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Hi, my name's Michelle and I work for RNIB. Part of my role is to travel around the country
talking to blind and partially sighted people about the products that are available to keep
them independent. One of the things we're asked about a lot
are kitchen products so I'm going to run through a couple today so you can see how easy they
are to use.
The first product I'm going to show you are the talking kitchen scales. The RNIB Vocal
talking kitchen scales are nice and simple to use. They come with a nice clear bowl that
has a pouring spout and a handle to help you when you're pouring out ingredients. It's
large enough so you can add various ingredients and use it as a mixing bowl so it saves on
your washing up as well. The base is nice and slim line and it comes with a display
and also two tactile buttons. One of the tactile buttons will turn on the scales and it will
also tear, so your add and weigh function, and the other tactile button is to change
from grams to ounces so you can use it for whichever is your cooking preference.
One push of the button will turn on the scales and he will announce himself and tell you
when he is ready. [Hello, scale is ready.]
When he's ready you can pour in your ingredient. I'm going to use cous cous.
[Four and a quarter ounces] And he'll tell you how much you have in there.
Now if I wanted to add and weigh some more ingredients I could just press the tear button.
[Tear, scale is ready] And once he's told me he's ready, add some
more ingredients to the mix. [Four ounces]
Turning him off is just as simple, just press the button
[Tear, scale is ready, goodbye] It will tell you "tear, scale is ready" and
then "goodbye".
However if you want to measure liquids, we have a talking jug. It comes in two parts
and it's a nice bright green so it's easy to spot on the kitchen side. The jug itself
has a lid and it also has some black markings down the side for the sighted people at your
home that might want to use it as well. On the base are four buttons in a line. The button
on the very bottom is the on and off switch and when you press it, it will say "hello"
to let you that it's turned on. [Hello]
The button above this has an S on it and this is for the density of the different things
you might want to weigh. So by pressing it once...
[Oil] It will tell me "Oil". If I press it again...
[Milk] It will say milk. And once more...
[Flour] And we have flour. There's two further buttons
on the front, those are the W and V buttons and these are for you to be able to change
from grams to ounces or cups to millilitres depending on what you want to weigh.
[scale ready, zero ounce]. Turning it off is simple too. Just press the
bottom button again... [goodbye]
And it will say "goodbye".
That's just two of the products that RNIB have available for the kitchen. There's a
vast array of things that you can choose from; things like talking thermometers for you to
measure the temperature of your roast, Dycem mats so you can provide a non-slip surface
in the kitchen, timers that are both tactile or easy-to-see so you can time your cooking,
and there's even a liquid level indicator so you can make yourself a nice cup of tea
at the end. If you're looking for inspiration in the kitchen
we have a range of cookbooks available as well both in DAISY and in braille by authors
such as Jamie Oliver, Delia Smith and Nigella Lawson. We've also got a cookbook called cooking
for VIPs by a lady called Maxine Turkington who's used her own sight loss as an inspiration
to write simple and easy to follow recipes so that people who are experiencing sight
loss themselves can be independent in the kitchen. This is available in large print
too. We also have available a YouTube video on the Penfriend. This special little gadget
will help you label up things in the kitchen; things in your cupboard, fridge and even in
the freezer, that way you know what you're putting in your cooking.
I hope this has been helpful
for you.