by C.J. Hirschfield
The experience of walking into Oaktown Spice Shop across from Oakland’s Lake Merritt was unique. You’d stop, inhale deeply, and smile. You’d immediately engage with the staff– and other customers– about what spices they’d suggest for various dishes, and just feel thankful that such a special place exists in the neighborhood.
Spices from the Oaktown Spice Shop can take a very good dish to new levels.
C.J. Hirschfield wrote about Oaktown as they have adapted during the pandemic to provide their goods to home chefs around the world. EatDrinkFilms has chosen some recipes and comments from their website (plus one of our own) to get you started.
There is a full meal starting with Bloody Mary cocktails, a zucchini salad, strawberry spaghetti, and chewy molasses cookies for dessert; plus great popcorn idea to eat while watching an after-dinner movie.
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.
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.
The entire conversation can be watched anytime by clicking here.
by Julie Lindow
My fancy future breakfast includes sheep-milk yogurt, farm-direct and organic coffee with mushroom creamer, breakfast chocolate, pasta, California honey, and a Moringa green shake. That is exactly what I ate at the 2020 Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, California. As I ate, I learned that in the future, food will be sustainable, organic, fair trade, or rather farm direct, and nutrient dense.
By Julie Lindow
Meeting the various food purveyors and trying their products at the 2020 Fancy Food show inspired me to learn ways to use some of these products as part of my own breakfasts at home.
I have selected some favorite recipes offered by several of the companies I wrote about in ‘My Fancy Future Breakfast.”
