Lidia Celebrates America

Lidia is in her kitchen making Mussels Triestina, a simple ten-minute dish. She grew up in Istria on the Adriatic Sea, and describes summers on the beach as child, collecting buckets of shellfish to bring home for lunch or dinner. Find out some of Lidia’s tricks of the trade for cooking mussels, things that give the dish Lidia’s signature style.

Lidia visits Bhuwan Pyakurel and his wife Dil, who live in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. Bhuwan is a refugee who made history in 2020, by winning a seat on the City Council, the first elected Nepali-Bhutanese official. Bhuwan gets emotional as he shares with Lidia the story of his journey from citizenship to City Councilor.

In Hartsville, South Carolina, Lidia is invited to a dinner to honor the Ukrainians and the community that has helped them. In typical South Carolina fashion, it’s a low country boil. Lidia recalls her experience as an immigrant, and Polina Frishko who fled Ukraine with her son talks about her hopes for the future.

Watch Lidia make Borscht, Ukrainian style, in Hartsville, South Carolina, with Polina Frishko and another Ukrainian immigrant, Enna Elias. While they cook, they talk about food and community.

When civil engineer Marcos Lorenzo immigrated from Cuba, he found himself wanting to share the music and food of Cuba with his neighbors in Louisville, Kentucky. At the four Cuban restaurants he has now opened, Lorenzo wants guests to feel like they’ve been transported to Cuba. Lidia visits Marcos at one of his restaurants, Havana Rumba. Together, they cook a classic Cuban dish, Ropa Vieja.

At a Washington D.C. restaurant, Lidia organizes a potluck-style meal, where immigrants share food that is meaningful to them. The dishes on the table are from Africa, the Middle East, South America, Asia and the Caribbean, as well as Lidia’s Italian Bean Soup. Lidia calls it, a ‘table of the world’, and it’s a true representation of the cuisines and culture that make up the American melting pot.

In Houston, TX, Lidia visits Khalil Arab. Once an interpreter with the U.S. military, Khalil works with wartime allies as they start new lives in the United States. Lidia has picked up the food at a local Afghan restaurant, because Khalil and his wife Ferra have a newborn baby. The food is similar to a traditional Afghan home-cooked meal, and Ferra adds a typical Afghan salad to the mix.

As immigrants from the Indian state of Punjab increasingly join the ranks of truckers in America, “dhabas” – small roadside restaurants – have started popping up along major interstate highway Route I-40. Lidia travels to Bakersfield, California, to try the food, and meet Balvinder Singh Saini, who operates a Punjabi food truck with his wife, Mansi Tiwari, and a small staff of relatives.

Born in Trinidad and Tobago, restaurateur Jeanine Prime says her Paratha bead with curries, is the ultimate comfort food and the center of every family celebration and party. It reflects Trinidad’s multicultural influences of Caribbean French, Indian, Chinese & European flavors. Hear her explain what ‘Buss Up Shut’ means, as she shares her dish at Lidia’s potluck meal in Washington, D.C.

Lidia met Nazanin Ash while making her special 'Flavors That Define Us.' Naz brought Persian Baklava to the celebratory potluck celebration, and says, "I chose this recipe because it’s something that my mother made in Iran and taught me to make here...it’s a recipe that our whole family loves. It’s the ingredients--pistachios, rose water, cardamom and honey-- that make this baklava Persian."

Toyin Alli brings Chicken 'n Beef Andouille Sausage Gumbo and a side of white rice to the celebratory potluck for Lidia's special 'Flavors That Define Us'. Her father’s Nigerian/West African cooking, and her African-American mother’s experimenting in the kitchen, influenced Toyin’s culinary successes, as well as this dish which blends American Southern comfort food with West African cuisine.

Lidia is invited to the home of Christine Ha in Houston, TX, where they make Thit Kho, a braised pork belly dish together. Ha grew up eating Vietnamese food and took it for granted until she was 14 and her mother died. Teaching herself to cook, and then as an adult adjusting to vision loss, Ha set out to recreate her mother's dishes, using Vietnamese cookbooks and her father's memories.

Chef and Italian immigrant Lidia Bastianich shares stories of first, second and third-generation Americans shaping the shifting definition of what it means to be an American. As America grows more diverse than ever before, immigrants must figure out how much of their culture to keep and what to leave behind, and many are more openly sharing their heritage with a new country they now call home.

Welcome to Lidia’s kitchen! Lidia shows us how to make Mushroom Risotto, one that she makes often at home. She reminisces as she cooks, and tells the story of opening her first restaurant, Felidia, as young woman. Hear what happened when Julia Child and James Beard came in to the restaurant asking specifically for the Risotto.

Lidia has her friend Jacques Pépin in the kitchen and they’re cooking eggs! Jacques shows Lidia simple tips that make the difference when preparing hard-boiled eggs. Watch Jacques and Lidia tell stories and reminisce as they whip up a salad, and one of Jacques favorite family favorites, ‘Eggs Jeannette,’ a stuffed egg recipe which he named after his mother.

In this hour-long Lidia Celebrates America special, Lidia travels from big cities to small pockets of rural America, both in person and virtually, to share the inspiring stories of a diverse group of resilient Americans who have overcome extraordinary odds in their own lives, found purpose in serving their communities, and turned their loss into inspiring accomplishments.

Hear what it was like for Maria and Marco Peña, whose home was destroyed by the devastating flood waters associated with Hurricane Harvey, in 2017. Lidia connects with the family and talks about what it’s like lose your home, a feeling she experienced, viewers learn, when she entered a refugee camp in Trieste, Italy at the age of ten.

Lidia visits Contento, the East Harlem, NY restaurant of sommelier Yannick Benjamin. Paralyzed in a car accident, Benjamin’s restaurant is barrier-free for those with disabilities. He also co-founded Wheeling Forward, a nonprofit that supports and empowers people with disabilities, as well as Wine on Wheels, a sister program that raises awareness and funds for disabled people in the wine industry.

Kristen Thomas aged out of the foster care system she grew up in, but went on to foster a child of her own. When the nonprofit One Simple Wish granted Kristin her wish for cooking classes, Lidia supplemented the classes with her own culinary course at Kristen’s home in North Carolina. Watch Lidia and Kristen prepare a Panzanella Salad together, with Brussel sprouts, butternut squash, and kale.

Convicted of a crime that he did not commit and sentenced to 28 years in a maximum-security prison Jarrett Adams served nearly 10 years before being exonerated. Adams used the injustice he endured as inspiration to become an advocate and attorney for the underserved. Lidia meets with Jarret virtually to cook one of her favorite pasta recipes, Bucatini with pancetta, tomatoes and onions.