Student cooking at LightHouse is back! “Meet me in the Kitchen” is a five-week course designed to empower LightHouse students with the non-visual techniques needed to prepare and present delicious meals independently. This course is created and taught by Bobbi Pompey, an Independent Living Skills Specialist with a passion for cooking and teaching. Each week you will learn non-visual kitchen skills, general cooking tips and tricks, and prepare a snack or meal.
Skills You Will Learn Include:
- Organizing, labeling, and preparing your kitchen and workspace
- Measuring wet and dry ingredients
- Using knives, kitchen appliances, blindness/low vision gadgets and other “tools of the trade”
- Understanding how to build flavor profiles, decipher lingo used in recipes, and determine the doneness of food
- Serving, garnishing, and presenting meals with multiple dishes to friends and family, and other guests
Course Schedule:
Session 1: September 1 – Welcome and Course Overview
This session will include staff/student introductions, a course overview, a tour of the kitchen and an introduction to basic techniques for navigating a kitchen. Class will conclude with a lesson on pouring and spreading and the preparation of a snack.
Session 2: September – Cracking the Code
By the end of this session, you will understand how to decipher common recipe lingo, develop delicious flavor profiles with spices, stock a pantry with basic staples and shop for groceries independently. Techniques for measuring will be used to create a spice rub and/or basic sauce.
Session 3: September 15 – Getting the Job Done
Knife skills are the focus of this session. Students will make a simple one-pot soup and learn to determine when food is done.
Session 4: September 22 – Learning to Spin All the Plates
This class marks the transition into the more advanced portion of the course. Labeling, organizing, blindness devices, kitchen gadgets and the use of small appliances will be covered as ways to add efficiency to meal preparation. You will prepare a three-part meal during this session.
Session 5: September 29 – Putting on the Finishing Touches
Taking all the skills of previous classes you will learn to: serve yourself, serve others, set a table, decorate and/or garnish a meal.
This course takes place at LightHouse San Francisco at 1155 Market St. 10th Floor. Spots in this fun and educational course are limited, so secure your participation by contacting Bobbi Pompey at BPompey@lighthouse-sf.org or 415-694-7613 by August 25.
