As migrant children were recently being separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, Lidia Bastianich’s own refugee story has an eerily familiar ring. The accomplished Italian chef and restaurateur takes a break from award-winning cookbooks to unpack her own immigrant story in the just-released “My American Dream: A Life of Love, Family, and Food.”

The first part of Bastianich’s autobiography focuses on her idyllic childhood growing up on a tiny farm in Busoler, Istria, as she tagged along beside her beloved maternal grandmother, Nonna Rosa. Bastianich, who was born in the nearby city of Pola (now Pula in Croatian), fled communist rule with her mother, father and older brother in 1956 when she was 9 years old, leaving behind Nonna Rosa and other family members. As refugees, the family spent two years in San Sabba, a former concentration camp in Trieste, Italy.