Monday, March 17, 2014

National Green Beer Day - Mar. 17th; Chef Lidia Bastianich


Chef Lidia Bastianich
Lidia Bastianich is a chef, author, tv host and restaurateur. She was a guest on Julia Child: Cooking with Master Chefs in 1993, and has hosted her own series since 1998, the latest of which is Lidia’s Italy in America. Numerous cookbooks have been written to accompany the tv shows. In 2013, she received an Emmy for Outstanding Culinary Host. In an interview, she said “Food for me was a connecting link to my grandmother, to my childhood, to my past. And what I found out is that for everybody, food is a connector to their roots, to their past in different ways. It gives you security; it gives you a profile of who you are, where you come from.”

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March 17th is Green Beer Day -- St. Patrick's Day! Erin go bragh! I confess that I have never learned to appreciate beer, so I haven't had the green variety one finds for St. Paddy's Day. Mom used to make green pancakes for us as kids, and one meal was served with green mashed potatoes (Dad wasn't amused). I have carried that on for my daughter.

She's not awake yet. The bus comes really early.
Please be sure to include your family's heritage in your cookbook. Food becomes influenced by the culture around it, and traditions become muddled and lost within a couple of generations, if those things are not carefully preserved. Although my family does have some Irish heritage, for instance, it was a few generations ago. None of the customs or traditions remain, possibly because the people in question were trying to assimilate into American society. Same with the German heritage -- all gone. If you can avoid that fate by writing down some of those family customs, I highly recommend that you do!


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