Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold dies at 57

[TomCADem]

Source: LA Times

Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times restaurant critic who richly chronicled the city’s vast culinary landscape and made its food understandable and approachable to legions of fans, has died. He was 57.

Gold died of pancreatic cancer at St. Vincent Medical Center Saturday evening, according to his wife, Times arts and entertainment editor Laurie Ochoa. He was diagnosed with the disease in early July.

One of the most widely admired voices of Los Angeles, Gold wrote about restaurants for four decades and became indelibly linked with the city in which he was born and raised.

* * *
Food criticism before him — and even during his time — focused on the austere, the high-end, the Michelin stars. Gold redefined the genre, drawn more to hole-in-the-wall joints, street food, mom-and-pop shops and ethnic restaurants than he was to haute cuisine. Although he appreciated and wrote beautifully about fine dining, he revered the taco truck more than the tasting menu.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-fo-jonathan-gold-obit-20180721-story.html

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With Anthony Bourdain dying and now Jonathan Gold, I think we are going to miss those folks who help people bridge the cultural divide through the common medium of food. Their voices will be sorely missed in the age of Trump where Republicans and Russians do their best to isolate us from our fellow Americans. Bourdain and Gold's stories helped us see the common humanity that binds us, as well as appreciate the differences and diversity that made our Nation great.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. That is terribly sad news...

My condolences to his wife and family, and to all who loved him.

A terrible, terrible loss.

[dalton99a]

2. Sad news indeed - R.I.P.

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-gold-appreciation-20180721-story.html
Jonathan Gold didn't just elevate the art of food writing and restaurant criticism, he helped a fractured region understand itself

http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/la-me-jonathan-gold-2018-sg-storygallery.html
Notable Los Angeles Times restaurant reviews by Jonathan Gold

Edit to add a wonderful NYT obit:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/obituaries/jonathan-gold-dead-los-angeles-food-critic.html
Jonathan Gold, Food Critic Who Celebrated L.A.’s Cornucopia, Dies at 57
By Pete Wells
July 21, 2018

Jonathan Gold, the restaurant critic whose curious, far-ranging, relentless explorations of his native Los Angeles helped his readers understand dozens of cuisines and helped the city understand itself, died on Saturday in a Los Angeles hospital. He was 57.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Margy Rochlin, a close friend.

In more than a thousand reviews published since the 1980s, Mr. Gold chronicled his city’s pupuserias, bistros, diners, nomadic taco trucks, soot-caked outdoor rib and brisket smokers, sweaty indoor xiao long bao steamers, postmodern pizzerias, vintage delicatessens, strictly omakase sushi-yas, Roman gelaterias, Korean porridge parlors, Lanzhou hand-pulled noodle vendors, Iranian tongue-sandwich shops, vegan hot dog griddles, cloistered French-leaning hyper-seasonal tasting counters and wood-paneled Hollywood grills with chicken potpie and martinis on every other table.

Unlike some critics, Mr. Gold never saw expensive, rarefied restaurants as the peak of the terrain he surveyed, although he reviewed his share of them. Shiki Beverly Hills, Noma and Alinea all took turns under his critical loupe. He was in his element, though, when he championed small, family-run establishments where publicists and wine lists were unheard-of and English was often a second language, if it was spoken at all.

“Before Tony Bourdain, before reality TV and ‘Parts Unknown’ and people really being into ethnic food in a serious way, it was Jonathan who got it, completely,” the writer and editor Ruth Reichl said. “He really got that food was a gateway into the people, and that food could really define a community. He was really writing about the people more than the food.”

Mr. Gold wrote about restaurants for Gourmet, California and Los Angeles magazines, but the bulk of his reviews appeared in two newspapers: LA Weekly, where in 2007 he won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, and The Los Angeles Times, where he had been the chief critic since 2012, treating the restaurants of famous and obscure chefs as if he saw no distinction between them. Each publication hired him twice, with long breaks between tours of duty. ...

[Upthevibe]

3. I'm so sorry to hear this....

........

[DBoon]

4. Oh No!

He was the last reason to read LA Weekly before he left for the Times

He will be missed

[dhill926]

5. holy shit...this is awful....

such a great writer and critic. His soul was present in every column. Never a mention of the cancer....he seemed to work until the very end. Man...

[MurrayDelph]

14. It was only diagnosed recently

By the time pancreatic cancer becomes visible, your days are numbered and few.

[herding cats]

6. When I got this push earlier, I admit it made me sad.

He will be missed.

[NanceGreggs]

7. Very astute observations ...

... TomCADem - and beautifully conveyed.

[TomCADem]

8. Ironically, Food TV began its growth following 9/11 as Americans sought comfort...

...and what is more comforting and connecting than food?

And folks like Anthony Bourdain and Jonathan Gold were masters as drawing attention to these similarities and connections. On Amazon, you can watch a documentary on Jonathan Gold, City of Gold:

[Demovictory9]

9. omg. From diagnosis to death in 3 weeks??

[Aristus]

12. Pancreatic cancer is insanely aggressive.

Average life-span from diagnosis to death is approximately six months. My father, who was a tough old buzzard, lasted seventeen months after being diagnosed with it.

[jmowreader]

10. I wonder how long he ignored the symptoms

No cancer kills you that quick unless you’ve been thinking the pain will “just go away.” A lot of people do this, and it rarely if ever works.

Today’s lesson: it won’t “just go away.” Get to the doctor.

[csziggy]

13. Too often the symptoms are mis-diagnosed

My brother in law had complained for years about abdominal pain, gone to doctors and the ER multiple times. By the time he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer it was Stage IV. He lasted almost eighteen months, mostly through pure will as he tried to live long enough to see his second child graduate from high school.

[sueh]

16. I had a friend who had pancreatic cancer. Hers, too, took a long time to diagnose.

She passed less than a year after her diagnosis.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

15. The symptom is often back pain. Who doesn't have back pain once in a while?

Even getting diagnosed at the first sign of back pain is too late.

The best results come from finding the tumor while looking for something else. Ruth Bader Ginsburg found hers during a routine follow up exam for previous colon cancer. She’s probably alive today because she had colon cancer.

My partner found his less aggressive/deadly (the kind that killed a Steve Jobs) form of cancer during preparation for hernia surgery.

My father in law was a very healthy 77 year old who chopped wood and worked around the house with more energy than most 40 year olds. He had some nagging back pain that everyone asssumed was a sign of age. What sent him to the ER was he turned orange from bile duct blockage. By then it was too late. The ER doctor told him 6 months, his regular doctor told him 3 months and he was gone in 6 weeks.

[bucolic_frolic]

11. A restaurant critic's diet is rich

We cannot consume wine, sauces, cheeses, heavily processed foods with every meal. The liver becomes overwhelmed, and the excesses flow to the gall bladder and pancreas. Please, doctors, laugh at me, but that's how I see it. I've had 45 year old friends with pancreatitis, and while that's not cancer, it's getting close, and it's the diet and lifestyle.