Fat City

Couple of food-related works -- on screen and on the shelf.

"City of Gold" chronicles the meals of Jonathan Gold, food writer and restaurant reviewer for the LA Times (who won a Pulitzer for criticism a decade ago when he was writing for LA Weekly). Lots of telephoto shots of Gold driving his crappy old truck along LA freeways ("Your family was defined by your deli"), wearing a crisply pressed dress shirt and suspenders, in search of tacos or other fare that prospers along the fault lines of the city's ethnic neighborhoods. Food porn shots of stir-fries in tiny kitchens. Satisfied grunts as dishes arrive on the table. But there's very little evidence (in Gold's onscreen comments, in his offscreen writings) of Gold's presumably acute sense of taste. The gold standard (you should forgive me) is Calvin Trillin, as much cultural commentator as food critic.

And a cookbook (at least I think it's a cookbook) called My Fat Dad. But frankly, the first recipe, I looked at, for sweet & sour meatballs, seems suspect. Ground beef, fine. Chopped onion, beaten eggs, fine. But then: along with some Rice Krispies, a 12-ounce bottle of chili sauce and a jar of grape jelly. Combine & simmer for 90 minutes? Good Lord. On the facing page, "tomato aspic." Tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, celery, onion, and FOUR packages of gelatin. The final line, helpfully (though it doesn't tell you what to do with it): "Note, this aspic is like a congealed Bloody Mary." I'm still trying to figure out if the author, an actual NY Times "wellness blogger" named Dawn Lerman, is pulling my leg of lamb or tweaking my strudel.