Jacques Pépin is known as a kitchen supernova, a working whirlwind of creative energy even at 80 years old, but his surprising journey began in the countryside of wartime France, where his family's tradition of entrepreneurial women running homegrown restaurants pushed young Jacques into an early culinary career.

Slacker. Indie filmmaker. Oscar nominee. Writer, director, producer, actor Richard Linklater is all these things and more, a poster boy for the fiercely independent style of filmmaking that emerged out of Austin, Texas in the late 1980s and 1990s.