Hello and welcome to my little segment about being Lidia Bastianich’s personal assistant.  The first question I am often asked about this position is if I cook with Lidia, and I have to say that cooking is actually the LEAST of my worries on any given day.  Today was the execution of the past ten [...]

by Haley Salles
So how many people can say they’ve coordinated dinner for the Pope?  Well I can.  And it wasn’t easy.  Let us start at the beginning.  When Lidia told us that she’d been asked to cook for the Pope we were all amazed.  We all knew that her reputation for being an amazing chef [...]

When someone asks you about your neighborhood, the first image that pops into your mind is most likely going to contain your house or apartment building, local store, neighbors, basically, what have you. In the restaurant business, we spend so much time at the restaurant that it becomes our home and the area our neighborhood. [...]

Can you guess what vegetable this is? Give it a go and tell me what you think. Buona fortuna!

As I am researching the cultural aspects of Italy’s regions for the books Lidia and I are currently writing together, a question that always arises in my mind is: what makes a region interesting?  I can’t obviously please the interests of all our readers, and since I am actually physically there, in the region, I [...]

 I know this is a little late, but I definitely wanted to say thank you to everyone that attended the dinner with Lidia, Joe, and (surprise guest) Erminia in June.  I really had a blast!!  I also wanted to send a little reminderthat the ‘Summer Dinner’ with Lidia at Becco Restaurant on Tuesday, August 5th [...]

I’m back to give a full report on how the book signing went this past Saturday. From the looks of everything, it went really well. First of all, thank you to everyone who came out to meet Lidia; I hope everyone was happy and had a great time! I know that I did. Stew Leonard’s [...]

This Saturday, July 26th is a very exciting day for me! Having just joined the marketing and production team for Lidia Bastianich only two and a half weeks ago, I am embarking on my first ever book signing with Lidia at the new Stew Leonard’s store, just recently opened in Paramus, NJ. Even with having [...]

My mother decided on Trentino Alto Adige as an area to explore during our next set of 52 episodes of Lidia’s Italy. I had been there several times in the past for some skiing and for some PhD research on Castello Roncolo. And I’m actually heading back on September 9th with a crew of ten [...]

At Felidia I taste a lot of wine, really a lot of wine and while most of it is well made, I often find myself thinking what is this wine missing? Fruit, check, acidity, check, balance check, soul, hmmmm? That’s it, this wine lacks soul. Now I need to define soul, and even more of [...]