Site owners, submit your site for inclusion in our fundraising ideas directory.

The Cookbook that Never Got Made

by Anne Wingate
(USA)

The owner of an Afghan restaurant hired me to work with him on creating an Afghan-American cookbook. This was in July of 2001. He had two ideas: (1) People often asked him for recipes for his Afghan cooking; and (2) His Muslim religion requires the giving of alms in any way that will benefit the poor.

I began by writing to several fund-raiser cookbook makers to check prices and features, while he began putting together recipes in home-size rather than restaurant-size quantities.

The samples and prices began arriving in early August, and by late August they were all in and I had picked out the sample that seemed to best meet his needs.

Well . . . you know the rest. September 11 arrived. All of a sudden the United States was at war with Afghanistan. And all of a sudden there was no market at all for an Afghan-American cookbook.

I felt rather bad about it; he certainly wasn't to blame for the horrendous attack, and his goals were worthy. But I couldn't afford to work without pay, not could the cookbook publishers; and he couldn't pay, especially because the restaurant suddenly became very unpopular.

Maybe someday soon we'll be able to try again.