Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures and WQED present Lidia Bastianich in conversation with host of QED Cooks Chris Fennimore.

Lidia Matticchio Bastianich is the author of thirteen best-selling cookbooks, successful restaurateur, and the Emmy award-winning host of public television’s Lidia’s Kitchen. Her newest book, My American Dream, is a heartwarming, emotional, revelatory memoir told with all her hallmark warmth and gusto.

Lidia’s story begins with her upbringing in Pula, a formerly Italian city turned Yugoslavian under Tito’s communist regime. She enjoys a childhood surrounded by love and security–despite the family’s poverty–learning everything about Italian cooking from her beloved grandmother, Nonna Rosa. When the communist regime begins investigating the family, they flee to Trieste, Italy, where they spend two years in a refugee camp waiting for visas to enter the United States–an experience that will shape Lidia for the rest of her life. At age 12, Lidia starts a new life in New York. She soon begins working in restaurants as a young teenager, the first step toward the creation of her own American dream.

Lidia tells in great, vivid detail the fulfillment of that dream: her close-knit family, her dedication and endless passion for food that ultimately leads to multiple restaurants, many cookbooks, and twenty years on public television as the host of her own cooking show.