How the Cover of the Delancey Book Was Chosen

Last month held some wonderful surprises for me.  Not least of which is an exciting announcement that is connected to one of my favorite bloggers, writers, and restauranteurs, Molly Wizenberg.  I was first "introduced" to Molly via her book A Homemade Life for a book club.  After reading her book, I took a visit to Seattle to try her restaurant Delancey, which lead to a great surprise when her restaurant became the subject of her next book.

One of the great parts about her book was the fact that she included the recipes most near and dear to her.  I found myself dog-earing almost every recipe in the book and now it rests on my kitchen counter interlaced with my other "cookbooks."  (It's that lovely people.  Seriously, read it. You'll love it too.)  After reading her book, I started following her blog, Orangette.

Reading her blog, I felt as thought I was getting to know my new friend, Molly.  Her writing is poignantly sweet and following her, I learned about her restaurant, Delancey, which opened in Ballard, her new baby, and her next venture, Essex.  So, how do we connect to the Delancey restaurant?

Back in April, I wrote a blog post about my adventures with food in Seattle, with my gal-pal, Jamie. During our visit, we had planned to visit the Delancey restaurant, to try what I had heard was some amazing, mouth-watering pizza.  Of course, part of our eating adventures included taking copious amounts of pictures of our fabulous moments, to later post on Instagram and my blog.

One of those images I posted happened to cross paths with book cover designer from Simon and Schuster.  And to my surprise, I received an email from the designer asking if they could use my photo for the cover of Molly's new memoir about Delancey the restaurant.  Are you kidding??!! Cover?! Whoa?!  Moi!?  Yes, in fact, this is a true story.

The Delancey book photo inspiration from my blog post

I tried not to get too excited about the prospect of having my photo on the cover of a book written by someone I admire so much.  But if you can read between the lines, it was pretty hard to keep my enthusiasm under wraps.  Well, word is out people, and it's pretty darn official.  So official, Molly posted about it on her blog and I received the thumbs up from Simon and Schuster that the book cover is a go.  So if you're looking to enjoy a great read about the trials and successes of an amazing pizza joint in the heart of Ballard, check out Delancey!