Lidia Celebrates America

Culture Series / 2 Seasons

Lidia Celebrates America: Changemakers, follows Lidia across America as meeting chefs, farmers, and entrepreneurs hard at work trying to change, not only what’s available, but the way Americans think about food in the future. “It’s also critical to remember the energy and water it takes to grow, transport and package the foods we eat”, says Lidia, “We all have the ability to be Changemakers”.

Get Cascade PBS Passport to watch

A Taste of Appalachia: Rabbit Food Reimagined

5m 25s / TV-PG

In Middletown, VA, chef Kari Rushing is on a mission to change America’s perception of Appalachian cuisine. Her restaurant, Vault & Cellar, marries the resourcefulness of Appalachia – making do with what you have - with the refinement of fine dining. In the special, Lidia helps Kari prepare cabbage steak and “rabbit food,” incorporating rabbit, braised greens and roasted carrots.

Taste Testing with Crickets

4m 32s / TV-PG

In Minneapolis, MN, Claire and Chad Simons strive to make edible insects more accessible to the American palate with their company, 3 Cricketeers. Insects represent sustainable protein and are consumed by two billion people worldwide. Watch, as Lidia visits the 3 Cricketeer’ test kitchen to taste-test a new pasta made with cricket powder and cricket pesto.

Sweet Harvest: Strawberry Ice-cream with Local Flavor

2m 34s / TV-PG

Lidia joins Patricia Miller to make homemade ice-cream with strawberries straight from the hothouse. Patricia founded Centre Plate LLC, in Stockton, CA, helping to run an aggregated CSA for local farmers that grows healthy food and educates families with recipes and container farming instructions. She is also cofounder of the Black Urban Farmers Association (BUFA) of Stockton.

The Indigenous Cuisine of a James Beard Chef

3m 40s / TV-PG

Lidia meets with James Beard award-winning chef and restaurateur Sean Sherman to sample the fare at his upscale restaurant Owamni, in Minneapolis, MN. Celebrating Native ingredients, flavor, and culture, Sean’s dishes include smoked bison, tepary beans, mushroom tacos, and wild rice. Each bite offers a taste of tradition and a rich connection to indigenous culinary roots.

The Power of Produce: A Recipe for Healthy Eating

4m 31s / TV-PG

Lidia meets Nicole Steele, who works to improve access to healthy foods in Inglewood, CA, by delivering free produce to pop-up markets, schools, and clinics. Every Friday, the Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI) distributes up to 15,000 pounds of fresh produce to food banks, non-profits, individuals, etc. Lidia eagerly helps out, even creating her own recipes to include in the giveaways.

A Feast for Change: The Celebration at Owamni

3m 55s / TV-PG

“Lidia Celebrates America: Changemakers” closes with a final celebratory meal at Sean Sherman’s Owamni, where Lidia and the changemakers unite and sample a diverse array of dishes, with each incorporating forward-thinking ingredients selected wisely, used resourcefully, and with the planet in mind.

Preview

1m 2s

Lidia Celebrates America: Changemakers, follows Lidia across America as meeting chefs, farmers, and entrepreneurs hard at work trying to change, not only what’s available, but the way Americans think about food in the future. “It’s also critical to remember the energy and water it takes to grow, transport and package the foods we eat”, says Lidia, “We all have the ability to be Changemakers”.

Lidia Celebrates America Preview

58s / TV-PG

Beloved chef and Italian immigrant, Lidia Bastianich, travels from big cities to small towns in America to share the inspiring stories of first, second, and third-generation Americans forging their own way, and shaping the shifting definition of what it means to be an American.

Lidia Cooks Mussels Triestina

9m 24s

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.

Flavors That Define Us: Trailer

1m 41s

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.

A Nepali-Bhutanese Refugee Makes History

2m 50s

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.

A Low Country Boil in South Carolina

2m 7s

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.

A Cuban Chef in Louisville, KY

3m 17s

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.

A Table of the World

3m 25s

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.

A Traditional Afghan Meal with Lidia

2m 30s

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.

Punjabi Trucker turned Punjabi Dhaba Owner

3m

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.

Goat Curry and “Buss Up Shut” Paratha Roti

50s

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.

Nazanin Ash’s Dish: Persian Baklava

1m 3s

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."

Gumbo: A Nigerian and American Southern Comfort Food Style

58s

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.

Supported by