>> i'm all choked-up about california artichokes. stay with me for one of the most delicious soups you'll ever make! [ theme music playing ] [ lidia squeals ] >> man: you feel the shock? >> lidia: yeah, i feel the shock and the pinch. ah, feels good. say "chioggia." >> chioggia. >> ah, there you go, you're italian. can i just get into it? come and join me! made possible by buonitalia. established by the italian ministry for agriculture, food, and forestry policy, we promote and protect the italian agrifood system all over the world. we represent authentic, artisanal products from italy, buonitalia.

grana padano cheese -- versatile and very italian. an italian family brand. >> buon giorno! buon giorno, benvenuti, to "lidia's italy in america." today i'll take you from the luscious new jersey

garden state on the east coast, to california, the bountiful, green california on the west coast. these beautiful fields of silver-green artichokes, and there i visited the pezzini farm, four generations of italians still growing artichokes there. and guido, who is the patriarch, i said, "well, guido, what is your favorite way of eating artichokes?" and he looked really kind of nostalgic, and he said, "you know, my favorite way is when my mother made artichoke soup." so, let's begin. a little bit of olive oil, garlic -- you can chop them, you can slice them. chopping them like this just lets out more and more of the flavor, so... the more you chop up a garlic, the more flavor you're going to get. so they're just golden. a little shallots. again, we're building the flavors.

just a little bit of salt. and what i usually do, just so it disintegrates a little bit when it begins to be golden, i just take a little bit of the water. and that will begin to break things down. a little peperoncino. you know, that's, again, i think, my touch -- although, at the farm, basic italian elements where there, because, you know, that's what they needed to cook. and food, in one's culture, in one's roots, is one of the most important elements, because it transcends, you know? you lose the italian or the language within the first generation, most likely. but food transcends three, four, five generations. keep those recipes, make notes,

and pass them down through generations -- get them in the kitchen. let me just kind of put the shallots and the garlic on the side so i have some nice, clear hot space to toast the potatoes right here. okay, just a little bit of salt on the potatoes. and now let's clean the artichoke. and just pluck them off. you go down to the base. you can do that. if you're a little bit more adventurous, you can just go in and just cut them off, just like that. and you get to the heart. and these -- these are tough, as well, and then we have to go into the choke. and this is the choke -- that kind of spiny and dry. and you see the line right here, this is the heart of the artichoke, which we all love.

so you go with a sharp paring knife right in there. and you get the choke out, like that. and you see how it oxidizes rather quickly -- begins to be black. make sure you have a bowl of acidulous water, just like this, where you put the cut artichokes in there. scrape off any of the beard that's in there. let me just check the potatoes here. okay. and small slices. there's some great frozen artichoke hearts that you can buy, and it still would make a great soup. but, you know, the beautiful fresh ingredients actually cannot be replaced now i'm going to flavor it a little bit with one bay leaf,

some thyme -- fresh thyme. then we'll put in lots of leeks. leeks are delicious for soup. here i have some hot water, and we'll just pour it in. to that we will add the artichokes. let's just fish them out of the water. and that will simmer away, covered, for about a half an hour, and it also really depends on the artichokes and some are tougher than others. salt. i'll cover this. you bring to a boil then let it simmer for about a half an hour, i'll taste it and we'll see if it's done. in castroville, california, the artichoke capital of the world, tanya and i visited the

pezzini farm, which is run by three generations of italian americans. son, tony, and his father, guido, met us in the artichoke field -- what better place to talk about this delicious vegetable. so, tony, artichokes are a good business? >> it is a good business. and just growing up here, working in the fields every day, i just love walking through, just like my father, and just -- and it's great to grow a good quality product, too. >> isn't it? >> it really is. >> i mean, you know, as a chef, i appreciate so much what you do, and the people out there appreciate. now, tell me, how much acres do you have? what kind of volume do you do? >> right now we have about 100 acres of artichokes, and we do roughly between 75,000 and 80,000 cartons a year. >> wow, that's a lot of artichoke! i use a good part of it for my recipes. >> you do -- oh, good! [ laughter ] >> lidia: we walked through the beautiful artichoke field until we came upon a perfect specimen, a hardy artichoke plant with buds of many sizes. this is a beautiful specimen,

and different sizes! tell me about it -- what would this size be considered? >> yes, we call this a number one, and this will turn into a jumbo size, or a large artichoke. and then further down the stalk -- and we call this the stalk -- you have your medium-sized, which are number twos. and this will produce three or four different sizes in the medium-to-large category. and then further down the stalk you have your small-loose and large-loose. >> oh, so, here, you have even the little ones -- look at this, the little ones. you know, i get those, i buy them at the store, and i just braise them -- i eat the whole thing, it's like candy! >> you can, there's no choke in the middle. >> right. when is an artichoke ripe, ready to be picked? >> well, the guys will go through and they'll look for an artichoke like this. you can tell it's ready to pick because the leaves are starting to spread out, the inner part is not spread, so it is ready to pick. and let me pick this off for you. >> okay! oh, this is beautiful.

