"Martha Live" on SiriusXM - Coming Soon!

Martha is set to host her first live call-in show on SiriusXM Satellite Radio, starting on February 19th! Fans of Martha's former channel on SiriusXM 110, Martha Stewart Living Radio, can still listen to shows from the vast Martha Stewart broadcast archive 24/7 on a new Martha Stewart channel on SiriusXM Internet Radio online and via smartphones and other connected devices. The new two-hour live show will air daily from noon to 2:00 pm ET, and replay from 7:00 to 9:00 pm ET on SiriusXM Stars, channel 107.

This will be the first time that Martha Stewart has hosted a daily radio show, and will be the first format that exposes every aspect of her vast interests and experiences, from her enduring passion for living well to her leadership in new media; her international explorations and discoveries; the fascinating people she meets from all walks of life; her growing appeal to millennials and her philanthropic endeavors.

The new Martha Live show will feature segments including “Ask Martha,” with live call-ins; “Mostly Martha,” with high-profile guest interviews and discussions; segments hosted by Martha’s favorite experts; as well as curated segments from Martha’s vast archives of radio and television.

Martha Live will also be available on SiriusXM On Demand listening via the SiriusXM Internet Radio App for smartphones and other mobile devices, and online at SiriusXM.com.

“I am happy to launch my newest show on SiriusXM, and I look forward to spending more time than ever sharing my knowledge and experiences with listeners from all over the country and learning from them and my guests,” said Martha Stewart.

“Our subscribers have clearly spoken: they want more access to Martha and we could not be happier to give them that exactly. For the first time, Martha will host a daily radio show, and will expand her format to include everything that interests and fascinates her,” said Scott Greenstein, President and Chief Content Officer, SiriusXM. “Her show will be as eclectic as her amazing array of interests and skills, and will feature many opportunities for listeners to call in live. Martha is always educating, always informing, always interesting and now, SiriusXM listeners will get the most of Martha.”

Living the Good Long Life

Martha Stewart's next book, Living The Good Long Life, is due out on May 7th and it's one that I'm really looking forward to. We all know how gracefully Martha is aging. At the age of 71 she is still extremely active, at work and at home, constantly learning, exploring and looking after herself by eating well, exercising and taking time to enjoy her family and friends. She doesn't look a day over 50! The book touts itself as a guide to caring for yourself and others with practical information for those caring for aging relatives or looking after themselves. This is a subject that is very dear to Martha. The creation of the Martha Stewart Center for Living - a geriatric community center at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan that encourages active living for the elderly - is just one of several contributions Martha has made to the cause of healthy aging. (Dr. Audrey Chun, the director of the Center for Living, writes the foreword.) This book will be a treasure to those of us who are approaching that period in our lives when caregiving will become increasingly important with aging parents and relatives who will need our support. We, in turn, as caregivers must have good tools and resources to draw upon in order to maintain our own strength, health and peace of mind. I can't wait for this book! You can pre-order it here.

Martha Home at JC Penney: A First Look!

A reader sent in this link to the new Martha Stewart page at JC Penney and I'm so excited about its imminent debut! The product line of home goods will be called simply Martha Home. Merchandise will focus on cooking, entertaining and decorating. The exciting thing about the JC Penney alliance is that Martha's merchandise will be housed within in-store boutiques that will function as their own little shops within the department store. The plan, as it was announced in 2011, is to have specially-trained staff to run the Martha Stewart stores at JC Penney, as well as unique merchandising fixtures and display elements. The line will be launching soon. However, a ruling must be made in a trial that is pitting Macy's (which also carries a Martha Stewart line of home goods) against MSLO in a legal dispute over licensing. The trial begins next month. In the meantime, you can sign up for emails about the product line by clicking here. I hope everything goes smoothly and that Martha can have product lines at both Macy's and JC Penney. (Good news for me: JC Penney now ships to Canada!)

