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Martha One
by Kate Zimmerman for the North Shore News
PREPARE to meet thy Martha.
That’s what my colleagues and I told ourselves as we got ready to meet one of the most famous people of the last decade, albeit at a breakfast at Sears.
I don’t know about my co-workers, but I’d been following Martha’s career since she was knee-high to a topiary. I bought into her rural sophisticate shtick way back in 1983, when I purchased (as she would say in her shabby-genteel fashion) her second cookbook, Martha Stewart’s Quick Cook. She was a mere Westport, Connecticut wife-and-caterer in those days, a rosy-cheeked, puffy-sleeved purveyor of Herb-Roasted Chicken with Baked Shallots and “Paper-thin Apple Tarts.” This was when she was still raising chickens, claiming to own 100 rare birds who would produce — on demand, no doubt — eggs in a variety of comely pastel shades.
But oh, the lovely china Martha presented her food upon, and oh, the allure of her gleaming copper pots. Shameless consumerism was nothing to sneeze at back then; in her view, it still isn’t. (Witness, the Everyday line at Sears.) The concept of owning 15 kinds of china, earthenware and faience seemed perfectly sensible, and the idea that one ought to position one’s guest’s bowl of cabbage leek soup on a Japanese silk obi (whatever that was — a geisha’s girdle, perhaps) seemed not ludicrous when pictured in a Martha Stewart cookbook, but warmly welcoming.
Yes, Martha was a goddess in those days, often called the doyenne, or diva, of domesticity. Her perfectionism has since produced numerous cookbooks, an eponymous magazine, an online business, numerous television shows and two biographies by others, one good (Just Desserts) and one boring (Martha, Inc.).
Martha is no longer a mere goddess; she’s become Martha Stewart Omnimedia. As recently as a year and a half ago, if she had declared herself God, quite a few people would have signed up for her church. (Trust me, at that church the holy host would have been homemade.)
Of course now, she’s also Martha Stewart, potential felon. As everybody knows, the multi-millionaire who may well be the success story of the last 20 years is currently enduring a spectacular fall from grace. Accused of interfering with the investigation into the suspicious timing of her sale of ImClone Systems stocks in 2001, she hasn’t yet gone to trial. But the jokes started early on, about her redecorating her prison cell, sprucing up the jail menu, getting the chain gang to pull taffy, etc.
Nevertheless, when my colleagues and I heard she’d be coming to town to launch her new line at Sears, our first concern was not that Martha would taint us by giving us insider trading tips. “If she tries, we can always cover our ears and chant ‘Na na na na na’ or whatever,” I suggested. “Or listen, and thereby profit,” said my co-worker.
What really concerned us was what to wear. Martha is notorious for her lack of vanity, but she is even better known for her outstanding taste when it comes to her households and their accoutrements. Ought one to try to attract her attention by wearing something tasteless, say, the sorts of thing one would wear any other day? Or ought one to dress a la Martha, in classic Americana (monochromatic suit, wee earrings, loafers), in an effort to appear on-side, whether one actually was or not?
“I don’t care what she thinks of what I wear,” I said rebelliously, thinking of the time Preston Manning, then head of the Reform Party, came to the News and I dressed like a hooker on purpose. “She’s not the boss of me.”
My sweeter colleague thought she might wear a recent purchase, a feminine dress with modest decolletage, and her usual pig-tails. I recommended that she wear a frilly white apron for the full Leave It to Beaver impression. Meanwhile, our photographer was toying with wearing a plaid suit. I don’t know why; he may be insane.
Why were we worrying about this? Because Martha is so intimidating. You don’t have to have read about her rages, her stalking of her ex-husband’s girlfriend or her questionable business practices previous to her indictments to have the fear of Martha put into you. One icy remark by the Omnimaniac and, I suspect, one would be quite decidedly put in one’s place.
Writing > Humour
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