BY KAREN BOSSICK

She’s been called “the Julia Child of Mexico.” But Diana Kennedy prefers to be thought of as “the Mick Jagger of Mexican Cuisine.”

She’s a feisty fireball—hot enough to match the chiles she flavors her dishes with. And Sun Valley food lovers will get a chance to see a candid take on this cookbook author and British ex-pat when Sun Valley Museum of Art shows the film “Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy.”

The film will screen at 4:30 and 7 p.m. today—Thursday, March 25—at the Magic Lantern Cinemas in Ketchum.

And some local followers may recognize her from 2003 when she came to Sun Valley to teach multiple cooking classes and give a lecture on native plants and foods as part of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts’ Dos Culturas project.

At 97, Kennedy stands just 5 feet tall. But she’s larger than life. She left home to work in the Women’s Timber Corp during world War II and eventually moved to Haiti, then to Mexico in the 1970s, taking up residence off-grid on an eight-acre ranch outside Zitacuaro, Michoacan, where she composts, grows her own crops and uses solar power to run her home.

She also has spent the past 60 years researching and documenting the regional cuisines of Mexico from the Oaxacan cheese for tacos to steamed yellow flowers in a pan and is working to turn her home into a foundation for culinary education in Mexico. She also has twice won the James Beard Award.

The film features interviews not only with Kennedy but with famed chefs like Jose Andres, Rick Bayless and Alice Waters. And it follows Kennedy as she shops in local markets and badgers her students into respecting traditions.

Tickets to today’s screenings are $10 for SVMoA members and $12 for non-members, available at svmoa.org or at 208-726-9491. Seating is limited for physical distancing purposes.