so, tell me -- [ leaves squeaking ] it's squeaking. so, when -- i know, and i look for an artichoke when i buy it, i love it when it squeaks. it speaks to me -- that means freshness, right? >> that means freshness, and also the stem, if the stem is rubbery, you know it's a few days old. >> if it's dry and if it's wilted. >> dry, rubbery, wilted, it won't squeak like -- >> and, certainly, when the leaves become a little brown, that's a no-no. >> that's a no-no. >> that means it's been around for a few weeks. >> right. and with artichokes, it's okay for the leaves to spread out, especially during the summer months -- they will spread out, but it won't affect the heart. the hearts will still be... >> right, so you kind of peel them off, and then you cook them the way you want it. >> yes, just like what you do, many different ways. >> beautiful -- they're gifts of nature. verdura imbottite -- >> tanya: or farcite. >> farcite -- stuffed. any way you put it, they're stuffed. in italy, the ligurians were really great at this -- they had

these recipes. then, sort, it transported, like everything else, like the immigrants. the ligurians came -- they came into -- >> baltimore. that's sort of where the ligurians settled first. >> but, you know, in new jersey, which is such an enclave of italians and vegetables, and the two just go together well. >> yes, new jersey has, you know, a great climate. there are the jersey tomatoes and all the other beautiful vegetables that are grown there. from liguria, from the hill towns of liguria, they would have these great vegetables growing there, and when the immigrants came here, it's really one of the first things they did, if they could find a little piece of land, is begin growing vegetables for their own family, these backyard gardens and things like that. and, of course, in a place like new jersey, that grew into a wonderful industry. >> sure, sure, it's the garden state, it produces, i think, three crops a year when we went to the maugeri farms, yeah. yeah, they told us. so, you save all these pieces, you know? and that -- we're going to put

all that in the -- in the stuffing. so, i'm stuffing here an onion, some peppers, zucchini, even celery. you have two children, lorenzo and julia. will they like something like this? >> my kids would like this. they like things that are stuffed with bread, or you could stuff -- sometimes they do it with ground meat, you know, so the kids like that. you know, my kids are fortunate in that, from a very young age, we kept vegetables on the table. it was just -- we like vegetables, so it was just part of everything that we did normally. so, they're used to seeing vegetables. it's not like when julia turned six i surprised her with broccoli -- she's always eaten it, so it goes down fine. this, in particular, because you have the cheese and it gets a little crunchy in the oven, so it's kind of, like, camouflaging the vegetable a little bit, but... >> you're adding another dimension, some texture, flavors. like this onion, you see? i'm just kind of scooping it out. i'm going to use that, but we're going to put the stuffing right in here. put that there.

and i've separated the vegetables like this. first of all, because there's a lot of volume, but also because some take longer to cook. these will cook faster than that, so we put them in a separate venue and we bake them more. zucchini, readily available, certainly, you know. >> economical, it's not expensive, yeah, sure. >> so just -- just kind of, you know, make a pocket for yourself. and even the celery, it cooks very well. you know, i mean, just braising it with tomato sauce... [ sizzling ] okay, oh, the soup -- >> the soup is acting up. do you want me to squeeze this out? >> yeah. so, now, is it nice and wet? >> it's wet, i've been putting a little pressure on it. >> so, squeeze it out, put it in here, and then i'm going to chop all of this and we're going to put it in the stuffing, and then we have a whole other slew of things to put in. so, another element, i think -- certainly the genovese are very known to be frugal, because -- using everything in the kitchen, in this case we're using the bread -- and you don't go out

and buy fresh bread to do this, you use the bread that you have that's leftover. the crustier the bread, the better it is. okay, let me just work away at this. okay. okay, so, we have a little bit of chopped provola. you know, melted cheese is always good in stuffings. a little bit of grated cheese. a little bit of scallion just to give it that freshness. and scallion is another one of those underused vegetables, and it's year-round -- you get the freshness of the green, and it's not expensive. parsley. okay. just a little bit to kind of tighten it all up. go ahead. give it a good, good -- make it into a mesh, kind of. so, i will just season these, because we'll bake them right into -- in these pans. so, let's do a little bit

of salt. >> mmm. >> i didn't put any salt there. >> it smells delicious just even like that. >> already. >> yeah, with the olive oil and parsley and scallion. >> you see how simple it is? a little bit of -- >> i think the kids would, like, enjoy stuffing something like this, too, and i find that if they cook it, they eat it more willingly because they've participated in it. >> this is an ideal dish to get them involved. you know, you have it all clean. they're getting to smell them and see the vegetables, and, ultimately, i think the feeling of accomplishment that they've kind of worked at it, it really is -- okay, so, let me just -- you know, i mean, stuffing -- you know stuffing. not too much, just like that. we'll put it right in there. i will toss these. i just love it, you know, when the onions kind of really roast and become sweet, and the stuffing gets crunchy on top. >> and you can do this with those fabulous maugeri farm tomatoes, too. >> ah, okay!

