Martha Knows Best

We sent away for tickets to the Martha Stewart Show taping in NYC. I can testify that she is very particular about what the studio audience wears during the taping (a lot of "Dress to impress!!!" in emails). The staff is also incredibly organized, more than I ever remember about attending David Letterman tapings when I was younger. Actor Ted Danson was there, and he is associated with an organization called Oceana. We got many free things from the show including his new book about saving our oceans . We were also given a chart to help us decide which type of fish were better to eat in terms of their risk of extinction in the oceans. There was also a segment on which products to buy that were more friendly to the rainforest, and how to decipher symbols in grocery stores on packages (like organic and fair trade products).

Ted Danson and Martha also made a salt-baked sea bass. I haven't used this technique before, but apparently it helps to cook the fish very evenly, and Thomas Keller has a very similar recipe in Ad Hoc at Home I noticed today. Martha also has a new line of cleaning products which is good for the environment and for pets (she gave us both a huge amount, and they were very heavy to carry during the rest of our day in the city), and a copy of her new magazine Whole Living which is about healthy living and has some good recipes.

(Kitchen:)

I was also really impressed by how elaborate the set was. There was a real kitchen (where they actually cooked everything), a kitchen that looked like it was in a suburban home, a craft room, a green house (which was where they had all the pets running around).

(Greenhouse: )

 (Martha had to prove her cleaning products were safe for pets by cleaning with a parrot on her shoulder:)

Actually I will say I was sort of impressed with her. At the end people asked her questions, and she actually gave everyone very good, specific answers. I saw in her magazine Whole Living that there are now "Martha Stewart" brand houses in Florida which are powered by solar power, and it seemed at a certain point what is she really doing? She is not an engineer or an architect so that seems just like sticking a brand name on someone else's work. But she seemed to feel very strongly that the audience member from Long Island with the high heating bills needed to replace her drafty doors, and seemed to have some very good composting advice (which I can't confirm, but it sounded authoritative). She was very chill the whole time and wholly unimpressed that everyone was cheering for her. She just sat there drinking her tea. And when Ted Danson said "this is hard, have you done this before?" even though she had a huge staff actually cooking the food in the next room she said to him very smugly "Of course I have done this before!" It was really fun, and I found her amusing.