(gentle upbeat music) - [Becky] Sometimes life gives you an opportunity to reflect on what you would do with a clean slate.

Our guest is Lidia Bastianich, who's been bringing the joy of family recipes and Italian cuisine for over 25 years.

♪ I've thrown away the compass ♪ ♪ Done with the chart ♪ ♪ I'm tired of spinning around ♪ ♪ Looking for direction ♪ ♪ A Northern star ♪ ♪ I'm tired of spinning around ♪ ♪ I'll just step out ♪ ♪ Throw my doubt into the sea ♪ ♪ For what's meant to be ♪ ♪ Will be ♪ (gentle upbeat music) - Lidia Bastianich, a key figure in America's culinary landscape, is an Emmy award-winning public television host, bestselling cookbook author, restaurateur, and philanthropist, especially in the area of refugee education.

She has combined two of her life's passions - family and food - by creating many successful culinary endeavors alongside her children, Tanya and Joseph.

She has co-authored many books with her daughter, as well as companion books to her Emmy award-winning television programs, "Lidia's Kitchen," "Lidia's Italy in America," and "Lidia's Italy."

In her own words, Lidia is a refugee who has lived the American dream.

Settling with her family in New York, she opened numerous restaurants, including the acclaimed Felidia's in Manhattan, and then additional restaurants as a partner in Eataly across the United States, Canada, and Brazil.

In 1998, PBS offered Bastianich her first television series, which became "Lidia's Italian Table."

Today, Lidia's cooking shows air nationwide in the US on public television, as well as internationally and on digital platforms.

She has also authored several cookbooks, the most recent of which is "Lidia's a Pot, a Pan, and a Bowl," a companion to her new 26-part public television series, "Lidia's Kitchen: Home Cooking."

Lidia has received seven James Beard Awards and two Emmy awards for outstanding culinary host, along with numerous other awards and accolades.

She joins us on "Clean Slate" after receiving NPT's inaugural Public Media Award.

Wow, Lidia, you are beloved, and I am so excited about you being here in Nashville.

- Well, thank you for inviting me.

- Well, how do you feel about being in the South?

- I love, I love Nashville.

You know, I come periodically, but I haven't been in a while.

I love country music.

I love bluegrass.

I love the Southern food.

You know, I'm into food, so, you know, all of that.

So thank you for inviting me and I love being here.

- Well, we're thrilled you're here.

It's such a treat.

I, you know, there's so much in your past that I relate to just because I was raised with my grandparents and my parents who lived off the land and gardened and farmed, and, really, food was such an integral, still an integral part of our family traditions.

How do you interpret that with food and family?

- Well, that part of really being on a farm with my grandparents, I was there, too, growing the food that you ate, nurturing the animals, you know, going to collect the eggs, milk the goats, and all that, I think that's the basis for my passion for food and really understanding food.

And I think that in today's world, you know, we're all in big cities and all that, and children, my children, my grandchildren not always have the opportunity to get to know that, that reality of life.

Food comes packaged and, you know, it's ready.

So I put as much as I can, I bring as much as I can of those memories in my shows and all that, because I want them to know, you know, my upbringing and my relationship.

And it turns out, yours, too.

- Well, I can't, I can't promise that I was actually raised on the farm.

My family were, they were.

But I, my dad was a butcher.

I think I shared that with you.

- Yeah.

- And my mom, she cooked, was an amazing cook.

So I got a lot of their traditions, though.

And I think that's what people love about your show.

- I think so.

You know, I think there's, bringing all that reality, that reality, then the reality of, you know, my show is taped in my house.

And it began that way because when I first...

I'll share with you just how I got on public television.

- [Becky] Right.

- When I opened Felidia Restaurant and I was the chef, the young chef there, and I was doing all this regional Italian cooking, who walks in?

Julia Child and James Beard.

(Becky laughs) And she wanted risotto.

She wanted to know all about risotto.

Well, anyway, we became friends.

I taught her the risotto and she invited me on her show.

And we did two episodes on PBS.

And the producer says, "You know, Lidia, you're pretty good.

How about a show of your own?"

So therefore, you know, and she encouraged me, I said, "Okay."

I got the show, but I said, "I have two questions, two things that I would like.

