After 25 Years, Lidia Bastianich Has More Great Italian Recipes to Show US on Public Television

Lidia Bastianich is a self taught cook who has written 18 cookbooks. She met James Beard and Julia Child at her Manhattan Italian restaurant.

Chef Lidia Bastianich autographs one of her books at a table in Becco. Erika Heymann/WGBH/PBS/TNS

By Gretchen McKay From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

NEW YORK CITY—For more than two decades, Lidia Bastianich has been one of the culinary world’s most familiar faces. Yet she was largely unknown outside of New York City in 1993 when Julia Child asked if she might like to cook with her on the new PBS cooking show, “Cooking with Master Chefs.”