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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Chefs

Lidia Bastianich flies to Kansas City after hanging out with Whoopi and Joy

Posted by Charles Ferruzza on Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 9:05 AM

click to enlarge Just call her Nonna
  • Just call her Nonna

Lidia Bastianich, the chef-owner of Lidia's Kansas City, will spend much of next Monday on the set of The View.

"I'll be talking about my new book and cooking some Thanksgiving goodies for the ladies," Bastianich said. "Then, later, I'll take a 10 p.m. flight to Kansas City."

The following day will be action-packed for the restaurateur: a radio appearance in the morning, her lecture at 3:30 p.m. at the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Public Library.

This will be followed by a book signing scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Leawood Hen House. (Lidia's website calls it Kansas City, Kansas -- but you know the difference). Lidia's new book isn't a traditional cookbook, although it features more than a dozen recipes. The new tome is her first children's book, called Nonna Tell Me A Story: Lidia's Christmas Kitchen (Running Press Kids; $15.95) -- it was inspired by Lidia's relationship with her own five grandchildren, who now range in age from six to 12 years old.

"I have two children and five grandchildren," Bastianich said. "I got a lot of dividends from my investment!"

click to enlarge FAt_City_Nonna_cover.jpg
"The grandchildren would demand stories from me, particularly when they were quite small," she said. "And I wanted to tell them stories, to keep them close to their Italian heritage. I wanted to tell them what life was like for me when I was a little girl, which was very, very different from their life now. They can't relate, for example to a chicken breast the way that I can. When I was a child, if my mother was going to make chicken soup, she went into the yard behind our house, chased after a chicken, wrung its neck, removed the feathers and cooked it. Kids today think that everything comes from the supermarket."

The message of Nonna Tell Me A Story, says Bastianich, is the importance of tradition and family during the Christmas holidays. She loved explaining to her grandchildren how her childhood holidays in Istria were completely unlike anything they experienced in the United States.

"At my grandfather's farm, we didn't have a tree. We cut a juniper bush and would decorate it with apples, oranges, dried fruits and cookies. That 'tree' was our gift. We dismantled the tree on the Feast of the Epiphany and ate everything on it. We didn't know about the lovely store-bought ornaments they used in the United States. Everything in our world had a place."

One of the loneliest Christmas holidays, says Bastianich, was her first living in America. At age 12, Lidia Mattichio had emigrated to New York with her mother Eraminia and her brother.

"I remember a very meager little synthetic tree perched  on top of a TV set that had those rabbit ears antennae. We were literally catapulted into American customs."

That first American holiday made Lidia nostalgic for the happier holidays of her youth: "The fire crackling in the fireplace, the scent of the juniper. It was those memories that I wanted to pass on to my children and grandchildren. I wanted them to connect with their history. When someone else creates your traditions for you, it doesn't reflect your family. The flavors of your family and that family's story."

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Lydia is not Italian. Why is she not proud of who she really is. She doesn't even look italian, neither do her children she is croation and what's wrong with that. Italian people look entirely different. Everybody has ther own look. Trust me she is not Italian


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Posted by Camille10park on 03/17/2011 at 4:26 AM
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