Number one, to be on PBS," because that's where I wanted to be.

But number two, "That it is taped in my home," because I had no experience of studios or cameras or whatever.

I figure if I do it in my home, I'm comfortable.

And it continued.

And what does it do at home?

You know, it brought in the whole family.

My mother lived with me, my children.

Then they moved when they got married.

My grandchildren were in the neighborhood, and so they just, you know, came over and I brought them in.

So my show is really a real show, in a sense, in a home, with a message, my passion for, and the history that goes with it, the Italian, because I profess the Italian cuisine.

And so the history, and people just love it.

And, you know, I get a lot of emails that... You're absolutely right.

It brings them back to maybe a nostalgic time, a time that they're missing or they wish their children had.

So I share as much as I can.

- I love that.

And I love the episodes with your mom.

I know your mom passed, but what an amazing life.

- Oh my goodness.

She was wonderful.

She was my, really, support, the center of it.

Because my mother, I mean, she lived with me, you know, she was a, she was a teacher, actually.

- Oh.

- But we had a story, let me just make it a short kind of story.

We come from part of Italy that, after World War II, Italy lost the war, was given to communist Yugoslavia.

We were behind communism and had to escape back into Italy.

Now, under communism, you couldn't speak Italian.

They changed your names or whatever.

So my mother and my father were really courageous because my father literally ran over, escaped the border.

We, the three of us, we were allowed to go and visit family on the other side, but they wouldn't allow the whole family.

So he escaped.

And when we got back to Italy, in order to sort of claim, you know, our position in this world, we had to be in a refugee camp for two years.

And so my mother was so strong through that period, letting go, just because she wanted us to have a good future.

And ultimately, we came to America, and we had nobody in America, so the Catholic charities actually brought us here.

She didn't speak, we didn't speak the language and all that.

So you can imagine, you know, a mother, she was young.

We were, I was 12.

My brother was 15.

- Wow.

- Not knowing the language, not having anybody here, bringing the... She was so strong.

And she was, actually, she was my partner, you know, she was so proud.

"Oh, look, you did this.

The success," when I'd get some acknowledgement or whatever.

I says, "No, Ma, we did it together."

- Yeah.

- And it is exactly like that.

She was a great support in making me who I am.

- And she lived to be 100?

- 100.

She, her birthday was in January, and she passed in February.

- Wow.

What a tremendous, what a tremendous story.

And when you think about the courage that they had to really make that leap of faith.

- You know, yeah.

And when I think about it in retrospect and what's going on with the immigrants now, I can't help but thinking, you know, I remember those two years in refugee camp.

We had my mother, my father, who were our stronghold.

They held us together.

But, you know, you're all alone.

We were on line for food.

So I think about the immigrants, what's happening today, and it was, it takes strength to sort of go through it and survive and be positive about it.

And then, you know, you see, we were very blessed to have been given the opportunity to come to America.

- Well, you celebrate America.

You have the series where you celebrate America.

- Exactly.

- And you really pay tribute to the cultures that make our flavor as a country.

- Absolutely.

You know, I have my cooking shows, which is once a week, but then once a year, I do make this kind of documentary, one hour, "Lidia Celebrates America."

And it came out of, actually, my wanting to thank America.

Sometimes, you know, being maybe an immigrant or something, you see the attributes of a situation that maybe being born there and... Like being in the forest, you don't see the trees, you know?

- Right.

- Yeah, exactly.

So, for me, with food, I enter the different elements of what makes America great and what makes America, because sometimes I even feel that America is maligned, you know.

And it's... Let me tell you, there's no place like America, no place in the world.

And I am an example of, you know, given an opportunity in America, what could happen.

- You've traveled everywhere.

You still do television in Italy, right?

- I do.

I do.

I go back to Italy and I do a cooking show with a friend of mine, actually.

We do.

And I love it there, too.

I mean, but also, you know, Becky, what's important is that, because I have most of my life now here in America, that I go back periodically, regularly, because a culture evolves.

What's happening in Italy?

I need to bring it back here, you know?

(Becky laughs) I wanna be true to form because I'm not an inventive chef.

I'm kind of, I feel like, a conduit of the Italian culture to my American family.

- I love that!

That is so true.

So what's really, what would you say is really hot right now from...

