Chef, cookbook author Lidia Bastianich celebrates 25 years in public television

NEW YORK, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Emmy-winning TV star, restaurateur and cookbook author Lidia Bastianich said the quarter-century she has spent on public television talking about food and showing people how to create Italian cuisine for their families "just flew by."

A new special marking the milestone, 25 Years with Lidia: A Culinary Jubilee, premieres Monday on PBS.

The hourlong program includes highlights from Bastianich's career, as well as appearances by her lifelong friend Christopher Walken and fellow chefs Jacques Pepin, Geoffrey Zakarian, Mary Sue Milliken and Elizabeth Falkner.

"You go over good memories," Bastianich, 76, told UPI in a recent phone interview. "This is my story."

Bastianich is happy people are interested in her life and said she gets asked a lot of questions about her childhood and what she thought about America when she first arrived.

"This takes the viewers that have been watching me for 25 years on a biographical outline of Lidia," she said.

Her immigrant journey from a part of Italy that is now Croatia to arriving in the United States penniless with her family in the 1950s was essential to include in the special, Bastianich said, listing details she wants viewers to know about her.

"That I spent two years in a refugee camp in Italy before coming to America. That I came as a 12-year-old refugee to America and how wonderful we were accepted and the opportunities that we got here," she said.

She recalled how Catholic Charities helped her family secure housing, food and education when they got to their adopted country.

"It's not unlike what's happening today. I wanted to show people, 'You know, if you really take it to heart, if you roll up your sleeves, if you appreciate, and you do the right thing, there's no place like America,'" she said.

Working with Walken

One of her earliest jobs was working in the New York bakery owned by Walken's father, Paul, a German immigrant, and mother Rosaline, who hailed from Scotland.

Every weekend, Bastianich would work at the shop with the teenage Christopher -- who is now 80 with an Oscar and more than 140 screen credits on his resume -- and his two brothers, Kenneth and Glenn.

"Until this day, I tease [Christopher]. He was the jelly stuffer for the doughnuts. He was so messy, he would it get all over his hands and whatever and also the father made them deliver the wedding cakes on the weekend. They earned their keep," she said.

"But I remember [Christopher] loved the arts and used to go to dancing school and, to me, was amazing, charming that this young kid went to dancing school."

When Walken got his big break in the Off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward with Liza Minelli in 1963, the actor's mother took her to see the show.

"I still recall that was a great gift," she said. "And we're still friends."

Bastianich didn't have a long-term plan when she began her own career in earnest.

At first, she simply used what she knew to make money and help support herself and her family.

But she loved cooking and soon noticed the people around her were happy to eat whatever she prepared.

"I began to realize that I had knowledge. There was something in the way I cooked that people loved. It came out good! I gave people pleasure. I was nurturing people and that gives you satisfaction," she said.

"The rewards that I got back from the people, from my restaurants to begin with, then the books. They were buying the books. Then the television."

Julia Child

Bastianich's TV career began after the late culinary icon Julia Child came into one of Bastianich's restaurants and fell in love with her risotto.

They became friends and Bastianich made guest appearances on Child's French Chef programs.

"Within two episodes, which were quite successful, the producer said: 'Lidia, you're pretty good. How about a show of your own?' And [Child] said, 'Lidia, yeah, you do for Italian cuisine what I did for French.' And I felt like if she says so, maybe I could," Bastianich said.

Eventually, Bastianich was headlining shows like Lidia's Italy in America, Lidia's Italy, Lidia's Family Table and Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen.

"I always say I have the two greatest cultures behind me: Italian and American," she said. "How could you miss?"

It's not just that Bastianich is smart and creative in the kitchen, she also comes across as warm and authentic on screen.

The chef said she was comfortable being herself and talking to viewers early in her television career.

"My mother was a teacher, so maybe teaching and sharing was in our family in a sense," she said.

"I love sharing and I love getting emails from people saying: 'I didn't think I could cook, but you taught me and my husband loves it!'" Bastianich said. "That gives me great satisfaction -- to be able to impart some of your knowledge into somebody else."

Family is everything

Despite all of her fame and professional success, Bastianich regards her close relationships with her children and her grandchildren as her greatest accomplishments.

"I bring that to the shows and people can relate to that," she said.

"My children, my grandchildren, my grandmother, they are all part of the show. We live together just like in Italy. My daughter lives down the block," she said. "My mother lives with me. When the shows were being done, they would come around and I'd pull them in the show. Just normal things."

Bastianich doesn't want to hear excuses from people who say they are too busy to cook, eat well or share meals with their own families.

"That is the basis for life," she said.

"Cooking doesn't take much," Bastianich said. "Use what's convenient, but pull it together. Give it the love and flavor that is for your family. ... I think that the table is the most important place on this planet."