Martha Stewart is a difficult figure to sum up. It feels like the 83-year-old multi-hyphenate who is largely known for her entertaining, cooking, and gardening advice has truly done it all.
There’s a good chance you have one of her 101(!) books that help readers organize their homes, cook delicious recipes, plan a beautiful wedding, and manage their gardens (her latest, Martha Stewart’s Gardening Handbook, has this covered). Or perhaps, you know her from her Emmy award-winning shows Martha and Martha Stewart Living or from starring as a judge on Food Network shows like Chopped (including the five-episode Martha Rules tournament) or hosting Bakeaway Camp with Martha Stewart. Maybe you’re a fan of her blog, her magazines, or her Instagram (remember her iconic 2020 thirst trap that sent the internet into a tizzy?). It’s possible you even cook out of an editor-loved Martha Stewart-branded Dutch oven. After all that, we’re still not done describing everything that Martha Stewart has accomplished.
And she’s not finished yet. She’s starring as a host alongside renowned chef José Andrés in NBC’s new show Yes, Chef! premiering at the end of the month. Right before that, though, is the BIC EZ Reach x Swed Supper Club, which Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg have helped curate.
In celebration of Easter on 4/20, this dinner will take place a few days ahead of the holiday on April 17 and will feature drinks like cannabis-infused mocktails and non-cannabis-infused dishes like smoked oysters and baked Alaska. Plus, you’ll be able to pick the aesthetic you want to embrace for the night: Martha’s “effortless elegance” or Snoop’s “West Coast chill vibe.” Reservations for the West Hollywood dinner are currently open, so if you’ll be in California on April 17 and don’t have any plans, well, now you do!
For this edition of Cooking Diary, Martha Stewart tells us what’s growing in her garden currently, the dinner she always has in her freezer, and what dish of hers Snoop Dogg prefers.
What’s a dish your friends and family are constantly asking you to bring to gatherings?
My friend had a dinner party. It wasn’t a potluck, but I had so many beautiful tomatoes. This was for my neighbors across the street, Ann Leary and Denis Leary. I just had gorgeous tomatoes. So I took big, thick slices of tomato on a great big platter with a delicious shallot-y vinaigrette, and they were so happy with that and so were the guests.
Do your neighbors request any special ingredients from your garden?
They stand in line for eggs, especially now. If I have peaches, I’ll bring my peaches into the office because they’re so delicious.
I have very nice neighbors. I have one neighbor, Andy, his name is. He’s Chinese, and he brings me Chinese dumplings, and he brings me blue potato bread that’s very delicious, and all kinds of stuff. It’s nice to have neighbors that share.
You work with Snoop Dogg a lot. Is there a dish you make that he particularly loves?
He loves fried chicken. Give Snoop fried chicken, he’s very happy. He likes omelets, too. He likes my eggs. He does not like things like oysters or caviar. He’s fussy. He’s a very fussy eater, and a plain eater.
Are there any specific add-ins he likes in his omelets?
He likes onions, but he picks things out. If you put things in, he’ll pick them out.
I spent a week in Paris at the Olympics, and he was at the same hotel. And when I watched him eat, it was just so odd, the way he is so fussy.
When it comes to your breakfast, what do you typically make for yourself?
Breakfast is a fresh green juice in my Breville juicer made from vegetables that I grow in my greenhouse during the winter and in my garden in the summer. Today, I drank a nice 8-ounce glass of juice made out of spinach, parsley, cucumber, celery, ginger, maybe a half an orange with the peel — I like the peel. And maybe if I have some papaya cut up in the fridge, or maybe some pear. But nothing sweet. I don’t like sweet juice. I don’t put sugary vegetables in it, so I don’t put carrots or beets or anything like that — too much sugar.
Then I have my tablespoon of marine collagen. I have one delicious cappuccino. I have a big cappuccino machine in my kitchen. So, everybody — everybody — comes to my kitchen for a cappuccino.
And either three-quarters of a cup of homemade oatmeal — cracked oats, not rolled oats — maybe with a little bit of skim milk or homemade yogurt. I make my yogurt every week from whole farm milk, and it’s delicious. Now I’m eating it with either a tiny bit of maple syrup or with blackstrap molasses. I had that this morning. It looked like a hot fudge sundae. I might have a boiled egg, too, instead of the oatmeal.
For lunch, I have … not much — maybe a salad, maybe a soup. Via Quadronno makes a delicious puréed vegetable soup. If I’m in the city, I go and get a pint of that. And no bread.
Do you have a specific salad you prefer?
Lots of things in it, lots of vegetables. It might be tomato and fresh mozzarella and papaya or mango and chicory lettuce.
Now that spring’s here, what’s your favorite ingredient to cook with out of your garden?
Right now we have lots of lettuce — all kinds of lettuce and chicories. I picked beets the other day for a beet salad, and one of the beets was 4 and a half pounds. It was so crazy.
Do you have any plans for that beet?
Yes, I cut it up into small pieces, boiled it, and fed it to my chickens. They loved it.
When you’re in a rush or don’t feel like cooking, what’s your favorite thing to make for dinner?
I go out for dinner usually, if I’m in the city. At home last night, I had pho with very fine Soba noodles, cabbage, scallions, and shiitake mushrooms. That was my dinner, a big bowl of that.
When we make pho, we freeze quarts of it, and so I always have that. In my freezer, I have homemade parsnip soup. I have homemade celeriac soup. These are purées that I make from my garden vegetables. I have sorrel. I have butternut squash soup. So I can just take that out and heat that up and add more vegetables to it if I want. But I eat very healthfully at home.
It sounds like you’re eating a lot of vegetables.
Oh lots. And fish. I love fish, too. I eat very little meat.
What’re you drinking with dinner?
I do not drink by myself ever in my home, so nothing alcoholic. It’s just been a habit of mine. I drink iced tea or sparkling water from my SodaStream.
But if somebody’s over, we can have a martini, and I add my favorite Żubrówka vodka. I have a restaurant in Las Vegas. It’s called The Bedford, and it’s in the Paris hotel. It’s the best bar in Vegas. There are Martha-tinis, there are Martha-ritas, there are lemon drops, there are Cachaça Caipirinhas — very, very delicious drinks. I would serve any one of those kinds of drinks to my friends.
If you were attending your own restaurant, what would you order?
Usually, a Martha-tini. I was there last week, and I had a Martha-tini. It was delicious.
Żubrówka vodka, Dolin vermouth — just a splash — and it’s icy, icy cold with a great big twist of lemon peel. Delish.
Is there a dessert you enjoy making just for yourself?
I try not to eat a lot of dessert at home. I’ll eat dessert in a restaurant, but I don’t eat too much dessert. I did make a brioche bread pudding the other day, and I ate some of that. That was delicious.
