Accessible and comfortable
After 25 years, Lidia Bastianich has more great Italian recipes to show us on public television
NEW YORK CITY — For more than two decades, Lidia Bastianich has been one of the culinary world’s most familiar faces. Yet she was largely unknown outside of New York City in 1993 when Julia Child asked if she might like to cook with her on the new PBS cooking show, “Cooking with Master Chefs.”
Little could she imagine that the two dishes she demonstrated in her Queens, N.Y., kitchen would kick-start her own storied career as an award-winning public television chef and cookbook author.
“Lidia really connected with Julia in the totality,” recalled TV producer Geoffrey Drummond in the new PBS documentary “25 Years with Lidia Bastianich: A Culinary Jubilee,” which premiered in December and is available on YouTube.
“I talk about nourishment being our social, emotional and even spiritual relationship with food. Lidia is all of those combined.”
The two chefs met in 1981, when Child and her friend, James Beard, snagged a table at Felidia, the upscale Italian restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that Bastianich owned with her then husband, Felice.
Child was so impressed by its regional Italian cooking — still a novelty back then — and curious about the Northern Italian woman making it, that she asked if Bastianich might be willing to teach her how to stir the perfect pot of risotto.
“So she came over to my house” for a family meal and lesson, Bastianich recalled with a smile on a recent Thursday as she sipped a cup of chamomile tea at Sant Ambroeus at Sotheby’s, a chic coffee shop on the Upper East Side.
It’s just before lunch and the place is mostly empty. But even in a crowd, America’s matriarch of Italian cooking stands out, given the bright orange scarf draped elegantly across her shoulders and 20 delicate gold bangles stacked on her left wrist.
She wowed way back in 1993, too.
Bastianich was natural in front of the camera as she showed Child how to make the creamy rice dish featuring wild mushrooms, and orecchiette with broccoli and sweet sausage. Encouraged by Child and eager to bring her authentic Italian cooking to the masses, she agreed to producers’ pitch for her to host her own television series.
“I was anxious to teach, so yeah, I went for it,” she says.
There was just one caveat: They’d have to produce it in her own home since she was afraid of studio kitchens. They agreed and the rest is culinary history.
“Lidia’s Italian Table” premiered to great success in 1998 and Bastianich, now 76, has been a fixture in the network’s lineup of cooking shows ever since. Other Emmy Award-winning shows include “Lidia’s Italy,” “Lidia’s Kitchen” and “Lidia’s Italy in America,” which explored Italian influences on American cooking.
Along the way, the selftaught cook has found time to write 18 cookbooks, along with a 2018 memoir in English and Italian.
Her most recent book, “Lidia’s From Our Family Table to Yours,” featuring 100-plus family recipes, hit book stores in October as a companion to her new 26-part public television series, “Lidia’s Kitchen.”
Filming those first episodes with Child so many years ago, Bastianich recalls, was pretty easy.
“I just felt very comfortable. I can cook certainly, and I love teaching — you know, my mother [Ermenia] was a teacher — and I love sharing. And so it seemed OK.”
The new PBS documentary is narrated by family and close friends that include celebrity chef Jacques Pépin and actor Christopher Walken, whose family ran a bakery in her Astoria neighborhood and gave her a job as a teenager.
The documentary follows Bastianich’s remarkable 65-year journey from refugee to TV star, touching on her childhood in Istria before it became part of the former Yugoslavia. It includes the two years the family spent in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Trieste, Italy, after fleeing the Communist regime, and the new life she found in America in 1958 after being sponsored by Catholic Relief Services.
It also explores the major influence she has had not only on American palates — which before she came on the scene largely associated Italian cuisine with spaghetti and meatballs and pizza — but on women in the restaurant industry, too.
Immigrants have long played a starring role in U.S. food culture by bringing the foods and cooking methods they enjoyed back home with them. Italians certainly carried the recipes they loved with them when they began immigrating to the U.S. in the 19th century, though many were quickly adapted to the tastes and ingredients of their new home.
