Goals

One main goal for this unit is to help you develop your voice as a food critic. By that I mean your ethos, in terms of trustworthiness, and even more so your personality. As the course goals say, you want a voice that can get readers excited (and salivating!) or disgusted, and one that you can adjust for different readers and in different situations, being formal or informal as demanded by a major metropolitan daily/weekly, or Yelp--our two venues for Major Assignment 1.

This week and next, to develop your voice, you'll be reading the works of two major local food critics: Gustavo Arellano (who covered Orange County in the OC Weekly) and Jonathan Gold (who wrote for the Los Angeles Times). They're very different guys, but they each created a persona that the public trusted when making decisions about where to eat.

Today, we'll start on my home turf, Orange County, with the irrepressible Gustavo.

Procedure

Step 1. Listen and Take NotesLinks to an external site.

Linked here are clips of Gustavo Arellano speaking . .  .

-- first in conversation on ABC News (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

-- and next in his 2004 "Hole-in-the-Wall-Life" column in the OC Weekly (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..

Browse both to get a feel for Gustavo's personality, but read the second one carefully, especially his introduction (the top paragraphs), entry #25, and any other two entries of your choice. Turn in here some notes you take on Gustavo's voice (maybe one or two ideas for each bullet point). This includes his:

• pronunciation
• tone
• jokes
• diction (What words does he repeat? When does he use Spanish, and how much of it? )
• similes/metaphors (if any)
• allusions (does he speak of anything you don't know without explaining it? what knowledge does he hint that he knows?)
• authority (what knowledge does he state directly?)
• persona/character (does he make any statements directly about himself?)
• your other observations

2. Decide Who's Speaking

http://www.ocweekly.com/restaurants/the-best-restaurants-in-orange-county-of-2016-7606879Links to an external site.

Linked above is the OC Weekly's 2016 "Best of the OC" Restaurant Guide. Gustavo was the paper's general editor and wrote some, but not all, of the paper's food reviews. Choose two reviews: one that you think was written by Gustavo, and one that wasn't. Paying attention to the qualities you noted in question 1, write a paragraph of about 150 words in which you make an argument for why you think each one was or wasn't written by him.

3. Plan your Style.

In about 150 words, explain: What can you imitate from Gustavo's style when writing your own Critic's and/or Yelp reviews? This doesn't mean telling the same jokes Gustavo tells, or even adopting his informal tone (though you could do the latter). Instead, it means thinking about how you can use your own knowledge, your own background (including your home languages), and your own personality in your review. And yes, your own tone. What can you say to make the review more distinctive, more "you"?

Extra: Want more Gustavo?

Here, (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.starting at about 2:00, he promotes his book Taco USA  and delves into how America's attitude toward Mexican food relates to its attitude on Mexicans, which can help model for you how to make your Major Assignment 1 "relate to your audience's cultural context."

In-Class Lesson Week 3 Thursday: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives--Gustavo's and Yours

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