A New Guru of American Taste?

By Elizabeth L. Bland.

Standing in front of copper pots that sit on an industrial stove, with a wall of homemade preserves behind her and old-fashioned baskets above, Martha Stewart is right where she belongs -- in her big country kitchen. She is spinning sugar, a complex task that will result in a haze of edible angel hair adorning a dessert of red currant ice cream in brandy-snap cups. As she slings the liquid sugar onto a laundry rack with a flick of her whisk, Stewart effortlessly alternates advice ("The hot sugar can get stuck in your cats' fur. Keep them out of the room") and anecdotes ("I forgot to buy regular squares of beeswax, so I am taking a little bit of the foundation that I use in my beehive"). No matter that her audience is only a camera. In fact, that is terrific: the more eyes on Martha, the better.

Stewart's audience seems to just grow and grow. Not only has she sold some 1.8 million of her sumptuous coffee-table cookbooks since her first, Entertaining, in 1982, but she has also become at 47 the guru of good taste (and taste buds) in American entertaining, looked to by millions of American women for guidance about everything from weddings to weeding. From her beginnings as a Westport, Conn., caterer, she has risen like cream, until she now supplies her expertise through a newsletter, videos, seminars and lectures. Says Stewart: "I leave a lecture with 800 or 900 new friends -- I consider them my friends -- who will buy all my books, write to me and come to my seminars."

Now she has taken on a partner: K mart, the nation's second largest retailer. They make an odd couple: K mart, long plagued by its low-rent reputation, and Stewart, whose life looks like a Ralph Lauren ad. But next spring, as K mart's first "life-style consultant," Stewart will launch under her own name a line of K mart products, including linens, dishes and flatware. This marriage stands to benefit both parties: K mart can trade on Stewart's patrician polish and she on a whole new audience.

The products will sell at K mart prices (a five-piece place setting should be about $20) and will necessarily reflect a compromise between Stewart's champagne tastes and the retailer's beer budget. Class, in most cases, carries the day, but there are exceptions. Says K mart executive Marilyn Gill: "It was difficult for Martha to understand why not everyone would want a 100%- cotton tablecloth." Looks as if practicality won that round: the cloth will probably be a blend.

Stewart's latest and largest venture provides additional ammunition for her detractors, who criticize what they see as her relentless self-promotion and a tendency to value presentation over flavor. Stewart says that if she were an insider in food circles, the voices would be muted. "People think because I haven't worked in a restaurant that I haven't paid my dues. I am not a chef, but I do my own cooking and my own creating." Self-promotion is not unhealthy, she notes, saying, "If you have an idea, you should make it your own idea, with your name, your face."

Her adoring fans agree. The few among them who pay $900 to attend one of her quarterly seminars -- waiting time is about a year -- feel fortunate to get an up-close look at glamorous country chic. For three days participants study the Stewart style, committing to memory her 1805 farmhouse, its 19th century English and American antiques, almost six acres of gardens with 15 varieties of lettuce, and barn with Araucana chickens that lay blue eggs. Heady stuff, but Stewart makes her guests feel at home in it. Says Michigan housewife Lynda Byer: "I worried that she'd be a little, you know, snobby. But she's just so down to earth."

There is nothing down-home about Stewart's demonstrations, however. Her trendy chocolate truffles are decorated with pure -- therefore edible -- 24- karat gold leaf. Presentation is critical, whether it consists of sage leaves inserted under turkey skin "in the design of your choice" or "botanically correct" pastry leaves on a sweet-potato or pumpkin pie. Few details escape her attention, as when she insists on freshly ground white pepper in salmon and scallop timbales: "If you put black pepper in, people will see the big flakes and won't know exactly what it is." Says Dallas caterer Janet Showers: "There is no garnishing like hers."

Stewart's quest for perfection began early. As the second eldest of six children in a middle-class, Nutley, N.J., household -- her mother taught sixth grade and her father sold pharmaceuticals -- Martha Kostyra spent high school weekends working as a model. While a Barnard student in the early 1960s, she pulled in as much as $35,000 a year from her modeling, enough to support herself and her husband, publisher Andrew Stewart, whom she married in her sophomore year. It was his family that acquainted her with the high life. "My introduction to grownup entertaining came at a dinner party Andy's sister gave to celebrate our engagement," Stewart writes in Entertaining. "I remember white damask cloths, silver candlesticks and a tiny crystal bell that tinkled after each course and whenever I dropped my napkin." After graduation, Stewart tackled Wall Street, but by 1973 she left stockbroking to care for her young daughter Alexis, now 23. Three years later, her catering career took off.

Her business has so edged out her private life that the two are almost one. Stewart's mother, a sister, a brother and sister-in-law are on her payroll, and her eat-'em-up ambition apparently contributed to the breakup last year of her marriage. Says longtime friend Janet Horowitz: "I don't think I've ever been to a dinner party at Martha's that wasn't photographed." A big holiday party will be included in her upcoming Christmas book. For Martha Stewart, loss of privacy is a small price to pay for perfection.

With reporting by Janice C. Simpson/Westport