"Molly Wizenberg is an award-winning food writer and dedicated home cook; her husband is a musician-turned-chef. A year into their marriage they decided to start a pizza restaurant. And now Seattle has Delancey (lucky them!) but, joyfully, we readers have Delancey—which has got to be one of the most refreshing examples of restaurant lit.
Delancey is Wizenberg's grounded ode to the day-to-day toil and small-scale victories of launching a small business: the months of research, construction, hiring, firing (of both the employee and wood-oven variety), careful budgeting, and sheer physical labor. It's also a love letter to Seattle, the city's food scene, to indie businesses everywhere, and, of course, to pizza.
Read it if you're a fan of Wizenberg's cooking blog Orangette - but also if you're curious about what it actually takes to open a brick-and-mortar. Anyone who's ever worked in a restaurant will love it too."
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Publication Date 2014-05-06
Section New Hardcover - Biography / Food / All Staff Suggestions / Nonfiction Suggestions / Liz S.
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9781451655094
In this funny, frank, tender memoir and New York Times bestseller, the author of A Homemade Life and the blog Orangette recounts how opening a restaurant sparked the first crisis of her young marriage. When Molly Wizenberg married Brandon Pettit, he was a trained composer with a handful of offbeat interests: espresso machines, wooden boats, violin-building, and ice cream–making. So when Brandon decided to open a pizza restaurant, Molly was supportive—not because she wanted him to do it, but because the idea was so far-fetched that she didn’t think he would. Before she knew it, he’d signed a lease on a space. The restaurant, Delancey, was going to be a reality, and all of Molly’s assumptions about her marriage were about to change. Together they built Delancey: gutting and renovating the space on a cobbled-together budget, developing a menu, hiring staff, and passing inspections. Delancey became a success, and Molly tried to convince herself that she was happy in their new life until—in the heat and pressure of the restaurant kitchen—she realized that she hadn’t been honest with herself or Brandon. With evocative photos by Molly and twenty new recipes for the kind of simple, delicious food that chefs eat at home, Delancey is a moving and honest account of two young people learning to give in and let go in order to grow together.