Martha Go Away

A week ago I unsubscribed to Martha Stewart's emails, nothing personal, but I Have Never Done Anything She Recommends. All the entrancing crafts, recipes, beauty salon garden tips would receive my oohs and ahhs but cripes, who has the time or the money? Once I realized that I hadn't done a damn thing from her, I also didn't renew my subscription to her stunningly photographed magazine.

Lord yes, I would like to entertain friends under a canopy lit with sparkles and fireflies trapped in jars. We'd laugh and speak eruditely on current topics, or on methods of grinding wheat. Mimsy would bring his famous platter of vegetable noire, and carelessly fall into the koi pond amid the cultivated water chestnuts. Rollicking, I say. But no, never happened, and no one I know is named Mimsy Borogove.

But Martha is reluctant to let a valuable friend depart from under her wing, god knows what could happen and before anyone could get a grip, we'd have ketchup on everything. It's easy to razz on the upper layers of entertaining, and sitting under canopies sounds fun, but I do not have the memory to get all that straight. She won't leave me alone, so the next step is putting her emails in the junk folder, and it hurts.

You know a patriotic cake finished with strawberry stripes and a blueberry field with squished out whipped cream stars would get you the reputation you might prefer over the one you have now, but her persistent cajoling has become the droning note in a bagpipe recital. The flag of cake email gets dumped and you feel crummy and insufficient.

I had my day of grinding my own beef, making the pasta, and cooking down tomatoes from my garden for sauce---really really good, folks. My impetus was my family; there were home baked desserts every night, and I usually didn't get out of the kitchen till eight o'clock with all the cleaning up. "From scratch" was a family anthem on both sides, right after "I got it For Free."

Stuffing a pillowcase with feathers saved from the geese and chickens killed is something my Grandma Pearl did, but that was Those Days, and people didn't complain or they'd get hit. Chicken = dinner, feathers = free. Here in chicken wing country, there was an enterprising noodnik that sold earrings made from the drum and flat chicken bones. You may still be able to snag a pair at the Chicken Wing Festival coming up in August. Stop on over. Just don't crab about the decor, I did it without any supervision, published or otherwise.

Good night to Martha, and good night to every one of you. Let those lids drop and catch a few zzz's. Wake up and drink milk right out of the carton. You rebel, you.