I see, is it burrata?

- Burrata, sure.

- I see that on a lot of menus now.

- Yeah.

Mozzarella, burrata, and these are individual cheeses that, even in Italy, were very regional.

Burrata is from Puglia.

You know, Italy has 20 regions, and if you look at the heel of Italy, that's Puglia.

And that's where burrata sort of had its, its kind of birth.

Now it's wildfire, all over the world.

It's delicious.

- Yeah.

- Colatura di pesce.

Colatura di pesce is a new thing.

I don't know if you got it yet.

- I haven't had that yet.

- Okay.

But what it is - you use it in cooking - it's like a fish sauce.

The Chinese have their fish sauce.

And it's when they make the anchovies, they put the salt and the pressure and the juice that comes out, that is bottled, and that is, you know, it's in little bottles, and it adds flavor when you cook.

So that's coming.

- Okay.

- So, many, many new things.

They're not really new in Italy.

- Right.

- They're regional and traditional and have been there.

And so, sort of...

But they also, over there, they find new ways of using them.

- You know, you've done so much.

You've written, I think you have, what, 15 cookbooks?

- [Lidia] Thirteen.

- Thirteen cookbooks.

You have a magazine I love, the online magazine.

I've been checking that out.

There's just so much that you're engaged in.

How do you find the energy and the time to do everything you're doing?

- Well, you know, it's, I'm here and you're talking to me, but it's not a solitary journey.

I have my family involved, and a lot of great people that, you know, you build a team.

And everybody, my daughter, she's certainly... She's a researcher by profession, if you will, but the books and the television and all that, she helps me do that.

And my son, also, who is, he was a businessman on Wall Street, but, of course... And I always say, because when they were small, they would run around the restaurant, whatever.

I say I infected them with this passion.

(both laughing) They're both in the business now.

- You know, I love that.

And I loved, I had the good fortune, at one point in New York, to eat at Felidia's, thanks to good friends of ours, Pat Harrison.

- Sure.

- Pat helped me know about Felidia's and said it was her favorite place to eat in New York.

Of course, Paula Kerger.

- Yes.

- Cynthia Fenneman, all champions in public media - Right.

- who adore you.

- Well, I've been in public media 25 years.

- I know!

- This year is 25 years.

And so, yes, these are all the wonderful, they happen to be women.

- Yeah.

(both laughing) - Leaders that... - Yes.

- That, you know, carry on the public television message.

- So Felidia's, how did that start?

- Well, Felidia's started... As I said, I started my first business in 1971, and then for 10 years, I kind of honed my skills.

And we were in the suburbs and we had two restaurants.

We did well and whatever.

But then, you know, everybody says, "Oh, Lidia, you have to be in Manhattan."

(Becky laughs) So, of course, we sold those and we built Felidia.

And in Felidia, I became the chef, because I was mature enough to have worked already those 10 years with chefs and so on.

And so that's, you know, the idea was Lidia, and I'm gonna do traditional regional Italian food, because, you know, Italian food is... A lot is known as Italian-American food, which is wonderful, Italian-American.

But Italian-American food is different.

It's an adaptation by the early immigrants.

When they came, they didn't have all the products.

So they adapted and they made what they found and what they remembered.

But I said, "Okay."

But Italy, for those that travel to Italy, know that you eat differently in Italy.

And so I decided, "Okay, I'm gonna bring the traditional, like we cook at home."

And that's what sort of got me on the spectrum of, you know, the journalists and Julia and so on.

- [Becky] Right.

- But, you know, I loved it.

I had a passion.

And from then on, you know, the fact of being on television, then, of course, the book.

And even the book, you know, the first book, how do you cook the, how do you write the first cookbook?

There was Jay Jacobs, he was a writer for Gourmet Magazine.

He was a wonderful writer.

And he wrote a great article and we became friends.

He became...

He wrote an article on Felidia and on me, and then he would sit down and want to know more and more about what and how I cook.

And he says, "Lidia, you should write a cookbook."

And I said, "I'm not a writer."

(Becky laughs) So he said, "Let's do it together."

And my first book was together with Jay Jacobs.

He was a writer.

- Wow.

- And that got me started.

So, you know, my crescendo in this industry, in this world, was all by different opportunities, which I wasn't afraid to take.

