Remembering Jonathan Gold: The View From Los Angeles
Skift Take
Los Angeles-based freelance writer and Skift Table contributor Lesley Balla has made a career of covering her city's changing restaurant scene, giving her a particularly thoughtful vantage point from which to reflect on what Jonathan Gold's death means for us all.
Having grown up in the Midwest, with post-college stops up and down the East Coast, I admit I didn’t know much about food. I knew about restaurants, in which I worked to support my travels and budding writing career, but the menus, the things I served, were pretty standard Americana.
So, I always tell people that Los Angeles taught me everything about food. Getting a taste of the globe within an hour’s drive inspired me to learn more and more about the world and my adopted city every day.
In truth, it was Jonathan Gold who taught me everything.
Not personally — we were acquaintances as writers in the same city — but simply by devouring everything he wrote. Just like everyone else who followed “the belly of Los Angeles,” his words were transforming. Reading his weekly columns, my early dog-eared copy of Counter Intelligence, and seeing him speak inspired me to hunt down unique restaurants in neighborhoods I didn’t know existed, and eat things I never would’ve consider
