Martha Stewart is back!
Half a century ago, the Westport housewife opened The Market Basket in a corner of The Common Market, on Main Street (near where Kerri Rosenthal is now). Featuring antiques on consignment, and the creations of local bakers and cooks, it launched the careers of several local residents. (Click here for details.)
Westporters — and viewers across America — will be reminded of (or learn about) those days this Sunday (January 28, 9 p.m.). CNN debuts the first 2 of a 4-part original series: “The Many Lives of Martha Stewart.”
The second part airs February 4.
Among the residents interviewed for the show: Sarah Kerstin Gross. She has spent 40 years as owner of Cabbages & Kings Catering, C&K Take Away and, most recently, C&K Community Kitchen.
Gross was there when Stewart launched her own career, cooking Tassajara breads, honey challahs, cookies and chocolate covered bunnies for Lawrence Olivier and others out of her parents’ Greens Farms Road kitchen — around the corner from what became Stewart’s famed Turkey Hill home.
Martha Stewart and her husband Andy, at their Turkey Hill home.
“I schlepped the food there in my parents’ station wagon,” Gross recalls.
“The shop was fabulous. It recreated her kitchen in compact form, with a stove and hanging copper pots.
“We were all cooking illegally out of our homes before there were cottage laws, and lying when confronted by the Health Department, on Martha’s behalf. She was and is defiant.”
Also interviewed about the early catering years: Westport native and event planner Louise Felix, and former Westport author Elizabeth Hawes, who collaborated with Stewart.
Former Westporter, now Fairfield and Maine-based Brooke Dojny, award winning food journalist and cookbook author, joined Stewart later, helping with catering. She reflected on her time as a recipe developer for Stewart’s first book.
Not on camera but part of the local mix then were Vicky Negrin, a Stewart catering chef who was also responsible for the handwritten text of the Gnomes books, and all hand-written copy for Hay Day’s labeling (now Balducci’s); Audrey Doniger, famous for her Market Basket lemon squares; Dale Lamberty, who created legendary Easter egg panoramas and delectable baked goods, then went on to found the Great Cakes bakery, and Ujala Shu, who made Indian specialties and later ran her own catering business.
Doniger told “06880” yesterday that Stewart had “a knack for picking out people who needed to work, and who really ‘got her.'”
Recently divorced, and with 4 young children, Doniger was one of Stewart’s early suppliers. When Doniger switched from “homemade” to a Cuisinart, in order to fulfill more orders, Stewart tasted the difference.
She handed Doniger a wad of bills, and told her to teach herself how to use a Cuisinart to make cookies that tasted as if they were homemade.
Martha Stewart (right) catering, back in the day.
“It was a very special time for her to launch her catering business, using many of us,” Gross says.
“And it was important to all of us who had our beginnings there. Prepared food like that did not exist around here. To use local talent to mix and match like that still is a brilliant idea.”
All of those women rose from the 60 people who responded to a single ad Stewart placed in the Westport News, soliciting bakers and chefs for The Market Basket.
How many will be mentioned in Sunday’s CNN story (click here for details)? We’ll have to tune in to see.
But wait! That’s not enough. Martha Stewart will be back again, after CNN!
Netflix is also working on a show on the entertaining mogul. It’s due out later this year.
It’s an important snapshot. The non-profit — formed last year by Markus Marty and Peter Gold, with help from Adam Ganser — got responses from 1,596 residents last fall.
Our request and recommendation had been very narrow and reasonable. We had previously asked that the LLESBC simply prepare plans in a revised 8-24 application that preserve the flexibility of including a full-size baseball field on the multipurpose field that would be shared with other sports, including girls’ sports.
