Tiger Woods with the 2011 cohort of Earl Woods scholars, who receive financial aid, mentoring, and other support for their post-high school careers. (Courtesy of TGR Foundation)
Golfing legend Tiger Woods is most proud of his foundation’s work in educating youth. His TGR Foundation is led by Cynthia Court, whom he tapped in June 2023 to become CEO and expand the educational initiatives the foundation offers in under-resourced communities across America.
According to Mrs. Court, if students do not have access to qualified teachers, stable learning environments, educational resources, extracurricular activities, and advanced classes, they are less likely to graduate from high school or pursue a post-secondary education. This means that they would not be able to secure meaningful work that pays a livable wage.
In 2006, Mr. Woods first set up a TGR Learning Lab to encourage students in fifth to 12th grades to thrive in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and possibly develop future careers in those fields. Since then, the foundation has established other satellite campuses around the country, in Washington, D.C., South Florida, and Quantico, Virginia.
Mr. Woods occasionally visits the Learning Lab to chat with students. (Courtesy of TGR Foundation)
Students are introduced to different subjects from forensic science to marine biology to biotechnology. High school students in particular have access to hands-on experience through paid internships, shadowing professionals, or helping to complete projects at real businesses.
The foundation also provides mentorship for students who are accepted into the Earl Woods Scholar Program (named after Mr. Woods’s father), with mentors committing at least two years to advising students on their journey to post-high school careers. Many maintain relationships with the students throughout their college years and beyond. Mrs. Court shared that one of the program mentors recently attended the wedding of her mentee—whom she met 17 years ago in the foundation’s first cohort of scholars.
American Essence spoke with Mrs. Court and Mr. Woods about the meaning of their mission.
Tiger Woods Foundation CEO Cynthia Court with an alumnus of the foundation’s program, Natan Santos. (Courtesy of TGR Foundation)
American Essence: Could you share with us a touching example of a youth who found success after participating in a TGR Foundation program?
Cynthia Court: One of the many students who has touched our hearts over the years is Sammy Mohammed. Sammy is the oldest child of an immigrant family and always dreamed of becoming a first-generation college student. Growing up in an under-resourced community in Anaheim, California, he began his journey at our TGR Learning Lab in fifth grade to participate in a week-long STEM field trip focused on marine biology. Motivated, Sammy returned for additional STEM classes through high school where he discovered a passion for computer science and engineering. Sammy was accepted into the Earl Woods Scholar Program in 11th grade and gained Tiger as a mentor. Since graduating from Stanford University, Sammy has begun his engineering career (at Google!) and is currently pursuing a master’s degree at his alma mater. He has not only achieved his personal goals, but he also inspired his younger siblings to enrich their education through TGR Learning Lab programs.
The foundation’s Learning Lab is based in Anaheim, Calif. (Courtesy of TGR Foundation)
AE: How can more youth from under-resourced communities receive access to education and be encouraged to take advantage of programs like those provided by TGR Foundation?
Mrs. Court: Forming strong relationships with the communities we serve, local school systems, educators, and other community-based organizations has allowed TGR Foundation to serve thousands of youth through our educational programs and enrichment activities each year. We have also extended our reach by providing professional learning to teachers across the country.
Additionally, TGR Foundation is in the process of expanding our physical footprint. We are opening new TGR Learning Labs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Los Angeles, California, in 2025 and 2026, respectively. The new locations will allow us to provide significantly more youth with educational programs tailored to their specific needs. For example, only 6 percent of the students enrolled at the 42 Philadelphian public schools located within a 3-mile radius of our forthcoming TGR Learning Lab achieved proficiency in math on state assessments. We are already offering math tutoring at local schools to start addressing the need for educational enrichment.
Elementary school students learn about forensic science by solving a simulated jewelry heist. (Courtesy of TGR Foundation)
AE: What is the greatest challenge TGR Foundation faces heading into 2024? What direction does TGR Foundation wish to take going forward to achieve greater success for the next 25 years?
Mrs. Court: The footprint of TGR Foundation will have tripled in size once the TGR Learning Labs in Philadelphia and Los Angeles open. Executing this expansion will be a significant challenge for the organization, but an important first step towards serving significantly more youth from under-resourced communities. This is a pivotal moment for TGR Foundation, and I am excited to help actualize our vision: a world where opportunity is universal and potential is limitless.
AE: What is it like to work with Mr. Woods? Any examples of a shining moment so far?
Mrs. Court: I recently spent an entire morning with Tiger on a practice green strategizing about a sustainable growth strategy for the organization. After a considerable amount of time discussing strategic direction, Tiger took a moment to stress that the most important thing to him was the quality of our educational programming and the impact we are having on each individual life. He is deeply committed to helping students pursue their passions through education.
I also witnessed some terrific chip shots that morning.
Children get to explore STEM subjects at the Learning Lab. (Courtesy of TGR Foundation)
AE: Mr. Woods, of all your incredible successes, which milestone (personally and professionally) are you the proudest of, or do you feel is the best accomplishment thus far?
Tiger Woods: The legacy we’re building at TGR Foundation is going to outlive me, and it’s one that’s bigger than what I’ve done on the golf course.
AE: How has your vision for TGR Foundation impacted youth since its inception?
Mr. Woods: When I was a kid, my parents instilled a simple principle in my life: Try to make an impact in one person’s life, every day. At TGR Foundation, we are doing just that, making a meaningful impact on the lives of youth one day at a time. We believe that everyone can be a champion.
Jamie Kern Lima is a pro at rejection—getting rejected, that is. Each time an investor or potential business partner said no, it felt like proof that her dreams were not worth it. But at her lowest moment, she realized that she could choose to celebrate those rejections instead.
With her company on the brink of bankruptcy, Ms. Kern Lima began doing research on successful entrepreneurs. “Every person I admired most, who’s built great businesses or changed the world or impacted humanity, … every single one of them has gone through so many rejections. They’re just the brave ones, willing to keep going forward anyways. And I decided to create this new definition of rejection,” she said. “I trained myself to celebrate … and go, ‘Oh, this is a reminder, I’m one of the brave ones willing to go for it. I’m not sitting on the sidelines of life, living in regret.’”
Today, she teaches others how to transcend their setbacks, drawing from her own experiences of building her cosmetics brand IT Cosmetics, which eventually got sold to L’Oreal for $1.2 billion in 2016, the French beauty behemoth’s largest acquisition at the time. Her forthcoming book to be released in February, “Worthy: How to Believe You Are Enough and Transform Your Life,” teaches concrete steps to build strong self-worth: something she believes can give people the ultimate sense of fulfillment. She wants to pass on these lessons so that people don’t miss out on valuable experiences.
(Courtesy of Jamie Kern Lima)
“What has self-doubt already cost you in your life? And go by category: in your career, in your relationships, in your joy of simply looking in the mirror? … We are worthy of love and belonging exactly as we are—not as we achieve, not as how much of the world’s definition of success we have, but exactly as we are,” she said.
What Is Self-Worth?
She illustrates the point with an anecdote. Years ago, after her company had already become successful, she had the opportunity to meet media personality Oprah Winfrey. After having lunch together, Oprah left her phone number and said to Ms. Kern Lima that she could call her anytime. But it took Ms. Kern Lima more than four years to get the courage to reach out to Oprah.
“I would tell myself stories like, once I think of the right thing to say, then I’m going to call her, or everyone probably just wants something from her, I’m going to prove I don’t need anything.” Then one day, she realized the real reason she hadn’t called her. “Deep down inside at my core, … I didn’t think I was worthy of being her friend. And so I sabotaged the opportunity,” she reflected. This was the moment she began digging deeper into the topic of self-worth.
(Courtesy of Jamie Kern Lima)
Don’t Let Mistakes Define You
Ms. Kern Lima outlines ways to reframe one’s thinking. Many people struggle with letting their past mistakes define them. “They’ve gone through past failures and rejections, and they’ve assigned a meaning to them that is so painful, they just stay stuck.” She urges people to remove that emotional association and instead look at each situation rationally. “What is the meaning we told it? What is the story we told ourselves about it? What’s actually the truth about it?” She suggests then finding a new definition to the meaning of rejection: something you must believe to be true. For Ms. Kern Lima, it was her belief that each rejection was just God’s way of protecting her from something that was not part of her destiny.
(From L to R) Adam, Lillian, and Katherine Parker are unexpected ambassadors for a millennia-old Chinese art form. (Samira Bouaou)
A “white Mulan?” That’s weird, they bluntly told her.
Katherine Parker, an award-winning dancer with Shen Yun Performing Arts, the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, recalled the first time that she portrayed a historical figure in a dance. For a local competition, she wanted to tell the story of Hua Mulan, the courageous heroine of one of ancient China’s best-known legends. Despite her reservations, she decided to press on.
As the legend goes, Mulan disguises herself as a man to go to war in place of her elderly father—thereby saving his life. By imperial decree, one man from every family had to serve.
