Dear Mr. Gold:

Dear Mr. Gold:

Where can I find cracklin’ in Los Angeles?

—Carl Ferry

Dear Mr. Ferry:

My arteries begin to constrict at the thought of the pork rinds fried in giant iron kettles of bubbling lard at the Jazz and Heritage Fest in New Orleans; of the translucent paper bags of happiness available in certain Breaux Bridge butcher shops; of the bubbly sheets of roasted porchetta skin snatched from trucks parked at Umbrian crossroads. Locally, not so much. But the freshly fried pork rinds at the Northern Thai restaurant Top in Reseda have rarely been the source of complaints, especially when the pork rinds in question are laden with the house’s roasted green-chile dip. If you don’t mind your cracklin’ sodden with sauce, the chicharrones at La Luz del Dia at the foot of Olvera Street are pretty great. And my own favorite pigskin is at the venerable Antojitos Denise’s on the Eastside, where you can get the wondrous substance fried into massive sheets, stewed into saucy succulence, or — my hangman’s noose of choice — fried with generous slabs of meat still attached into prisms the density of concrete blocks. Be still my heart.

4060 E. Olympic Blvd., L.A., (323) 264-8199.

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