A brief history of our cooking school teacher Joy
Joy started her professional Thai cooking career right after high school, to finance the studies for her journalism degree. First, she was helping her Mum to raise the family income by preparing the traditional Thai breakfast and lunch meals to sell to the commuters at the nearby bus station. Three years later she already started her own food business: A noodle soup street food stall.
There are hardly any places in the world, which are more synonymous to street food, than Thailand. The choice is enormous and there is hardly any Thai dish which is not sold somewhere in the country in a food stall. Competition is fierce. Only the stalls with the tastiest food survive. Soon her income surpassed, what she ever could expect to earn as a journalist in Thailand. The choice was made. After a few years of hard work, Joy sold her food stall and decided to follow another passion of hers: Traveling.
In the following years she traveled all over Thailand, the surrounding countries and as far away as Nepal. In between she was working in kitchens, but as well as an assisting tour guide in the areas she traveled. One of the places she stayed longer was our lovely Koh Tao. Here she was working part time in a resort kitchen and already teaching in the resorts cooking school.
Meeting her first love, an Englishman, Joy spent all together one year in the UK perfecting her English language skills.
Ending her rather nomadic life style she went back to Chumphon, her home town. There she put her cooking and English skills to good use managing the kitchen and customer relations of a restaurant mainly catering for travelers. After a change in ownership she moved on to the production of “Khong Wan” (ของหวาน; lit. “sweet things”).
This is where the author of this article, impressed by her cooking skills and much more by herself, was able to convince her to start a new adventure. Being chef and crew on a sailing yacht roaming the Gulf of Thailand. The following years our Trip Advisor reviews were dominated by the praise of her cooking skills and wonderful personality.
The birth of Isis and the Cooking School
This adventure was over shortly before the birth of our daughter Isis. Being away, for sometimes weeks in a row, was not an option for the caring mother. The idea of a cooking school on Koh Tao was born. After teaching some friends and a good amount of people who came to us through word of mouth we want to take it a step further. Isis is now more than 2 years old and not as dependent on her Mum like before. Joy is now available to teach you all year round from Monday till Friday, preferably in the mornings. Other teaching times for private Thai cooking school courses are available on request.
