This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. Our guest, Lydia Bostionic, is a celebrity chef, famous for her

Italian recipes. She has a long-running PBS series, Lydia's Kitchen. She's written over 15

cookbooks, has owned several restaurants, and has won multiple James Beard Awards. Her family

lived on the Italian peninsula, Austria. As a child, she learned a lot about cooking from her

grandmother, who was poor and cooked over a wood fire. All of the ingredients were from her grandmother's

garden, or from the livestock they raised, including two pigs a year. But after World War 2, the

peninsula changed hands from Italy to communist Yugoslavia. Bostionic's parents were followed by

secret police, and her father was arrested. Her family managed to flee after the border was closed,

and for a couple of years they lived in a refugee camp in Italy that was a former Nazi concentration

camp. Her new special, Lydia celebrates America, flavors that define us, premieres on

PBS May 30th. Her show Lydia's Kitchen returns for its 11th season in October. Bostionic spoke with

Terry Gross last week at a WHY event at which Bostionic was presented with WHY's Life-Long Learning

Award. So you grew up in Austria, which is a peninsula kind of parallel to Italy. The

Northwestern tip is attached to Italy, and the northeastern tip is attached to Croatia.

The year you were born in 1947, that was the year that the peninsula that you lived on switched

hands from Italy to Yugoslavia, which was communist. So your mother was pregnant with you at the time.

A lot of their friends fled Austria because they didn't want to live in a communist country.

But because your mother was pregnant, your father said you're not going to give birth

in a refugee camp, so we're staying. When you look back at that time and think about what a

consequential decision your parents had to make while your mother was pregnant with you,

what do you think about when you reflect on that?

You know, Terry, when I reflect on my life, I'm grateful. I had a wonderful life. I have it a

...