Lidia Bastianich is an Emmy-winning television host, a successful chef and restaurateur, and a best-selling cookbook author. She made her name by introducing American diners to the dishes of her Italian childhood.

Bastianich spent the first 10 years of her life with her grandmother in Croatia. “I was grandma's little helper sort of running things,” she says. “I grew up in that setting of food you know, cooking with grandma, feeding the animals.” But Bastianich was separated from her grandmother rather suddenly. Luckily, she took some of the cooking skills she’d learned with her.