Hi everyone, This has been going around the world of E mails, and I wanted to pass it on, in case you have not heard, or read.
Sylvia Ingredients for Independence By Pat Whitney, Staff Writer Caption: Brooke Demaree jokes with lunch customers and longtime friends Paul and Betty Konkle at the Madison Apothecary soda fountain. (Staff photo by Ken Ritchie) Caption: Brooke Demaree of Madison Apothecary with Roscoe. (Staff photo by Ken Ritchie) Moving from fridge to frying pan, Brooke Demaree stops at the stove, staring straight ahead and smiling as she stirs her homemade soup for the Madison Apothecary's growing lunch bunch. Earlier in the year, when she approached new owners Erik and Jennifer Grove about a job, she came with more than a resume in hand. She had hopes of bringing her home cooking to the soda fountain at the former Perry & Dunbar Drug Store, 835 W. Main St., which the Groves bought last year. "She's increased our soda fountain business between 20 and 50 percent in daily sales with her home cooking," said co-owner Erik Grove. The customers are drawn in by Demaree's sandwiches, soups and salads. A favorite is her potato salad. She also comforts her customers with beef roast and potatoes, and makes homemade biscuits for her potato soup. She can't wait to introduce her own recipe for coconut cream pie as soon as the Groves can secure a dessert case. The bottom line is making sure her customers fill their bellies. "My grandma always said: 'Don't you leave here until you're full," she said. "I expect the same from my customers." Demaree's disposition is bubbly and comes with a generous portion of humor. She takes joy in poking fun at herself to keep her customers giggling and guffawing. Few realize at first glance that this confident, independent person is blind unless she tells them, which she often does - usually making herself the butt of a joke. Her blindness sometimes is revealed during awkward moments, like when she bumps her face against the refrigerator door. But her black Lab, Roscoe, lying on the floor at the far end of the counter, usually offers the best clue that she is visually impaired. "People used to tell me I had such pretty brown eyes," she said. "Now, my eyelids are barely open, probably from lack of use." Her eyes are now more translucent and more the color of an aquamarine jewel than a chocolate drop. "I like being with people and hearing them laugh," said Demaree, who used to run her own restaurant, Indiana Trails in Canaan, before she went blind. "Unless I have Roscoe at my side, people may not notice that I'm blind - not unless I tell them," she said. "I like to show people that although I am blind, my experience of being disabled is what showed me that I didn't need anyone to be self-motivated," she said. "That, and my divorce. And it took a divorce to make me realize that I couldn't depend on anyone but myself." Demaree, 34, was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age 12. She has been blind for nearly eight years. "I had 60 surgeries on my eyes, complications of the diabetes," she said. "I had large floaters, migraine headaches and 50 pounds of pressure in my left eye from scar tissue that had built up." When she was 27, she celebrated Christmas with another surgery. Only after this one, she didn't leave the hospital with the 20-20 vision she had just three months before the surgery. "When I opened my eyes, I saw a glimmer of light and my dad standing at the foot of my bed. I read the words Manville General Store on his ball cap. Then everything faded. That was the last thing I ever saw. Her other senses have come to the front. "I can feel heat, coldness and the touch of glass," she said. "I also do better barefooted than with shoes. I usually remember the layout of a place within four or five tries - that is, as long as no one moves anything." Her first reaction to blindness was despair. "At first, I didn't know what I was going to do," she said. "I would say, 'Why me? Why me?' I cried a lot and wanted to let my husband do everything for me, but he forced me to be independent. He would say to me: 'I make my messes and clean them up. So should you.' I owe it all to him. He was wonderful to me." But a divorce that resulted after more than $50,000 in medical bills and a bankruptcy was the real catalyst in her quest for independence. "I couldn't just live on disability," said Demaree, who married at age 16. "I wanted a life for myself where I could be happy and proud of myself." At the Apothecary, Demaree's keen math and memory skills come in handy. She can take an order of four malts, three tossed salads and one broccoli-cheese soup and customers will question why she's not writing anything down. "I can't write it down. I can't see it anyway. I'm blind," she tells her wide-eyed customers, laughing as she walks back behind the counter like a trolley on its track. Simple things like identifying food storage containers in the refrigerator can be challenging. "I try to use the same shape containers for certain things," Demaree said. "But it also helps a lot that Monica cut out large, thick letters taped to the lids