She fights for 12 years on the frontlines. The dance meant to capture her thrilling moments on the battlefield—but more than that, to tap into an internal struggle. The fast-paced battle music gives way to a slower melody, and the audience gets a glimpse of Mulan’s thoughts.
“Throughout the piece, Mulan is simultaneously waging an inner battle,” Katherine explained. “She longs to return home to her father, but she must remain where she is and fight in a bloody war. The irony of her predicament is that she wishes to take care of her father more than anything, but for his sake, she cannot return to him. I feel this dance highlights Mulan’s filial piety and selflessness.”
Katherine does the “kong hou tui” move, which requires holding the back leg high. (Samira Bouaou)
Katherine knew that capturing that emotional complexity was crucial to the success of her performance.
“I generally tend to hold back, and automatically close myself off a bit when standing in front of an audience. Often, I doubt myself,” she said. “And the moment I hesitate, the performance falls to pieces, because I am no longer in character—I am just being my old self.”
To prepare, she repeatedly listened to the music in her free time.
“I would sit there with my eyes closed and visualize Mulan’s story playing out in my mind, in sync with the music. I would imagine the battlefield, the war cries, and the hoof beats of galloping horses. When the softer, sadder music began, I would focus more on Mulan’s emotions and the heart-wrenching sorrow of being separated from her father.”
The dance was a success: She won gold.
The following year, her growth became apparent on a grander stage. At NTD’s 10th International Classical Chinese Dance Competition in 2023, she portrayed another great Chinese heroine, Lady Wang Zhaojun, who chose to marry the leader of a northern nomadic tribe to prevent war, leaving behind her beloved homeland and family in an act of selfless sacrifice. For her moving performance, Katherine took home a silver medal.
Katherine won a silver medal in the junior division at the International Classical Chinese Dance Competition in 2023 for her dance piece portraying Wang Zhaojun, a historical figure in ancient China who married the leader of a nomadic tribe in order to prevent war from breaking out. (Larry Dye)
On the same stage that year, her older sister, Lillian, and younger brother, Adam, won silver and gold in their respective divisions.
The secret to their triple win? The siblings point to years of honing not only their craft but also their moral character—the true key, they say, to artistic excellence of the highest level and a core tenet of this millennia-old art form.
Based in upstate New York, Shen Yun was established with a mission to revive 5,000 years of true, traditional Chinese culture, a glorious heritage that was nearly destroyed under communist rule. The company’s eight troupes tour internationally each year, and its elite performers hail from around the world—from America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
It’s a distinctly Chinese art form, but one that has resonated with people from all walks of life. Whether it be a daughter’s devotion to her father or a patriot’s sacrifice for country, the values portrayed are universal; its power to connect transcends boundaries.
“Dance is a language without words,” Lillian said.
Foundations of Family and Faith
A uniquely expressive art form, with roots tracing back to martial arts and Chinese opera and theater, classical Chinese dance has the power to depict an endless spectrum of stories and emotions. The Parker siblings were captivated by it from a young age.
Growing up in multicultural Toronto, Canada, their family made a tradition of seeing Shen Yun when it came to their city each year.
“We would all get dressed up, and we’d be bouncing in our seats, waiting for the show to start, so excited,” Katherine recalled. “When the curtain opens, it’s just magnificent. It blew our tiny little minds.”
Their parents, Andrew and Christine Parker, signed them up for classical Chinese dance classes when Lillian was 6, Katherine 4 1/2, and Adam 3.
“They had an interest in cultural dance, and they just loved it,” Andrew said.
Such early immersion in the arts was part of his and his wife’s vision to “have a traditional lifestyle for the children,” Andrew said.
“We wanted to fill them with as many wholesome and positive things that we could,” he said.
They sought out traditional values from different cultures, finding inspiration in the moral foundations of both Western and Chinese civilization, what “people in the past used to think of as virtuous, or good.”
“Honor, integrity, loyalty, honesty, good old-fashioned hard work, kindness—these were the things that we wanted to pass on to the children. These are what people traditionally refer to as the God-given values, or maybe in Chinese culture, they’d say the divinely bestowed values,” he said. “I believe [these values] are what actually make people feel whole and feel good on the inside, not necessarily the modern values that are promoted nowadays.”
An avid student of the classical art of storytelling, Andrew regaled them with tales, one of Adam’s most vivid childhood memories.
“Some parents might tell their kids stories to entertain them, but whenever [my dad] tells a story, there’s always a moral behind it,” Adam said.
The whole family enjoyed music, so Andrew would often set his story to a tune—such as one of the “Star Wars” soundtracks—describing the action of a scene as it unfolded to the score. (“He watched the movies so many times, he memorized all the scenes,” Lillian explained.)
Looking back, Lillian realized how that helped set an early foundation for her dancing career.
“We’re hearing the storytelling, and the moral of the story, but at the same time, connecting with the emotions in the music … how the music is bringing out the emotion. Now, whenever I listen to music, I’m automatically thinking of dance moves, or a story or a character starts forming,” Lillian said.
Like their parents, the Parker siblings practice the Chinese spiritual discipline of Falun Dafa. Based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, with an emphasis on refining moral character, the practice fostered a harmonious family life—and set the foundation for a sort of rectitude and grit that would continue to drive the siblings beyond childhood.
“It’s like the root—it shaped us a lot,” Lillian said.
At home, the siblings nurtured rich, creative lives, too. Aside from the occasional family movie night, their parents kept a screen-free house—no TV, no video games. As a result, the kids were naturally drawn to books, the arts, and other creative activities to fill their time.
“I’m grateful to our parents for that,” Katherine reflected. “A lot of kids are in their own box with this technology, and it can really suck you in. Staying separate from that, we could learn.”
They devoured books, from “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Chronicles of Narnia” to Nancy Drew and ”The Hardy Boys.” Lillian, an aspiring novelist, wrote stories of her own. They created their own clubs and crafted mailboxes out of cereal boxes to leave at each other’s doors.
Most memorably, they put on an annual Christmas show for a captive audience of parents, grandparents, and stuffed animals, complete with original dance choreography, music, lighting, costumes, tickets, a security guard (5-year-old Adam), and a rotating emcee. It was influenced, no doubt, by the format of a Shen Yun performance.
So while the Parkers had no expectations for their children to pursue Chinese dance professionally, it hardly came as a surprise when they did. When Lillian was 12, after watching the annual Shen Yun performance, there came an opportunity to audition for Fei Tian Academy of the Arts, which teaches classical Chinese dance, the primary art form of Shen Yun. She decided to try out, especially moved by how Shen Yun uses the art form to tell an important story on stage: the modern-day plight of her fellow Falun Dafa adherents in China amidst the brutal persecution of the faith by the ruling communist regime since 1999. Exposing the persecution is something that “no other performing arts companies are doing,” she said, “and that’s very meaningful. That’s not an opportunity you can find elsewhere.”
The family relocated to New York to support Lilian’s studies, and one by one, Katherine and Adam followed in their sister’s footsteps.
“[Lillian] auditioned at the school and got in, and then [Katherine] did too,” Adam said, so the next step was only natural. “I mean, I had to try out,” he said, smiling. “Everything was preparing me for that moment.”
Dancing in Chinese
Still, they were unprepared for other aspects, such as the rigors of classical dance training—with challenges understanding what their Chinese-speaking dance teachers were saying.
Learning the language was just the beginning; trickier was parsing the hidden layers of meaning beneath the surface, due to cultural differences in communication styles and etiquette.
“Westerners are very direct—what I say, that’s what I mean,” Lillian said. Chinese people, on the other hand, place value on self-restraint and thus “always hold something back.”
The differences spill over into the language of dance. She’s been told by dance teachers that her movements often look “very frank, very ‘Ba-bam! I’m here!’” she said. Classical Chinese dance, however, calls for a sort of restraint, a tension behind each move, a unique feeling built into the principles that underlie and define the art form. A hero character striking a pose facing the audience, for instance, would never hold his shoulders and hips square and stiff, but instead perhaps twist an opposite shoulder and hip toward one another, in a more dynamic stance. Or take the movement of bringing an arm up and over one’s head: Rather than straight and rigid, the movement would be rounded and pulled back at the edges, as if painting a rainbow with a brush, following the art form’s emphasis on roundness.
“Every part of your body [has] that feeling, … to the point where it’s a look in your eyes,” Lillian said. “That’s what draws in an audience.”
They often lean on each other for support: At weekly “Parker Council” meetings, they swap videos of their practice sessions and advice for improvement. They found that they not only think and feel similarly, but also hit similar roadblocks in dance. One sibling could thus help another translate confusing feedback from a teacher, as Katherine put it with a smile, “into Parker language.”
Adam performs one of the many technically difficult flips found in classical Chinese dance. (Samira Bouaou)
Universal Values
A crucial component of their training takes place outside the dance studio, in the classroom: Students at Fei Tian study, among other subjects, Chinese history, its rich repertoire of stories and legends, to understand the values that form the foundation of the culture—and inform every movement of the art form. The Parkers found the same universal virtues they’d grown up with in Western culture—faith, loyalty, integrity, kindness—but embedded at a deeper level.
