Hasta La Ideas

Martha Stewart was joined by Bravo’s Andy Cohen last night to kick off the second annual American Made, a two-day celebration of ingenuity and craftsmanship that turns Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall into a lively marketplace of handpicked purveyors, crafters, and makers. Among this year’s American Made honorees are lighting designer Lindsey Adelman, Shinola’s Health Carr, and paper crafters Leo Kowal and Mary Rudakas, who took home the audience choice award for their SVGCuts creations. And for Stewart, that’s not even the icing on the cake—she’s got a new book out (about cakes!), an equally delicious PBS TV series in production (more cakes!), and big Halloween plans (Pumpkin Layer Cake…and much more!). We paused in our attempt at her Clementine-Vanilla Bean Loaf Cake to ask her seven questions.

What are some of your favorite finds among the nominees and winners of this year’s American Made awards?
The two-day event celebrates the spirit of innovation and spotlight a new generation of entrepreneurs. Everything we highlight with the American Made program, which is now in its second year, is something I’ve found in my various travels and meetings to be fascinating, unique, and worthy of recognition. This year, I have my eye on Back to the Roots, which is a ‘grow your own mushroom kit’ company out of Oakland, California, as well as Spoonflower, a custom fabric printing company in Durham, North Carolina.

Which recipe in Martha Stewart’s Cakes would you suggest for an amateur baker who wants to whip up a tasty and visually stunning cake?
The buttermilk cake with chocolate frosting is a great starting point for any amateur. It’s both visually stunning and tasteful. This book also provides a basics section specifically designed for amateurs who are looking to sharpen their baking skills. It provides essential equipment and ingredients for mixing, baking, and finishing!

Any tricks you can share about making a cake look as good as the amazingly beautiful ones featured in the pages of Martha Stewart’s Cakes?
Pairing cakes with accompaniments can be the finishing touch to a baker’s creation. They are served on the side adding richness, to simple cakes.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Martha Stewart’s craftiness knows no bounds. News that her beleaguered business sputtered to a quarterly loss of a $50.7 million–on revenue of $43.5 million–provided a peg for much Martha-bashing, most notably by James B. Stewart (no relation!), who earlier this month delievered quite the smackdown via his New York Times business-section column. Clearly, Martha was not amused. But rather than waste time crying over spilled milk (award-winning, certified organic milk from family farmers, in a reusable glass bottle, we suspect), she rallied the forces of PR, and emerged with two major features in the Thanksgiving weekend papers.

On the front page of Sunday’s New York Times, sandwiched between news of shivering Syrian refugees and gridlock in the Senate, was “Martha Stewart Clicks with a Tattooed Crowd,” in which writer Christine Haughney dubs Martha a “patron saint for entrepreneurial hipsters” looking to carve out a living selling, say, t-shirts created from vintage children’s sheets. One devotee, whose “vintage-inspired spun cotton ornaments and figures” have been spotlighted in various MSLO media properties, likens Martha to “the Jesus of the craft world.” Some MarthaStewart.com web stats are proffered to offset the widely publicized disappointments on the print side, and Haughney even finds a way to put a positive spin on Martha’s five-month incarceration, which no one will ever stop talking about, ever. “She’s such a Suzy homemaker and also did some time in the joint,” says Luis Illades, an owner of Brooklyn food-craft purveyor Urban Rustic. “That has helped cement her iconic image. Before, she was someone your mother would follow.”
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.