The Syr­i­an Lebanese Women's As­so­ci­a­tion's (SLWA) cook­book Ah'len was recog­nised by Gour­mand In­ter­na­tion­al as the best Trinida­di­an gas­tro­nom­ic pub­li­ca­tion of the year and one of the top char­i­ty cook­books in the world. These dis­tinc­tions al­low the book to chal­lenge oth­er coun­tries for the "Best in the World" award, the re­sults of which will be an­nounced on March 3 at Gour­mand's Paris Cook­book Fair.

More than 4,000 books from 150 coun­tries en­tered the com­pe­ti­tion.

The Paris Cook­book Fair is the world's largest trade fair de­vot­ed to cook­books, with a huge net­work of pub­lish­ers, au­thors, print­ers and dis­trib­u­tors in at­ten­dance. The fair takes place in Paris from March 3-6.

This year, for the first time, there will be an en­tire sec­tion at the fair for char­i­ty cook­books. Ac­cord­ing to Gour­mand pres­i­dent, Edouard Coin­treau: "Char­i­ty Cook­books have be­come a world­wide trend. "Gour­mand sets a light on these books be­cause they com­bine the love for com­mu­ni­ty and food with what is re­al­ly im­por­tant in life...They are a true mea­sure of hu­man re­al­i­ty." Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Syr­i­an Lebanese Women's As­so­ci­a­tion will be trav­el­ling to Paris in March to ex­hib­it their book at the fair.

The SLWA was found­ed in 1950. Since then, its mem­bers have been com­mit­ted to as­sist­ing the poor, sick and needy in Trinidad and To­ba­go. What be­gan as a group of eight women and an­nu­al do­na­tions to char­i­ty of around $125, is now an or­gan­i­sa­tion of more than 350 mem­bers, and an­nu­al char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions of over half a mil­lion dol­lars. All pro­ceeds from the cook­book go to­wards the con­tin­u­a­tion of their work. Ah'len, a culi­nary jour­ney through the eyes of the Syr­i­an Lebanese Women's As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, is cur­rent­ly avail­able at all ma­jor book­stores and oth­er out­lets, and is al­so avail­able on Ama­zon.com.