“China’s had 5,000 years for those values to sink into the Chinese people’s hearts,” Adam said.
To be able to experience and take part in reviving such a rich heritage is “just so precious,” Katherine said. What struck her most was how firmly so many figures in Chinese history held to their moral convictions.
“They’re going to do the thing that they believe is right, no matter what the consequences are. It’s part of who they are, so they will give up everything for it—even their life. And it wasn’t just one or two people, but the society as a whole,” she said.
On stage, they channel these ancient figures—whether a palace maiden, an imperial scholar, or Mulan on the battlefield.
“One of the biggest changes for me as an artist was acquiring the ability to really get into character and feel whatever the character would be feeling,” Adam said. “There’s a saying we use in dance: ‘To move the audience, you have to first move yourself.’”
Imbuing every movement with genuine emotion, “the audience will actually be able to feel it, even if they’re really far away,” he said.
Being able to convey these values to the audience is key to capturing the essence of classical Chinese dance. Beyond the demanding technical skill required, to truly be a great dancer, “you have to be a good person,” Lillian said. “And then, you have to want to express or share those values through dance.”
Training in Chinese dance, like all the classical arts, inherently shapes dancers into better people, she pointed out, building self-discipline and the ability to persevere through physical and mental hardship. Maintaining the right mindset over the long run, always striving to be better without being discouraged, is one of the hardest parts, Lillian said.
A teacher once gave her a piece of advice that stuck with her: “Don’t be afraid of not being good. Just be afraid of not improving.” She resolved to focus on her potential to improve, on how much better she could get every day, “instead of being afraid of making mistakes.” She reminds herself: “Everything that’s hard is the root of something that will be great later—this is something that is going to make me into a better person or a better dancer. You see it as what it actually is—a tool to help you grow, even though it’s hard to go through.”
The siblings have also internalized lessons from the historical characters they’ve studied and portrayed. After they started their dance training, their father noticed profound changes in their character—most notably, that they had all grown more selfless.
“They’ve truly benefited from these traditional values and ancient virtues from Chinese culture,” Andrew said, “and because they’ve benefited from it so much, they truly have a sincere wish to share it with others. I think this is one of the main reasons why they can work so hard. … It requires a very noble spirit and a very pure heart; otherwise, you just can’t endure that much rigorous work.”
Lillian sees their art as having a higher purpose.
“Aristotle believed that one of the reasons people should learn music is to upgrade their moral values. By listening to good music, you’re learning how to enjoy something that is noble and something that is upright, and therefore, you are making yourself a better person,” she said.
Dance, she says, is the same.
“You should be giving out upright energy; the message you’re sending to the audience should be a positive, upright message,” she said.
She hopes audience members leave feeling uplifted and inspired to strive for goodness.
For Katherine, it makes everything worth it in the end.
“You know you’re doing something that’s just very special,” she said. “Not everybody gets the opportunity to be a part of something so remarkable.”
This article was originally published in American Essence, Vol. 4 Issue 1, Jan.-Feb. Edition.
“I know for a lot of families, Christmas means a roast, but in my neighborhood, Ebenezer Scrooge wouldn’t be giving out a grand turkey. He’d be giving out tamales,” said Danny Trejo. “To me, Christmas has always meant a full table of tamales.”
The legendary “Machete” star might be most recognizable from his villainous, tough-guy roles on-screen—but he also makes a mean chef. Food and hospitality have always played a major role in the actor-turned-entrepreneur’s life, and Mr. Trejo now has a growing restaurant empire that spans multiple locations of Trejo’s Tacos, Trejo’s Cantina, and Trejo’s Coffee and Donuts in Los Angeles; and two cookbooks, “Trejo’s Tacos” and “Trejo’s Cantina.” He shared a recipe from his latest.
“If you’ve never made tamales because you think they’re difficult, this recipe will change your mind,” he writes. “With just an hour of prep, you’ll have two dozen fluffy, amazing tamales to eat for dinner, lunch the next day, with leftovers to freeze and eat down the road.” His recipe uses a classic cheese and chile filling, but he says it works well with other fillings, too: Try chicken or jackfruit tinga, or beef birria.
(Hernan Rodriguez)
Super-Easy Tamales
Makes 30 tamales
30 dried corn husks
1 1/2 cups olive oil
10 cups (2 pounds) masa harina, such as King Arthur
2 (10-ounce) cans roasted chiles, such as Hatch, roughly chopped
Soak the corn husks in a large bowl filled with water until soft, about 1 hour. Place a few cans of beans on top to keep them submerged.
In another large bowl, combine the olive oil, masa harina, baking powder, salt, and broth. Mix with your hands until a pliable dough forms. Knead until smooth, 3 to 5 minutes.
Place a corn husk on a cutting board with the wide end toward you. Using a large spoon, spread 1/4 cup of dough in the center. Shape it into a rough round about 4 inches in diameter. Place 2 tablespoons of cheese lengthwise in the center of the dough. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of chiles on top of the cheese.
Lift the two sides of the corn husk in toward the center like a book so the two sides of masa meet and cover the filling; then, holding the excess corn husk together, fold and wrap it to one side around the tamale. Fold the top and bottom ends over the tamale and turn it over to hold the folded sides down. Repeat until you have about 30 tamales.
In a large pot fitted with a steamer basket, add enough water to just come up to the level of the steamer basket. Working in batches, arrange the tamales vertically in the steamer basket and turn the heat to medium. Once the water starts to steam, cover the basket and cook until the tamales are fluffy and tender and the cheese is melted, from 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how many you cook at a time. The tamales are super tender when they come out of the basket, but will firm up as they sit. Let them cool for 30 minutes before serving. You can also let the tamales completely cool and freeze for up to 1 month.
(Penguin Random House, LLC)
Reprinted with permission from “Trejo’s Cantina” by Danny Trejo with Hugh Carvey, copyright 2023. Photographs by Larchmont Hospitality Group LLC. Published by Clarkson Potter, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.
Ms. Hanson said it
took her a lifetime
to learn how to not
succumb to external
pressure. (Diana De Lange)
Amanda Hanson, clinical psychologist, author, therapist, and one of the most influential voices in the world of personal development and coaching for women—thanks in no small part to her @midlife.muse Instagram, YouTube channel, and 56-episode Revolutionizing Midlife podcast—was busy planning her upcoming retreat when we spoke in early fall.
An international group of women, for whom true love had thus far remained a painfully elusive dream, had signed up for the four-day course, and Ms. Hanson was going through their emails to see what they each hoped to achieve. The answer was unanimous: to find love. But here’s the thing, the women weren’t seeking advice on how to fall in love with another person: No, what they wanted was to fall in love with themselves. Each one was battling her own worst enemy—herself—and was looking for a way to silence the voice that had always told her she wasn’t this or that enough, that she had failed to do or be something more; and replace it with one that always showed her compassion, respect, and kindness.
“Women’s inability to love, honor, and value themselves is a global crisis,” said Ms. Hanson. “It transcends nationality, and age, and social demographic. … I want to help women break free from certain misery patterns, such as seeking validation and approval from others, and always putting others’ needs before their own. I want to pass on what I’ve learned—that all the love we need, all the appreciation we need, all the recognition we need, is rooted within us.”
Ms. Hanson believes in looking to ancient civilizations for inspiration on healing practices (Diana De Lange)
Supporting Women’s Journeys
Ms. Hanson, who turned 51 in November, didn’t always specialize in women and midlife. She earned her doctorate at Alliant International University in California (formerly the California School of Professional Psychology) and has worked with people with schizophrenia, AIDS sufferers, those ravaged by Alzheimer’s, and children in orphanages.
Gradually, though, she found herself drawn more and more to coaching women and quickly saw that many were struggling with the same issues: an inability to self-love; a propensity only to feel of value when serving others; a fear of aging. “That was really my spur,” she said. “My therapy sessions were filled with intelligent, personable, successful, attractive women, … yet even so, each one was being thwarted—professionally, romantically—by their inability to love themselves, coupled with a perception that growing older equaled loss. Not one of them viewed middle and older life as new chapters rich with opportunity. Instead, they saw one door after another closing.” Ms. Hanson wanted to show them that those doors were ready to be kicked open.
So how does she do that? It’s not a quick fix, but rather a lifelong process, beginning with learning to be unruffled by external pressures—especially those messages by advertisers that convey that self-esteem can come from one’s possessions. “It can’t. It can only come from within. Looking out, comparing yourself to others, thinking about how you measure up, will always block your progress to loving yourself. Try to switch off, or, at least, quieten the messages that are trying to sell stuff to you—whether it’s a bag they insist you need, or a cream that will make you look younger and more beautiful. Radiance does not come from your skincare routine; it comes from how you feel, how you think, how abundant your heart is,” she said.
