One adventure many blind people find themselves having at holiday gatherings is choosing a chocolate from an assorted chocolate box. Creamy, chewy, sweet or bitter – we all have our favourites, but those paper legends included in the box, they’re no good when you can’t see to read them. Enter the Purdys chocolates Braille Box… People who like to be surprised, (blind people included) maybe don’t mind so much. It’s those who like to know what to expect looking for …
Tag: Blindness
“Big Stink in a Little Crepe Shop” * Memoir Excerpt * Elizabeth Sammons
The same way we say “Ah, Shucks!” Russians mutter “Da, Blin!” (Literally, “Yes, crepe.”) I gained insight into this phrase on a mild April evening, when I also discovered how our US cultural expectations sometimes rendered ordinary tasks like ordering dinner somewhat less than forthright. This excerpt comes from “American on Display,” the journal I kept on my first trip to the USSR in 1990 as a bilingual guide on Design USA, a cultural exchange exhibit of American life to …
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“Jack’s and Steamers, a Neighborhood Restaurant Giving People with Disabilities the chance They Deserve” by Samantha Meddaugh
Have you ever walked into a restaurant and immediately felt welcomed and right at home? For me, Jack’s and Steamers in Arvada, Colorado is exactly that. When I walk in after being gone for over three years, the aromas of coffee and home-style cooking happily lead me by the nose, bringing back memories of when I worked there as a blind baker from 2014-2016. It’s a bright blue day outside, or so I’m told, when I return to Jack’s Bar …
A Blind Baker’s Perspective * Samantha Meddaugh * Interview Plus Holiday Recipe!
As a former professional baker, Samantha Meddaugh decided to have a talk with herself about why she chose baking as a career. She had a self-to-self interview about her experiences and challenges being blind and a baker, as well as misconceptions about being disabled. She spoke to herself in her home kitchen, which features stainless steel appliances, white-with-grey-squiggles granite countertops, and all-white cupboards, with a wooden butcher’s block table in the middle. Interviewer Samantha Meddaugh: How did you get into …
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Scent Tracking, Dark Dining, & Other Sensations * Interview with Lawrence Rosenblum, Perceptual Psychologist
*See What I’m Saying: The Extraordinary Powers of Our Five Senses is one of my favorite nonfiction reads in recent years. In it Lawrence Rosenblum, a perceptual psychologist and professor at UC Riverside, explains how our brains are so often taking in more of the world than we are aware, that we are perceiving much more than we are conscious of. From echolocation to our multisensory appreciation of food, Rosenblum makes connections between the super senses of exceptional cases—like blind …
“The Whole Entire World Ever” * Fiction * Caitlin Hernandez
*We are delighted to present our first-ever fan fiction! Written in response to “Restoring the Effigy,” by M. Leona Godin. “The Whole Entire World Ever” is a prequel written from the point of view of Effie’s little girl Artemis on their mother-daughter trip to San Francisco. Leona admits to tucking in an embellishment or two amongst Caitlin’s beautiful words* Last year, I had the best hairstyles of anyone in first grade. Mom can do hair a bazillion different ways, …
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“Restoring the Effigy” * Fiction * M. Leona Godin
“See you tonight Sweetheart,” Effie said to her daughter. “Anything special you want for dinner?” “Don’t worry about me. I’ll just graze. See you later mom,” returned Artemis, with the air of someone looking forward to solitude. She’d been entrenched in the couch since quitting Yale’s MFA in acting almost a month ago. Effie was worried–she was a mother and a Greek one at that–but every discussion she tried to have with her daughter ended in an argument followed by …
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“In the Same Place” – Personal Essay by Caitlin Hernandez
*Aromatica Poetica is extremely pleased to present a personal essay about the tastes and smells and feels of young love by Caitlin Hernandez. It’s the last in our Blind Writers Project series sponsored by Awesome Foundation Disability* In a way, it all started with that trip to Safeway, to the chocolate pie mix you saw on sale. My birthday was over a month away, but you insisted on buying the easy-to-make dessert for me. “An early birthday present,” you called …
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Cake Vodka * Fiction * M. Leona Godin
There was this blind kid, a really young large kid, but very sweet, very sensitive kind of soul. He’d walk in and come straight to the counter. He moved fast. The bells on the door would just finish jingling and he’d be in front of us saying politely, “Hey how’s it going Could you grab me a bottle of that Cake Vodka?” In the beginning, he always came in wearing a shirt and tie. He said he worked at some …
Bay Laurel Hydrosol Encounter, From Taste & Smell to Apollo
*This brief, and admittedly drunken, hydrosol encounter with laurel (Laurus nobilis) was inspired by Cathy Skipper‘s work with hydrosols, and was first published at Quail Bell Magazine* Last week I ordered my little arsenal of sensory indulgences from Aromatics International because they were the only (recommended) online aromatherapy shop I could find that was not sold out of this delicious hydrosol. It was my first time ordering from them, but I’ll definitely order from them again. I must confess that …
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