"Jonathan Gold" news and stories

Talk about a food-critic mash-up -- will the earth tilt and all the restaurants on the Eastern seaboard start sliding toward Key West, Florida, when some of the country's top food critics Ruth Reichl (above left), Jonathan Gold, Frank Bruni (above right), and Gael Greene fill the same space at "The Hungry Muse," An Exploration of Food in Literature, the 29th Annual Key West Literary Seminar (starting tomorrow and running, in two separate sessions, through January 16th)?

Sure, there will be readings, conversations, lectures, and panel discussions with best-selling authors like Calvin Trillin, Roy Blount Jr., Madhur Jaffrey, Molly O'Neill, Julia Reed, Adam Gopnik, Michael Ruhlman, and many others.

But it's this sold-out event that has foodies salivating over their Key lime pie: Reichl, Bruni, and Gold on "The Art & Craft of Restaurant Criticism: Matters of Aesthetics & Taste." Why? Well, not only are these three among the heaviest of the heavyweights in the biz (where are you, S. Irene Virbila?), but, says Reichl, "I get to meet Frank Bruni for the first time, which is kind of a thrill."

For real?

"I've never met Bruni, either," Gold told us. And here we thought all the critics hung out together, like some Skull & Bones society. This talk should be the bomb.

So, ok, you get to finally clap eyes on Bruni, and, well, maybe sparks will fly. But, we asked the former Gourmet editor in chief, why Key West and why this seminar?

Bacon has become the little black dress of the food world -- throw it into any dish and it's fabulous. From old-school bacon and eggs, B.L.T. and quiche Lorraine to spaghetti carbonara, we've paraded full-throttle into bacon mania. L.A. food critic Jonathan Gold, a baconista practically from birth, wrote in a recent review of restaurant Fig that it serves "bacon-wrapped bacon, which is a warning shot fired over the heaving bow of S.S. Food." Just a guess, but there's probably a waiting list to crew on that tub.

Meanwhile, when it's not being wrapped in itself, bacon shows its sweet side. In his Great Book of Chocolate, Chez Panisse pastry alum David Lebovitz candies bacon and crumbles it into chocolate chip cookies, inspiring bloggers stickygooeycreamychewy and traceysculinaryadventures (who shot this photo) to give it a go, and share the recipe. Brown sugar is sprinkled over the bacon and it's baked until caramelized, and when added to the cookies it supplies just a wee hint of salty, bacony goodness. Remember: little black dress. It works.

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I love This American Life. I love every trendy, emotionally orchestrated, hipster-ish moment of it. I try to catch it on Sunday mornings at 12 noon (that's when it plays on WHYY in Philly) but often times, I'm not at home when it's on the air. This last Sunday, I happened to be driving around with the radio on to catch the beginning of Jonathan Gold's story about how for six months he kept a live chicken on the top of his fridge, feeding it several cans of corn niblets every day. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to finish listening, because I had to get out of the car and buy ingredients for fruitcake.

However, thanks to Kim's post on Culinate today, I'm now aware that the entire episode this weekend was all about food, poultry specifically (so appropriate for Thanksgiving). Lucky for me, I subscribe to the show's podcast, so that episode will appear on my iPod sometime in the next few days and I'll be able to listen to it in all of it's wacky, foodie glory. However, even if you don't subscribe, you can check out the show online. It might even be airing again in the next day or two in your listening area. It's worth listening to just to hear Jonathan Gold say "niblets" over and over again. There is something inexplicably entertaining in that one word.

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It's no secret that I am obsessed with Jonathan Gold. "Who the heck is Jonathan Gold?" some of you may be asking.

Don't worry, I'm not offended that you may not know. If you don't live to eat in Los Angeles, or maybe even New York, then you might not know him. Jonathan Gold is the current restaurant critic for the LA Weekly, and I will most certainly have you all know that I had a cybercrush on him waaaaay before he was even in the running for a Pulitzer Prize, let alone named the winner! Yes, yes, y'all, Mr Jonathan Gold is a Pulitzer prize-winning writer.

Some of the obsession has to do with what he writes about -- though he has dined around New York, he started in LA and makes his dining home here now. He also tends to focus his dining experiences on places that don't get written up by every other person on the planet.

However, the real reason I gush like I do about Mr. JGold is not his subject matter. It's his writing.

Jonathan Gold just might be the most popular food critic in Los Angeles, especially with Chowhounds, who love him because he spends just as much time in bargain strip-mall finds as he does in higher end restaurants. This week, in the LA Weekly, Gold put out his list of the 99 essential LA restaurants. They're not the best, the most expensive or even the most famous, but they all made the list because they reflect LA and inspire people to think about food in a new way. "And it's also a damned good place to eat."  Gold describes how and why he made his choice for each selection on the list, but even without the extra information, there are too many to list here. As a sampling, the list includes: A.O.C., Border Grill, Campanile, Geisha House, Mama's Hot Tamales Cafe, Pink's, Spago and Wat Thai.

You'll have to read through the whole thing yourself to find out the rest.

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