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Revision as of 20:05, 3 July 2006 by Gaius Cornelius (talk | contribs) (Delete duplicate word using AWB)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Born Lidia Motika in 1947 in a seaport town today known as Pula, Istria, in present-day Croatia, but which was called Pola up through World War II. Her family name was changed to Maticchio under Mussolini's Fascist Italian dictatorship between the two world wars, then changed back to Motika under Tito's Yugoslav dictatorship. She and her family left Istria, Yugoslavia for Trieste, Italy, when she was ten years old and lived in a refugee camp for some months, but then took employment as domestics for a wealthy Triestin family until they gained visas to emigrate to the U.S. in 1958.
She married Felice (aka Felix) Bastianich, a fellow Istrian, in 1966 when she was 19, and they built a restaurant empire together. The couple divorced after 31 years of marriage and 2 children. After a brief attempt to change her professional name to Moticchia, she now retains the married name which is widely known in the culinary industry. The son and daughter are now in business with their mother.
Lidia is the co-owner of "Felidia" and "Becco" and "Esca" restaurants in New York and "Lidia's" in Kansas City as well as "Lidia's Pittsburgh" (opened in 2002), as well as the host of her own TV cooking show called Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen, a 52-part PBS series. She is the author of three cookbooks whose titles paralleled her long running TV series. She is also the owner of various commercial enterprises that are linked to food, cooking and travel.
She is a naturalized citizen of the U.S.A. and has always considered herself an Italian national even though she does not have Italian ancestry. Rather, a good part of her ancestry is mixed Istrian, including Istro-Romanian on her mother's side, if not both.