GraceAnn Walden, San Francisco Chronicle's First-Ever Inside Scoop Columnist, Has Died

GraceAnn Walden, a pioneering food writer of the San Francisco Bay Area and the original author of The Chronicle's local food column Inside Scoop, has died, the Solano County Coroner's Office has confirmed.

Walden, who was just recently "in the middle of storms of emails and raucous gossip" with Jeremiah Tower, the chef wrote on Facebook, helped industry reporting gain the respect and fans it deserved.

"She made restaurant news and gossip a dedicated beat in this food-obsessed town, breathlessly chronicling the paths of chefs through town and tracking the underbelly of the restaurant scene with her sharp, witty, and sometimes controversial writing," reads an Inside Scoop column dedicated to her memory.

On Facebook, another friend wrote of Walden, "you didn't make it in this town 'til you were mentioned in Inside Scoop."

In recent years, since retiring from The Chronicle in 2005, Walden published her own email newsletter, The Yummy Report, and organized popular food-focused walking tours of San Francisco.