Book Review - Delancey

                                                     

I picked up this book from the library for three reasons:

1. It was about a restaurant and food (and I'm engaged to a chef; food is part of our life)
2. It's a memoir about, at least in part, about "a marriage." Since I'm recently engaged, I'm all about reading about other peoples' marriages - I want to know all of the nitty gritty about how a marriage can work, especially when one partner is in food service.
3. It smelled good. (Yes, I have a problem).


While this was an enjoyable, easy read, I was hoping that it would be more about the marriage and not the restaurant. I almost gave up 1/3 of the way through (and again half way though, and then mostly skimmed the last 1/3) not because it was written poorly or not interesting, it just wasn't what I wanted to read. Honestly? I don't care about what it takes to open a restaurant. There were many (many, many) details about finding the restaurant location, how much yeast to use in the perfect dough, how long the dough needed to rise (in each temperature of each season) and how hot the pizza oven had to be. This is probably interesting for a true foodie or someone in the restaurant industry (which is why I'm going to pass this along to my fiance), but as someone who isn't "in the know," a lot of the details were uninteresting to me.

There were 20 recipes throughout the book (but none for pizza, which is kind of odd because Delancey is a pizzeria). I haven't made any of the recipes, but they sound pretty good (Fried Rice with Pork and Kale, Sriracha and Butter Shrimp and Apple Crisp, for example).

Overall, I give this book 3.5 stars. It wasn't for me (I believe it would be most enjoyed by a select audience), but it was written well, had witty humor, and the (many) pizza-and-restaurant-related details were interesting.

Favorite Quote: "Obsession is a job I know how to do." Ding ding ding!