[nabs-l] WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS?

[Briley Pollard]

I liked the article in general. I thought it was a little silly to say that she was "lost" because her parents remodeled the kitchen. I think "lost" was a little too strong of a word. Also...the school hired her an aid to help her get around? Seems a little odd. She is obviously successful though, so go her.

Briley
On Sep 23, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Andi wrote:

> i   read this article, and was excited about this womans success but was angry about how the writer of the article portrayed her!  I have also been rongly portrayed in newspaper articals as I am sure many of you have.  I find news papers like to make a spectical of any one with a "disability" that does anything remotely normal and even more of a side show of someone who does something most "able bodied" people would have trouble doing.  This makes me angry because they take a positive advancement for the blind and turn it in to a condescension of the blind.  How do you all feel about this and other articals like it.  Do you have any sugjestions on how to redirect it back to a positive to the world?
> 
> 
> Blind chef gains national acclaim
> local/article_9884f76e-5023-11df-a9be-001cc4c03286 frame
> local/article_9884f76e-5023-11df-a9be-001cc4c03286 frame end
> the quad-city times
> 
> FORMER MOLINE RESIDENT COOKS AT GOURMET RESTAURANT IN CHICAGO
> 
> Blind chef gains national acclaim
> 
> Kay Luna | Posted: Sunday, April 25, 2010 2:15 am
> 
> Laura Martinez reaches out her hands, delicately running her fingers atop the kitchen counter and across several sharp knives and a vegetable grater.
> 
> She isn't afraid of getting cut.
> 
> She never does, Martinez says.
> 
> Picking up a very large knife, she feels the top of the blade.
> 
> "This one is for vegetables," the 25-year-old former resident of Moline softly says. "It has ridges."
> 
> The other knife is even longer and heavier. She picks it up, explaining that this one is called a chef's knife and she uses it to cut meat.
> 
> But right now, Martinez needs to dice some fresh parsley. So, she feels around on the counter again for the cutting board, using her sense of touch to make
> sure the parsley is lined up just right.
> 
> Then, without an ounce of fear, she begins chopping up the parsley with the fast-moving technique employed by professional chefs - because she is one.
> 
> Martinez works as a chef in the kitchen of Charlie Trotter's, an exclusive gourmet restaurant in Chicago.
> 
> She also happens to be blind.
> 
> Fast learner gets inspiration
> 
> When Martinez was little, she did not realize she was different from anyone else. She thought everyone lived in darkness. She adapted to it.
> 
> She wanted to become a surgeon someday.
> 
> "I always liked knives," she said with a smile.
> 
> When she got older, she learned that she had been diagnosed with retinal blastoma, a type of cancer of the eyes, as a very young child. That is what caused
> her blindness.
> 
> Doctors removed one eye. Then the chemotherapy and radiation used to treat the cancer ultimately ruined the vision in her other eye.
> 
> Martinez cannot see anything. She cannot even detect light.
> 
> In fact, she cannot remember ever seeing anything at all. She uses her active imagination instead.
> 
> She is also a fast learner, which came in handy after spending her early childhood in a Mexican town that did not have a school for the blind or special
> education classes. The closest school she could have attended was a three-hour car ride away.
> 
> So, she stayed home and never learned to read or write in Spanish, English or Braille until the family moved to Moline. She began her formal education at the
> age of 10.
> 
> Martinez caught up eventually, blossoming even more when she reached Moline High School and met her one-on-one education aide, Pam McDermott. The two spent
> every school day together, starting when Martinez was 15, and they remain very close.
> 
> McDermott spent a lot of time talking to Martinez, describing situations and reading her books about the blind-and-deaf pioneer Helen Keller and other people
> who overcame life's challenges.
> 
> Martinez's mother does not speak English. Neither did her late father.
> 
> McDermott found herself explaining so many unexpected things to the quiet, shy teenager - such as what flirting is and how some people have different skin
> colors. She hated to be the one to tell her, but the subject came up at school.
> 
> Martinez began to dream about her future, but she faced people who told her, "You can't do that. You're blind. There's no way," she said.
> 
> "Kids would not come near me," Martinez said. "I was afraid to talk or do anything. But I don't give up."
> 
> McDermott's influence helped open a whole new world of possibilities for her, Martinez said.
> 
> She learned to play piano. She moved away to take life-skills classes for the blind. She took community college classes.
> 
> She dreamed about becoming a psychologist.
> 
> Eventually her interest turned to cooking. She figured it might be a little like surgery. Why not give it a try?
> 
> Martinez knew she would have to work harder than most to
> 
> convince people that she could work as a chef. And she was up to the challenge.
> 
> "I don't give up," she said.
