In 1997 Manuel and Gay came to our Youth Group (Enigma – St Mary’s Maidenhead) to talk about the Peru Children’s Trust. Among other things they mentioned the fact that much time and money is spent on collecting firewood and buying gas to cook with. They also mentioned that the sun is very hot during the day and it should be possible to use the sun’s energy to cook with. Being an engineer, this got me thinking, so I did some research and found a number of useful resources. The most inspiring book was Cooking with the Sun: How to Build and Use Solar Cookers’ by Beth and Dan Halacy.