Can You Pass Martha Stewart’s Toile Test? AD Catches Up With the Icon

Mel Studach
·6 min read

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© 2024 Martha Stewart/Courtesy of Netflix

At the book signings for her debut tome, the now-iconic Entertaining published by Clarkson Potter in 1982, Martha Stewart would autograph the inside page with the adage: “Perfectly perfect.” The two words encapsulated the oeuvre of Stewart, then a model turned Wall Street stockbroker turned sought-after caterer. Whether tending her garden, planning a dinner party menu, or decorating her home, she craved learning new ideas and sharing them with the masses. In doing so—in her perfectly perfect fashion—Stewart rebranded household chores into acts of pride and empowerment. It was the rise of homemaking. Until it wasn’t.

In Martha, her life-spanning documentary on Netflix, out now, audiences get a candid portrayal of her meteoric rise, abrupt fall, and triumphant return, as told by Stewart herself. “I’ve lived a really long time and just think young people have no idea what I went through and what I did,” she tells AD, referencing a generation that may only know the country’s first self-made female billionaire for her enviable Instagram selfies and unexpected friendship with Snoop Dogg.

The film is also perfectly timed to the launch of Stewart’s 100th book, Martha: The Cookbook, a collection of her 100 favorite recipes alongside the personal stories and lessons behind them. A week out from the book’s official release, AD caught up with Stewart to learn how her philosophies around entertaining have evolved, the clever culinary ideas inspiring her now, and what it was like revisiting some of the not-so-perfect chapters of her life.

Stewart’s 100th book, Martha: The Cookbook, hits bookshelves on November 12.
Stewart’s 100th book, Martha: The Cookbook, hits bookshelves on November 12.
Photo: Victor Demarchelier

Architectural Digest: Martha: The Cookbook marks your 100th book. Have you noticed your philosophies around recipes or entertaining changing in the 40-plus years since publishing your first book? Is “perfectly perfect” still the MO?

Martha Stewart: It’s pretty difficult to not strive to be as perfect as you possibly can for me. I want things to be in a certain way, and I try very hard to make them that way. I really want the recipes to work. We did a shoot a couple weeks ago where a third party did all the prep because I didn’t have time. They all turned out just right, and it made me so happy to see that the recipes that I had written and edited and photographed were workable for the layman. That’s really what I’m striving for—that those ideas work and are useful for the person who’s going to be using the recipes.

In terms of your tablescapes, how has your style evolved over the years?

It’s probably gotten better. I set as beautiful a table as ever. It might be a little simpler, a little bit more edited, but I think it’s still really pretty. I have a vast collection of dishes, flatware, and glassware, because over the past 42 years since I wrote Entertaining, I’ve collected a lot of stuff, and it’s fun to mix and match. I never set the same table twice, by the way. I went to a big fancy Christmas party last year, and they had the huge butter mound that is so popular now. They are all saying, ‘Look at this fabulous new idea,’ and I just quietly laughed to myself because I went home and looked at Entertaining, and there’s the big mound of butter in 1982. The old idea is new again, which is fabulous. But I’m not, in the near future, going to make a mound of butter again. I did it already.

Is there anything that has struck you as being clever and new on the culinary front?

Oh, yes—I’m not jaded. I’m constantly looking for other talent for serving and for display. One person who really captures my imagination is [Laila Gohar, of the Instagram account] LailaCooks. Her stuff is beautiful. She just did a party at Sotheby’s with three great towers made out of big balls of langoustine, which were amazing and served on big blocks of ice. Again, we did the ice blocks and all that stuff in 1982, but I love seeing how people evolve it. Go back to the 1700s and look at the books of [Georges Auguste] Escoffier and other great decorative French chefs, and you’ll find that stuff there too.

You also share in your new documentary how Dutch Masters paintings inspired lots of your early food presentation.

I had studied art at Barnard College and at Columbia University, and of course I was being influenced by all of that.

Behind the scenes of the making of Stewart’s first book, Entertaining, which was published in 1982

MARTHA

Behind the scenes of the making of Stewart’s first book, Entertaining, which was published in 1982
© 2024 Martha Stewart/Courtesy of Netflix

The film is arguably your most vulnerable project to date. What made you want to revisit your biggest challenges?

It’s not so much about being vulnerable—it wasn’t so difficult to do it. I’ve lived a really long time and just think young people have no idea what I went through and what I did. All these things have their time, and I wasn’t rushing to get a documentary out, but Netflix being interested made me interested in doing it. I don’t read a lot of fiction now because real life is actually more interesting than a lot of the fiction that’s out there. That’s why documentaries have become so valuable—and so sought-after. So I like being part of that.

In the documentary, you also discuss past relationships and offer some dating advice to viewers. Do you have any design red flags when it comes to a prospective partner’s home?

Turn on the TV, and see what he watched last.

The watch history—that is a good one, Martha!

I have done that many times, and it is crazy what you find.

The documentary also highlights the wealth of talent that Martha Stewart Omnimedia employed, calling it an Olympian-level of creatives. What was the “it” factor you looked for when recruiting talent?

A sort of like-mindedness. We had a funny test—and not everybody had to take the test, but I did give it to people. I gave it to a person the other night, and he failed miserably. The test is: Give me the definitions of toile, tulle, tool, tuile, toyle, and toil. Do you know how many people cannot do that?

Martha: The Cookbook: 100 Favorite Recipes, with Lessons and Stories from My Kitchen

$40.00, Amazon

Speaking of like-mindedness, we’re obsessed with your basket house. Do you have any other offbeat spaces we’d be surprised to discover?

If you saw my dish basement, you would be very jealous. It’s lined with many, many, many shelves, and that’s where the masses of glass, silver, and crystal are housed. And the piles of pottery—you would love. It’s like my own personal prop house. All of that will be in my autobiography.

I can’t wait. We’re two years out from that one hitting bookshelves, right?

Yes, I just signed the contract. It’s scary because I have two years to have it signed, sealed, and delivered.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

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