Celeb Chef Rocco DiSpirito, Franklin Lakes Firefighters Crash Resident's Book Launch

Franklin Lakes resident Lauren Pizza said she was not surprised that the book launch of her first published book, Meant To Be: The Lives and Loves of a Jersey Girl, included a celebrity chef, a power outage, and three unexpected visits from the Franklin Lakes Fire Department.

“Of course that’s how the launch of the book happened,” six-year borough resident Lauren Pizza told Patch.

“If you read the book you’ll see, my launch couldn’t have happened any other way.”

Pizza, a stay-at-home mom, said she’s always been a storyteller.

“Things just happen to me,” she said. “I have premonitions or feelings about what is going to happen, the craziest stuff goes on, and I like to tell people about it. One day I started to write it all down.”

The writings resulted in Pizza’s new memoir.

While pitching her book to publishers in New York, Pizza forged a relationship with 94-year-old former book publishing executive Martin Levin.

“He just believed in me and in my story,” Pizza said of her first meeting with Levin.

“Without him, I would have never gotten this published.”

Meant To Be: The Lives and Loves of a Jersey Girl has been published by Skyhorse Publishing, and is currently available for pre-order. It will officially hit the market next May.

Earlier this year, Pizza and her husband Joe, who are both very active in the theater community, were attending a Broadway benefit in NY. Their 13-year-old daughter convinced them to bid on a house party catered by celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito.

“We actually won the party, so we figured why not make it a Broadway-themed pre-launch party for the book, featuring Rocco?” Pizza said.

However, like a lot of the stories she recounts in her book, Pizza said the party last month went off with quite a few hitches.

First, about half of the borough lost power, which led to travel issues for guests. Then, a major traffic backup and partial closure of the Lincoln Tunnel caused some guests - including Chef of Honor Rocco - to arrive late. And, a wiring issue set off carbon monoxide alarms in the home three times during the party. Pizza said members of the fire department, police department, and PSE&G responded to the house each time.

“They were wearing all of their equipment, guests were showing up with fire trucks in the driveway asking if it was safe to enter,” she said.

“And, of course, it was just a wiring issue and they found out that everything was fine. And, the firefighters were great. Rocco walked in thinking that the team he sent to start preparing the meal had burned down the house. He was pretty surprised to see the firefighters eating his meatballs when he came in.”

All in all, Pizza said the party was a perfect launch for her first professional venture into writing.

“It’s just another funny bump in the road that ended up working out,” she said.

“That’s right out of my book. I’m living the life I’d always imagined, just not quite the way I always imagined it.”

Other celeb guests at the party included five-time Tony award winning producer Stewart Lane, Broadway performers Kevin Burrows and Christopher Sieber, and Levin.

Meant To Be: The Lives and Loves of a Jersey Girl is currently available for preorder on Amazon, and is set to hit bookstores on May 6.