January is Braille Literacy Month

I would be remiss to let this month go by and not talk about braille. Although I use it sparingly it is a part of my everyday life and this month is Braille Literacy Month. This is also the birthday month of its inventor, Louis Braille. In my very first post on Triple E I shared about Braille, how he created the code and how I use it daily. I won’t rehash it here but feel free to click on the link and read it.

Back in December or maybe November I ordered a set of no-salt spices from Amazon. I was getting bored with the three options I was cooking with:  black pepper, kosher salt and paprika. Sometimes I would include other seasonings but I needed to spice up my life a bit. So, I ordered this set of 24 spices and got excited about the possibilities. I know, 24 seems like a lot to get started but I can be ambitious and adventurous when I want. Once they came in the mail I had to sit and figure out how in the world I was going to keep track of all of them. I had a lot of spices to choose from and I didn’t want to make mistakes and pick up the wrong one to season my food.  I mean, adding extra black pepper is one thing, but adding extra ground cinnamon or cumin is totally another. Sometimes I would use my sense of smell to determine the differences like sniffing garlic or chili powder. But that is not always reliable especially if I am working with spices I am not accustom to using on a regular basis. This led me to an idea! I decided to use my little braille skills to solve the identification problem.

Creating Braille Labels and Spice List

First, I pulled out my brand-new handy dandy braille label gun. I bought that too in December and boy did I need a new one! The old one had problems releasing the Dymo tape, the printed alphabetic numbers and letters were rubbed off and the thing was just old as dirt. Second, I got a sighted friend to come over and help me out. The one cool thing about using a braille label gun is that a blind or sighted person can use it. It has braille and printed numbers and letters on the dial. We tagged teamed the project. We created the spice list in alphabetical order to make things easy. She created labels of 1-24 and I typed up a printed list on my laptop computer. She would tell me the name of each spice and I would type it on the list. Then I would give her the assigned number and she would create the braille label.

Need Additional Info on Unfamiliar Spices

Now my spices are ready to go. Each one has a braille number that corresponds to my electronic printed list that I have stored on Dropbox. Yet I still gotta little more work to do. As I mentioned I bought these spices to attempt something new and there are definitely some I haven’t tried or even heard of. “Anyone know how to cook with ground turmeric?”  “Has anyone heard of Provencal aromatics or seafood aromatics?” If you are scratching your head or furrowing your eyebrow, join the club because I am right there with you. This means back to my computer to do some research. Next, I will be going online and searching around the internet for info on the ones that are unfamiliar and learning how to cook with them. Watch me learn and get ready to burn in the kitchen! Intimidation is not in my vocabulary and I am up for the challenge. I am excited about this new phase; and how using a little braille has added some spice to my life.