Martha Stewart

[Deleted]

I liked her old television show when she would have her Polish Mama on and she would be kind of mean to her.

Ooh, me too. Or when she would have little kids on there and they'd be setting the table and she'd be all snippy to them, "you are not doing that properly."

And people would send in recipes and she featured one for some lady's old family recipe and she said, "we tried your cookies and we didn't think they were very good" and then continued with how the woman could improve the cookies that her family had been making for years! Ha.

However, it totally bugged the way she had all those special tools for every task. I'm more impressed with the McGuyver approach, being able to build stuff using a pocketknife and a stick of chewing gum.

[december]

Well it kinda is his fault though, cause he was a producer of her version of the Apprentice. If he wanted to protect 'his baby' he (or Burnett) could have stepped in. Martha was only really a hired head she had no offical power behind the scenes.

[swanflake]

I've started watching her daytime talk show. It wasn't carried on any local channel here last year.

My gosh, her show is so foofy. Between the dancing with dogs and the egg separating contests, I can't believe she's still on TV. But it's actually kinda amusing to watch her celebrity guests have to pretend to be interested in whatever she's making them cook. She had Serena Williams on last week, and Serena just kept saying "wow" every few seconds in response to anything Martha said to her. And they were making some boring frittata with nothing other than egg, onion, and potato along with a fennel salad, and seriously, how many times can you say "wow" about fennel?

Oh, and she's such a dork too. She had Randy Jackson on one day, and in introducing him she said, in that really weird tone of voice that is her accent "Did you know that the dog likes cats?" which made no sense at all until I realized that Randy was her guest. Then they started talking and he was promoting some sort of charity event for cats, and so he said "I'm here to kick off--" and she cut him off and said, again, in that annoying Connecticut accent, "Not kick cats?!?" and he was all like "No, no, no, no, no. We're going to kick off an event blah blah whatever". Was she trying to be funny? Because it certainly didn't sound funny, but she seriously couldn't have thought he was about to say that he was going to kick some cats.

She's just an odd one, that Martha. But I like cooking shows so I'll still probably watch from time-to-time.

[johnboysmole]

Her show is just full of awkward moments isn't it? I can't watch it all the way through unless there's a guest I really like, but even then, I get the sense that they are kind of embarassed to be guests on her show.

I actually LOVE the dancing dogs. It's so stupid, but I love it. I think Martha is a normal human, only when she has dogs on her show. She is just not a people person.

[laurel]

johnboysmole said:

She is just not a people person.

I totally agree. I've only seen bits and pieces of her show but from what I've seen she's very awkward around guests. I felt embarrassed for her.

[Deleted]

I loved her stuff at KMart when it first came out but now it is boring and bland. Does she have anything to do with her product line?

[hotransom]

swanflake said:

She's just an odd one, that Martha. But I like cooking shows so I'll still probably watch from time-to-time.

Swanflake, personally I get my cooking show fix on pbs on saturdays with 'everyday food' which features several people that work on her show and 'america's test kitchen' because I love the dorky side of cooking but lack the cable tv necessary to see Alton Brown.

Wean yourself off of Martha. She is the strange and vaguely evil.

[swanflake]

Someone posted in the Paris thread that she was physically assaulted in prison. Is that true? Details?

[december]

There were rumors of it, she herself has said that she wasn't and that the guards did look out for her to an extent she did fall over apparently at one stage that left a bruise that the guards thought was from a fight, but it wasn't. That being said even if something did happen there is no way she would let it get out- this women is the queen if selective memory and brushing over of things- her father, various other quotes and of course the whole trial thing.

I love her, and I think she must have some redeeming features if her fellow inmates protected her like they did-shielding her from paps, and stopping information from getting out. But still bitch crazy.

[mochakitty]

Her Mother Passed Away.

Martha Kostyra, the Polish American mother of Martha Stewart who passed on to her daughter enough cooking, sewing and other household tips to fill several books, has died. She was 93.

Kostyra died Friday at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut, according to information provided by Kevin Lesko of Lesko and Polke Funeral Home in Fairfield Center, Conn. Stewart told her daytime TV audience last week that her mother had been hospitalized after suffering "a small stroke."

"Big Martha," as she was affectionately called, despite her diminutive stature, was the earliest inspiration for the woman who would turn a small catering operation into an international business empire devoted to achieving domestic perfection.

Martha Ruszkowski was born Sept. 16, 1914, in Buffalo, N.Y. She married Edward Kostyra, and together they raised six children in a middle-class Catholic household in suburban Nutley, N.J. Both were teachers, although Kostyra's husband later became a pharmaceuticals salesman.

The Kostyras instilled a strong work ethic in their children and expected them to learn to become self-sufficient.

"They were very good parents," Stewart told the Washington Post in 1994. "They never didn't have time to explain something. That's how I raised my daughter, Alexis, too. And that's what I hope the American family could be and should be: busy and happy and everybody helping each other."

Stewart, the second-oldest child and oldest daughter, credited her mother as the source of many of her recipes and her culinary expertise. Her 1983 book "Martha Stewart's Quick Cook" was dedicated "to my mother, Martha Kostyra, and her mother, my early teachers." As Stewart wrote in her 1985 book "Martha Stewart's Pies & Tarts," "My mother spent most of her time in the kitchen, cooking, baking and sewing."

Stewart acknowledged her mother's influence throughout her lavish books and magazine articles and featured Kostyra on her television program dozens of times, kneading dough side by side with her at a kitchen counter or having her demonstrate a sewing technique...

Stewart posted an announcement of Kostyra's death Friday on her blog, blogs1.marthastewart.com/martha/, and offered a video tribute to her mother. In one clip, Kostyra tells her daughter with a smile, "People ask me all the time, 'Did Martha learn everything she knows from you?' So I say, 'Of course.' "