Cooking with a disability

Having a disability I am unable to do a lot of things that other people take for granted. With that being said, there are a lot of things that I am still capable of doing on my own. Cooking is one of those things. Ever since I moved out of my dad’s house I have started to like cooking for myself more often. Now, I try to cook myself a meal every night. And no, I do not call Kraft Dinner a meal. I like to cook chicken in various types of sauces. I’ll mix up the chicken in a mixing bowl with the sauce and then pour all of it in a glass oven dish. While I cook that I sometimes boil some vegetables to go with it. I either choose brussel sprouts or broccoli.

The difficult part of cooking is my tremors. My hands shake almost constantly so picking up and putting things down can be difficult. I have to brace my elbows to my hips when carrying the dish in and out of the oven. It takes a lot of energy to do this when trying to focus on shaking less. Especially when trying not to spill hot liquid. If I have to travel more than a couple feet with it I have to set it down somewhere in between to take a break for a second. If I try to focus on something like that for too long my arms will begin to cramp.

Although having some difficulties with cooking I have had good comments on my meals. I have had people try my chicken and say that it was really good. I like spicy food so I once cooked my chicken with buffalo wing sauce. I had turned out very well.

Here’s a question for you: As a person with a disability what is the hardest thing to do when cooking?