Cooking With Joy Rayner : Shanghai Soup Dumplings (Xiaolongbao) From Scratch

Hi everyone, I'm Joy. Thank you so much for taking the time to learn more about me. I love to run and hike and take advantage of the beautiful natural surroundings of California. I sell and buy real estates and also spend time on my other passion : cooking, baking and teaching. I am a mom, chef and photographer who also loves science and technology. Besides cooking and baking, I also learn how to code as a hobby. The coding languages I know is JavaScript, Python and SQL. 

I believe we can teach and learn so many subjects and concepts through cooking and baking. I love learning new things and improvising all my skills and knowledge in my kitchen. I sometimes teach my students why we need to transform sodium bicarbonate to sodium carbonate to make a stronger alkaline salt when making ramen noodles, why we need to age eggs before making macarons, basic match computations, fractions through Chinese dumpling dough making process, measurement, chemical changes, physical changes and observation through this course. I believe cooking and baking around the world is also a great way to learn about different cultures and understand others more :). 

A little bit about me- I've been teaching cooking for a few years now. I have experienced with a range of different ages and one of the things that I really love, is being able to connect with your child and help them learn efficiently and passionately.  

I have trained as a chef all my life from my family's restaurant in Thailand, French and Japanese restaurants in New Jersey and now in my home kitchen for my little picky eaters in California, so I constantly learn how to be creative in my kitchen. I have also had the opportunity to travel to Paris and baked with some of great pastry chefs there early in 2020. My teaching style is casual, fun and diverse. I like to change my teaching style and mix things up, to suit my students’ needs and interest because I understand that everyone is different so we learn and do things differently. The most important thing is that my students are happy and that they are able to retain the information and have some fun too. 

I speak Thai and English, I studied at Thammasat university in Bangkok, Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey and San Jose city college in California. 

I believe in being more than just a teacher because I am also a mom, auntie, sister and friend who wants to be a mentor to your child. I am extremely passionate about the subject I teach. I can’t wait to meet your child and help them grow to become the best that they can be! 

Sincerely, 
Joy