> 
> Culinary school brings challenges
> 
> Martinez applied to the Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School in Chicago, an open-enrollment institution where most people are accepted as students but not everyone
> graduates from the program, said Marshall Shafkowitz, the school's vice president of academic affairs and student services. The curriculum is tough.
> 
> So was Shafkowitz, who admits he was "the biggest skeptic" when it came to considering how a blind student could succeed at Le Cordon Bleu. The school had
> never enrolled a visually impaired student before Martinez, he said.
> 
> Initially, he was concerned how her presence in the classroom might impact the other students' learning. Then he worried about how the teachers could present
> the same curriculum, without lowering their standards, but do so in a way that would accommodate her.
> 
> He did not know whether she could handle the fast-paced environment of working in a commercial kitchen, which is so much different than cooking at home.
> 
> "It's a faster pace, with bigger knives and a lot more fire," he said.
> 
> After watching Martinez at school and witnessing her "drive and desire" to become a chef, Shafkowitz said he was amazed. He said her heightened focus via
> the other senses, in the absence of sight, is her "superpower."
> 
> "Her sense of touch is amazing," he said. "The only way I can describe it is the touch that a surgeon has when they're working on your organs. She just
> has that delicate way with a knife."
> 
> "She's not going to let anything hold her back," he added. "I think that's 90 percent of who Laura is. Nobody's going to tell her no."
> 
> The school hired an aide to help her get around. She labeled things in Braille.
> 
> Mostly, though, she learned by using her hands to feel everything - especially the food she was preparing and cooking. She uses her sense of smell to figure
> out which spices to use. She uses both senses to determine whether meat and other dishes are done.
> 
> Her favorite culinary class was the one in which she learned how to debone chicken and take the fat off beef before cutting it into chunks and feeding it
> into a grinder. The teacher asked everyone to close their eyes and feel the joints and bones, the meat and the fat. That's how they learned where and what
> to cut, Martinez said.
> 
> "Fat feels different. It feels slippery, kind of like Jell-O," she said. "I focus on the smell, sound and the feel."
> 
> An article about the school's first blind student was published in the Chicago Tribune during December, which inspired the "CBS Evening News" to feature
> her on national television. During the filming of that segment, CBS brought along internationally famous chef Charlie Trotter.
> 
> They hoped he would observe Martinez in the kitchen and maybe give her some advice.
> 
> What he ended up giving her was a job offer: to work as a chef at his exclusive Charlie Trotter's restaurant in Chicago. No one expected that, least of
> all Martinez.
> 
> "It's a big honor for me," she said. "It's very exclusive."
> 
> Rochelle Smith Trotter, a spokeswoman for the Charlie Trotter Corp., said Chef Trotter was very taken by Martinez's
> 
> passion for food and her strong determination - "two attributes which he utilizes to evaluate any potential team member," she said.
> 
> Martinez graduated Feb. 11 from Le Cordon Bleu. A week later, she began working at Trotter's, where she is familiarizing herself with the kitchen and the
> restaurant's French-contemporary gourmet cuisine.
> 
> "We use very expensive herbs from all over the world," she said, sniffing assorted spices in plastic containers at her childhood home in Moline.
> 
> She kept picking up the spices and putting them down, hunting for just the right one to season the sauce for her lasagna.
> 
> "Where's the salt?" she asked.
> 
> Still dreaming
> 
> Reaching her arms out in front of her, feeling for walls or other obstacles she might bump into, Martinez moves around the kitchen in Moline. She is lost
> because her family recently remodeled.
> 
> "Where is the trash can?" she asks.
> 
> She feels around until she finds the sink to wash her hands, which she does repeatedly. She needs to stay cleaner than a sighted person, she says, for food
> safety and sanitation reasons. That is because she touches the food that she cooks a lot.
> 
> Sometimes she browses cookbooks written in Braille or recorded on CD, but she likes to make up her own dishes or give her own special twist to an old favorite.
> For example, she added grated jalapeno pepper to her lasagna, just to give it some kick, she said.
> 
> She imagines herself someday opening a restaurant in Miami, offering a mix of French, Italian, Mexican and Asian cuisines. She would call the place La Diosa,
> which, she said, is Spanish for "The Goddess."
> 
> To those who might scoff at the idea, she says, "I'm not giving up."
> 
> Skeptics don't discourage her. They just "give me the energy to fight," she added.
