{"id":1039,"date":"2009-12-04T11:11:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-04T19:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/12\/culinary-adventure-with-jonathan-gold.html"},"modified":"2009-12-04T11:11:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-04T19:11:00","slug":"culinary-adventure-with-jonathan-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/12\/culinary-adventure-with-jonathan-gold.html","title":{"rendered":"Culinary Adventure with Jonathan Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

THE food writing of Jonathan Gold <\/a>is so vivid, colorful and at times almost embarrassingly sensual that as a reader, it’s not hard to feel you are actually along for the ride with him as he seeks out restaurants dedicated to, say, regional Mexican cuisine, a groovy wine bar or the street food of urban southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

But it’s even more delectable to be able to follow the celebrated scribe to a meal in a foreign city, as yours truly was able to do during the international book festival in Guadalajara. Somehow I’d spent a day and a half and not had much of what Mexicans call “tipica” cuisine — some fine enchiladas at the hotel, and some white wines from Baha, both decent but not memorable.<\/p>\n

The first excursion came after Gold appeared in a panel on LA writers and humor, which also included writers Jerry Stahl and Paul Beatty. (Gold recalled his days editing the LA Weekly<\/a>‘s humor column: “I thought what would make it distinctive,” he said,\u00a0“is that nothing in it would be funny.”)<\/p>\n

After the panel, a caravan of us followed Gold and his journalist wife Laurie Ochoa to what seemed like a remote neighborhood, Tlaquepaque, for a restaurant called El Parian. The cab driver seemed a bit confused by our request to head there, telling us (we thought) that we’d have to walk a long way after he dropped us off and that we’d know where we were because we’d see, “too many restaurants, too many artistanos, too many mariachis.” I could not tell — as we used to say in high school — if this was a threat or a promise.<\/p>\n

The meal ended up being very good: Many of us, including The Misread City, got birria — a dish of stewed meat that is usually goat but here was calf. The restaurant’s speciality is what may be the largest drink in the world: Mostly fruit, ice, triple sec, with a large shot of tequila on the side, its container is so large it is marked “BAR” — the quotes are theirs, not mine — presumably so it is not confused with a large soup bowl. (Across from me was UK-to-LA novelist Geoff Nicholson, an excellent guy whose Psycho-Gourmet<\/a> blog I am digging.)<\/p>\n

Gold said of the day’s eating that he had consumed so much beef that he was constructing a cow in his stomach, piece by piece. (Now I know why he turned down the offer of the very fine pickled pig skins I was nibbling on.)<\/p>\n

Somehow, by the way, the mariachis never showed up, though Gold, Ochoa, and novelist Mark Danielewski ended up, after the meal, at a bar at which two musicians serenaded them and a couple of drug lords who had footed an enormous bill for the performance.<\/p>\n

The second night was longer and harder to explain — all I will say of it is that Gold led us to a very cool bar at which we seemed to be the only gringos. And I think the man’s reputation must precede him, even abroad — a plate of what looked like pig’s feet, served with lime and a chile paste, showed up next to Gold before, I think, anyone had had a moment to even order a beer.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: I will not compromise the man’s privacy by posting his picture, so here is a cow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE food writing of Jonathan Gold is so vivid, colorful and at times almost embarrassingly sensual that as a reader, it’s not hard to feel you are actually along for the ride with him as he seeks out restaurants dedicated to, say, regional Mexican cuisine, a groovy wine bar or the street food of urban […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[158,365,355,261,358,364,351],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-food","7":"category-guadalajara","8":"category-jonathan-gold","9":"category-la-weekly","10":"category-mark-danielewski","11":"category-mexico","12":"category-wine","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}