1) Q- What is the history of community cookbooks?

A- As I understand, community cookbooks began when pioneer women, handwrote recipes, bound them with string and tossed these primitive collections back and forth to one another as they passed on the prairie in covered wagons. The cookbooks were a simple, but powerful "women's way" of communication. In the early copies there are recipes of how to treat insect bites, make perfume and even catch a husband.

Then the Civil War came and, for the first time, a charitable cause was attached to the book form. Women on both sides again handwrote recipes, bound them with string and sold these receipt books to benefit such causes as battlefield relief and war orphans. Can't you just see these women "being dismissed" to collect recipes . . . they knew what was hidden behind their culinary talents! With passion and creativity, they used the main role they had at the time, assignment in the kitchen, to improve the lives of widows and children.

The birthing of the charity cookbook is a wonderful story about women who used their ingenuity to redefine a book form to address society's unfinished business The movement spread like wildfire, with thousands and thousands of titles in every shape and fashion soon to be independently published by women's groups.

Now the story has new chapters, but the message is the same . . . women transforming communities by using a cookbook to carry a socially conscious message into another's home. The story is still being written today with the evolution of new recipe collections benefiting charitable causes of all descriptions. It's truly a chain reaction that raises millions of dollars annually for non-profit organization. 

2) Q- Are such charitable causes essential to community cookbooks ?

A- Yes, that's what defines them! Today community cookbooks raise proceeds for every conceivable contemporary issue such as child advocacy, AIDS awareness, the arts, urban revitalization, family services, homelessness, illiteracy, ecology, substance abuse, organ donation, food banks, historic preservation, multiculturalism, and of course, women's issues such as breast cancer and domestic violence.

I cannot think of any other book form with a built-in double reason to buy -the recipes and the cause! Since 9 out of 10 Americans contribute to a charity of their choice, a community cookbook seems like a logical, yet virtually untapped venue, to facilitate social change. This truth is what has drawn me to this book form. Volunteer women are not afraid to touch the real issues of this country, if not the world. . . and this cookbook communicates this truth quietly between their recipes. 

3) Q- Would you explain "the community cookbook" phenomenon? 

A- Cookbook collectors, avocational cooks and even professionals know that community cookbooks are often the best on the market because community cookbooks are written by the real people of a community telling how they choose to live privately with one another through the meal experience. While the recipes are superior, they are bought by "arm chair cooks" who read them like story books. . .they read about a place they have been or longed to go or fantasize about a dinner party they would like to give.  Since 80 per cent of books are sold by word of mouth, no wonder these cookbooks have sold everywhere . . . . it's just one woman telling another about her recipes and her concern for others around her and nothing has changed since the covered wagons. I love the story. Like I said, it's the same song, but a new verse. 

We owe this legacy the the GRAND DAMES of the movement . . . the forgotten ladies, as I often call them. Some examples are RIVER ROAD RECIPES (Junior League of Baton Rouge, LA), COTTON COUNTRY COLLECTION (junior League of Monroe, LA), CHARLESTON RECEIPTS (junior League of Charleston, SC), BEGINNING AGAIN (Rockdale Temple Sisterhood, Cincinnati, OH), THREE RIVERS COOKS (Child Health Association, Sewickley, PA), APPLEHOOD & MOTHERPIE (Junior League of Rochester, NY), PARTY POTPOURRI (Junior League of Memphis, TN), A TASTE OF OREGON (junior League of Eugene, OR), THE TEXAS EXPERIENCE (Richardson Women's Club, Richardson, TX) RECIPE & REMINISCENCES (Old Ursuline Convent, New Orleans, LA). These are the cookbooks that carved the path for all others to succeed. And they still sell. . by consumer demand! Oh yes, there is one more ... THE JOY OF COOKING itself was first published by a local church in St. Louis! 

4) Q- Could you tell about your own volunteer cookbook experience? 

A- I actually started my volunteer work gift wrapping cookbooks on the publication committee in the Junior League of Memphis. I later went on to be a president. The organization has a strong tenet to give a member career training through voluntarism, and I took this purpose quiet seriously. I developed a seminar business teaching women's groups how to publish a community cookbook as a fundraiser. It was an incredible opportunity to combine a passion, some creativity and a new found career with a way to make a societal difference through the pages of a cookbook. The Junior League helped awaken that part of me, and it does so today for a diverse membership of more than 200,000 women, I am very fortunate to have  a chance to I develop. Community cookbooks have given me a wonderful adventure to travel to many cities and into other ethnic groups to see how others live through the food experience. 

I have come to believe that in every culture, our values, beliefs and traditions are passed on at the meal table. Preserving this legacy has become more important than ever before with each new generation of community cookbooks. If you think about it, far more is accomplished around a dining table than a conference table, and that's exactly what those first community cookbook volunteers knew a long ago. They made a believer out of me.

5. Q- How do you explain the dual career path with community cookbooks and philanthropy?

A- They speak in the same voice. A community cookbook program is a venue expressing the feminine face of philanthropy.  An endowment program is an expression of family philanthropy.  I believe they are instruments for exactly the same core value – to put in more than you take out.   I have experienced the meal table as the perfect setting to nurture these relationships.

We are here on the planet for a short while to grow into our own human potential. It is through our relationships with others that we learn how to do it.  For me, life is really measured by the quality of our relationships with family, friends, strangers and even our cultural institutions.   

Selling cookbooks for a charitable cause is not asking for money; soliciting a donor for a charitable cause is not really either.  I like to think about both scenarios as opportunities for a person to connect to something bigger than self.  Sometimes the connection is so big that there is a chance to even leave a legacy – to express a life commitment that demonstrated a responsibility to make a difference for the greater good.  Whether it is buying a cookbook, endowing a scholarship, or giving to something you believe in – if you do the act with a sense of consciousness, your heart opens – then you are truly living.