Lidia Bastianich is a best-selling cookbook author, restaurateur, and host of popular public television who has won many Emmy awards. She also owns a successful food and entertainment company.
She specializes in Italian-American cuisine. Being a celebrity chef everyone is curious about her professional as well as personal life. Does working with a cancer cure foundation necessarily mean she is suffering from cancer? We will find out as we read below.
Lidia Bastianich is a famous chef
Lidia Bastianich has a long career history as one of the most famous chefs. At the age of 14, Lidia Bastianich started working a part-time job.
She even spent some time working at the bakery run by the father of actor and filmmaker Christopher Walken. The then-married duo Lidia and Felix Bastianich launched Buonavia, their first diner, in Queens in 1971.
The cuisine of the restaurant was Italian-American. She started her training as the restaurant’s assistant chef a year later. As the restaurant’s popularity increased, culinary reviewers began to pay attention. She also started performing live culinary demos.
Lidia’s Italian Table, her debut television program, debuted in 1998 on Public Television. Since then, she has produced other programs for public television.
The largest artisanal Italian food and wine market, Eataly, opened in New York City in 2010 as a result of a partnership between Italian business tycoon Oscar Farinetti, Lidia, and her son Joseph. Later, Eataly built branches in a number of additional cities, including Chicago (2013), a second New York site (2016), Boston (2016), Los Angeles (2017), Las Vegas (2018), Toronto (2019), and the most recent Dallas location (2020).
She also has a YouTube account where she posts videos about her personal life, family, dining out, and Italian cuisine. Several recipes written by Lidia Bastianich and her daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali have been published throughout the years
Moreover, Lidia has been felicitated with numerous awards and honors like the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Culinary Host, honoured by the Culinary Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Culinary Institute of America’s Master of the Aesthetics of Gastronomy Award and the Scientific Committee of Casa Artusi’s Premio Artusi Prize in 2019.
Age
The veteran chef and media personality is also known by her family name, Lidia Giuliana Matticchio. She was born on February 21, 1947. As of 2023, Lidia Bastianich is 74 years old.
Net Worth
Lidia has multiple sources of income which are her restaurant outlets, cookbooks, YouTube channel, and salaries from Television shows. She is valued between $5 and $10 million.
Husband and Marriage
She met her future husband Felice “Felix” Bastianich, an Istrian immigrant and restaurant worker from Labin (Albona), on the eastern coast of Istria, Croatia, at her sweet sixteen birthday celebration. The couple wed in 1966, and Lidia gave birth to their son Joe in 1968. Tanya, their second child, was conceived in 1972.
Lidia and Felice separated in 1998 after having several arguments regarding the directions their personal and professional lives had taken, particularly the rate of growth and nature of their firm. Felice gave their two children stakes in the company while Bastianich proceeded to grow her own. On December 12, 2010, he passed away.
Kids
The renowned chef Lidia Bastianich’s two children are carrying on her tradition in the culinary business. Lidia’s oldest kid, Joe Bastianich is well-known for appearing on “MasterChef.”
Tanya, Lidia’s daughter, on the other hand, is a businesswoman and cookbook author. There are a total of five grandkids that Lidia Bastianich is a grandma to. Two are the kids of Tanya Bastianich Manuali, while three are from her son Joe.
Does Lidia Bastianich have cancer?
The star chef and media personality has a generous heart. She is involved in helping the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation which has relentlessly worked for more than 40 years to improve the lives of those fighting cancer.
Lidia really applauds the initiative taken by this organization to decrease the DNA of cancer. She has also requested her online family to support this noble cause.
Similarly, Samuel Waxman, the MD and CEO of the organization, have expressed their gratitude towards the Bastianich family for their generous support for helping the 30 scientists who are amongst the brightest mind working to innovate a cure for cancer. Not only Lidia is solely an active part of this social cause.
Her family also equally participates in this humanitarian act. She has been helping the organization in every aspect possible, whether it be funding or her expertise in fundraising programs.
In one of the biggest charity 15th Annual Hamptons,” Tour De Cusine” chefs from Lidia Bastianich and her family’s renowned New York City restaurants, including Felidia, Del Posto, Becco, and Otto Enoteca Pizzeria, were featured in addition to tastings from the Bastianich Winery in the Italian region of Friuli Colli Orientali.
Therefore, Lidia has proved that you can always be helpful despite not being the one suffering. No, Lidia Bastianich is not suffering from cancer; instead, she is helping millions of people fight it.