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.

tasting tacos

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 →

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.

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.

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The entire conversation can be watched anytime by clicking here.

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The Truffle Hunters: A Flavorful Life

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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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Deep Fried with Holes in the Middle

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By Risa Nye

It’s hard not to give in to the urge to use the onion as a metaphor when writing a story that centers on onion rings. But the truth is, The Ringmaster tells a many-layered story that resembles nothing so much as an onion in that it begins by telling one story which gradually peels away to reveal another, closer to the central core of the filmmaker and the main subject of this documentary.

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