dietary needs or allergies,, please contact the Instructor directly, Sydney Ferrario at 415-694-7612 to discuss how we can help you with a customized program and recipes.  My background includes Wheat, Gluten, & Dairy-Free cooking and cooking for those with Diabetes.