Thomas Chen worked as an importer of fine art, while Joyce Chen was a housewife raising two children, a dramatic change from her job in China as an insurance broker (an uncommon vocation for women in China at that time). She gave birth to another son, Stephen, in 1952. In 1957, she first thought that her cooking might be popular when she made pumpkin cookies and Chinese egg rolls for a bake sale fundraiser at the Buckingham School in Cambridge. She was surprised to hear that her then-unfamiliar Chinese snacks had sold out within an hour, and she was encouraged to make more. Chen had already become adept at finding or substituting for hard-to-get ingredients, and sometimes adapting her recipes to American tastes.