#194 Lidia Bastianich's American Dream

The Not Old - Better Show

Paul Vogelzang

Health & Fitness, Society & Culture

4.7 • 107 Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2018

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lidia Bastianich's American Dream

Smithsonian Associates, Interview Series

For cookbook author, television personality, and restaurateur Lidia Bastianich, her story begins with an upbringing in Pula, a formerly Italian city turned Yugoslavian under Tito's communist regime. She enjoyed a childhood surrounded by love and security—despite the family's poverty—and learned everything about Italian cooking from her beloved grandmother, Nonna Rosa.

During our interview, Lidia Bastianich discusses, that when the communist regime began investigating the family, they fled to Trieste, Italy, where they spent two years in a refugee camp waiting for visas to enter the United States, an experience that shaped Bastianich for the rest of her life. At 12, she started a new life in New York. She began working in restaurants as a young teenager, the first step in a food career that would make her name.

Drawing on her new book, My American Dream (Knopf), Bastianich shares the vivid story of the fulfillment of that dream. Join her for a conversation with Joe Yonan, food and dining editor for the Washington Post, as she discusses her close-knit family, her professional ascent, and the dedication and passion for food that led to multiple restaurants, many best-selling cookbooks, and 20 years on public television as the host of her own cooking show.

Please note this event at the Smithsonian Associates is SOLD OUT, and for more information, please listen to the interview, or call: 202 633 3030

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Not Old Better Show Smithsonian Associates series. I'm your host Paul Vogel saying and this is episode number 194.
0:08.0	As part of our Smithsonian Associates Art of Living series, our guest today on the Not Old Better show is Lydia Bastionich.
0:16.0	Lydia Bastionich is author of the new book My American Dream.
0:20.0	Lydia Bastionich shares the vivid story of her close-knit family, her professional
0:24.2	assent, and the dedication and passion for food that led to multiple restaurants, many
0:29.3	best-selling cookbook, and 20 years on public television as host of her own cooking show.
0:35.0	Hi Paul, mine is a story, an American dream story, and it is the story of a young immigrant girl escaping communism
0:46.8	fleeing back into Italy, finding refuge as Italian, ethnic Italians back in Italy, but then moving on because Italy after
0:59.7	the war was hard, spending two years in a refugee camp and then finally at 12 years old being accepted
1:09.4	and invited to America, the ultimate dream and coming here as a 12 year old excited about having
1:18.7	a stable home a free country a country where you have freedom of religion or speaking the language that you want,
1:26.0	and a country of opportunities.
1:29.0	And how I grew up to be an American, to love America, and to take the different opportunities that
1:37.1	America was offering and really turned them into a very dream life if you will my American dream.
1:46.0	That of course is our guest today
1:48.0	Lydia Bastionich who will be at the Smithsonian Associates program presenting her new book My American Dream April 6th, 2018.
1:57.0	Please join me in welcoming to the not-old-better show via Skype, Lydia Bastionich.
2:03.0	Well, Lydia Bastionich, welcome to the show.
2:06.8	Thank you.
2:07.8	Thank you, Paul, thank you for having me.
2:08.7	It's a pleasure to talk to you.
2:10.2	I'm excited to do this.
	...

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