DIANA KENNEDY: NOTHING FANCY—INDEED

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By Patricia Unterman

To tell you the truth, my dear film buffs, I’m a reader, not a moviegoer, and I only read fiction.  If I watch a movie, it has to be in a movie house on a big screen and it has to promise a good story, ideally involving sex.   Documentaries, for me, are a bore.

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But despite all odds, I was mesmerized by a new documentary on the life of Diana Kennedy, the grouchy, 97-year-old writer of regional Mexican cookbooks, by first-time movie director Elizabeth Carroll.  The film felt novelistic to me—nuanced, revealing, true.  It picked me right up from a desk chair in front of my little computer screen and dropped me in the upland forests of Michoacán. Continue reading →

Cranky– and Curious–about Cuisine

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By C.J. Hirschfield

When a 97 -year-old cookbook writer is called “the Mick Jagger of Mexican cuisine,” and the “Indiana Jones of food,” you know there’s gotta be a story there. There is, and a fascinating one at that. Directed by Elizabeth Carroll and available for virtual screening now, the new documentary Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy shares the life and work of an impatient, antisocial, cranky, profane, opinionated woman—whose life has been driven by her enthusiasm and curiosity about authentic Mexican regional cooking. She is an absolutely marvelous force of nature.

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DIANA KENNEDY–A Movie and Recipes

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by Gary Meyer

At 94, Diana Kennedy has a youthful spirit and energy.  She lives on her own, completely off-the-grid in a solar-powered house that she designed in the mountains of Michoacán. She has shared a few favorite recipes with EatDrinkFilms readers.

As Elizabeth Carroll’s feature documentary is being released “theatrically” (which means Virtual Cinema during the pandemic) there will be a celebration and discussion between the filmmaker and several celebrated chefs who have learned from Kennedy.

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The entire conversation can be watched anytime by clicking here.

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THE ENCOUNTER: A Movie in Your Head

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by Gary Meyer

Have you ever lost contact with the outside world, deep in the Amazonian rainforest with an Indian tribe, drenched by storms, attacked by deadly insects and experiencing hallucinogenic encounters with a jaguar? And the sounds—oh those sounds of the jungle forever in your brain.

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If so— you are a rare adventurer but the play The Encounter can change that. Though you will leave dry and unbitten the visual and audio images will stay with you and possibly change the way you think about both theater and the world. The Encounter has a limited engagement at San Francisco’s Curran through Sunday, May 7. 2017.

ATTENTION: THE ENCOUNTER can be experienced online through Monday, May 25, 2020. Get your headphone and enjoy.

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