Fond of February

Heart-shaped confections? (Check.) A profusion of pink? (Check.) A feature on chocolate? (Check.) A story on flowers? (Check.) Valentine's Day crafts? (Check.) It may not be the most surprisingly original issue of the year, but February presented by Martha Stewart Living is always a comfort. This year's issue is quite lovely with new takes on old classics: using family photos to make heirloom Valentine's Day gifts; a visit to New York's Polux Fleuriste with instructions on how to make unfussy but glamorous flower arrangements; decadent chocolate cakes; master of embroidery, Stephanie Housley, and her workshop at Coral & Tusk; lessons on garden photography by Marion Brenner; Good Things,  delicious pasta, a guide to heart-health, and so much more! 

Fans of Martha Stewart's special issue magazines (me! me!) will be really pleased to hear that a brand new special issue will be out on newsstands on February 4th. This one is devoted entirely to cakes and cupcakes, with more than 50 of the most popular and beautiful desserts from the pages of Martha Stewart Living. An iPad version of the special issue will also be available.

The Backyard Parables: Book Review

Books rarely bring tears to my eyes. I can only recall two that have inspired a welling up, and both were fiction: The Road, Cormac McCarthy’s unflinching tale of a father and son struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world and Mama Black Widow, Iceberg Slim’s gut-wrenching story of a gay, black transvestite living in unforgiving times. I can now add Margaret Roach’s memoir The Backyard Parables  to the list – a non-fiction work that examines both the “how-to” and the “woo-woo” of gardening.  And before you go thinking the book is some sort of dark and dour tale that will make grown men cry, consider first the emotional power of enlightenment.

Perhaps because I know Margaret Roach – as a daily reader, a first-hand admirer of her garden and a sometimes-correspondent – I can say that her words resonate more deeply than those written in books by authors I have never met or personally known. If it is not the story itself that inspires the emotion, then it is the observant spirit behind the telling that harnesses it through the sharing of wisdom.  And Margaret shares it in spades, if you’ll forgive the pun.Revealing the passage in the book that struck this emotional chord in me is not my intent here. What I want to convey is that the book goes far beyond any expectation I may have had about its premise. It reaches past the garden as subject matter into the realm of the human spirit, connecting the external world with the internal one.

In her last book, And I Shall Have Some Peace There, Margaret extolled the virtues of trading in the fast-lane for her own dirt road, sharing with us her emotional journey from the city to the country, leaving a high-powered position in publishing to reclaim her dream of moving to her upstate home where she could garden full-time.  In the book we came to understand how she “gave it all up” and now, in The Backyard Parables, we are given full access to the inspirational garden she began to sow more than 25 years ago. It is here, in the pages of this book, that we truly begin to understand what she gained by returning to her favourite place on earth.

Most of us here at Martha Moments know Margaret as the former editor-in-chief of Martha Stewart Living magazine, and as the former editorial director of its parent company. We’ve seen her beautiful garden in Copake Falls featured several times in the magazine. Like many of you, her Editor’s Letter was always the first thing I would read with the arrival of each new issue. She was – and will always be – my favourite editor of Martha Stewart Living and I’ve told her as much in the numerous letters I sent to her during her term at the helm. Indeed, her association with Martha is how I came to know her, how I came to meet her and how I came to appreciate the finer points of gardening.

Before becoming the first garden editor at Martha Stewart Living in the mid 1990s, Margaret worked as an editor at Newsday and The New York Times. She wrote her first book on gardening in 1998, A Way To Garden, which is still one of my favourite books of all time for its mix of philosophical and practical gardening wisdom, interwoven with beautiful photographs by Kit Latham. That book’s title and theme were the starting points for her website, Awaytogarden.com, which she developed after leaving Martha Stewart Living in 2007. Today, it is considered to be one of the most informative and active garden sites online. 

PARABLES, HOW-TO AND WOO-WOO

In her latest book, which is out today, Margaret shares 25 years worth of gardening wisdom, mixing garden philosophy with practical how-to. The book is divided into four sections, by season. Each is given an elemental heading that denotes the underlying theme of the chapter. Winter is given “Water” as its heading, since during the coldest months of the year her garden is covered in it, in frozen form. Spring is “Earth”, summer is “Fire” and autumn is “Wind.” Each chapter begins with an actual parable from one of the great religious tomes and then weaves into Margaret’s beautifully idiomatic discussions on the season at hand as it manifests itself in her garden. Challenges, highlights, births and deaths are all examined through her wise (and wide) lens. Through Margaret’s words,  we are always brought back to ourselves, to our own struggles, triumphs, births and deaths. We are never left to forget that through the garden’s evolution, we are bearing witness to our own. The garden is one of the most beautiful reminders of the seasons and changes occuring within ourselves.

