Imagine the challenge of cooking alongside a Michelin-level chef making eclectic Chinese cuisine from authentic ingredients in an ultra-high-tech kitchen – without any sight at all (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqRx8cGznGs). Then double the anxiety and stress because everything is being captured on video and it will be your first test of the Baking blind world tour.
Yes, I was very nervous that I’d make a complete mess of the day: bang around the kitchen, drop the ingredients and generally look stupid. Thank goodness for consummate professional Executive Pastry Chef Luis who not only cooks at the top of his game in the prestigious China Live restaurant in San Francisco but is also a compelling instructor at the local college. He chose to show me his seagrass cake with passion fruit cream. Not only utterly delicious and a fabulous example of fine dining but capable of being translated in to this blind home cook’s repertoire. If I can do it, anyone can!
I’d never heard of seagrass which comes from the coast of China and is used in place of flour to produce an ultra-light sponge that is flecked with green and brown. And the passion fruit powder is definitely on my shopping list to create desserts with real intense flavour – you can find it on the web. Luis showed me new ways of making the cake and cream – just basic for him but great learning for me.
China Live is in the famous Chinatown area of San Francisco and is not to be missed. Across five floors, it offers every aspect of Chinese cuisine from the more relaxed café at the entrance to the fine dining and banqueting facilities. They also sell authentic ingredients and innovative ceramics and equipment. We lunched on some fried dumplings that were just outstanding. Big thumbs up.
San Francisco was the starting point of my adventure cooking across six continents because it is also the base of the LightHouse organisation that created and funded my international Holman prize. My goal over all the coming video episodes is to show that a shared passion, whether for cooking, work or anything else, breaks down barriers of disability. I think that you will see that Luis happily treated me like any other semi-competent cook: we just got on with the job in hand because my blindness didn’t matter.
Penny
