Angelenos may remember Besha Rodell as the restaurant critic for the LA Weekly beginning in 2012, when the Los Angeles dining scene was finally starting to receive the global attention it deserves. From her first review of Post & Beam, where she spied Denzel Washington, to her last entry about Vespertine, which she penned on the plane heading back to her native Australia, Rodell recalls both the city's offerings and its landscape.
In her memoir, Hunger Like a Thirst: From Food Stamps to Fine Dining, A Restaurant Critic Finds Her Place at the Table, Rodell describes her transient childhood, the cast of culinary world characters, and the insights that put her in the critic's seat.
Besha Rodell borrowed a lyric from Liz Phair's "Exile in Guyville" as the title for her memoir, "Hunger Like a Thirst." Photo courtesy of Celadon Books.