Those who don’t learn proper cooking techniques are doomed to a life of licking pages from fancy-food magazines. Cause a stir with this deal to see celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich’s live cooking show, Lidia Live!, at the Byham Theater on Saturday, June 2, at 2:30 p.m. Choose from the following options:

• For $19, you get one ticket for gallery seating (up to a $38.25 value, including all fees)
• For $26, you get one ticket for mezzanine seating (up to a $53.25 value, including all fees)
• For $109, you get a show and dinner package for two (up to a $219.80 total value, including all fees), which includes:
• Orchestra seating for two to Lidia Live! on Saturday, June 2, at 2:30 p.m. (up to a $53.25 value per person)
• Four-course dinner for two at Lidia’s Italy on Friday, June 1, at 6 p.m. (a $57.15 value per person)<p>

Lidia Bastianich, who was deemed “the queen of Italian-American cooking” by the New York Times, touches the hearts and stomachs of millions as the host of critically acclaimed PBS cooking shows. Though her predilection for borrowing elements of other cuisines is well known, Bastianich’s cooking is deeply rooted in family tradition, and her domestic soul is reflected in her decision to film her television shows in her own home. Lidia Live! at the Byham Theater presents an invitation inside the celebrity chef’s extraordinary life, from her formative years in Pula, to her family’s escape from Yugoslavia when she was 7, to the birth of her culinary empire and beyond. While her story unfolds in her own words (along with multimedia cameos by Grandma Erminia and daughter Tanya), Lidia bustles away at a cooking demo showcasing her accessibly elegant style. Surprisingly funny and eternally down-to-earth, Lidia practices her craft with a mother’s eye for detail and an inexhaustible joie de vivre, which is Italian for “some French words.”

On Friday, June 1, the evening before the show, foodies with tickets for dinner trundle over to Lidia’s Italy for a four-course tour de force of Italian-American cooking. The meal kicks off with a grilled caesar salad, a zucchini and rice crostata, and Cajun fried artichokes with a rèmoulade as zesty as the Big Easy from which it hails. Next, freshly folded ravioli stuffed with sausage and ricotta serenades pleasure receptors with an accompanying chorus of asparagus stalks and seasonal legume risotto, pairing harmoniously with a refreshing glass of 2009 sauvignon blanc from Bastianich’s vineyards. Pork scaloppini alla sorrentina composes the third course, topped with eggplant and melted mozzarella and joined by a smoky, peachy 2006 Bastianich vespa bianco. Boston cream cake, blueberry tarts, and rainbow cookies seal the meal’s deal with bites that are sweeter than an unexpected hug from Frankenberry. The recipes for all of the items on the restaurant’s extravagant menu can be found in the pages of Bastianich’s new book, Lidia’s Italy in America.