"martha stewart" news and stories

Actor, comedienne, and activist Marlo Thomas's online series "Mondays with Marlo", right here on Aol, brings special guests (such as Dr. Dale Atkins and Dr. Oz) together with viewers every week for a fantastic half-hour of frank, fun, and informative talk on subjects from sexual health to advice on nutrition, diet, and cooking meals you (and your family) will love. The best part of this live show is, viewers get to ask the experts their own questions, which makes it personal, provocative... and spontaneous!

On Monday, January 31, at 12:30 p.m. ET, Marlo chats with entertaining guru and multimedia star Martha Stewart.

When you put these three Martha Stewart cookbooks on your shelf, you'll always have ideas for meals that are simple to prepare, full of flavor, and delicious. The editors from Martha Stewart Living, Everyday Food, and Whole Living magazines have collected the best of their best recipes here, for the way we want to eat right now. Everyday Food: Fresh Flavors Fast gives you ideas for country breakfasts, hearty soups, and budget-concious main courses (among the 250 recipes), all for home cooks who want great meals made effortless. Cupcakes is a classic, with everyone's favorite eat-out-of-hand dessert in fun flavors for every occasion. Power Foods, from the editors at Whole Living, is the newest of Martha's books, and is a fantastic source for cooking with the 38 healthiest ingredients available. Each ingredient, from sweet potatoes to salmon, is given a full nutritional profile, along with tips on storage and prep. But the best part is that you never have to wonder how to cook these amazingly beneficial foods. More than 150 recipes are offered that take you step-by-step toward better health and flavorful new dishes.

Find out how to win a copy of each of these books after the jump.

Will Domestic Diva Martha Stewart have to spend her post-Christmas downtime baking yet another round of cookies because the blizzard in the Northeast means she can't fly out of town? Martha screamed on Twitter on Sunday during the storm that the snow may be nixing her getaway: "We are actually having a blizzard whiteout my flight to the islands was cancelled for tomorrow and i really need a vacation!! are you ok?"

Well, she may need a vacation, but the airports just say "No." And, says a source close to Martha, "Martha does not accept no from anyone, including Mother Nature. We are hoping that she gets a private jet to get her out of the country. No one wants Martha to have a vacation more than her staff. An uhappy Martha is not a gift anyone wants this year!"

Are you listening air-traffic controllers?

Let's play "Guess the Food-Celebrity's Kitchen." Kitchen Number One has warm woods, throw rugs and even some potted plants on the counters. Kitchen Number Two is white tile and stainless steel, every pot aligned exactly with the others hanging from the pot rack. Which is Martha Stewart's and which is Paula Deen's? OK, there really is no surprise that Martha prefers the de-cluttered, foursquare look of Number Two. But isn't it fun to actually see the kitchens where food celebs get their cutting boards dirty?

Curbed offers us a gallery of food-celeb kitchens, from Ina Garten, Guy Fieri, Rachel Ray, and others. Funny, we don't spot any refrigerator-magnet collections.

Americans eat about two billion cookies a year, said Martha Stewart, who has just the iPhone app for all those cookie lovers. But, she added, that's probably a little shy of the actual number. The domestic doyenne was speaking to guests at the milk-and-cookies event she hosted at the New York City Wine & Food Festival on Saturday morning at the New York Times building in Manhattan.

As part of the cookie fest, New York's finest pastry chefs showed off their creations -- from the local bakery to the high-end eatery. Red Hook's Baked bakery had their salt-and-pepper sandwich cookies; Babbo's pastry chef, Gina DePalma, had chocolate-pistachio biscotti on hand. A total of eighteen restaurants and bakeries had cookies for the crowd, and Manhattan Milk provided organic moo juice and yogurt for a healthy side. And there were four hands-on stations for kids, to mix it up and decorate the sweets.