(Diana De Lange)
Ms. Hanson, who is completely unaltered—she leaves the silver that threads through her hair showing—would like to see more women taking pride in the changes that aging brings. That feeling, she said, starts with acceptance. “Older age is viewed as an enemy that must be conquered with anti-aging products and even surgery. Think about those words for a minute: anti-aging. We should be pro-aging, because not to age is unnatural. Can you imagine a world in which nothing fades?” For Ms. Hanson, middle and older age is a “glorious and spiritual time, which can deliver renewed purpose, fulfillment, and rewards,” adding that the journey of self-discovery can be “the most beautiful and uplifting rite of passage.”
She would like to lead a revolution so that society celebrates older women, as ancient civilizations did. Indeed, she has looked to those civilizations for guidance on how to become a more effective healer. “I realized that psychologists, myself included, were missing something when treating women. Women have different mental health issues, and some of these can be eased by going back to how our ancestors healed and incorporating some of their practices, such as dance and purification,” she said.
(Diana De Lange)
Sisterly Bonds
In her groups and retreats, she also harnesses the power of two other forces: sisterhood and rituals. “When women come together, they very quickly begin to heal each other and themselves. … There is this incredible, palpable, contagious energy that comes from a room full of women offering each other support and compassion and communing. They inspire each other, they cheerlead each other, and in so doing, they nurture themselves. The only word I can use to describe that level of unity is magic.”
Her other foundational resource is ritualization, which she says is a highly effective way to achieve change. “Ritualizing actions imbues them with a significance and meaning that goes far beyond the habitual. They are a way of checking in with ourselves, of taking a few minutes to slow things down and to center our being,” she said. One of her favorite rituals is to look at herself in the mirror for three minutes every morning. “The action is totally without judgment. It is not to critique, but to reach into my being and to notice myself. It’s a gentle acknowledgment that I am present for myself, that I accept everything about myself and that it is my intention to do the best for myself that day.” She suggests starting with 90 seconds, and then building up to three minutes.
(Diana De Lange)
What also sets her apart from many—indeed probably most—therapists, is her belief that there is more to be gained by revealing her own vulnerabilities to the groups she works with than by hiding her own self behind an impenetrable carapace. “I’m human; I’ve had my difficulties; I’ve doubted myself; I have had family problems. I use my own experience and my own vulnerabilities to steward my groups, because I believe that true healing lives in vulnerability, in tapping into our fears and anxieties, not bricking them in in an attempted show of strength,” she said.
Ms. Hanson describes her therapy modus operandi as “front-facing” and confessional. “I’ll say, ‘This was me then, and this is me now, and this is how I got here,’” she explained. She noted that she is able to guide her clients because she went on that journey herself, “where you realize that the only approval you need is your own.”
The four crew members of the
Artemis II mission to the moon
(clockwise from top left): Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, , and commander Reid Wiseman. (NASA)
On December 14, 1972, surrounded by darkness and light and standing where only 11 others had ever stood before, Gene Cernan became the last person to walk on the moon. As he prepared to depart, he announced over the radio, “As we leave the moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”
Cernan, commander of the Apollo 17 mission, died in 2017 and never got to witness another return to the moon. That hope of returning, however, remains very much alive at NASA, and with the Artemis missions, mankind will once again take that giant leap to the moon.
Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. (NASA)
The Artemis Missions
The first of the Artemis missions took place on November 16, 2022, with the unmanned Orion spacecraft traveling more than 1.4 million miles over the course of 25 days. The spacecraft traveled thousands of miles beyond and around the moon before it reentered the Earth’s atmosphere at nearly 25,000 miles per hour, finally splashing down into the Pacific Ocean.
The next mission, Artemis II, is scheduled for a 10-day flight around the moon in November 2024 with a crew of four: mission commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and the Canadian Space Agency’s mission specialist Jeremy Hansen. For the Americans, it will be a return to space, but even for them, humanity has never gone this far away from Earth before. The Artemis II mission could break the record for distance traveled during a manned space flight.
(NASA)
“It will depend on where the Earth-moon system is when we launch,” said Mr. Wiseman, who has been a NASA astronaut since 2009. Apollo 13 currently holds the record, at 249,205 miles from Earth; Artemis II could end up reaching 10,000 miles farther. “Hopefully a year later, we will eclipse it again, and a year after that we will eclipse it again,” he said of future NASA missions.
The Artemis II mission is the beginning of what is expected to be not just a return to the moon, but eventually, the establishment of a base camp on the lunar surface, and a future trip to Mars. NASA’s goals are lofty, and Wiseman believes that those goals are not just achievable, but inevitable.
“I think we are definitely looking at humankind living on the moon, living on Mars, getting out into the solar system,” he said. “If you look back at what humans have done on Earth, we can’t sit still as a group of beings. We are restless and we are very inquisitive. I think we will always look at the moon and want to go there. And for those of us who find Mars in the night sky, we want to go there. I would love to go to the moons of Saturn and wake up in my living room and see the rings of Saturn in the morning. I think that is just where we are headed. We are never going to quit.”
After a lifetime in southern California’s eternal sunshine, Danica McKellar made the move to rural Tennessee last year. It appears she’s taken a page right out of her Hallmark and Great American Family movies, which often take place in a small town filled with kindhearted people and blessed by seasonal beauty.
Since her move, the actress and producer has indeed been marveling at “the most amazingBob Ross painting at every turn,” she said.
Ms. McKellar is widely known for playing the character of Winnie Cooper in “The Wonder Years.” The comedy-drama, which ran from 1988 to 1993, followed the highs and lows of young Kevin Arnold (played by Fred Savage). Set in suburban, middle-class America in the late ’60s and early ’70s, the series, and the messy and complex affairs of the heart it depicted, kept viewers coming back episode after episode. For many, their coming of age happened alongside the protagonists’—including McKellar’s character.
Etched onto the public consciousness, she became the epitome of the sweetness of first love. Late-night show host Jimmy Fallon once referred to Winnie Cooper as “the coolest girl in any TV show ever.”
An adult Kevin Arnold narrated:
Once upon a time there was a girl I knew, who lived across the street. Brown hair, brown eyes. When she smiled, I smiled. When she cried, I cried. Every single thing that happened to me that mattered, in some way, had to do with her. That day Winnie and I promised each other that no matter what, we’d always be together. … It was the kind of promise that can only come from the hearts of the very young.”
This Christmas season, Damon Runyon and Ms. McKellar star in “A Royal Christmas Romance” on the Great American Family cable network. (Rachel Luna/Stringer/Getty Images)
Math Whiz
On-screen Winnie Cooper was smart and sweet, and because Ms. McKellar knew that young people were looking up to her character, she felt the need to live up to being a role model.
She went on to graduate summa cum laude from UCLA with a major in mathematics, with the distinction of co-authoring a mathematical physics theorem called the Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorem.
In 2000, she testified before a congressional subcommittee about the importance of women in math and science. When she read that young girls’ interest and confidence in math eroded significantly by the eighth grade, even though they performed as well as boys, she reflected on her own self-doubts while in college:
No one ever told me I couldn’t do math or science; I just saw it as inaccessible and foreign. The strange thing is, at the same time that I harbored all of these self-doubts and feelings of alienation in regards to math, I was graduating high school with really good grades in math. True, I had struggled in middle school to even get a ‘C’ in math, but now I was in the top 3 percent of my high school, graduating with honors and an A+ in the highest AP Calculus course offered in the U.S.
She went on to write 11 math books for kids spanning ages 0 to 16. She knew that she had to change the stereotype about math and make it not only accessible but also cool, initially targeting girls at the middle school stage, a time when math gets harder and new social factors also come into play. Because of this, her bestselling books incorporate confidence-boosting messages.
Everything in Manhattan’s Italian Rifle Club is quiet elegance: the glint of brass, glimmer of crystal, gleam of polished oak, soft ring of fine china, bell chime of silverware, as in real silver. But the evening’s menu is an anomaly, a plain old green chalkboard, mounted in a dull wood frame and set on rollers that the waiter brings by our table. Several appetizers, soup and salad of the day, a half dozen entrees.
No prices.
I nudge my Mom. Why no prices?
“Why don’t you ask your Uncle Vince?” she suggests, referring to my great-uncle, my grandmother’s brother, the unquestioned head of our family—and our host at this celebratory dinner in 1965.
“Because,” Vince tells me, “if you have to know the price, you don’t belong here.”
He turns to our waiter—resplendent in tux, silk shirt and black tie—for corroboration.
“That’s right, your honor,” declares the latter, deferentially.
Everyone chuckles, including my mom, whose birthday this is. While such a remark today would seem atrociously elitist, those were different times, and Uncle Vince, as we all called him, represents a story of origin that itself seems today almost a cliché—poor immigrant boy grown into self-made man. But it’s all true, his blood is mine, and it starts in a tiny mountain village in Sicily, makes its way to the residence of the mayors of New York, Gracie Mansion, and ends in a midtown Manhattan penthouse where, as a young teen, I’d stand awestruck on the balcony and gawk at the glistening spire of the Empire State Building a few blocks distant.
