Week Four Reflection

After watching City of Gold in last week’s afternoon class, we read some of Jonathan Gold’s work and discussed what makes him such a good writer. I’ve been following his writing for a while, so I am familiar with his work, but it has been interesting dissecting apart his work in a way that I haven’t really thought about before. His use of listing is something that particularly stood out to me and how that reflects on the reader, particularly in the realm of food criticism. I also noted that Johnathan has a very strong tendency to ‘show don’t tell’ which is something that I really appreciate from his writing. I really enjoyed the first reading (on Noma in Mexico – which I was surprised to learn is an $1160 meal: that’s a return flight to Paris) because of Gold not only subtly cultural references, noting about ‘class’ and high-class dining. Although I will probably never go to Noma (it did make a trip to Sydney two years ago), Gold’s writing makes me feel as if have experienced the ups and downs of the restaurant he is dining at, through his strong descriptions.