Need to Feed Cassoulet to a Small Army This Season?

Martha Stewart circa 1989 has you covered. Plus: Lots of Miss Piggy content.

It’s the holiday season, and you know what that means: It’s time to drag your copy of Martha Stewart’s Christmas out of the attic and fire up your hot glue gun for three weeks of frenzied cooking and crafting that will make all of your neighbors feel inadequate but also very excited to be invited to your holiday party.¹

I’d long heard that this book was iconically over the top, even for Martha, and it does not disappoint on that front — or any other, except perhaps length, as it’s only 140 pages.² Per Eater’s excellent recent piece (and my own vague memory), when Christmas came out in 1989, various people wigged out about it because it is, frankly, psychotic if you’re taking it as a list of things you must do or should be doing as a homemaker rather than (a) a compilation of things you might want to do if you have a ton of money and time and a staff (the latter of which Martha credits at length at the open of the book), or even just as a (b) compilation of pretty, festive things you might want to simply look at, and a recipe or two to try. Martha Stewart’s Christmas is, essentially, a slim, hardback fantasy — and isn’t that what we’d all like a little more of in our holiday³?

With that in mind, please enjoy the seven most fantastical bits from Martha Stewart’s Christmas:

Number One:

Yes, you read that correctly. The first thing Martha Stewart — who, to be clear, was literally at this point a professional hostess and caterer — does in the holiday season is make ten Christmas puddings. There is so much chopping involved here! This is why Martha hires people to help her out! Certainly, one person could chop 11.5 pounds of ingredients, but goodness, what a workout. I’m tired. And you’ve got enough on your plate just oiling those pudding molds.

Number Two:

FINALLY you know what to do with that fabulous 19th century Amish silk coverlet! It’s for your nut balls. I’ve been despairing. (To be scrupulously honest, I am absolutely the sort of person who would buy some old silk coverlet and then shove it in my cedar chest so I could figure out what to do with it later, and then forget about it.)

Number Three:

First of all, Martha here has MADE a tree (to go on her 18th-century tilt-top table in the parlor, natch). Second, she is both kind enough to share her source for all her metal leaf, and to remind you that you CANNOT EAT COPPER LEAF. Fun fact: Sepp Leaf Products is still in business and presumably very busy right now.

Number Four: Martha admits she is VERY INTO GILT this particular Christmas. Self-knowledge is more crucial this time of year than any other:

Her sense of humor is also, thank god, intact.

She’s also not exaggerating about the amount of things she was gilding in 1989:

Number Five:

This reminded me that I cannot forget to figure out what to give the Austrian ambassador this year! Don’t want to cause an international incident.

Also, don’t worry — Martha is still gilding:

It would be upsetting to mess up your dual-metal gingerbread house roof, after putting in all that work. To be clear: This is not a gingerbread house that you buy at the store. Martha, like, got out a compass and a slide-rule and did math and made legit blueprints for her gingerbread house, which in this specific instance was modeled on her own home. This feels like the progenitor of those Free Little Libraries designed to look just like the home they sit in front of, except tastier and less literate. Maybe? I shouldn’t cast aspersions on the reading level of Martha’s gingerbread house.

Number Six:

Yes, you read that correctly. CASSOULET FOR 100. I feel like if I took three days to make a complicated French casserole for my guests and anyone complained, I would throw a bottle of wine at the wall. APPRECIATE MY CASSOULET.

In case you’d like to appreciate said cassoulet:

The ingredients there alone are amazing. Thank god Martha has surely got several refrigerators, because that’s 30 pounds of duck alone. That’s a lot of duck⁴!

Finally, lucky number seven:

Yes, thank you, I do want a tea-smoked chicken and an old book of Emerson essays from Martha Stewart. I promise my thank you note will be effusive and proper. I’ll get out the gold-edged notecards and everything.

— Jessica

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In Other Martha Stewart News…

Here’s a glorious compilation of Miss Piggy roasting her. Martha has an amazing poker face:

Tag yourself. I’m WHO CARES, MARTHA?

— Jessica

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Funday Football Wish List

Last night, Disney Plus simulcast a version of Monday Night Football that took place in Springfield, USA, and starred a rotating cast of characters from The Simpsons. And much like the Toy Story version from last season, it was not technologically perfect, but also a total hoot.

The way it works: There’s a rough video game simulation of the game, which mimics on a very slight delay — I assume — what’s happening on the field live. With Toy Story, the game was in Andy’s room, the claw machine spotted the ball, the First Down chains became the two halves of Slinky Dog, and Zurg lurked around the edges threatening to cause mischief. In Springfield, the aliens beamed down the ball to spot it, the sidelines were Kamp Krusty and Moe’s “Juice Bar,” and either donuts or burgers dropped from the sky when one of the teams scored. The Toy Story content was definitely aimed more at younger kids who might be learning the game, whereas The Simpsons definitely benefited from being a little older, and having a working knowledge of both the game and the show’s in-jokes. The commentators slid in a horde of sly Simpsons references like the word “embiggen” and a reference to Ralph Wiggum attending Bovine University; my favorite was that cartoon billionaire C. Montgomery Burns was up in the sky box watching with cartoon billionaire Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. And by working slightly behind real time, The Simpsons Funday Football added the nifty touch of occasionally re-skinning the players on the field right before key plays — so for example, Lisa scored two touchdowns, Ralph caught one (before holding up a sign that said, “I AM LOST”), and Milhouse, of course, always, went nowhere and almost fumbled. One of the last plays of the game was 11 Barts against 11 Homers. And the commentators called each play with the enthusiasm of it being real (“Look at that move Lisa put on her father!”).

