A feast for the eye and table

Lidia Bastianich’s garden inspires her cooking

QUEENS, N.Y. — The icon behind Lidia’s in the Strip District, Lidia Bastianich is a grand dame of the culinary world. Her memoir, “My American Dream: A Life of Love, Family and Food” (Knopf, $28.95), released in April, chronicles her long and winding ascent.

It starts with her childhood on the southern tip of the Istrian peninsula, which was then part of Italy but was given to Yugoslavia after World War II, pushing her family behind the Iron Curtain. It continues with her family’s harrowing exodus from Europe to the U.S., to Astoria, Queens, to college in Manhattan, and eventually to her 30-year residence in Douglaston, Queens.

Queens isn’t known for its gardens, but Ms. Bastianich has maintained a glorious one across Little Neck Bay. What she grows is not served at her restaurants for volume and logistics’ sake, but it has inspired the menu at her restaurant Felidia in Manhattan, open since 1981, as well as Lidia’s in the Strip.

Like most Italian gardens, this one does not grow run-of-the mill tomatoes, squash and herbs. Italian tomato varietals are planted “anywhere there’s room,” says Ms. Bastianich, who points to vines growing next to black-eyed Susans and tucked between rose bushes.

“I need to have my hands close to the ground,” she says.

It’s how she grew up, and it’s how she

Jean Schwarzwalder photos Clockwise from left: Garlic from Lidia Bastianich’s garden. Her herb garden is nestled against the house for easy access from the kitchen. The herb rue is added to flavor grappa.

Lidia Bastianich harvests tomatoes in her home garden in Queens, N.Y.