For Lidia Bastianich, the soul of her restaurant is as closely tied to family as it is to the strong regional cuisine of her Northeastern Italy. Lidia Bastianich was born into an Italian family that regarded fine cooking and the freshest ingredients as necessities, indispensable to daily life. Now, in New York City, her own family continues the tradition. In 1981, Lidia and her husband, Felice, opened Felidia, a felicitous combination of their two names. At Felidia, Bastianich prepares the food of her childhood, when she learned the secrets of a traditional Italian kitchen, as she fondly recalls, at her grandmother's knee. The menu at Felidia boasts an expansive offering of regional delicacies -- and a diner might be hard pressed to choose between a courtly steamed pheasant roulade with porcini mushrooms, a tender octopus salad with potatoes and red onions, and pillows of fresh pasta stuffed with pumpkin in marjoram sauce. Obviously, Bastianich's menu is a world apart from standard Italian fare.

As chef and co-owner of three New York restaurants, Felidia, Becco -- a family-style Italian restaurant which she opened with her son, Joseph -- and the spanking new Frico -- a smart midtown trattoria specializing in the eponymous lacy cheese crêpe, Lidia Bastianich has left an indelible mark on the city. In 1990, Bastianich co-authored La Cucina di Lidia, a sensual cookbook of 120 recipes from Northeastern Italy. Additionally, in true entrepreneurial style, Bastianich makes the products she uses in her restaurant and cookbook available to the public through her catalogue, "Il Cibo di Lidia," which she says contains the best indigenous food products she could assemble from Italy, plus sauces and condiments of her own device.

In other, more cerebral spheres, Bastianich is committed to the study of culinary history. She has taught courses in the anthropology of food, is a consultant and frequent guest lecturer in the history of Italian food, and is the editor of the New York Times Magazine insert, "Celebration of Italy." However, despite her business, culinary, and intellectual accomplishments, Bastianich prefers to project an image of herself as that of loving mother, caretaker, and nurturer. "As she talks of food and its preparation," says Jay Jacobs, co-author of her cookbook, "it soon becomes obvious that for her the service of a meal is an act of love."