A major car accident sidelined Penny Melville-Brown’s, A.K.A Baking Blind, world tour.
She spent months in rehabilitation re-learning how to walk and talk before she picked up her kitchen knives and returned to working with professional chefs and home cooks.
This story, and her tour, is part of her extraordinary book, A Cook’s Tour: Baking Blind goes global.
In a recent Talking Vision special with Stella Glorie, Penny said she wrote the book to show how people with disabilities, including blindness like herself, were capable, ambitious and successful.
‘Far too often disabled people are either seen sitting at home being miserable or as Paralympians sprinting around the world.”
I looked for something that was going to be attractive and meaningful to other people. And I thought food might do,’ Penny said.
She travelled to six continents, including Australia, China and Europe where she persuaded professional chefs to allow her into their kitchens.
‘I could tell they were nervous about having a blind cook wielding a knife around them,” she admits.
“Once I starting sharing their enthusiasm and knowledge of food, they could relate to me as a person, not just as a wretched blind person, and all their fears disappeared.
“We were two people who could do a good job together, and I think that works in any walk of life.’
‘A Cook’s Tour: Baking Blind Goes Global’ is available in Kindle and paperback via Amazon here.
You can listen to the full interview with Penny here or in the player below.