>> so i have a little bit leftover, i'm just going to top it off here, and anyone that's missing. >> that's right, press it in. >> a little extra stuffing. >> yeah, don't let it go to waste. and then we will drizzle it a little bit with the oil. just like that. and let's top it with some cheese. just a little bit. and everybody loves cheese, of course. everybody loves cheese. okay, we'll cover it with some paper. okay. okay, so you... cover it tightly, like this. you put it in a preheated 400° oven, and you leave it for about 20 minutes to a half an hour, depends on how big the pieces are. you look at it, you uncover it, and you let it get crusty for another 10 to 15 minutes, you pull it out. i mean, you could serve it hot. i love it at room temperature, you know? so, that's great. thanks, tanya. >> my pleasure. >> and you'll get one of these. >> i'll be back to eat some.

>> oh, you will? you want to take some home for the kids? >> sure. >> okay. tanya and i had the great pleasure of visiting the maugeri family of maugeri farms, a third-generation italian-american owned farm, at their home in woolwich township, new jersey. joe maugeri, jr., greeted us. thank you for having us in your home! my daughter, tanya. >> your gorgeous farm. beautiful. >> lidia: maugeri farms provides delicious new jersey produce to local restaurants and grocery stores across the nation. so that's anna? hey, anna, you're the matriarch here, huh? how are you doing? >> so nice to meet you! >> mama anna maugeri served tanya and i a wonderful lunch of roasted peppers, eggplant parmigiana, tomato and cucumber salads, and a platter of chicken cutlets thrown in for good measure. all the produce was freshly picked that morning at their farm. allora, thank you for having us, salute, buon appetito. it felt like a homecoming,

a welcoming like my mother would prepare. but we came to the garden state to see the vegetables in all their glory -- in the fields. so joe and his son, cameron, took us to see the seemingly never-ending bounty of wonderful tomatoes. so, tell me, how many acres do you have here? >> i believe there's about 20 acres in this field. >> so, how long will you be picking? because i see some very green ones -- do you pick every day? >> we pick usually every other day. we try and pick half of the field each day. when the tomato first starts to turn we call them "breakers," because it's just starting to break a little bit of color, and we pick them just past breakers. so, they have a little bit of color, but far from ripe, because we have to have time to pack them and ship them to the customer. if we pick them red, by the time they got to the table, they'd be mush. >> lidia: and then i got to work, harvesting some myself. this is perfect. >> yeah, i try to tell the men it's anaranjado -- it's turning -- starting to turn orange. >> just when it turns orange?

and this will have, now, what, four or five days -- and by the time it gets to the market, it's red. >> exactly. >> and it doesn't need any special, uh, place to mature or anything, just -- >> no, no. >> beautiful. >> don't refrigerate them. >> yeah. >> never refrigerate. >> don't refrigerate. >> never refrigerate. >> right. okay. ah! i'm getting to sweat -- i'm working up a sweat, here! >> cameron: me, too! [ lidia laughs ] >> lidia: a great, simple salad of radicchio, goat cheese and raisins. so, radicchio -- the radicchio di chioggia, and radicchio trevisano -- both are really readily available in the markets. chioggia and treviso are two different cities in italy, and, you know, this belongs to chioggia, this belongs to treviso. but what's wonderful about this -- and certainly there's plenty of it now, even growing out in california. but what's great, this is from the endive family, it has the bitterness. so, if you're used to endives,

uh, you know, those white -- basically, they're the same family, and you know, that kind of crunchy and bitter taste. and it makes a great salad. so, chioggia -- this one is the one that, maybe, you'll find more in the stores. it's very simple -- you wash it, of course. you take out any of the outer leaves if they're old. then you just cut out the core. just like that -- almost like a cabbage. you just shred it. and you can shred it larger or smaller, depends on -- on how your family or guests like it. what i have added here to this salad is -- and it could be endless. i added goat cheese, because that's a great, kind of, pronounced flavor, nice acidity. but gorgonzola cheese or bleu cheese could be just as good. there.

