Martha Stewart Must Know Something We Don’t

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A few months ago, my friend Stephanie found a copy of Martha Stewart’s 1982 book, ,on a stoop in Brooklyn and gave it to me at my birthday breakfast. This book is amazing. In it, Martha teaches how to plan a wide variety of food-focused parties, including “midnight omelette supper for thirty,” “neoclassic dinner for eight to ten,” and “sit-down country luncheon for one hundred seventy-five.” At the front, there’s a stunning photo of Martha wearing Adidas Superstars and feeding her chickens. The recipes are, I have to assume, of their time. There is one for “pureé of fennel,” and one for chicken paté served on apple slices. There is one for snow peas stuffed with Saint-André cheese (“guests cannot believe that someone has actually stuffed a snow pea!”) and one for a hollowed-out pumpkin full of asparagus, just to mention the second-most-surprising recipe involving snow peas and the second-most surprising recipe involving a hollowed-out pumpkin.