In her latest one-hour PBS special, Chef Lidia Bastianich demonstrates that it doesn’t have to be Veterans’ Day or Memorial Day to honor members of the American armed services – any holiday will do.
“Lidia Celebrates America: Holiday for Heroes,” which premieres about a week before Christmas Day, takes Bastianich on a cross-country trip as she visits with five American veterans, cooks for them, and learns more about their experiences during and after serving in the military.
“Veterans have been on my mind and on my heart” a lot lately, Bastianich, who came to America as an Italian immigrant in 1958, said over the phone Monday, Dec. 5.
Having enjoyed a decades-long career as a best-selling author and TV personality, the chef said, “I think my success maybe is because I just couldn’t get enough of this freedom and these opportunities, of what America offered me.
“And then, as you live your life, you realize that there’s somebody that you owe thanks to, somebody that has protected us,” she added.
With that in mind, Bastianich set out to meet with and better understand those Americans who “gave a lot of their lives to keep our freedom.”
In her travels, the chef met with a diverse group of veterans – including US Army Sgt. Bryan Anderson, a triple amputee who served two tours in Iraq – visiting them in their homes and bonding with them the best way she knows how: through food.
“I entered their lives through food,” Bastianich said. “I’m not a journalist, I’m not an interviewer. How can I just sit down and (say), ‘Tell me a story’? No. I needed to share some food with them. I needed to cook something with them.
“And they open up, really, truly open up and tell me their stories without reservations. And food is the conduit, absolutely.”
One of the more memorable moments for Bastianich was cooking with retired Army Staff Sgt. Yonas Hagos, a Purple Heart recipient who was injured by a rocket-propelled grenade during his first tour in the Middle East. Pronounced dead on the scene, Hagos’ mother thought she had lost her son.
“I’m a mother, I’m a grandmother. When they called her and told her Yonas is not going to make it. How much can you tear a mother’s heart apart?” said Bastianich, who prepared a spicy Ethiopian stew with Hagos and his mother.
“And yet, how he came back and how she nurtured him. It’s the food. It’s the love that brought him back, and he says that,” the chef added. “So that got me very much, Yonas’ mother.”
Reflecting on her latest PBS special – a project that brought her all over the country and took more than a year to complete – Bastianich said she’s tremendously proud of the film.
“I feel I was given a great opportunity,” she said, “an opportunity to thank, in this case, these four or five veterans. And, with that, to thank all the veterans that are out there and keeping us free.”
“Lidia Celebrates America: Holiday for Heroes” premieres on PBS Dec. 16 at 10 p.m. For more information, visit www.pbs.org/food/shows/lidia-celebrates-america.
