Family Effort: A Self Publishing Labor of Love

by Daniel Watson
(Memphis, TN, US)

book cover: legs only!

Genre: Cookbook

My name is Daniel Watson. I am writing on behalf of the author Emma Mayweather Lincoln. Emma in conjunction with her friend and co-author Denise Sims wrote a cookbook to honor my grandmother, Emma's mother, and Emma's former business partner, that not only contained recipes that my grandmother utilized over 35+ years of catering service in Memphis but also tells the story of the life of Beneva Mayweather as it related to food.

The book took ten years to complete. The main reason this book took so long to finish was because my grandmother never used recipes. She cooked from scratch and by hand. Documenting measurements was a difficult task that took the entire ten years to complete.

My mother became motivated to complete the book regardless of the challenges after my grandmother passed in 2000. After over 35 years of food service in Memphis, the Mid-South, and around the world; and after starting a family catering business herself in 1973, Emma needed to bring closure to the life of Beneva who touched the lives and hearts of everyone she ever met or had an opportunity to serve through her catering service.

There were other challenges that came with completeing the book as well. Emma, who is not only my surrogate mother, is also my biological aunt and godmother. She and my grandmother, Beneva, had raised me the majority of my life after my mother and father left me to be cared for by them. After Beneva's passing, my mother had to take over the business. She was wearing multiple hats as business owner, mother putting myself and her daughter through college at Morehouse in Atlanta and the University of Tennessee Law in Knoxville respectively, and innovator in trying to complete a cookbook.

These hats came to be too much. Shortly after my grandmother passed, Emma became ill. She made it through but not before having a kidney removed, being diagnosed with congestive heart failure, diagnosed with sleep apnea, and suffering minor brain damage. With all this she still made sure myself and her daughter graduated from college with honors and law school respectively, started a new business that would be responsible for the cookbook, food products, and food related media that are derived from the catering service and the custom recipes of my grandmother, and most importantly completed the cookbook, "Our Mother's Table: The Culinary Journey of Beneva Mayweather."

Once I came back home from College in January of 2004, the book production went in full swing. Emma hired a graphic arts design company to be responsible for the layout, design, and printing of the cookbook. Myself, Emma, and some of her friends were responsible for editing and proofing. Denise was responsible for taking Emma's life story about Beneva and converting it into a storyline that would be suitable for the book.

The book is divided into chronological sections that take readers on the life journey of Beneva Mayweather. The sections also have recipes that directly relate to Beneva's experience and are consistent with the theme of the section. The only full images in the book are of Beneva and one of my grandfather Twillard. The rest of the images are images of legs. The reason Emma wanted just legs was because of the fact that everyone no matter the background, age, sex, or gender ate Beneva's food. She served everyone from executives to family, from the boardroom to the cotton fields, from jews to christians, from white to black, from male to female, and from celebrities to churches. The only thing that mattered to Beneva was to make sure that whoever she served got food and service from the heart and with love.

The book was bound in a way that is convenient for use in the kitchen. The overall costs came to around $50,000. Some of the investment funds needed to complete this project came from the proceeds from the sale of rare collectibles that my grandmother collected from her trips around the world. With the blessings of my grandfather, Twillard, Emma took some of these items; and the money she received went to the cookbook's production costs. The cookbook was completed in October of 2004.

To date over 2000 copies of the book has been sold. The company that houses the book that Emma started and where I am operating manager, Visions Enterprise, LLC, has landed the book at barnesandnoble.com and Davis Kidd and Borders bookstores in Memphis. There is a website. There is no major advertising that is used to sell the book. The reputation of the catering business as well as two book signings, two morning show appearances, a feature in the food section of the local paper in Memphis, The Commercial Appeal, and attending two trade show conventions in Memphis are the only sources of advertising that have been used to promote the book.

Visit Our Mother's Table.