For Lidia Bastianich, taking care of people is second nature. While on set of her PEOPLE photo shoot (on newsstands Friday), a sanitation truck passes by the chef’s sprawling home in Queens, and the driver honks the horn to say hello. “They’re nice to me because I feed them,” says Bastianich, 76, who makes to-go packages for the workers to eat on their break. 

Bastianich has been demonstrating her hospitality on her public television shows over the last 25 years. Her house, which she has owned since 1983, overlooks Little Neck Bay and is a Mediterranean oasis a mere 20 miles from Manhattan. Boasting a vegetable garden, a rotisserie and a commercial oven that she lovingly calls “my Ferrari,” it has been the setting for the photo shoots for all 14 of her cookbooks as well as her TV shows, including Lidia’s Kitchen, now in its 11th season.