The Recipe: Have a Seat at Our Table (Signed First Edition)

"The Recipe" is a personal story about suviving when there is not enough, maintaining when there is just enough, and remembering where she (Ms. Council) came from when there is more than enough. The Recipe, is about how Ms. Council came to live her dream. It contains the challenges and stuggles her family endured as they went from "neighborhood bonding" to building successful enterprises in her family's community. Ms. Council's grandparents were her Daddy and Mama's guide, in turn they were her guide along with her brothers and sisters. Now as they look back they are all amazed at what was made possible. In creating, "The Recipe" she has included what she considers to be her family's list of ingredients for growth. Using these ingredients, she created a recipe that she considers to be inspirational and useful in the daily lives of those who seek guidance. Guidance is what made her mama a very successful woman, and she can now say it was her guidance that inspired her to write this book. Her story, The Recipe, is about her family of eight children, a counsin who became her brother, a Mama with a dream, and a Daddy with the heart to hustle who was around as long as he could endure.

Ms. Council was born in 1956 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, born to Joe (Tight Rope) and Mildred (Mama Dip) Council. She was the seventh of eight children, the "knee baby". While being educated in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro public school system, she worked at her parent's business, "Bill's BBQ". During college she continued to work for her mother, Mildred C. (Mama Dip) Council when she opened her own restaurant, "Mama Dip's Kitchen, Inc." in Chapel Hill. Ms. Council graduated from North Carolina Central University receiving a Bachelor of Business Administration, majoring in Accounting. Ms. Council is an active member with the North Carolina Restaurant Association as a Board Member as well as holding a seat on the Governance Committe; a member of the North Carolina Writer's Network and a Certified Tutor for the Orange County Literacy Council as well as holding a Board seat in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Ms. Council resides in Cary, North Carolina, single mother of one daughter; a student at Pepperdine University in California.