that identify each food." Co-worker Monica Nevins quickly added, grinning: "I did that for my benefit, not for the seeing-eye woman. It's so hard to know what's inside those bowls, blind or not." Nevins marvels at Demaree's cooking methods. "You should see how she massages those beans before she cooks them in her soup," she said. "She can decide which ones are bad just by feeling them and throws them right out." Demaree's sense of touch is essential. Rubber gloves become a handicap whether she's cleaning beans or dishes. "The only way I can know that a dish is clean is by feeling it with my hands," she said. "Gloves make that impossible." Every week Demaree makes up the week's menus and food needs, which she relates to Nevins or co-worker Charlie Bickers, who make the lists and do the food shopping. "People every day have no clue that she's blind," Nevins said. Raising his voice so that the half-dozen customers sitting around could hear, Bickers said, "Why, Brooke gets around better than people I've seen who have four eyes!" An inability to smell reduces her senses even more - ironic and unfortunate since most cooks depend on their sense of smell and taste to perfect their cooking. "I've never been able to smell," she said. "I let my co-workers do the taste-testing to make sure the food is good." Last year, Demaree went to San Fernando, Calif., to get Roscoe, her guide dog. At "doggy boot camp," Demaree and Roscoe learned how to work in concert with each other. When they returned to Indiana, Roscoe became the sight she lost and a social magnet for Demaree. "People who would have passed me by on the street without even noticing me now stop and talk to me because of Roscoe," she said. "I can catch Dial-A-Ride with him and don't have to depend on anyone else to pick me up and take me somewhere," she said. "Roscoe gets me from point A to point B and back again to Point A, which I could never do alone. When I am waiting to cross the street, he curls around me until the traffic is gone. Then he will get straight, hop up and go fast. I know it's OK to cross." It's a lesson in trust that has given Demaree a second chance at life. "Four years ago, I got a kidney and pancreas transplant," she said. "That is something else that has given me another lease on life. Now, I am no longer considered a diabetic and can eat almost anything that I want, except for grapefruit and a few other foods." At home, with Roscoe at her side, she crochets and hand-sews - her favorite pastimes after cooking. "There's really two sides to me," she said. "There's the happy-go-lucky me. Then, there's the bound-and-determined me." She is determined to finish her degree in accounting. She has already purchased her own home. She lives entirely on her own. "There's nothing I won't try," she said. "Since I work a full-time job, I now have to pay $100 a month for my Medicare insurance," she said. "But it doesn't matter. I am on my own and love what I do. What kind of life would I have on $584 in disability?" She challenges others on disability to take another look at their lives and make an effort to be more independent and reach for their dreams. "What kind of life is it to live on food stamps?" she said. "And if you're blind, there's technology out there to help you. All you have to do is ask for it." She has her future and her memories. But memories alone can't take the place of something never seen. "I have a young niece named after me I have never seen. Her name is Brooklyn Breschelle," she said, choking up. "I'm sad that I will never be able to see her." Any uncertainties that the Groves might have had about hiring a blind person to be their cook have been lost among the stream of customers who flock in daily for lunch. "Her personality has really helped us out a lot," Erik Grove said. "There's a warmer, friendlier environment that makes an impression on people. How she works around here encourages the other servers to get everything right." Demaree might feel she's made an about-face in her life since going blind, but an old friend, Charlie Jester, who has known her since she was born, disagrees. "All of her life she's been this way. She's still the same old Brooke," Jester said. "I don't know how she handles being blind. She's such a good mixer with people. "She's pretty amazing." http://www.madisoncourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=253&ArticleID=37310&TM=23263.54 -- BlindNews mailing list To contact a list moderator about a problem or to make a request, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The BlindNews list is archived at: http://GeoffAndWen.com/blind/ To address a message to all members of the list, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change the courage to change the person I can and the wisdom to know I am that person." ~Sylvia --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Access the Recipes And More list archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/recipesandmore%40googlegroups.com/ Visit the group home page at: http://groups.google.com/group/RecipesAndMore -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