There is practicality here, too, however. It is not just “woo-woo” growing out there on her steep patch of land. Shaded sections of the book hold her practical tips and straightforward how-to practices for making things grow and look their best, since we are interested in knowledge as much as wisdom, and each season brings its own unique lessons.

I feel honoured to have walked through Margaret’s Eden – the exact way she intends all her visitors to, by starting at the side door and working clockwise around the yard. With each step, I marvelled more and more at what she had created and planted. What I realize now is that I was marvelling as much at Mother Nature’s work as I was Margaret’s, humbled not only by my lack of botanical knowledge and the mysteries of natural science but by the beauty of the spirit that tamed this undulating property. I’m glad to know such a spirit as Margaret’s. I am better for it.

A Margaret Roach Library: A Way to Garden (1998), And I Shall Have Some Peace There (2011) and The Backyard Parables (2013)

452 Pages, I do

Vogue magazine has nothing on the winter issue of Martha Stewart Weddings! At 452 pages, it is the biggest issue the magazine has ever published - a fact that is proudly asserted on the cover, right next to the title. The weddings market is one of the few that is still going strong in the publishing world with dozens of magazines on the subject filling the newsstands. Brides and their families, it seems, reach for weddings magazines much more than the homemaker or gardener may reach for publications on her subjects of interest, these days. (Never underestimate a bride with a vision and her hunger for ideas!)

 

Martha Stewart Weddings is one of the few bridal publications that showcases all aspects of wedding planning, foregoing fashion trends in favour of classic, timeless (often DIY) ideas that will never date - ideas that can also be channeled into much wider spheres, such as entertaining and celebrating special occasions other than weddings: anniversaries, graduations, milestone birthdays.

 

Martha Stewart Weddings is at the top of its game, a magazine that I read regularly for ideas on entertaining, tablesettings, floral arrangements and styling ideas. I am never disappointed in Martha Stewart Weddings. Even though I don't subscribe or buy every single issue, I am always inspired by the ideas in its pages. Here is a peek at the winter issue, below. Please also visit Darcy Miller's adorable new website! You can also meet Darcy at an event on January 27th in New York City, Martha Stewart's Wedding Party, produced by Claudia Hanline of The Wedding Library. Find out more and buy tickets here.



Going Meatless

Could you do it? Could you remove meat from your diet? Before you answer, consider the holidays and those invitations to dinner parties from your carnivorous friends and family where meat is sure to be on the menu. Consider the discipline it would take to forever ban beef, poultry and fish from your daily meals.

For as long as meals have been prepared, meat has held a central place of reverence. It is almost always the star: a golden turkey holding center court at the Thanksgiving table, a juicy steak on the barbecue next to thick hamburger patties and succulent sausages, or a beautifully steamed piece of fish, drizzled with lemon.

I am not a vegetarian but I rarely cook or eat meat anymore. This is not so much a conscious choice as it is a preference. I now consider meat to be an indulgence, a treat. I will always eat meat if it is served to me at a gathering and I love to make the occasional meatloaf, but more often than not I am not interested enough in meat preparation to go the distance. I also find meat to be extremely filling, not to mention increasingly expensive to buy, and my appetite for it has diminished.

My partner, Tomas, is vegan. This is yet another reason why meat is a rarity in our household. Because of a cardiovascular condition, Tomas gave up meat and dairy several years ago leading up to a scheduled heart operation. In the months before the operation, he felt so good about his health and his body, he decided to continue to leave all meat and dairy behind for good. It's been three years and he has never deviated, insisting he has better digestive health and more energy.

 For the first time ever, Martha Stewart Living has issued a vegetarian cookbook. It is called Meatless and it is out on January 8th. Showcased as the follow-up to Power Foods, a Whole Living cookbook that espouses nutritional value, Meatless offers over 200 vegetarian recipes (each with its own full-colour photograph) to try at home, making it an essential volume for any household with a vegetarian and an alternative cookbook for anyone interested in trying their hand at preparing meatless meals. While the book is not a vegan cookbook, there are numerous vegan recipes in the book as well as gluten-free recipes.

