Blogger Orangette On Business, Marriage And Pizza

Molly Wizenberg, author of the popular food blog Orangette, has a new book out this week detailing the far-fetched beginnings of Delancey, the restaurant she shares with husband Brandon Pettit.

On Orangette, Wizenberg said she met her husband through her blog. Early in their relationship, she told KUOW’s Ross Reynolds, Pettit was a trained musician in a Ph.D. program for musical composition.

She thought he was on the path to professorship. But that changed.

“This whole business is a project I never thought I would do,” Wizenberg said. “About three months after we got married, he hatched this sort of crazy, and in retrospect maybe not so crazy, idea to open a pizza place.”

At first she thought it was a passing fancy; it seemed impossible to open a restaurant that required tens of thousands of dollars and skills she said she didn’t realize Pettit had.

“I underestimated his tenacity and I underestimated the flexibility of his mind – that this person I met as a musician could also be a wonderful chef and a business person,” Wizenberg said.

“Brandon is a wonderful dreamer. We’re good balances for each other. I can lack in spontaneity – Brandon has spontaneity in spades.”

Delancey opened in August 2009 in Ballard, and three years later the couple opened Essex, a bar and restaurant next door.

Wizenberg’s book, “Delancey: A Man, A Woman, A Restaurant, A Marriage,” is available for sale on May 6.