> 
> "I just say, 'I have to work harder to show you that I can.' "
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Jewel S." <herekittykat2 at gmail.com>
> Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 1:42 PM
> To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] canes and increasing sensation of blindness
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I use my cane while holding someone's arm all the time. However, I do
>> not consider it "sighted guide" so much as keeping with my friend who
>> knows the way...especially since the person who usually does this with
>> me is my legally blind boyfriend. I hold his arm for balance
>> primarily, and to keep track of where he is, as I have no peripheral
>> vision. As we walk, he might point things out to me that I would miss
>> with my cane no matter what (the mailboxes that stick out at
>> head-height, the wet branches in front of my face, etcetra). I use my
>> cane so he can concentrate on where we are going and things in front
>> of us. I find the curbs and steps on my own, and sometimes if the
>> light is too low, I find curbs and such for the both of us, as he is
>> not as good with the cane (lack of practice!).
>> 
>> I find that if I take someone's arm, I am far less likely to learn the
>> route. I have done entire routes on someone's arm that, looking back,
>> I couldn't tell you the first thing. This is partly because of my poor
>> memory, but also because when I hold someone's arm, unless I'm in
>> charge of navigation (which does occur sometimes), I let that work go,
>> and concentrate more on balance, what my cane is finding, and sounds.
>> I can enjoy myself a bit better this way.
>> 
>> Personally, I think holding someone's arm and using a cane at the same
>> time is perfectly fine. That's just my opinion, so feel free to shoot
>> me down, but that won't stop me from doing it myself! I don't like to
>> put all the responsibility on the other person, no matter how good a
>> guide they are...though there is one exception. My O&M instructor
>> would do sighted guide with me to get quickly to a location, and my
>> cane just got in his way, and he was very good at guiding (he better
>> be, since he teaches other people how to be sighted guides, too!), so
>> I allow my cane to remain at my side, ready to pull out if I should
>> need it, but I put my trust in him.
>> 
>> ~Jewel
>> 
>> On 5/3/10, clinton waterbury <clinton.waterbury at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> As far as the cane issue goes, when I was about three years of age, I
>>> started learning how to use the cane.
>>> 
>>> The only problem was that I would flat out refuse to use it until the time I
>>> was about five.
>>> 
>>> The travel instructor finally said "Ok, you don't want to use it?  I'll take
>>> it from you."
>>> 
>>> At that point, I tried and faled miserably to walk around without it!
>>> 
>>> At the day's end, I did get the cane back, and have been using it ever
>>> since.
>>> On May 2, 2010, at 4:49 PM, Gerardo Corripio wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi guys: I'm curious as to is it fine to use a cane while going sighted
>>>> guide with someone? for instance suppose the person whom I'm going with
>>>> has
>>>> never done sighted guide with a blind person, thus doesn't know to alert
>>>> us
>>>> of steps and the like. So I was thinking that if this technique is fine to
>>>> 
>>>> use it can serve two purposes:
>>>> 1.-Be able to go along sighted guide but at the same time being able to
>>>> oneself find and sort obstacles the sighted person might not have the mind
>>>> 
>>>> to let us know.
>>>> 2.-Be able to start mapping in our minds the route following, thus make it
>>>> 
>>>> easier to get to know the route by ourselves.
>>>> Also I've got another subject on my mind, thus sending in the same email:
>>>> Is
>>>> it normal that when using a cane I have conflict in using it? though I
>>>> know
>>>> the cane is how we get around by ourselves thanks to a bad experience
>>>> while
>>>> studying for a diploma in Humanistic Therapy some years ago in that when I
>>>> 
>>>> wanted to use the cane again after some years of having it dusting, I held
>>>> 
>>>> it in my hand but wasn't able to use it at ease because memories of the
>>>> experience came flooding back. fortunately I've been able to work them out
>>>> 
>>>> but am curious as to know if this has happened to you guys? It's a
>>>> conflict
>>>> because for one I'm aware that the cane makes us unique as blind people
>>>> and
>>>> lets us move around by ourselves but also because here in Mexico the blind
>>>> 
>>>> aren't viewed as equals in some respects, thus when using the cane gives
>>>> me
>>>> the feeling that lets blindness show even more, making the sighted people
>>>> feel ill at ease; speaking from experience in another country when I know
>>>> in
>>>> the US you guys don't have to cope with these things because of how
>>>> advanced
>>>> you guys are in the work you've done all these years. some day I hope to
>>>> be
>>>> able to be like you guys and really live by your standards, thus hoping
>>>> these questions bring on a good discussion from which more than one might
>>>> learn something new and enrich the topic of appreciating our roots brought
>>>> 
>>>> on recently.
>>>> Gerardo
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> nabs-l mailing list
>>>> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
>>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>>> nabs-l:
>>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/clinton.waterbury%40gmail.com
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> nabs-l mailing list
>>> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>> nabs-l:
>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/herekittykat2%40gmail.com
>>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> nabs-l mailing list
>> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nabs-l:
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/adrianne.dempsey%40gmail.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> nabs-l mailing list
> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nabs-l:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/brileyp%40gmail.com