Arriving at said apartment building, if I were to walk in with Vince, the doorman would rise from his lobby chair and salute. “Afternoon, your honor!” Vince would nod genially.
What on Earth is all this? Who is this gentleman so distinguished that random people call him by a fancy title and salute him on sight?
Vincent (Vincenzo) R. Impellitteri was born on February 4, 1900, in Isnello, a village about 50 miles from Palermo, perched astride a shoulder ridge beneath the dark granite battlements of the Madonie mountain range, which houses the second-highest peak in Sicily. A year later, his parents decided to seek a better life in America. The family sailed to New York, then relocated to Connecticut, settling in a riverside mill town, Ansonia, where Vince’s father Salvatore set up shop to practice his trade—shoe cobbler.
My grandmother Rose was born soon after; she and Vince enrolled in Ansonia schools and began their upward path into American life. She married a Ukrainian immigrant’s son and became a schoolteacher, while her husband, William Comcowich, rose through the school system ranks to eventually become Ansonia superintendent. My mother, Therese, was born in 1929, and she used to recount how her Sicilian grandmother, Salvatore’s wife Marie, who watched my mom after school while my grandmother Rose worked, never learned English and spent the entire rest of her life in that small Ansonia immigrant neighborhood, where her outings consisted of going to the Italian grocery store and the local Catholic church once a week each.
To say Vince went a different direction is putting it mildly.
Quietly on fire with ambition, he graduated with good grades from Ansonia High School and enlisted in the Navy, serving as a radio officer during World War I. After the war, he headed down to New York, where he wound up attending Fordham University School of Law by day, working as a bellman and desk clerk at night in a Manhattan hotel. After graduation, he joined a large, politically connected law firm, then was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan for a decade, then became clerk to a couple of state judges, then was chosen as deputy-mayor running mate for William O’Dwyer, on the basis of his ticket-balancing Italian ancestry, steady personality, and Democratic party loyalty.
They won two terms, then O’Dwyer resigned just as a corruption scandal broke over his office and Tammany Hall, the Democratic “machine” that ruled New York. O’Dwyer absconded to Mexico, and a special election was called for the remaining three years of his term.
I’ll run, said Vince. Nope, said Tammany Hall. Vince lost the primary to the Tammany candidate, but he created his own organization, the “Experience Party.” You’re toast, party bosses told him.
We’ll see, said Vince.
“He does not create emergencies,” wrote the New York Times. “He gives the impression of dogged earnestness and good intentions.” He acquired the nickname “Impy.” His slogan was “unbought and unbossed.” Supposedly, the Mafia controlled Tammany Hall, but Vince had snubbed Frank Costello, the Luciano crime family boss.
Impy beat three other candidates by more than 225,000 votes to become the city’s 101st mayor on November 14, 1950. A few years later, I joined him for Thanksgiving dinner at Gracie Mansion with my mom, his favorite niece. I was 15 months old; I don’t remember a thing, but I have the picture of me in my high chair. I presume we had roast turkey and cannoli.
In 1953, when the next election came around, Tammany Hall took him seriously and bumped him from office with Robert Wagner, a titan who went on to serve three terms in Gracie Mansion. Shortly after Wagner took office, he made Vince a judge, and he spent the rest of his career on the bench. Thus “Your Honor.”
Instead of dogged earnestness, I remember a courtly, well-tailored, gentlemanly, understated patrician. Is that an elite term? Sure, but look at his life: He earned it, full on, hard work, no question.
“To say that Vincent Richard Impellitteri rose from obscurity would be an understatement of the first magnitude,” declared the New York Times in Vince’s 1987 obituary. “In an era of flamboyant politicians and corruption scandals, Mr. Impellitteri—deliberate, scholarly, mild to the point of shyness—struck a responsive chord with New York voters and became the first person ever to become mayor of New York without the support of a major political party.”
Vince returned to Isnello in triumph on a quasi state visit in late 1951; at the time, the mayor of New York was widely considered the second most significant political office in America. Sicilians gave him a parade through his birthplace, lining the bannered streets and tossing flowers. I still have the commemorative engraved silver box they presented him, containing a glass ampule with a quarter-cup of Isnello dirt. Yes, really.
We live in an age when origin stories such as this are scoffed at as clichés, while millions of people hand Hollywood billions of dollars to parse out so-called superhero lineages that require advanced Excel flowcharts. If I shopped Vince’s story to a producer, she’d say, “Where’s the conflict? The suspense? The existential crisis?”
My sister Kristin and I had a miniature existential crisis when we journeyed to Isnello 10 years ago, just to see. Shortly before she died, our grandmother told me it was a dusty, backward mountain village and why would anyone go there? But we went anyway and found a lovely, fully restored town in a gorgeous setting with spruced-up houses testifying to European Union rural improvement funds. It was serene, well kept, quiet, and devoid of any hint that it was Vince’s hometown. No statue, no eponymous plaza, nothing.
So we thought. After traipsing up and down for a couple of hours, we parked on a bench on the main drag, puzzled. Then, Kristin, glancing about, raised her eyebrows and pointed to a blue-and-white tile plaque on the concrete abutment right behind us.
It read “Viale Vincenzo Impellitteri.” A nearby street sign said the same.
We headed happily to the edge of town to an uncrowded café with a viewscape patio and celebrated with a sensational lunch of almond risotto, peasant bread, and olive oil far better than any you can get in the United States.
Are there shoe cobblers left in this world? Young men who work nights to go to law school by day? I don’t know. I am neither of those, although in my entire life I have had just three months when I did not work or go to school, and I intend to keep it that way.
I wouldn’t say Vince told me to do that. He showed me—showed us all—which is far more meaningful. Make your own way, pave your path yourself, do something worthwhile.
As a boy, I’d watch Vince open a box of illicit, expensive smuggled Cuban cigars (he had connections), cut them, and carefully lay them in one of the ceremonial burnished walnut cigar boxes he received as mayor. I’d ask what they were.
“Contraband,” he explained, grinning genially.
My good fortune to have an ancestor like Vince is happenstance. His influence in our extended family has been profound. Though no member of the generations who came after him has reached his lofty heights, he had many nieces and nephews and grand-nieces and -nephews and we have all, every one of us, carved worthy lives for ourselves in this complicated world.
Maybe you have such a forebear, maybe you don’t. We cannot arrange our ancestors. But we can choose what sort of example we set for those who will come after us. When I think of that challenge, I think of my Uncle Vince, who worked his way up to the pinnacle of American life for a worthy goal, and left us a superbly worthy legacy.
Co-founders Uliks Fehmiuand and Bane Stamenkovic. (Tatsiana Moon for American Essence)
Can friendship survive a war, migration to another country, and life’s ups and downs? One group of friends from former Yugoslavia has demonstrated that a strong friendship bond can overcome any tribulation.
There’s Uliks Fehmiu, an Albanian who loves acting and still participates in film projects in Serbian and Bosnian; Bane Stamenkovic, whom Mr. Fehmiu first met when he was 7, then going through high school and later mandatory military service together; Igor Ivanovic, who played a pivotal role in Pain d’Avignon’s founding but later left to start his own bakery; and Vojin Vujosevic, who was always the cool kid in the group.
Pain d’Avignon was among the first in the Northeast to offer artisanal bread. (Ed Anderson)
They all eventually made their way to New York to escape getting drafted into the war and, incidentally, fell into the world of baking. Together, they formed Pain d’Avignon, a boutique wholesale bakery for high-end restaurants and hotels in New York. In 2009, the bakery expanded to offer their selections to ordinary New Yorkers via cafes, opening four retail stores alongside pop-ups within hotels across the city.
The path to success wasn’t easy, but every step was buoyed by the knowledge that there was no turning back to the violence and hatred back home. Whatever hardships they would go through, they would go through them together as friends.
“Our story can never be only about the bread and its technical aspect, because to us, it represents this odyssey, this journey, this element of survival, this moment of adaptation … into a new country, new environment,” said Mr. Fehmiu in an interview.
A Friendship Forged
Growing up in Yugoslavia before the Yugoslav Wars broke up the Balkan Peninsula, the group of friends lived in a place not unlike New York: Different cultures and religions intersected in a region bordered by Italy, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania. “It’s where Austro-Hungarian and Oriental architecture clash beautifully. Where one could ski in the Alps in the morning and swim in the Adriatic that afternoon. Where, in the same pastry shop, one could find baklava by way of Turkey or Greece and Sachertorte compliments of the Viennese,” wrote Mr. Fehmiu in the bakery’s 2022 cookbook, “The Pain d’Avignon Baking Book.” It was an idyllic time filled with beautiful memories for the four childhood friends.
