OBITUARIES | By Bret Bradigan
Jonathan Gold and the Making of a Great City
The critic’s insights went far beyond food to our country’s rich cultures
It’s been almost two years, Sept. 11, 2016, since Jonathan Gold graced us in Ojai with his presence at an Ojai Film Society event, to talk about the documentary about him, “City of Gold.” It was my privilege (I really pushed to do this), for a journalist and lover of food, to share the stage with him, handling the question-and-answer session afterward.
From the LA Times: Jonathan Gold, restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times, with OQ editor Bret Bradigan. Gold died Saturday, July 21, 2018. His writing about food and restaurants brought unity to a fractured city and made us feel as though we were all part of a grand culinary adventure.
After a lively session at Matilija Auditorium, Jonathan and I, along with his wife Laurie Ochoa, and Jesse Phelps, former OFS director, retired to Farmer & The Cook, where owner Steve Sprinkel put his kitchen on full alert and kept bringing us delicious dish after dish until we begged him to stop. I still remember the silky smoothness of the beans and the crispy crust and soft exterior of those sopas, and the fact of Gold’s appreciate smacks.
A dedicated carnivore, he seemed to view the whole vegetarian experience as an anthropological visit, like Margaret Mead among the boho chic of Ojai. It was memorable.
Gold died today at age 57. He was far too young, but within those years he packed universes of insight and intelligence. He was the first and so-far only food writer to win a Pulitzer, and with his graceful and generous columns for first, LA Weekly, then the Los Angeles Times, he defined a city and expanded its range of possibilities, celebrating its ethnic neighborhoods and the way their lives revolved around their food.
He wrote, “People come to New York to cook for New Yorkers; people come to Los Angeles to cook for each other.” That explained why it wasn’t just Thai food, it was Chang Rai street market food, or it wasn’t Mexican, it was Sonoran cuisine born of high deserts and skinny cattle.
He wrote lovingly about his favorite restaurants, and the whole immigration experience. He could make a restaurant, but he had little interest in breaking a restaurant. His kindness and generosity with his mighty pen about the colorful and ever-changing tapestry of Los Angeles, argued eloquently for its place as one of the world’s great cities.
He said that the vivid flow of street life in ethnic restaurants was proof of the “miracle of entry-level capitalism.” It was my tradition, after each issue of the Ojai Quarterly was put to bed and I had a few quiet days of turnaround time, to go to Los Angeles to work my through his seminal list, “Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants’ in Los Angeles. I have eaten at about 40 of them, each was amazing in its own way.
As Gold himself wrote, “One of the greatest metaphors of Western civilization is that of Christ who gave his life so others might live,” Jonathan replied. “I don’t want to be sacrilegious or belittle that myth in any way. But a pig is giving its life so that we might live. … The least we can do is think about that chicken, about that calf we are eating, not necessarily to be sad for it, but to celebrate it.”
As his host paper wrote today, “Few things truly connect our sprawling metropolis: the freeways, The Times and without a doubt, Jonathan Gold, who transcended the role of restaurant critic to become a modern-day ethnographer. His gift was his ability to explain the tribes of this place to each other by celebrating the things they cook and eat.”
OBITUARIES | By Bret Bradigan
Jonathan Gold and the Making of a Great City
The critic’s insights went far beyond food to our country’s rich cultures
It’s been almost two years, Sept. 11, 2016, since Jonathan Gold graced us in Ojai with his presence at an Ojai Film Society event, to talk about the documentary about him, “City of Gold.” It was my privilege (I really pushed to do this), for a journalist and lover of food, to share the stage with him, handling the question-and-answer session afterward.
From the LA Times: Jonathan Gold, restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times, with OQ editor Bret Bradigan. Gold died Saturday, July 21, 2018. His writing about food and restaurants brought unity to a fractured city and made us feel as though we were all part of a grand culinary adventure.
After a lively session at Matilija Auditorium, Jonathan and I, along with his wife Laurie Ochoa, and Jesse Phelps, former OFS director, retired to Farmer & The Cook, where owner Steve Sprinkel put his kitchen on full alert and kept bringing us delicious dish after dish until we begged him to stop. I still remember the silky smoothness of the beans and the crispy crust and soft exterior of those sopas, and the fact of Gold’s appreciate smacks.
A dedicated carnivore, he seemed to view the whole vegetarian experience as an anthropological visit, like Margaret Mead among the boho chic of Ojai. It was memorable.
Gold died today at age 57. He was far too young, but within those years he packed universes of insight and intelligence. He was the first and so-far only food writer to win a Pulitzer, and with his graceful and generous columns for first, LA Weekly, then the Los Angeles Times, he defined a city and expanded its range of possibilities, celebrating its ethnic neighborhoods and the way their lives revolved around their food.
He wrote, “People come to New York to cook for New Yorkers; people come to Los Angeles to cook for each other.” That explained why it wasn’t just Thai food, it was Chang Rai street market food, or it wasn’t Mexican, it was Sonoran cuisine born of high deserts and skinny cattle.
He wrote lovingly about his favorite restaurants, and the whole immigration experience. He could make a restaurant, but he had little interest in breaking a restaurant. His kindness and generosity with his mighty pen about the colorful and ever-changing tapestry of Los Angeles, argued eloquently for its place as one of the world’s great cities.
He said that the vivid flow of street life in ethnic restaurants was proof of the “miracle of entry-level capitalism.” It was my tradition, after each issue of the Ojai Quarterly was put to bed and I had a few quiet days of turnaround time, to go to Los Angeles to work my through his seminal list, “Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants’ in Los Angeles. I have eaten at about 40 of them, each was amazing in its own way.
As Gold himself wrote, “One of the greatest metaphors of Western civilization is that of Christ who gave his life so others might live,” Jonathan replied. “I don’t want to be sacrilegious or belittle that myth in any way. But a pig is giving its life so that we might live. … The least we can do is think about that chicken, about that calf we are eating, not necessarily to be sad for it, but to celebrate it.”
As his host paper wrote today, “Few things truly connect our sprawling metropolis: the freeways, The Times and without a doubt, Jonathan Gold, who transcended the role of restaurant critic to become a modern-day ethnographer. His gift was his ability to explain the tribes of this place to each other by celebrating the things they cook and eat.”
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