The Time I Visited Martha Stewart Living

So a couple weeks ago I got a Tumblr message, the gist of which was, “Hey I work at Martha Stewart, I noticed that you’ve been writing about making some of her slow-cooker recipes, would you be interested in coming by the office and checking out her test kitchens, which are sort of like seeing the Wonka factory?” I had to read it twice to make sure it was for real and next thing I knew, Vanessa Holden, who is the editor-in-chief of Martha Stewart Living, was taking me around on a tour of the AMAZING MSL offices. (!!!!!!!!!)

(Also, IMPORTANT ASIDE: Vanessa was SO NICE—first that she even reached out to me, via Tumblr no less!, and second that she took like an hour out of her day to take me on a tour, and was funny and charming and totally down-to-earth. As if I couldn’t love Martha more, now I know she has an awesome EIC. SIGH TIMES 10.)

The Martha Stewart offices are in the Starrett-Lehigh building on far West 26th Street. They take up an entire city block. You feel like you are in a little alternate reality village where “craftsperson” and “knitter” and “pastry tester” are actual jobs that people do for money. How do they find knitters, I asked. “Word of mouth, mostly,” Vanessa said. Most of the chefs and food tester-people have a culinary background, in that they have most likely gone to culinary school and/or worked in restaurant kitchens.

I regret not speaking to the older gentleman in the mismatched plaid suit whom I glimpsed as Vanessa led me into the prop room, because she told me that that was Fritz and he goes around to estate sales and buys a lot of the props in the prop room, which are used for photo shoots. But she also said that Martha herself is always buying up things.

I mean look at that prop room! Here is another shot of it:

So then we moved on to the kitchens. Oh the kitchens. The kitchens! There were like… kitchen elves everywhere, just baking pies and cookies and tarts and juicing things, and making open-faced sandwiches and quiches and there was so much fruit, because they were preparing for spring issues. This was a tart that was just sitting there when I got there (I later had a slice) (it was delicious):

This was another pie they made, nbd. Oh wait nm, VERY BIG DEAL:

These are some of the (very nice and lovely) kitchen elves in their GINORMOUS kitchen:

But obviously, this was my favorite part of the kitchen:

Do not feed Martha’s chickens onions, dairy, garlic, meats … or rubberbands.

Next: THE LINEN CLOSET and the CAKE DECORATING CABINET!