(L to R) Cofounders Tole Zurovac, Mr. Stamenkovic, and Mr. Fehmiu, with Mr. Fehmiu’s wife, Snezana Bogdanovic. (Ed Anderson)
When, in the late 1980s, tensions ran high and war seemed imminent, the friends each found ways to escape the draft. Mr. Ivanovic became the reason they ended up in baking. After he got discharged from mandatory military service, he headed straight to New York. While there, he hung out with fellow Serbs, some of whom worked for Eli Zabar, a popular bakery and supermarket in the city. He soon found a job delivering bread at Eli’s.
Mr. Stamenkovic joined his family in New York (his father was a textile executive and moved there for business) as soon as he finished military service, while Mr. Vujosevic returned to America for studies at the persuasion of his parents, who saw an increasingly volatile situation back home and wanted him to stay away. For several years, Mr. Fehmiu was the only one remaining in Belgrade, hoping to develop his acting career. But by spring 1992, things came to a head. The military police came looking for him. With his mother’s warning, he was able to stay at a friend’s house and later flee to Macedonia. From there, he made his way to New York.
Chef Lidia Bastianich cooks up a quick pasta at her home in Queens, New York. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)
At her home in Queens, New York, Lidia Bastianich cooks with a view of the water. Opposite her sprawling kitchen and dining table, wall-to-wall windows look out over her garden to the idyllic Little Neck Bay, where sailboats bob serenely under blue skies.
Here is where the Italian refugee turned James Beard and Emmy Award-winning chef, restaurateur, TV personality, and author raised her children and her grandchildren; where she taught Julia Child how to make risotto; where she filmed the PBS shows that introduced millions of Americans to traditional Italian home cooking, inviting them around her table with her signature phrase: “Tutti a tavola a mangiare!” “Everyone to the table to eat!”
“I feel very American, and I feel very Italian here,” Ms. Bastianich told American Essence on a recent visit. There’s the proximity to the water, what drew her to buy the house in the first place 38 years ago—“since I came from the Adriatic, my dream was always water,” she said—and the garden lined with Italian fig and lemon trees, rosemary and wild fennel, grape trellises, and potted tomatoes—all echoes of the Mediterranean. “And at the same time,” she said, “I see the Empire State Building from my house.”
A perfectly ripe fig from Ms. Bastianich’s backyard. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)
It’s a dual identity that she’s embraced from a young age. When she was 10, she and her family fled their home in communist-occupied Istria, a peninsula in northeastern Italy handed over to Yugoslavia in the aftermath of World War II. They waited two years in a refugee camp in Trieste, Italy, before finding freedom in America in 1958.
Since then, Ms. Bastianich has built her own version of the American Dream: a veritable culinary empire dedicated to sharing her cultural heritage with her new home. It has spanned several restaurants with her former husband, Felice, and now her children, Joe and Tanya; 25 years on air with more than a dozen companion cookbooks; a partnership in opening Eataly, an Italian food emporium, in New York and locations across the United States; and her own lines of pastas, sauces, and cookware.
She’s also made it her mission to champion the place that took her in and gave her the opportunity to succeed: “There’s no better country in the whole world,” she said. For an ongoing series of annual, hour-long specials, “Lidia Celebrates America,” she travels to meet, cook with, and share the stories of inspiring people across the country.
And at 76, Ms. Bastianich has hardly slowed down. Her latest cookbook, “Lidia’s From Our Family Table to Yours,” was released in September. The 11th season of her PBS show “Lidia’s Kitchen” premiered in October, and a special, “25 Years With Lidia: A Culinary Jubilee,” will premiere nationally on December 18 at 8 p.m. EST. Squeezing in our interview on a brief day home between travels—next, to Canada, for her book tour—she talks at the confident, no-nonsense clip of a matriarch and businesswoman who knows how to get things done, and fast.
What keeps her going? “I love what I do,” she said matter-of-factly. And indeed, she softens, both tone and expression taking on a grandmotherly warmth, when she speaks about her passions: food, family, and how the two have always been intertwined in her work and life. She spoke with American Essence about her immigrant journey, her sense of responsibility to her adopted home, and the extraordinary power of sharing a meal.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Ms. Bastianich harvests her homegrown fennel. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)
American Essence: What are your strongest food memories associated with the different places in your life’s journey—from your birthplace of Pola, Istria [now Pula, Croatia], to the refugee camp in Trieste, and finally, to America?
Lidia Bastianich: I have to go back to when I was born: 1947, after the war. The Paris Treaty was in the same month, February, and the border came down: Trieste was given to Italy, and Istria and Dalmatia were given to the newly formed communist Yugoslavia.
We grew up in a country of radical change. Once the communists came, you could not speak Italian, they changed our name, we couldn’t go to church. My mother was a schoolteacher; my father was a mechanic, and he had two trucks. They took the trucks and deemed him a capitalist; they put him in jail for it. So life wasn’t that easy. Even food was scarce. My grandmother, who was in a little town, Busoler, outside of Pola, she raised food and animals to feed the whole family, so my mother took my brother and me out of the city and put us with Grandma. And I think that’s where my first basic food connections happened.
Ms. Bastianich around age 5. (Courtesy of Lidia Bastianich)
With my grandmother, we had chickens, we had ducks, we had geese, we had rabbits, we had goats, we had pigs, we had pigeons. Now and then it was a chicken that went into the pot, then it was a rabbit, then it was a pigeon. I would be feeding these animals. In the springtime, the rabbits loved clover, so I would go and harvest clover in the woods. We would milk the goats, make ricotta. We had two pigs every year, and slaughter was in November, so you had to feed them to get them nice and fat. After the slaughter, we made the sausages, the prosciutto, the bacon.
The garden was the extension of the house—we had the immediate vegetable garden, and then we had a little wheat field. We had olive trees. I was involved in harvesting the olives in November when the olive oil was made; I remember I would dip the bread in there and taste it. The wheat didn’t get all milled at once; Grandma kept the wheat kernels in a cantina, and she would go to the mill every month or two. We would brine the vegetables and the fruits for the winter; we’d pickle cabbage.
Everything had a season: the wild asparagus in spring, the nettles, and then, in the fall, the mushrooms and the squash. I helped my grandmother work the land, so I was aware when things would blossom. I was in tune. The small baby peas, Grandma let them grow because she would get more when it’s a mature pea, but as I would go and collect them, I ate them. I used to chew on the pods; they’re sweet, too. The figs, in August when they were plentiful, we would dry them in the sun so we would have them in the winter. I was involved in all of this—and not because she wanted to teach me, but because I was there as a little helper, that’s just the way it was. My grandmother would say, “Go get some rosemary,” and I would run to the rosemary bush, or to the bay leaves. I grew up with all of that. I knew all the smells, and that stayed with me. When you’re in your formative years, that stays with you.
Ms. Bastianich harvests sprigs of fresh rosemary from her garden. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)
But the real recall moment for me came in 1956. I was 10 years old. When the border went down in Trieste, some of my family was left on the Italian side. Supposedly, my aunt [in Trieste] wasn’t feeling well, so my mother and my brother and I went to visit her. They wouldn’t let the whole family go; they held someone as hostage because they knew we wouldn’t come back [otherwise]. The three of us went. The aunt was fine. But two weeks later, at night, my father appeared: He’d escaped the border. Then I realized that I’m not going to go back to see my grandmother. That’s when I really felt that need: I wanted to be connected, and food and smell built that connection. I think that my love and passion for food, my connection with food, goes back to those memories of wanting to be connected with Grandma, who I didn’t know when I was going to see. So I would cook things that I remembered with my aunt, the flavors that my grandmother was cooking.
We didn’t have Italian papers because we were under communism, so my parents went to the police and asked for asylum. For two years, we were in a political refugee camp, awaiting where to go. I remember in camp, we had a little cubby hole, and we had beds on top of each other.
I would recall all the beautiful times I had with Grandma that I maybe couldn’t have anymore, and I think that’s why it’s so embedded; it’s so vivid even to this day. People say, “Gee, Lidia, you remember the details.” I do, because I recalled them so many times in those years. Even when I came to the United States, the excitement of being free and having your own home and the greatness of America—still, your roots are your roots.
Family photos line the walls of Ms. Bastianich’s New York home of 38 years. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)
AE: After you came to America, how did your experiences with food change?
Ms. Bastianich: [I remember] the excitement of American food. The Twinkies. Hostess. Jell-O. I’d never had a grapefruit. All these foods—they’re delicious! When we settled, my mother worked late, so she would leave me to do the dinner, and every night [I made] a cake. Those pre-mixes—I couldn’t get enough of them! I was watching the Ed Sullivan show, Elvis Presley, all of that. I wanted every single thing that was American; I wanted to become American as soon as I could. We didn’t speak English when we came, but my brother and I, within a year, we began to.
Then, of course, as I went on into my profession, I realized that maybe the connection to real food was the way it’s supposed to be. Big industry took a lot of liberties with creating our foods. What is amazing is that from my formative years to my professional years, I reverted back to what we did [in Busoler] and how important it was. It’s like 360 degrees, now and then. I think us chefs, we have a big role to play, and I think that’s why with my show and my books, I feel that I share the authenticity that I grew up with.
