Lidia Bastianich – the Emmy Award-winning public television host, bestselling cookbook author and restaurateur – is returning to Nashville in mid-June for a special event at Nashville Public Television. Breakfast with Lidia will be held Thursday, June 22, in NPT’s Studio A. Tickets are available at wnpt.org/events and are $80 for individuals or $700 for a friends and family table of 10. Proceeds from the event will support NPT’s cultural, educational and civic programs.
Breakfast with Lidia starts at 7:30 a.m. and will be catered by Bacon & Caviar. The event will include a Q&A conversation between Lidia and “Master Foodie” Mara Papatheodorou. Copies of Lidia’s A Pot, A Pan, A Bowl cookbook will also be available for purchase and signing at the event.
“I am excited and looking forward to coming to Nashville again and meeting members and donors of the NPT family,” Bastianich says. “I want to thank Becky Magura for the invitation and recognition. I look forward as well to my conversation with Mara Papatheodorou and to your questions. A presto!”
Bastianich was last in Nashville in September 2016 for an NPT dinner event at Mangia Nashville.
Lidia Bastianich was born in northern Italy in the years after World War II. Her family emigrated to the U.S., settling in Queens, N.Y., and that is where Bastianich opened Buonavia, her first restaurant, in 1971. Within a decade, she’d trained as a chef and opened two more restaurants. She has since received seven James Beard Awards and is now a partner in Eataly restaurants in six U.S. cities, Canada and Brazil.
But it is through her popular PBS series that Bastianich became a familiar presence to home cooks, and she is a two-time Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Culinary Host. Lidia’s Italian Table premiered in 1998 and was followed by Lidia’s Kitchen, in which she shares anecdotes and recipes from her childhood. The latter series airs on NPT4 CREATE. Lidia Celebrates America, a series of specials, features the beloved chef traveling across the country sharing the stories of the diverse people she meets.
“I am among the thousands of viewers who have followed Lidia on public television for decades and I am thrilled to have her return to our wonderful city,” says Becky Magura, NPT’s president and CEO. “Lidia’s Kitchen and Lidia Celebrates America are series our viewers have come to know and love through NPT, Passport and the PBS app. I personally appreciate Lidia for feeding us in so many ways, but especially for preserving and honoring our heritage and culture through food.”
While in Nashville, Bastianich will be presented with an award from NPT in recognition of her 25 years of service to public media.
“Bastianich will be the first recipient of a new award to recognize those who have made a significant contribution to public media either locally or within our system,” Magura says. The presentation of this award will become part of NPT’s annual summer board meeting.