Making Friends (cookbook) in Laos

Ever since we started our project in Laos and knew there was going to be a restaurant, we knew we just had to make a Lao cookbook too.

Our other two cookbooks, The Best of Friends and From Spiders to Water Lilies – Creative Cambodian Cooking with Friends have been really popular. Not only are we proud to have created such great cookbooks with our students from the training restaurants, we’re also happy that all income from the sale of these books goes back into Friends projects for marginalised children and youth, so they have actually helped support many projects for children since their publication.

People often ask how we put together a cookbook, so this time our Hospitality Coordinator Gustav (and creator of our 2 other cookbooks) will be writing about the experience, so you can read all about the fun and games that go into making a Friends cookbook! We are lucky that one of our team, Ghislain, who is our Technical Advisor Vocational Training also happens to be a very talented photographer and is joining the cookbook team to document their travels around Laos. Joining Gustav and Ghislain are Ket, Program Coordinator of Friends’ Peuan Mit program in Laos, Madame Vone, the head cooking teacher at Makphet and Yoorlao, a student from Makphet.

We hope you enjoy the stories about the making of the book and we really hope that you enjoy the final product when its published!

The Friends team

If you would like to learn more about the Peuan Mit program in Laos, click here.