Sunday sauce is but one example, Bastianich says. The first immigrants who arrived from Campania and Sicily were poor, and didn’t put a lot of meat in their Sunday tomato sauces back home. In New York, inexpensive meat was easy to find “so of course it went into the sauce,” she says of a tradition that continues today.
“Italian-American cuisine was always dubbed an imposter,” she says, “but it’s a great immigrant story” of adaptation.
At Felidia, Bastianich’s menu went beyond the red sauce Italian-American foods everyone knew, focusing on the seasonal, regional dishes of her childhood in Istria, a peninsula within the Adriatic Sea shared by Italy, Croatia and Slovenia.
“I wanted to introduce my new friends, the Americans, to my culture through food,” she says.
Once on TV, Bastianich strove to show aspiring cooks that Italian cuisine also can be easy and adaptable.
“It’s so approachable,” she insists, in that is reflects not just the seasons but what’s readily available in your local grocery store.
“You make do with what you have. … You can make a pasta dish in 20 minutes with no problems with garlic and oil if you have canned tomatoes. It doesn’t have to be fresh from the field.”
Twenty-five years later, with multiple trips back to Italy for research, her shows featuring the simple and straightforward dishes that are the hallmark of authentic Italian cuisine continue to resonate with her audience.
“People relate to it,” she says. After watching her cook, they feel they can make recipes that are successful, too.
“I just wanted to communicate my native culture as a thank you to America,” which provided the safe space she dreamed of as a child. “I want you to enjoy and love and understand [my recipes], bring your family around the table and make your kitchen smell good.”
Now a grandmother of four, Bastianich attributes much of her success to the fact that she’s approachable. Fans “feel comfortable with me. They feel like I’m their mother, their grandmother or great aunt.”
The fact her own mother (who lived upstairs) often cooked with her before her death two years ago, and that her adult grandchildren also sometimes make TV appearances only adds to her appeal.
After jobs in other fields, her son and daughter also play integral roles in her culinary endeavors. Joe is a restaurateur and winemaker. Tanya helps research and write her mother’s cookbooks, which are done in conjunction with each new season and often include more than 100 recipes.
As a chef, Bastianich says she has committed herself to the culture, both on TV and in the pages of her cookbooks. While some of her recipes have been reworked to make them more contemporary or are even brand new, many more reflect her roots and what her family might eat on any given day, using vegetables and rosemary grown in her backyard garden. She’s particularly fond of soups, especially this time of year.
Bastianich has no plans to slow down anytime soon. Just this month, she started testing all the pasta recipes she’ll be featuring in her latest 26-episode season of “Lidia’s Table,” with filming to begin in spring. And she still finds time to teach while also doing fundraising for various charities.
“Giving back is essential to me,” she says.
Given she goes back to Italy at least three times a year for research and fun, it’s a demanding schedule. “But there are a lot of mothers and grandmothers who want to build the table again with family,” she says. “I want them to take command and be comfortable in the kitchen.”
This simple dish is perfect for winter cooking, when you can find beautiful heads of cabbage just about anywhere.
Braised Cabbage With Onion and Garlic
3 tablespoons extra-virgin
olive oil
6 ounces pancetta, diced
1 large onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, crushed and peeled
1 small head green or savoy cabbage, cored and thickly sliced
Kosher salt
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, preferably Calabrian or peperoncini
¼ cup white wine vinegar
Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. When oil is hot, add pancetta and cook until it’s crisped, 3 to 4 minutes.
Scatter in onion slices and garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they’re wilted, about 4 minutes. Add cabbage and toss to coat in the oil. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage starts to wilt, 4 to 5 minutes. Season with 1 teaspoon salt and the pepper flakes. Add vinegar and 1 cup water. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook until the cabbage is very tender, 25-30 minutes. Uncover and increase the heat to reduce away excess liquid until the cabbage is nicely glazed, about 15 minutes. Serve hot.
Makes 6 servings.
Recipe from “Lidia’s From Our Family Table to Yours” by Lidia Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali (Knopf, 2023)
Growing up in Istria, which is now part of Croatia, Slovenia and Italy, Bastianich ate many bean-based soups, especially in winter. This hearty soup marked the start of spring, when corn formed young new ears “and was sweet and crackled under our teeth,” she writes in her latest cookbook. Her grandma added cured pork to enhance the flavor and turn the soup into a two-course meal.
