From the Palm Beach Post in Florida:The cooking show taping in WXEL’s Studio A seems pretty standard — an amiable kitchen set complete with shiny stovetop and fake window and chatty hosts discussing the chicken broccoli casserole they’re making. The only odd thing seems to be the golden retriever lying under the floor under one of the hosts’ feet.
But don’t worry – just like those hosts, Joanie the golden retriever, is working. And of the three of them, she’s the only one who can see what she’s doing.
Actually, with her excellent vision, seeing-eye dog Joanie is in the minority during this taping of “Cooking Without Looking,” which uses vision-impaired chefs creating delicious meals and sharing important information to make sure that everyone, regardless of impairment, can explore one of the most basic tools of living an independent life.
“You gotta eat,” says Thomas Fox, one of the show’s four hosts, a personal chef who lost his sight six years ago. “It’s amazing — you have to take a step back in your mind. You have to envision cutting, envision how you would de-bone a chicken without cutting yourself.”
The show was created by Emmy-nominated Miami television producer Re’nee Rentmeester, whose work has mostly centered on public service, including spots on youth violence, strokes and Black History Month. A March of Dimes volunteer and one-time board member, she says she began looking for a projects that “would make a difference, something that would be helpful to anyone.”
She originally thought about working with blind children, after researching descriptive audio, where the action on the show is described verbally and is available in the Secondary Audio Program [SAP] option on stereo televisions. But she found that “some people don’t like it. What if I drop my remote [that controls the SAP] and can’t find it? It’s a lot easier for the show to describe [itself].”
She eventually came up with “Cooking Without Looking,” where hosts Fox, Annette Watkins, Celia Chacon and Sabrina Deaton describe, succinctly, what they’re doing with the chicken, for instance, making it easy to understand whether you’re watching or listening to it.
People with vision impairment “need some form of entertainment,” Rentmeester says. “They can’t go to the movies. Being blind is not like it used to be. They aren’t sitting around the house being bored. They’re finding ways to employment, to gaining self-esteem. People who are recently blind, particularly, can get depressed. They have to remember – there’s a lot more to you than your sight.”
For its first two seasons, “Cooking” was sponsored by the state Division of Blind Services, but lost its funding with them. The show took a year off and is now sponsored by lighting manufacturer OttLight, whose products include high-definition lighting. The production has adapted to the abilities of the hosts and guests. The scripts, for instance, are written in 36-point type for those with limited vision, while others with complete vision loss, like Chacon, memorize everything.That adaptation has taken some time. Fox says that he was once “told ‘Read the teleprompter,’ and I said ‘What teleprompter? You gotta be kidding me!’”
Things move along with good-natured humor. Fox’s guest of the morning, Christina Panczak-Smith, a rehabilitation counselor for the Florida Division of Blind Services and the partner of Joanie the golden retriever, instructs viewers with tips that others might not consider, like measurements.
“I feel in my hand how much I want to use,” she says. “And if you have some vision, you can see [the dish] bubbling. You can hear it.”
Meanwhile, Fox cracks jokes during breaks, like, “You know when I know my wife’s mad at me? She moves all the furniture in the house,” he says at one point. “What did the fish say when he swam into the wall? ‘Dam!’”
Approaches to cooking among the vision-impaired vary as much as the causes and degrees of blindness.
“I knew TV, but I had to learn about blindness,” Rentmeester says. “You learn that everyone is an individual. Every person’s blindness is different.”
Panczak-Smith, for instance, was born with a congenital vision issue, while Chef Fox could see until six years ago when, at the age of 52, he contracted viral meningitis from a child he was working with as a neo-natal respiratory therapist at St. Mary’s Hospital. Within 48 hours, the virus “had knocked out my optic nerve,” he says.
Fox had started a personal chef business, Fox Culinary Productions, part-time with wife Patty, before losing his sight, and “after we went to everybody and his brother in the country to be told that nothing could be done, I thought ‘Now, what do I do?’” he says.
What he did was go to culinary school at Indian River State College — formerly Indian River Community College — where he found a culinary teacher named William Solomon, the only instructor who “wanted a blind person in the kitchen.”
After his training, he took up Fox Culinary Creations as a career.
“I do the same thing [everyone else] does, just a little slower,” says Fox, who was a frequent guest on “Cooking Without Looking” during its first two seasons before becoming one of its hosts. The Foxes teach at a kid’s cooking camp at the Treasure Coast YMCA, and recognize that some parents are nervous “when [their children] tell them there’s a blind guy teaching it. But after a while, they think it’s cool.”
If people who have their vision are surprised by the capabilities of those who don’t, they’re no different from people “who are newer to vision loss,” says Panczak-Smith, a married mother of two and a marathon runner. “They’re shocked that there is life after vision loss. But it’s very important for the independence, for them not to have to rely on someone to get them a cup of coffee.”
And that independence can make all the difference.
“The thing about the show,” Rentmeester says, “is that [the blind] feel needed. Often, when you’re blind, people try to figure out their way around you. But on this show, they have something to do. They’re needed.”