Actually, I was challenged by them.

And 'til this day, you know.

- You know, that's fascinating, to think about what you do with opportunity.

So you constantly have a growth mindset, it sounds like.

- Absolutely.

You know, if there is something...

I must say that, you know, you kind of, it changes coloratura, if you will, as you go on in life and, you know, you have a full life with your career.

There's always something new to do and something great.

And it gives me gratification now that I can return some of those gifts that were given to me.

- So Lidia, I know our viewers are fascinated about how they can manage their busy lives.

And I read something that you, actually, when you were a working mom, you had a restaurant, how you were trying to figure out with your children, and you just engaged your children into it.

What do you think we're missing as a culture right now with that?

- Well, I... You know, let me go back.

When I had...

I opened the restaurant.

I already had my son.

I had my daughter in, actually, the first year of opening a restaurant.

So when you open a restaurant, you have loans, you have commitments and all of that.

But I'd just had a baby and I had to take care, you know, my maternal instinct jumped in, and I did.

And after a few months that I was home, I felt the need, you know, my husband, because him and I were partners, the need that, you know, "We have all these loans to pay.

I have to go there.

I have to work."

So I went to my pediatrician and I asked, I said, "I feel this guilt when I think about leaving my child, and yet I need to go to work."

And he said to me, "Children want happy families."

You have to include... We think that, you know, a child comes and we have to change our way of living.

He said, "A child comes into a family.

You continue that family.

Make it happen.

Make them happy, and give them as much time as you can, and include them whenever you can."

And so I included them.

They were always around the restaurant, this and that.

And somehow, you know, then we lived, my mother lived there.

We were filming in the house.

I included all of them.

It was, for me, it was a natural.

And I think that the viewers out there really connected, because, you know, you sense when something is not staged.

I don't have a script.

Yes, I plan the recipes and whatever, but then I speak around it.

I know what I wanna say or whatever.

Sometimes I just improvise.

And so I think that all of that kind of made my show so accessible.

And also, I am very conscious of what... Because, you know, one thing that I saw in Julia Child's, when I was watching her show, is that she was not concerned about how beautiful or what she did.

She was concerned that the viewers learn something.

And I said, "But that's where it's at."

If the viewer gives me half an hour, I owe them something.

They need to take something away from this show.

They learn something.

And so I made sure that the recipes and all of that were very doable, that were very, you know... Because cooking is simple.

It doesn't have to be complicated.

(Becky laughs) Just good ingredients.

- Mm-hmm.

- And I think that transporting this knowledge into their home and all that, they cook like Lidia, they smell, they began... You know, when I see them now, you know my end saying, "Tutti a tavola a mangiare"?

- [Becky] Yes.

- Do you know how many of them, so proudly, "Tutti a tavola a mangiare, Lidia!"

And I just love it because you become part of their family.

- Interpret that phrase for us.

- Tutti a tavola... Yeah, it's usually a grandma, whoever, "Tutti a tavola a mangiare.

Let's go.

Everybody's to the table to eat."

Because, you know, when pasta is ready or risotto is ready, you eat; you don't wait.

It doesn't wait around for you.

So I think that's a beckoning kind of sort of call to come and eat.

- Absolutely.

Well, I'll...

The premise of this show, Lidia, that I feel like I should call it "Clean Plate" with you, (both chuckle) but the name of the show is "Clean Slate."

And the idea is, "What would you do with a clean slate right now?"

- Oh my goodness.

I wouldn't know where to begin.

There's so much.

So much.

(Lidia sighs) What would I do?

What would I do?

I would try, now, at this point of my life, maybe I will focus on that and not on personal.

Maybe try to alleviate hunger somehow, work on that.

And I am working as much as I can on those and the environment and the products that we have, good, honest, nutritional products.

All of these preservative... - Right.

- Yeah.

All of this.

I work towards clean, sustainable, enough food for as many people as we can.

- You're such a wonderful story...

I love that answer.

And you're such a wonderful storyteller.

What, in your past, what do you remember when you think of a comfort food or you think of an aroma or a meal, what takes you back to your childhood?

- You know, the olfactory, the smells that we have, our memory of smell has a large library to store things.

And when we smell something, it really brings us back.

