My American Dream
A Life of Love, Family, and Food

The early sections about her life in Pola and Trieste are fascinating and her writing about the food of Northern Italy interested me but eventually the writing gets pretty bogged down with cliches and the latter half of the book is kind of a glorified resume.......more

I've watched Lida on PBS and eaten at one of her (son's) NYC restaurants, Becco. I did not realize her personal story. I was surprised to hear that she was born in post WWII communist Yugoslavia. I picked this up to give to my mom for Mother's Day. Her parents have roots there with my grandfather im......more

My husband could not have chosen a better Mother's Day gift for me than Lidia Bastianich's My American Dream. I've enjoyed many hours of her PBS cooking programs and have several of her cookbooks on our kitchen shelves. So I expected lots and lots of food insights from this most recent book. I did n......more

The high rating for this book is not for the quality of the writing, which sometimes felt repetitive, but for the story itself, which is so inspiring. Lidia emigrated to the U.S. as a child, as a refugee from a communist country. Her story shows how a love of freedom, combined with passion, energy,......more

3.5 stars. I truly enjoyed reading Lidia’s incredible life story! I also had the opportunity to hear her speak about the book, which endeared me to her more. Lidia is not a writer, however, and a lot of cliched language distracted from the story, which, I think, was longer than it needed to be. Her......more