so, here we are. and, basically, you know, just make a salad out of it. i have some raisins that have been soaking in the balsamic vinegar, so i'm going to just put it all in, raisins and the balsamic vinegar. olive oil. salt. just a little parsley for, kind of, another color element. and goat cheese -- and i'm going to break it in like this, now, and even big chunks. but i'll leave some, also, for the topping, crumbling it like this. so, let's toss it now. and get yourself a big -- i mean, i made it here for -- for, uh... a table full. okay, so let me plate it for you now. so, i'm going to showcase it on

a nice, wide bowl. the cheese is evenly spread. the raisins are throughout. take a little bit for me, because i want to taste it. okay. and, maybe just crumble some more goat cheese on top, just like that. and i think that's... that's enough. put a little bit on my own. okay! so, oh, i'm going to get this spoon, because here you have all the -- let me -- let me just eat it with the spoon. mmm. really good. bitterness of the radicchio, and then you get the sweetness of the raisin; balsamic vinegar, and then, of course, the complexity of the goat cheese. delicious salad.

the soup is ready, vegetables are done, i made a salad, and tanya -- >> i'm back! i'm back to taste it all. >> ah, you see? you see -- no, you helped. you helped, so it's always nice. well, we have a little lunch tete-a-tete, you and i -- it's beautiful. so, what would you like? you like a little, um, olive oil in the soup? some formaggio? >> uh, yes, i would like a little olive oil and formaggio. and i'm going to serve the vegetables. which one do you want for yourself? >> oh, it's up to you. i'm going to give you a piece of celery. >> okay -- and an onion, and, uh, what else? >> uh, a pepper. >> yeah, yeah. i think i'd like a pepper. okay, so, let's taste the soup first. i am kind of... you know? guido and his soup, you remember? you were there with me. >> i was there -- that was adorable, with all the dogs running up and down, checking out the artichoke plants, and guido was so cute. >> good soup.

you know, really good soup. >> mmm! that's delicious -- and how soft all the artichoke is! >> yeah. okay, tell me what you think about the celery. and... okay, i'm cutting it all up. >> mmm! >> do you like the celery? >> mm-hmm! >> isn't that good? >> that's delicious. >> mm-hmm -- so, let me taste the celery. >> mmm. >> mm-hmm! mmm. nice and crunchy. >> my pepper comes with a piece of onion. >> delicious -- really good. >> mm-hmm. >> nice and crunchy. now, this one is really crunchy, i left it on top -- the cheese, it's like having, you know, that cheese crisp, almost. really, really good. i think we did a good job. so... >> i think we deserve to toast to ourselves. >> absolutely -- to ourselves, to our family -- we'll invite them all over. but we've forgotten somebody. >> yeah. >> go ahead? >> so, come join us --

tutti a tavola a mangiare! >> yes, you heard the lady! this companion cookbook, available for $35, contains every recipe featured in this season of "lidia's italy in america." the "best of lidia" dvd is also available for $19.99. for $39.95, we'll send you the cookbook and the "best of lidia" dvd, a $54.99 value. to order, call 1-800-play-pbs, or visit shoppbs.org/lidia. to get recipes, tips, techniques and much more, visit us online at...

established by the italian ministry for agriculture, food, and forestry policy, we promote and protect the italian agrifood system all over the world. we represent authentic, artisanal products from italy, buonitalia.

grana padano cheese -- versatile and very italian. a dark chocolate and hazelnut kiss from the heart of italy. >> when you have a good chunk of cheese, it doesn't always have to be like this -- it could be like this! or like this! or just like this. mmm! >> welcome to "skyweek." let's see what's happening in the sky from monday, july 22,

to sunday, july 28. two fine constellations are side-by-side in the south -- hook-tailed scorpius on the right, and sagittarius to its left. modern star charts usually show sagittarius as a teapot. it's an eye-catching pattern, even though none of its stars is super bright. but sagittarius means "archer," and the bow and arrow are easy to picture if you visualize the stars that way. according to ancient greek tradition, the bowman was either the centaur chiron, or the satyr crotus. this is tony flanders from "sky & telescope" magazine, wishing you clear skies and great views. >> brought to you by... manufacturers of telescopes and binoculars.

maybe you have some energy- saving appliances, like an energy star-rated washer and dryer. but what about your tv? chances are it's on more than your washer, dryer, and kitchen appliances combined. did you know that if half of us in the u.s. replaced our regular tvs with an energy star model, the change would be like shutting down a power plant? you can find the energy star on everything from standard to high def to the largest flat-screen your heart desires. ow that makes sense. gcgcww

hi. i'm rachel. come join my friends, alex and leah and hopkins, for signing time! leah uses american sign language. we'll teach you some. come sign with us. ♪ there's singing time and dancing time ♪ ♪ and laughing time and playing time ♪ ♪ and now it is our favorite time--signing time! ♪ ♪ it's signing time! with alex and leah ♪