Corn and Bean Soup With Kielbasa
1 pound dried kidney beans
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
4 medium russet potatoes, peeled (about 2 ½ pounds)
4 fresh bay leaves
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, preferably Calabrian or peperoncini
1 ½ pounds kielbasa, cut into
4 segments
4 ears corn, shucked, kernels removed, cobs reserved OR 3 cups canned corn
Kosher salt
Pick over the beans for debris, place them in a large bowl and add water to cover. Let soak overnight in the refrigerator.
The next day, drain and rinse beans.
In a large Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is wilted, about 5 minutes. Make a space in the pan and add the tomato paste to the spot. Cook and stir the tomato paste there for a minute, until it darkens a shade or two.
Add 4 quarts water, the beans, the potatoes, bay leaves and pepper flakes. Bring the water to a simmer over medium-low heat, set the lid ajar, and simmer until the beans are almost tender, about 1 hour.
Fish out the potatoes and place them in a bowl. Mash them with a fork and return them to the pot. Add kielbasa, corn and corn cobs (if using fresh corn) and simmer until the beans are tender, 30 to 40 minutes more.
Remove bay leaves and corn cobs (if using) and season to taste with salt, depending on how salty the kielbasa is. The kielbasa can be cut into small pieces and served in the soup, or can be served separately after the soup with a salad or vegetable.
Makes 8 generous servings. Recipe adapted from “Lidia’s From Our Family Table to Yours” by Lidia Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali (Knopf, 2023)
Polenta is a classic and humble comfort food on Italian tables, especially in winter. Often served as an appetizer or side dish, it also can serve as the base for a terrific vegetarian entree, as in this dish.
Mushroom Ragu With Greens Over Polenta
½ cup PLUS 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided use
3 leeks, white and light-green parts, halved vertically, sliced
2 pounds mixed mushrooms, such as button, crimini or oyster, thickly sliced Kosher salt
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves
3 bay leaves, divided use
1 cup low-sodium chicken or vegetable stock
1 ½ cups coarse yellow
polenta
4 tablespoons unsalted butter,
cut into pieces
½ cup freshly grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano, plus more for serving
For the greens
5 cloves garlic, sliced 2 bunches escarole (about 1 ½ pounds), leaves separated and trimmed
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, preferably Calabrian or peperoncini
To prepare the ragu: Heat ¼ cup of the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. When it’s hot, add leeks and mushrooms. Season with 2 teaspoons salt and the rosemary. Stir to combine. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are lightly browned and wilted, 8 to 10 minutes. Add 2 bay leaves and stock. Cover and cook until the mushrooms are very tender, about 15 minutes more. Discard bay leaves.
In a large saucepan, combine 6 cups water, 1 tablespoon olive oil, the remaining bay leaf and 2 teaspoons salt; bring the water to a simmer over medium-low heat. Whisking slowly, stream the polenta into the pot through the fingers in one hand. Whisk constantly at this point, to avoid lumps. Once all of the polenta is added, adjust the heat so a few small bubbles pop to the surface. Continue to cook and stir, making sure you get the corners and bottom of the pan, until polenta is thick and pulls away from the sides of the pan, 30 to 35 minutes. Discard bay leaf and beat in butter and cheese.
To prepare the greens: Heat the remaining ¼ cup olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, add garlic and cook until it’s sizzling, about 30 seconds. Add escarole and season with 2 teaspoons salt and pepper flakes. Toss well. Cover and cook until the escarole has wilted, about 10 minutes. Uncover, and increase the heat to reduce away any liquid in the pan, about 1 minute.
To serve: Spoon a mound of polenta on a plate, top with the escarole and then spoon the mushroom ragu over it all. Some grated Grana Padano cheese is a great finale.
Makes 6 to 8 servings. Recipe adapted from “Lidia’s From Our Family Table to Yours” by Lidia Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali (Knopf, 2023)