J. Gold apologizes to Paula Deen

The announcement of a Tournament of Roses grand marshal often gets worldwide attention, even if it's not a particularly newsworthy event (person chosen to ride in car and wave at people). Tuesday, the announcement became newsworthy when Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold let fly with his unvarnished opinion of Paula Deen, the 2011 marshal, for her embrace of Twinkie-pie cuisine.

Today, Gold, apparently feeling somewhat badly about his reaction, penned an apology letter to Deen, saying he treated her as a brand rather than a person. From the letter:

But our mutual friends say that you are delightful. You clearly love food. And I know that if we were to sit down together, we would probably get along just fine - I suspect that you, like me, could talk for an hour about the finer points of grits, or country ham, or pie crust without beginning to exhaust the topic. I realize that your recipes reflect the way people actually do cook in the South, rather than the way they think they should cook; that they skew toward getting dinner on the table as opposed to an Olympian ideal.

Deen is as charming and good-natured as any Southerner could be. But having grown up myself in a home with Southern-influenced cooking that often relied on the horrible, refined ingredients offered by chain supermarkets, and having since been converted to be more adventurous with ethnic foods and fresher ingredients, I think Gold had a good point that he shouldn't let go of - even if he's sorry about the way he framed it. He'll be on tonight's "Which Way, LA?" to expand on his thoughts. Listen here starting at 7 p.m.

J. Gold-en quote

Paula Deen's Southern-fried cooking and Food Network sensibilities have not won over Pasadena foodie and LA Weekly columnist Jonathan Gold. When the Tournament of Roses announced Deen would be the parade's grand marshal in 2011, Gold offered this take to the Pasadena Star-News:

"Paula Deen? That's absolutely horrifying," Gold said in an e-mail Tuesday. "Julia Child grew up on Pasadena Avenue, just a few blocks from the start of the parade, and practically everything Ms. Deen has done both exploits and despoils the culinary movement Child did so much to prod into being.

"As a food person and as a Pasadenan, I should be proud that the committee is honoring somebody in my profession," Gold said, "but the news makes me cringe.

I hope the Star-News or Gold himself spin a feature or two out of this; to explore Child's culinary legacy and the cultural and political overtones of Gold's criticism.

San Francisco vs. Texas, Obama vs. the Tea Party, Gold vs. Deen. It's all coming together.

(found via LA Observed)

Four today

1. On Facebook, just like everywhere else, sex sells. Social Media Scientist

2. Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly wins the Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Reviews award from the James Beard Foundation. Eater

3. How the Hoiles family lost the Orange County Register. OC Register

4. The Arizona Republic goes front page with an editorial against the state's new immigration law. AP

Pasadena Gold

According to Eating L.A., the November issue of Pasadena magazine - which I've heard of but never seen - will feature a piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold. It's not clear if Gold, who still writes for the LA Weekly, will be a regular contributor.

Four in the afternoon

1. The New York Times has named a new restaurant critic and it isn't Jonathan Gold. LAO

2. A columnist at The Detroit Metro Times finds the new AnnArbor.com less than satisfactory. Metro Times

3. J-school grads finding fewer jobs, fewer job benefits. University of Georgia

4. Get born again in Kenya!

New York Times goes for Gold*, **

L.A.'s top food critic could be headed to New York.

Larry Wilson at the Public Eye reports that Jonathan Gold, the Pulitizer-prize winning food critic for the LA Weekly, was offered the job of restaurant critic at the New York Times. He would replace Frank Bruni, who left the critic job in May.

Gold's decision was made easier this week when his wife, Laurie Ochoa, "parted ways" with the LA Weekly. She was the paper's editor in chief.

LAist speculated about the move a few days ago, but concluded Ochoa had been fired and Gold was staying. Wilson seems to have heard more current whispers.

*Updated, 6/7: Let's not send out the goodbye cards just yet. Assuming it's authentic, Gold posted a comment on Wilson's blog to say the New York Times has not offered him a job. Here's the comment:

Thanks for the nice words about Laurie. She molded the Weekly into the best alt-weekly on the planet, and Los Angeles is a much poorer place without her at the helm. But I can say definitively that I have neither accepted nor been offered a position at the NY Times.

The ceviche at Mo-Chica is epic, by the way.

**Updated, 6/9: Larry Wilson takes himself to task for jumping the gun.

99

Jonathan Gold publishes his list of the 99 essential restaurants in Los Angeles:

...there is the rise of the hypermasculine restaurant, where chefs take the same kind of fierce pride in their arcane meats and cheeses they probably used to take in their record collections. Their whites are always stained with blood, and they exult in the hard labor and difficult conditions of even the modern restaurant kitchen. I include women in this formula: One of my favorite new hypermasculine restaurants, a Skid Row breakfast dive called the Nickel, is actually owned and run by women.