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Christine Ha runs her finger along the raw meat. She squeezes the vegetables to see if they’re spoiled. She fidgets with the knobs on the stove feeling the adhesive tape the MasterChef producers have allowed her to use to mark her station.
Ha, the host of Four Seasons, a cooking show for the visually impaired and winner of MasterChef Season 3 is blind.
“How I see is through my hands,” Ha says.
Food creates opportunities for people to come together but it can also create barriers.
Quinn Cruise’s love affair with food started about five years. She studied Environmental Science in university but decided she wanted to work with her hands and took up cooking. Quinn uses a mixture of pen and paper to communicate with chefs in the kitchen because she is deaf.
Unlike Ha, who has had great success in the food industry, Cruise has found it difficult to find a steady job after graduating from George Brown College in 2012. Though she has worked at Ristorante Julia and the Origin, she is yet to find a stable job. Out of 100 resumes she has sent out, she has only gotten two responses.
“The problem is I don't know if people turn me down because I am deaf or because of experience,” Cruise says.
While many people view having a disability as a disadvantage, Ha used being visually impaired to push her. MasterChef challenged her to be her own competitor and concentrate on being her personal best.
“I could never wonder about how the other contestants were doing or worry about what they were cooking, if their food would be better than mine… I told myself if I’m a better cook today than I was yesterday, then that’s what matters most,” Ha says.
Christian Horizons partnered with Humber College to create a program that teaches people with disabilities culinary skills. Irene Moore, area manager at Christian Horizons, believes food is a universal language people with disabilities should not be excluded from using. She says misconceptions about people with disabilities still exist in the food industry.
“They have aspirations beyond becoming a bus boy or dishwasher,” Moore says.
Restaurants like Montana’s, Moxie’s and Insomnia have given students in the program the opportunity to work in their kitchens for their field placements. Moore notes that one of the program’s past graduates has gone on to be employee of the month at Moxie’s in Newmarket.
Cruise was able to get her start in at Origin, a Toronto restaurant that saw her skill, not her disability. She got the job after walking into the restaurant and handing in her resume. She has fond memories of the first day the chef told her she could work the line.
“It was the best place I ever went… Head chefs were very good to me respected me a lot. They always push me to my limited. [It] was the first and last one who gave me chance to work at the line,” Cruise says.
Despite Ha’s successes, she still has her moments where she feels discouraged but she remembers to not be so hard on herself, which she tends to do.
“I think it’s a matter of trusting your instincts and embracing failure as opportunities for learning and growth. It comes down to your attitude. Celebrate the small victories so you can build confidence,” Ha says.
Moore hopes more people with disabilities will be given the opportunity to live up to their full potential and give back to their neighborhoods. She hopes the food industry will continue to change its perspective on people with disabilities and create more spaces for them for be sous chefs; not just dishwashers.
“Don’t see it as a philanthropic hire. Hire for skill,” Moore says.
Cruise thinks the food industry needs to get rid of its misinformed ideas about people with disabilities. She wants to be seen as chef who is deaf, not inadequate.
"[Being] deaf isn't a burden. We aren't dumb; we can be hard workers because we want to keep our job as we know how hard it is to get [one],” she says.
“We aren't people to take advantage of. We aren't stupid. All we want people to do is accept and give us chance.”
