Nothing Fancy: Diana Kennedy
She’s been called the Mick Jagger of Mexican cuisine, but for nonagenarian chef and activist Diana Kennedy cooking is more than a mere profession: it’s an act of revolutionary culinary anthropology. And yes, you are making your guacamole wrong.
The British-born Diana Kennedy may well be the world’s foremost expert on Mexican cooking. Honoured repeatedly by the Mexican government and with nine cookbooks and two James Beard awards to her name, Kennedy is still going strong at 95, after more than six decades spent travelling, cooking and documenting the vast cornucopia of Mexico’s culinary landscape.
In Nothing Fancy – named after her groundbreaking 1984 cookbook – documentarian Elizabeth Carroll takes us inside Kennedy’s famed Michoacán kitchen to reveal the woman behind the fierce and opinionated persona, winning a SXSW Special Jury Award for Excellence in Storytelling for her efforts. Part delicious cooking doco, part retrospective on a life’s passion and part poignant meditation on age and legacy, Nothing Fancy is an expansive survey of a misunderstood cooking culture and the woman who has dedicated her life to preserving it.
“Richly enjoyable … cinematic comfort food of the first order.” – Variety