Martha Stewart’s Menus for Entertaining (1994) was the first Martha Stewart cookbook I ever bought. And, I bet you can guess why I bought it.
Martha Stewart has published a 100 cookbooks and this one is my favorite. Martha’s first cookbook, Entertaining, was published in 1982. Martha Stewart’s Menus for Entertaining was her 16th book. It includes 20 menus–for Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc. And in addition to the 20 menus, the guide also offers food styling and general hospitality tips to enhance the dining experience.
The gorgeous photographs by Dana Gallagher enhance the wonderful 150 recipes of incredible culinary delights! If you’re looking for a cookbook with menus for a myriad of celebratory occasions, Martha Stewart’s Menus for Entertaining is both a browsers delight and a practical guide to entertaining. Do you have a favorite cookbook? GRADE: A
Can’t abide her!
I usually revert to my battered copy of THE JOY OF COOKING (a wedding gift in 1989) for both basic recipes and techniques. I also love America’s Test Kitchen (which is also the favorite of one of my daughters), along with Mark Bittman’s HOW TO COOK EVERYTHING. Between those three, I can usually find what I’m looking for.
An aside about Martha: the first time I saw her, she was a guest on Julia Child’s “Baking with Julia” show. Over the course of a two-part episode, Martha created a beautiful wedding cake from scratch. What I remember most was how clear and organized her instructions were. I was a technical writer for the better part of 20 years, and I’ve always appreciated someone who is able to communicate large amounts of information in a logical, followable fashion. I started watching Martha’s shows after that (I even had a subscription to her magazine for a while). Roku now has a 24/7 Martha Stewart channel which I’ll occasionally watch for ideas and inspiration.
I can’t stand Martha, although I suppose she paid her debt to society for her shady dealings 20 years ago. Would we could say the same for other miscreants in high places.
Unlike Fred, I don’t despise Martha; I do, however, find her annoying and gratingly over-obsessive. The only roug- spot in our fifty-year plus marriage was when Kitty and I were shopping at a Kohl’s department store and an intercom with a television screen hanging from the ceiling had Martha telling us the PROPER way to fold a fitted sheet; I immediately yelled at the top of my voice, “Shut up, Martha! I don’t need your bull today!” It was four or five hours before Kitty deigned to speak to me again.
The only cookbooks I own are Vincent Price’s “A Treasury of Great Recipes” and some vegan cookbooks. I have a kitchen stand full of issues of “Saveur,” “Bon Appetit” and “Food and Wine” (mostly from the fall and holidays) with recipes I use regularly. For the most part I go on line looking for recipes and often rely on “The Spruce Eats” for simple, foolproof meals (I highly recommend “The Spruce” sites for cooking, home and landscaping references).
I’ll occasionally use the Martha Stewart website and while I never cared much for her and her brand I’d take her any day over the current crop of vapid “celebrity” cooks and lifestyle gurus churning out useless tomes these days. God, the nineties look good by comparison.
Byron: we have an original copy of the Vincent & Mary Price cookbook. We use the fondue recipe every New Year’s Eve. It’s such a mid-1960s time-capsule.