AE: In addition to your regular show, your series of specials celebrates America. How did the idea for these specials come about?
Ms. Bastianich: I wanted to share my gratitude and my curiosity in understanding America better from my point of view, having been a young immigrant, having been given the opportunity to come to America. America has been sort of knocked down. You’ve got to rally against this. So it’s my way, as an immigrant, of telling Americans, “Listen, there’s no better country, I can tell you that.”
Food opens all the doors. Food is a common denominator, no matter what culture you are: You sit at the table, you begin to cook together, and you become friends. And when you talk with food, the conversation is mellow. So I use food to sort of penetrate messages.
I did two veteran specials, because I don’t think people realize how our soldiers are out there giving their lives to protect our freedom. I visited with veterans, and we cooked together. I did one thanking all the first responders.
The last one was on immigrants, because I think immigrants are maligned now, but we’re all immigrants. I went around to different ethnic communities: I went to South Carolina, to a Ukrainian son and mother; then I went to Houston, to the Afghan community. My Vietnamese friend Christine Ha, she’s a blind chef, she was born here but her parents were from Vietnam. She says, “At home, I was Vietnamese, but outside, I was American.” As an immigrant, you’re lucky enough to have these cultures on top of being an American.
America is made out of different ethnicities: It’s like a quilt, and it’s beautiful, and it’s strong. And what’s amazing about this is that within this context, we can all be who we are culturally: We can practice our religion, speak our language, sing our songs, have our social gatherings.
A scene from Ms. Bastianich’s latest PBS special, “Lidia Celebrates America: Flavors That Define Us.” (Meredith Nierman for GBH/Tavola Productions)
But what immigrants need to also understand is that they’re given this great opportunity, and you need to take opportunities that you think fit, and you need to work hard at that. You need to make it happen, and really be responsible, and at the end, you need to give back to this country. [In the special] there’s this family from Bhutan, where they were persecuted, so they were in Nepal as immigrants for over 18 years. When they came here, he [Bhuwan Pyakurel] was still a young man. He ultimately became an assemblyman for his community [in Reynoldsburg, Ohio].
You have to become part of society, and you have to appreciate it. Certainly, I feel that way: As an immigrant, I feel very grateful for the opportunities that my family was given. In turn, I had my children here, my grandchildren, and I never stopped telling them that. I took them back to the refugee camp and the trip that I took—and not just I, but many other people, whether from Europe, from Africa, from Asia, to escape dire conditions. What parents do to better the lives of their children! Kids need to know, immigrants need to understand the gifts that they’ve been given and make the most of it.
AE: You’ve written a new cookbook of your own family’s favorite recipes, in part a tribute to your late mother, Erminia Motika, known to your family and fans as “Grandma.” Can you talk about who she was to you?
Ms. Bastianich: My mother passed away two years ago at 100. We lived together; she lived upstairs, I lived down. She was matriarch. She helped me raise my children, and in turn, we helped to raise my children’s children. They all remember her vividly—we all do.
When you think about this woman, 30-some years old with two young children, going into the world not speaking the language, not having anybody in the States, not having money—how much strength it took for her and my father to do that so that our lives could be better. She was a strong woman who appreciated, loved America. She realized what America could be to her family. She was the pole that held everything together.
Nothing was done without Grandma, so she automatically came right into the shows and articles; the viewers loved her. People said, “She’s my grandma, she’s the grandma I lost.” She became kind of everyone’s grandma. We still give her a tribute, I want her in the show: At the end, we have little clips where we sing together, and people love that.
(L–R) Ms. Bastianich; her mother’s companion, Giovanni Bencina; her former husband, Felice Bastianich; her mother, Erminia Motika; and her daughter, Tanya Bastianich Manuali gather in her home kitchen in this old photo. (Courtesy of Lidia Bastianich)
AE: What upcoming projects are you most excited about?
Ms. Bastianich: The continuation of my show. I pulled back a little bit from the restaurants—my kids are running the restaurants, and I have new projects going on. I have more freedom. We’re just finishing my 25-year special, and then I’m working on another book. The next one is all about pasta: fresh pasta, dried pasta, making it, cooking it. I’m excited about it.
AE: What is the most important life advice you want to pass on to your grandchildren, and other young people?
Ms. Bastianich: Eating together at the table is an extraordinary place to be. Because when you’re eating, your defenses are down, you can talk. As human beings, we’re smart, we’re defensive, we are protective. But when we’re eating, that’s one of the few things that we take into our bodies—food—and our defenses are going to be down to take it in. Especially when parents want to talk to children about life, the table is the ideal place because children are open, are receptive, and they’re taking in what you’re saying, too. You don’t need to make a festive meal. A nice plate of pasta, it’ll get people to the table.
Thanksgiving 2017 at Ms. Bastianich’s home, with all of her grandchildren. (Courtesy of Lidia Bastianich)
Lidia’s Loves
Three ingredients you’d bring to a deserted island: Olive oil, pasta, and garlic
One thing you do every morning: Make a cappuccino
Someone you’d most like to cook with: My maternal grandmother
Favorite hobby when you’re not cooking: Sailing
Favorite way to relax: Listening to classical music
Best advice you’ve ever received: Be humble, listen well, and take a pause before responding
Thanksgiving at Lidia’s
For Lidia Bastianich, Thanksgiving is a holiday about “celebrating the country that took us in,” she said. Her family gathers in her New York home, joined by a few regulars who have no family of their own and have been part of the Bastianich holiday celebrations for years.
“We fill the whole house,” Ms. Bastianich said—and of course, she does the cooking. “For me, cooking for 20, 30 people? Not a big deal.”
The meal starts with a “never-ending” antipasto buffet: “We like fish, so it’s octopus, it’s mussels, it’s calamari, it’s baccala. … And then, of course, all the cold cuts—mortadella, prosciutto, gorgonzola, parmigiana. Then all the cured olives and roasted peppers, lots of roasted vegetables, salads, a lot of greens, cured anchovies, mozzarella.”
Then comes a soup or pasta course (“We make it a little Italian,” Ms. Bastianich said) followed by the turkey with all the fixings, served family-style at the dining table. Dessert is again buffet-style: The kids usually bring pumpkin pie and bread pudding, while Ms. Bastianich makes an apple strudel or cheesecake.
Tips for Home Cooks
Use your oven space wisely: The turkey gets priority, with some sides delegated to cook on the stovetop instead. “Us Italians, we do a lot of garlic-and-oil vegetables in the pan.”
Glaze your bird: Ms. Bastianich simmers balsamic vinegar with bay leaves, rosemary, a couple of garlic cloves, and honey in a pan on the stovetop until reduced by about half, then strains the resulting syrup and brushes it on the turkey in the last half hour of roasting. “That gives it a nice Italian touch and some sweetness.”
Bestselling author Brad Thor, who writes a thriller every year, is known to tackle emerging security topics and create novels characterized by assiduous research and imaginative plots—what he calls “faction.” This wasn’t lost on the U.S. government, which tapped him to join its Analytic Red Cell program to come up with plausible scenarios involving threats and attacks on the United States.
With his latest novel, “Dead Fall,” he took a different tack, writing about the Ukraine–Russia conflict—as it was happening. We spoke to Mr. Thor about his recent book as well as his views on America’s role in the world.
“Dead Fall” (Simon & Schuster, 2023) takes place in Ukraine, where a mercenary unit of the Wagner Group has gone rogue.
American Essence: What was your experience writing this book in real time?
Brad Thor: So it was interesting. There was a certain amount of trepidation on my part that the headlines might get out in front of me, as opposed to me being in front of the headlines, which is what I like to do. But I have to be honest with you, I grew up reading fabulous thrillers that were set in World War II. I always wished that there was a similar setting that I could place my hero Scot Harvath in, and when the war in Ukraine broke out, I thought, OK, this is my opportunity to do my own version of some of my favorite movies like “Saving Private Ryan” or “Fury” with Brad Pitt, or the HBO series “Band of Brothers.”
There were very definitive bad guys. There was lots of what we call the fog of war, lots of confusion, lots of difficulties with getting men and matériel to the front lines. It seemed like the perfect setting to put my hero. I like to put him into very difficult situations without a lot of support. I didn’t want to send him into the story with an army right behind him. I wanted to send him in as poorly equipped and undermanned as possible so that that would raise the stakes and the tension. So Harvath had to go by himself. He had to join the Ukrainian international Legion, so that if he got killed or captured, the United States could say, “We have no idea why he was there.” That was the jumping-off point for “Dead Fall.”
