Therapeutic Cooking Classes

A passion of mine has always been cooking. It started with cooking for fun for my family and friends as I was growing up. Then I found that not only cooking could be a great social lubricant, it also supported me financially as a foreign student living on a tight budget. 

In 2004, I worked for a Non-Profit organization, serving 'at risk youth'. As a therapist, we were encouraged to use our own strengths to find ways to connect and help the youth we work with finding motivation and inspiration to grow. I utilized cooking as one of the vehicles to connect and transfer a life skill to them. As I continued with the process, I noticed that some recipes and processes could help the youth talk and discuss more about what they discover about themselves after cooking. With proper guidance, they also able to transfer the newfound knowledge about themselves to other areas of their lives. Since then, I developed a more structured "model" utilizing Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) principles by Reuven Feurenstein (1979).  

Personally, I found so many therapeutic benefits of cooking. Especially after a long hard day, cooking has helped me relax and process what I went through at work and provide me that bridging time so I can reconnect with my spouse and son more effectively.  It also helped us bond as we spend time together doing fun things and talk with each other.

 A few years a go I took cooking into a more serious direction. As I was consulting for an F&B company for their kitchen crew's training and development, I went to culinary arts school in France, and get a classical training from Alain Ducasse Education for cuisine and L’Ecole Lenotre refinement programs for pastry to  help me understand the International standardized methods and techniques for commercial kitchen. 

Group therapy has shown many benefits. It could help people who are in the similar situation