in my Martha era
banana bread & chicken salad
ICYMI
I have fallen down a Martha Stewart rabbit hole lately. It all started when I watched the CNN docuseries, The Many Lives of Martha Stewart, which made me realize how little I actually knew about her and her work. This then inspired me to purchase a hard-cover copy of Martha Stewart’s first cookbook ‘Entertaining’ on eBay, which has surpassed all of my expectations. The book includes detailed menus for over the top parties with recipes, tips and how-to’s. A few examples include; a Chinese Banquet for Twelve, a Sunday Omelette Brunch for Ten, a Country Buffet Breakfast for Forty, a Clam Bake for Thirty, and more.
This purchase / tiktok rant then triggered CNN to send me old copies of Martha Stewart Living magazine from 1994. After reading these front to back, I fired up S1EP1 of the Martha Stewart Living TV show that premiered in 1993. I also ordered more magazines on eBay.
A top-level takeaway: the 90’s were perfect.
I also noticed how simple the recipes are. It was a refreshing reprieve from the borderline chaotic recipe content we see today. This longing for 90’s culinary nostalgia is pretty on par with how trend cycles work. Every few decades, the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. And with social media algorithms and the constant thirst for producing the next great viral recipe, I fear many of us have lost the plot. All to say, I think we are long overdue for that pendulum to swing back around to a slower, softer way of cooking.
In one of the episodes Martha is interviewing an antique furniture collector when she asks something along the lines of “Is it even possible to create pieces with the same high quality like they did hundreds of years ago?”, to which he replied, “Of course it’s possible, except everyone is in such a hurry these days that they don’t want to take the time to do so”. FACTS!!!
In the spirit of not being in a hurry and bringing back vintage classics, I’m sharing with you a banana bread recipe (she’s baking, cue the gasp) and a very retro curried chicken salad recipe. Please enjoy.
What I’m Cooking