What we’re seeing here in Ukraine is very much an echo of the run-up to World War II, particularly when the Republic of France, fascist Italy, and the United Kingdom via Neville Chamberlain decided to allow Hitler to take a piece of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland. [They] thought, “Well, if we let Hitler have this, then that’ll be the end of it.” And what do we all know from history? It wasn’t the end of it. It only encouraged him. And that’s exactly what’s happened with Putin. In his 2014 invasion of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, he said he was there to protect ethnic Russians. With my book, I saw all of these parallels from August to October of 1944. Hitler sent one of his worst SS brigades into Poland, and some of the most horrific, the most terrible war crimes of World War II were committed by the SS brigade, so we were seeing a lot of echoes of that with Russian troops, and particularly the Wagner Group, part of the mercenary force that Putin was using in Ukraine as well.
A young girl holding a Ukrainian flag runs in front of a destroyed cultural center during the graduation ceremony of art students in the town of Derhachi in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine. (SERGEY BOBOK/Contributor/AFP/ Getty Images)
AE: There is a humanitarian aspect to this book. It involves rescuing a U.S. citizen and orphans. But what’s also at stake are Ukrainian cultural treasures and artwork—and as you mentioned in the book, the identity of a nation. How did that idea come about?
Mr. Thor: The Nazis looted treasure throughout Europe. There were only so many things that the Louvre was able to hide and get away before the Nazis came into Paris. A genocide of a culture exists on many different levels. Obviously, when we hear the word genocide, we think of killing people, and that is absolutely the worst. There’s also kidnapping the children and killing the children, consuming them, if you will, pulling them into your culture, which the Russians have done in Ukraine. A final part of genocide is to wipe out any trace of the culture and history, particularly their art. I was inspired by the movie with George Clooney and John Goodman, “The Monuments Men,” where they were trying to rescue pieces of art. That was another pop culture touchstone for me. And I love the book “All the Light We Cannot See,” which was a Pulitzer Prize winner. It starts with a young girl and her father who works at the Louvre and they have to get out of Paris because the Nazis are marching on Paris.
So this idea of art and what the Russians are doing in Ukraine, I read lots of articles leading up to the invasion about how different museums throughout Ukraine were trying to pack away and hide their precious works of art because they knew Putin was going to try to steal them.
A cowgirl at heart, singer and actress Reba McEntire shows off her custom boot closet. (Courtesy of Reba McEntire)
Some would say the McEntires are a very set-in-their-ways, stubborn, hardheaded bunch of people. But I think that hardheadedness is what got Daddy to where he was, Grandpap to where he was, and his father, Pap, to where he was. Some might say it wasn’t all that far—but it was much further than where they started!
None of us McEntires came from money, but each generation’s been a little more prosperous than the one before it. My daddy, Clark, was determined to make a better life for himself than the one he’d been handed. Like Grandpap before him, Daddy had the rodeo bug. He knew that rodeo couldn’t pay all the bills, but it sure helped get him started.
Take, for instance, one time when Daddy won a roping competition. The prize was a new car and 500 dollars cash. He gave it all to Mama and sent her to swap it for 80 acres of land that Uncle Dale, Mama’s brother, owned. That gave Daddy enough space to expand his ranch with more cattle. It was the start he needed. A few years later, in 1957, Daddy and Mama were able to buy a much bigger plot of land in Chockie, so he moved the family and all the cattle over there. Not exactly the land of milk and honey, but little by little, he was moving on up.
Ms. McEntire’s grandfather, John McEntire, competing at Cheyenne Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyo., 1934. (Courtesy of Reba McEntire)
Land in Chockie was only $6.40 an acre, and there was good reason for that! A lot of neighbors called it “sorry land,” and they warned Daddy not to buy it. It was rocky, hilly, and didn’t grow much except briars and scrub brush, but he saw something no one else saw in that “sorry land.” He turned a profit selling timber to the paper mill and rocks to the architects in Dallas. Then he struck gas.
That sorry land turned out to be worth more than anyone realized.
Daddy liked the rodeos, but he loved ranching. Rodeoing and selling timber, rocks, and natural gas all helped in the progression of our ranch. Daddy had to travel to compete in rodeos, but he wanted to be home on the ranch.
But ranch life is not an easy life. Maintaining the land and cattle takes time, and you can’t skip a day just because you’re worn out. Working the land was a whole family affair. The only time you wouldn’t find us kids helping out was when we were in school. I thought that going to college would give me a break. Nope. I was wrong. Daddy had leased some land halfway between home and the Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, Oklahoma. So every other day, after my classes, I loaded 30 fifty-pound sacks of feed into my pickup truck and fed the 300 head of cattle.
Not quite the college experience everybody else had!
I didn’t really know anything else though. I had started pitching in before I could even sit in a saddle. I don’t remember exactly the first time I was on a horse, but it feels like I was born riding. Us kids spent a lot of time rounding up cattle. It was rough country, and often we’d have to ride through brush and briars taller than we were on the off chance we’d find even one lonely steer. There was always more work than hands to do it. We got cattle in the spring, straightened them up, and shipped them off to the feed lots in the fall.
Reba McEntire (center) rides on the family ranch in Chockie, Okla., alongside her parents and siblings Susie, Alice, and Pake, while filming the “Reba: Starting Over” CBSTV special in 1995. (Courtesy of Reba McEntire)
Daddy always had a plan to get the job done. Problem was, he wasn’t the best at relaying his plan to the rest of us. He was usually looking the other direction or doing three things at once when he was giving us our instructions for the day. Most of the time, we only got a quarter of what he was trying to tell us. We always looked to Grandpap for an interpretation. I’m sure glad we had him to help us out!
The most important thing about helping out on the ranch was getting in line, doing your part, and following instructions. If our instructions were to sit at a gate until Daddy returned, under no circumstances were we going to abandon our posts. You sat at that gate until Daddy came back and told you that you could leave. It could be several hours, but that didn’t matter. Hot or cold, rain or shine, you stayed glued to your saddle.
It was out there in those hills that I first learned that the work is in the waiting.
Fast-forward 15 years, when I got into the music business. I knew less than nothing about how it all worked. I thought that once your record got on the radio, you got a tour bus and a big ol’ check. You’d made it. You were a big star. Wrong!
I remember being so excited when I heard my debut single playing on our staticky, old radio for the very first time. Mama, Susie, and I were all sitting on the floor, crying with joy, thinking, “This is it.”
But then—not much happened. No fancy tour bus or big royalty check appeared. I felt pretty sure that God had called me to the dream of singing, but much like my daddy giving me instructions up in the hills, it felt like I had only gotten a fourth of what God said, and I knew I needed to wait for more information. So just like I learned as a kid, I stayed patient. And I kept working.
“Not That Fancy: Simple Lessons on Living, Loving, Eating, and Dusting Off Your Boots” by Reba McEntire (Harper Celebrate, 2023).
From hearing that first song on the radio, I spent the next seven years traveling around, playing everywhere I could, living on greasy burgers and corn dogs at truck stops and county fairs from Los Angeles to Boston—seven years of performing at fairs, rodeos, and honky-tonks, singing over bar brawls, tractor-pull competitions, and bull sales. Seven years of patience before I had a real hit, “Can’t Even Get the Blues,” in January 1983.
Even with that hit, the first time I headlined my own show, in 1984, only 800 people showed up, and I actually lost money. I had to write a check to get out of town because I didn’t sell enough tickets. And I thought, “Welcome to the big time!” I sure did appreciate the few who did show up, though!
Thank God for that McEntire determination.
When it came my turn to be a parent, I was determined to teach my son, Shelby, how important hard work is too, but I didn’t need to worry. From an early age, Shelby was a very determined young man. He has a great work ethic. When it came time for him to start his own career, he put his nose to the grindstone. When Shelby told me he wanted to be a race car driver, I wanted to help but had no clue where to start. If there had been a “Racing for Dummies”book, I would have bought 10. I asked anyone I could think of for information, but no one I knew had much advice to give. Scott Borchetta, head of Big Machine Records and a former race car driver himself, told me to buy him a go-kart. But Shelby already had a go-kart! So, we bought Shelby a membership to the Skip Barber Racing School. It’s a school that teaches kids the racing business, and it allowed him to race in as many races as possible. You have to pay your dues in racing, just like you do in the rodeo and music businesses. Shelby raced in the Southern and the Western series. He drove eight to nine races a day for three days every weekend. I gave him my airline miles and hotel points from years of touring, and he flew on Southwest and stayed in the cheapest motels to make the most of it. Funny part was, he was too young to rent a car, so he had to get a taxi or bum a ride to the track.
Ms. McEntire with her son, Shelby, at the race car track. (Courtesy of Reba McEntire)
Shelby could have followed his daddy’s, Narvel Blackstock’s, footsteps into music management, but he chose to chart his own course. He’s now into real estate and developing property. You don’t think your kids listen to half of what you tell them, but Shelby did. I’m so proud of him. He’s kind and confident and is building a life that he’s proud of and that makes him happy. And he still wants me to be a big part of that. I am so grateful.
Most of what you hope for in this life takes time and some old-fashioned stick-to-itiveness. None of us in the McEntire family were overnight successes. From generation to generation, we just keep learning, dreaming, and working hard.
One thing I’m sure of: Good things won’t come if you give up and go home.