More than just a cookbook, Meatless is also a roadmap to embracing a vegetable-based lifestyle. There are dozens of versatile recipes that can be easily adapted, such as pizza with a variety of toppings, salads made from different whole grains, and pestos with unexpected flavors and ingredients. You’ll also find advice on stocking your pantry with vegetarian essentials (dried beans, pasta, herbs and spices), a collection of basic recipes and techniques (vegetable stock, tomato sauce, polenta), and make-ahead flavor-boosters (caramelized onions, roasted peppers, and quick pickles). Here is a breakdown of the book's sections:

-Small Plates to Mix and Match: Smashed Chickpea, Basil, and Radish Dip with Pita Chips; Roasted Baby Potatoes with Romesco Sauce; Stuffed Marinated Hot Red Chili Peppers; Grilled Polenta with Balsamic Mushrooms

-Stovetop Suppers: Frittata with Asparagus, Goat Cheese, and Herbs; Spring Vegetable Ragout; Farro Risotto with Wild Mushrooms; Southwestern Hash

-Soups, Stews, and Chili: Tomato Soup with Poached Eggs; Bean Chili; White Cheddar Corn Chowder; Chickpea Curry with Roasted Cauliflower and Tomatoes

-Casseroles and other Baked Dishes: Ricotta and Spinach Stuffed Shells; Italian Baked Eggplant with Seitan; Black-Bean Tortilla Casserole; Apple, Leek, and Squash Gratin

-Substantial Salads: Raw Kale Salad with Pomegranate and Toasted Walnuts; Avocado, Beet, and Orange Salad; Arugula, Potato, and Green Bean Salad with Creamy Walnut Dressing; Roasted-Tomato Tabbouleh

-Sandwiches, Burgers, and Pizzas: Quinoa Veggie Burgers; Grilled Asparagus and Ricotta Pizza; Chipotle Avocado Sandwich; Portobello and Zucchini Tacos

-Pasta and Other Noodles: Fettuccine with Parsley-Walnut Pesto; Roasted Cauliflower with Pasta and Lemon Zest; Soba and Tofu in Ginger Broth; No-Bake Lasagna with Ricotta and Tomatoes

-Simple Side Dishes: Mexican Creamed Corn; Cabbage and Green Apple Slaw; Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Pecans and Mustard Seeds; Baked Polenta “Fries”

In the foreword to the book, Martha Stewart writes about her own love of vegetable dishes and her increasing reliance on fruits and vegetables as the key to healthy aging. She mentions her daughter, Alexis (a vegetarian) as being instrumental in her appreciation for meatless meals. She also discusses the treatment of farm animals at feed lots and her growing dismay at the often brutal conditions these animals are forced to endure before they are slaughtered. I highly recommend this book - to vegetarians and to meat-lovers who are looking for some creative alternatives to meat-based meals.

ALSO RECOMMENDED

1000 Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson is a vast tome of vegan knowledge. It includes wonderful tips and guidelines for keeping a vegan pantry and offers hundreds of delicious recipes. My only complaint about the book is that there are no photographs. But at more than 600 pages in length as is, photographs would have doubled its size! 

Tomas and I have been using this "vegan bible" for quite some time now. 1000 Vegan Recipes  (1996) by Robin Robertson is considered the best vegan cookbook ever published. At more than 600 pages, the book is filled with essential information on the vegan diet and recipes that you will return to again and again because they are actually extremely delicious. (Take it from a self-proclaimed meat and dairy consumer!) So far we've made a hearty sweet-potato and mushroom shepherd's pie that was to-die-for, a vegan pizza topped with fried potato slices, roasted tomatoes, carmelized onions, sage, oregano and grilled shiitake mushrooms, a chocolate coffee rum cake, a vanilla pound cake, delicious tomato sauce and various smoothies.

I have to attest that there really is nothing like eating fresh, healthy food. You just feel good after you've prepared and eaten nutritious meals. The more you take part in this sort of meal preparation, the more eager you are to continue.