By Joyce Goldstein
Julia McWilliams had an idyllic childhood in Pasadena California, raised in a conservative family with conventional American food. When World War two broke out she enlisted and went to work at the OSS hoping to become a spy but ending up as a clerk typist.
How did this start lead to being one of the world’s most beloved chefs?
Two fascinating video sessions occurred in November, 2021. We have obtained these recording for your viewing pleasure.
Gregory Bezat, San Francisco producer/director of a film in production, M.F.K. Fisher:The Art of Eating, was on a terrific panel on Food Luminary Documentaries such as Julia Child and James Beard.
Allen Michaan told tales of saving and operating the Grand Lake Theatre movie palace in Oakland in a wide-ranging conversation about the joys of saving a place that has meant so much for nearly a of century of moviegoers..
Both can be watched below.
To celebrate the opening the new documentary Julia EatDrinkFilms is pleased to offer our readers four of Julia Child’s favorite recipes: Coq au Vin, Gratin Dauphinois and for dessert, La Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin. Plus one of her most famous dishes, Boeuf Bourguignon. We have some videos of Julia cooking on her own show and on David Letterman, the SNL spoof which Ms Child loved and more. Bon Appetit.
Julia opens exclusively in theaters throughout November, 2021. For more information go to the Official Website.
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.
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
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.
Elizabeth Carroll’s feature documentary Nothing Fancy: Diana Kennedy is showing at the Legacy Film Festival, May 24-31, 2021, as part of a program on food, “Savory Traditions.”
To celebrate the film’s release there was a celebration and discussion between the filmmaker and several celebrated chefs who have learned from Kennedy.
The entire conversation can be watched anytime by clicking here.
By C.J. Hirschfield
You may assume that the stars in this delectable new documentary feature are human; and some of them are. But when you experience an exhilarating dog’s eye-view of a hunt to find the rare and wondrous fungus and hear the excited snuffling sounds of success, you understand that there would be no truffle hunt without some very canny canines. Both they—and the aromatic white Alba truffles they hunt—are worth their weight in gold.
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