Growing up, Christmas did not start until Martha Stewart and her annual Home for the Holidays special aired on TV. My sister lived for Martha’s Christmas specials, and consequently, so did I. Watching them together became a family tradition in the ’90s, along with wrapping presents in the most extravagant trimmings and setting the table with candles and pressed linens exactly like Martha.

No surprise, I loved the Netflix documentary Martha, even though Martha herself did not. After watching, here are seven lessons I learned from the queen of domesticity.

1. Waste nothing

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about one scene in particular. Martha is standing over her gardening staff at her Bedford, New York home, instructing them on how to properly trim back a thicket of roots surrounding a tree but not to throw them out. Everything can be repurposed—she used the fallen trees for supports around her garden.

2. Put everything on display in the kitchen

Martha’s Westport, Connecticut kitchen was the antithesis of the stark, staged-for-TikTok influencer kitchens. Call it organized chaos, but it was refreshing to see a kitchen that looks like it’s being used daily—a million copper pots, woven baskets and all.

3. Go wild with presentation

Forget grazing boards. Martha started the grazing table. Her larger-than-life crudités presentations featured tables piled high with full cabbages, mountains of grapes, tomatoes and green beans, a cascade of shaved carrots and brioche buns.

4. Find joy in an over-the-top dessert

I could watch Martha decorating her elaborate croquembouche pastry tree in the opening credits all day long. The sheer joy on her face as she spins a sugar web around caramel choux makes me want to stock up on eggs, sugar and butter to create a masterpiece of my own.

5. Keep fresh fruit and vegetables on hand

In her kitchen, Martha has bowls of oranges and lemons, an entire wooden crate overflowing with apples and bowls of berries, asparagus stalks and leafy greens. Of course, she has a gorgeous garden from which to pluck nature’s gifts whenever she wants. But keeping fruits and vegetables right where she can see them—which is everywhere—ensures that they’ll get used and not wasted. That’s a very good thing indeed.

6. Start a garden

My favorite quote of hers is: “If you want to be happy for a year, get married; if you want to be happy for a decade, get a dog; if you want to be happy the rest of your life, make a garden.”

Let’s just say I started researching gardening clubs near me immediately after finishing the documentary. I would happily volunteer to trim her boxwoods and tend to the peonies! I’d even pitch in on the rough stone path she wants to create to look like cracked ice. In fact, I’m filing that DIY idea away for later use in my own life.

7. Build a chicken coop

Long before Jennifer Garner, Kristin Cavallari and a slew of homesteading influencers started showing off their chicken coops on social media, Martha built her own while renovating her beloved 1805 farmhouse on Turkey Hill Road.

This wasn’t any old coop, however. No, no. This was Le Palais des Poulets (Palace of the Chickens) for her Araucana hens, who lived a life of leisure, eating lettuce and watermelon and roaming a sprawling indoor-outdoor yard.

To some people, Martha Stewart was—and is—simply too much. To my sister and me, Martha is perfect. She’s an inspiration with her aspirational life.

Author
Kelli Acciardo
Kelli Acciardo is a New York-based journalist and content creator, specializing in food, travel and lifestyle reporting. She has more than 15 years of experience in the media industry, and her work has appeared in dozens of publications, including Martha Stewart, Good Housekeeping and, of course, Taste Recipes.
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Kelli Acciardo