Sources: UTSA Libraries, Fonda San Miguel, SXSW
“Nothing Fancy: Diana Kennedy” by director Elizabeth Carroll is a feature-length documentary that premiered at the SXSW Film Festival this past March and features the 92-year-old British chef and cookbook author Diana Kennedy. At SXSW, the film won the Special Jury Recognition for Excellence in Storytelling award and continues in the festival circuit.
She has property outside Zitácuaro, Michoacán since the 1970s where she continues to cook and enjoy other activities, as well as continue to be an environmentalist. She is transforming her home in Michoacán into the Diana Kennedy Center.
Kennedy’s many long- term friends in Austin hosted a fundraising event, Honoring Diana, on Monday, May 6th, for the center, starting with Fonda San Miguel owner Tom Gilliland and the late Miguel Ravago, among others.
The author donated her archival collection to the University of Texas San Antonio Libraries Special Collections in late February. The collection opens for research in fall 2019 and among the items are eleven 19th century Mexican cookbooks.
In San Antonio, the 3rd annual “Ven a Comer” on May 5th was a fundraiser to support the development and preservation of the Diana Kennedy Culinary Archive and Mexican Cookbook Collection. There was a showcase of materials from the archive at the sold – out event.
The author has multiple cookbooks (several published by the University of Texas Press) and is a 2014 inductee into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame and previously won Cookbook of the Year for “Oaxaca al Gusto.”
She has received the Order of the Aztec Eagle from the Mexican government in 1982 and received the Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2002.