I was expecting my family to watch about 15 minutes of this, but my kids — who do not sit through an entire sporting event unless we are AT it — sat and watched it with so much enthusiasm that we never flipped on actual ESPN. I genuinely think they would watch this every week, but obviously you have to swap out the intellectual property. I should note that Nickelodeon did a similar version of this by having Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick call a real game, and it was apparently also extremely entertaining without needing ANY simulation technology. Now I’m trying to think of who else would be on my wish list for future Fundays, assuming time and budgets are unlimited.

— The Key and Peele East-West Game characters. J’Dinkalage Morgoone, Sequester Grundelplith, M.D., and of course Hingle McCringleberry deserve their moment in the spotlight, even if it IS animated.

— Phineas and Ferb. This is an actual serious suggestion. Actually, wait, so was the previous one. Justice for Beezer Twelve Washingbeard! But it would be GREAT to see Candace flip her lid about Phineas and Ferb building an NFL stadium in their backyard, and I can only imagine with glee what Dr. Doofenshmirtz would dial up for the occasion. Perry the Platypus would have to be on high alert.

— B-teamers from the Star Wars universe. Imagine a whole team of Wookiees and Hutts and Ewoks, and clones, and probably a Sarlacc pit somewhere — preferably one that eats Aaron Rodgers in the fourth quarter.

— King of the Hill. Bobby Hill, with or without his gout-filled toe, would be a dismal choice to coach and therefore probably better at least than the Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy (I am typing this Monday night and there’s a nonzero chance he’s already been fired by the time you read this). Peggy Hill would run up the score on whoever dared cross her; Boomhauer already basically talks in nonsense football cadence so he’d have a blast. But maybe we need them to face off against characters from another beloved FOX series to make a larger pool of options. You home, Bob’s Burgers?

— The Muppets. The problem is, I don’t like the animated Muppets, and they are definitely not going to puppeteer a live football game in real-time. So this would have to be Miss Piggy and a rotating cast of cohorts calling the game, in the vein of Spongebob and Patrick. Statler and Waldorf are the fans in the luxury box, Beaker and Bunsen Honeydew could report from the sidelines, and Sam the Eagle is obviously the rules kingpin who weighs in on whether an officiating call is correct. I also endorse giving Miss Piggy human colleagues for this. You saw what she did to Martha Stewart up there. Let her at Tony Romo and Tom Brady and Cris Collinsworth, with the Mannings chortling in the background.

— Peanuts. Charlie Brown and Lucy have been training their whole lives for this.

— Hear me out: Sell the ENTIRE THING to commercial sponsors, and plug in their spokesobjects.⁵ Imagine one of the Charmin bears slinging the rock to the Cologuard box, which works both visually and as a metaphor for what they actually sell. Or the Cheez-Itz wheels of cheddar finally getting to take the field and rolling over an anthropomorphized M&M before lateraling to Lefty the Hamburger Helper Hand. Spuds Mackenzie! The Pillsbury Doughboy! The Budweiser Frogs! The Keebler Elves! Jack in the Box could referee, and I’m SURE we could animate Fansville for this purpose. If you live anywhere with a Habit Burger, you may have seen the ads — promoting that they cook their burgers to order over a flame — wherein all the employees salute a piece of charcoal as he meanders to the grill and then hurls himself happily onto the flames. That briquette would make a great running back. And has anyone seen the talking testacles from this Australian ad campaign recently? If the Geico caveman can make a comeback, so can they, and this game does require balls.

— Heather

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Last Call

— Laura Benanti is the best. Here she is on her former Broadway co-star, Zachary Levi — who, if you recall, recently went live on Instagram to tell everyone that beloved Broadway star Gavin Creel got “turbo cancer” from the Covid vax, which is ridiculous misinformation. Even if it were not ridiculous misinformation — which, to be clear, it is — Creel’s personal health struggles are not Levi’s story to share nor use as propaganda. The words “fuck you forever” are used. — J

— Over on Go Fug Yourself, we talked about the Golden Globe nominations, which… they’re calling Challengers a comedy now? What’s next? We Live In Time, just because that one carousel horse’s face is laughable? Come ON, Susan Lucci. — H

— Finally, I just wanted to thank everyone for their very touching words about the death of my mother this past week, both at Go Fug Yourself and on my Instagram. Your warmth and kindness has meant a lot to me and my family in a very difficult time, and we sincerely appreciate it. xo - J

1. Huge thanks to the very kind reader who sent me a copy of this after I linked to a recent Eater article about it. It has been such a treat to read. Also thanks to Eater for highlighting that Martha included a photo of the man who ended up giving her that inside information that landed her in prison…. kissing her daughter.

2. Comparatively, The Martha Stewart Cookbook is 596 pages. (I consider TMSC to be my kitchen Bible in the sense that I always look to see how Martha does something, even if I then decide her way seems like a pain in the ass.)

3. Somewhere, Michael Scott glances at the camera and mutters, “That’s what she said.” — H

4. I like that she says, “Making cassoulet for 100 takes three days.” I imagine asking how long it would take to make it for six people, and her shooting me a withering look and saying, “What would be the point of that?” — H

5. Honestly, the absolutely delightful success of the end of the Pop Tarts Bowl last year bolsters this pitch. - J