And, for me, it has to go back to Grandma.

And, you know, whether it's the rosemary... She made me pick the bay leaves.

So whether it's the fresh tomatoes when you cut it...

I mean, I used to climb on the cherry tree with the cherries.

And just eating those cherries, I remember, you know, you ate those cherries, and I guess the action or whatever magnified the whole flavor where I was a child or whatever.

So there's a lot of things that I can go back and the flavors that I recall, but a lot of them bring me back to the Grandma years.

- Yeah.

- Those really formative years in my connection with food.

We landed at JFK, and, now, we had nobody.

We were brought here, as I said before, by the charities, and I remember they came with this yellow bus.

Now I know it's a school bus, but they picked us all up and they brought us into Manhattan, into a hotel.

Not unlike what's happening now, you know?

- [Becky] Wow.

- And they put us in a hotel, and we had... Because there were different ethnicities.

It wasn't just the ex-Italians, because Eastern Europe was coming on that border, too, and running away from communism, a lot of the Eastern countries, Eastern European countries.

And they put us with an Italian social worker.

And slowly, she worked with us, gave us, you know, they fed us.

And ultimately they found...

They interviewed us, found what the strengths of the parents were.

My father was a good mechanic, whatever.

My mother was a teacher, so she couldn't teach.

So she ended up doing seamstress because, you know, in Europe, Italian women all there also... - Right.

- And they found a job for my father as a mechanic.

And that's where we settled.

They settled in New Jersey.

They found a little home for us.

And we began our life like that, with them, with their guidance and the people, the community.

It was incredible.

The community all came to our...

When we came, they brought us gifts.

They brought us groceries.

It was amazing.

It was amazing.

Just in retrospect, when I think of, you know, we had nobody, didn't speak the language.

Knew nobody.

And yet, life has been good to us.

America has been, really, a wonderful place.

The open arms.

On the other hand, also, you know, Becky, it takes also, as an immigrant, you have a responsibility.

I think, you know, when somebody gives you an opportunity, you gotta make the best of it.

You gotta work at it.

You gotta make it happen.

And then at some point, you gotta return also.

You gotta give it, give some back.

So it's a process of what makes American great and, you know, this, this immigrant strength.

But us immigrants, we have our responsibilities, too.

- You're such a treasure for our community, for our public media family.

Just in the moment we have left, is there anything you'd like to share with folks as in Nashville or beyond?

- Well, we're in Nashville.

I have to share, you know, I love the music, I love the food.

So I love coming.

I found, I find myself very comfortable in Nashville.

It's a very accogliente - welcoming - community, because, you know, food, music, that's all part of culture, part of expressing who we are.

So I really enjoy coming here.

And I enjoy even tasting the different food.

Of course, I go around America, I wanna taste the different food, the Southern food that...

I remember the first time I came here, I had the peach cobbler.

- Oh, yeah.

- I love that.

You know?

I mean... - Right.

- And I've been making it since.

But you see, it's still in my memory.

- That's so great.

Well, Lidia, I can't believe we're out of time, but we're out of time.

Thank you so much.

- Oh, Becky, thank you very much for having me.

I enjoyed it.

And I enjoyed talking to your audience here in Nashville.

- Absolutely.

You'll come back, right?

- I will.

- Okay.

Awesome.

(gentle upbeat music) ♪ I've thrown away my compass ♪ ♪ Done with the chart ♪ ♪ I'm tired of spinning around ♪ ♪ In one direction ♪ - I was blessed to cook for two popes when they came to the United States.

I cooked both for Pope Benedict and Pope Francis when they came to the United States.

And Pope Benedict, you know, he's a little bit...

He's German.

- Mm-hmm.

- So I kind of, I made some sauerkraut, I made some goulash and whatever.

Pope Francis was, he's from Argentina, but from Pilonte.

I was gonna do some prime rib.

But the Vatican - because you have to submit the menu to the Vatican - so the Vatican nixed it.

I guess he wasn't feeling good even then.

So I made light things.

I made a risotto.

He loved the risotto because he's from Pilonte.

I made primavera risotto.

A peach tart I made.

He loved the peach tart.

And fish.

Simple grilled fish from the Long Island Sound.

(gentle upbeat music)