My future husband and I visited his parents' home in south Georgia a few months prior to our wedding to attend the 19 or so parties which were being thrown in our honor. In between parties, I would allow my face to relax over a cup of coffee in the breakfast room where Mom kept her latest cookbook purchases. The year was 1984 and I had never heard of Martha Stewart, but there she was, wearing pink Laura Ashley, on the cover of her inaugural book, "Quick Cook," a beautifully photographed instruction manual for getting dinner on the table in style without spending the entire day in the kitchen. I was hooked and read the book from cover to cover at least seven times across that eternal weekend.
I loved her list of pantry must-haves - including things like truffle oil, caviar, and sundried tomatoes (which no one had ever heard of) - and decided that my life would be good if I became a Martha disciple. The biggest impediment to stocking my pantry a la Martha was that my local grocery store was stuck in the seventies. Granola was the most up-to-date product they stocked and so my quest for the magic pantry which would allow me to make beautiful dinners in five minutes or less immediately hit a wall. Martha Stewart lived in New York City; I lived in Washington where the "good" restaurants were traditional French style and not particularly noteworthy because they didn't have to be. There were a handful of tiny epicurean markets scattered about the greater metro area but that meant getting in the car and driving around which I was loath to do. The closest one, Neam's Market, was in Georgetown where I found two or three of Martha's items but they were so expensive I couldn't bring myself to purchase them. It was at this point that I lowered my aspirations to include only those items I could find at Safeway or Giant, which eliminated all but five recipes. Of the remaining five, four required onions which my hubby-to-be was allergic to, but I was undaunted.
Martha believed in setting a beautiful table every evening using a variety of plates and stemware. At that point in my life, I had no beautiful china, serving pieces, or stemware, nor did I have a ready source of fresh-cut flowers. No matter, I told myself, I'll work with what I have which was from a thrift store. We had begun to receive place settings in the Adams English Ironstone pattern which we had registered for in the small town that my future husband called home but it would be many months before we had eight entire place settings, so I continued to use the chipped and cracked plates and bent flatware to which we were accustomed (and which I could drop without serious incident).
After re-reading "Quick Cook" and sighing over the photographs of Martha in her demure dresses while lovingly serving perfectly prepared frozen desserts, I decided that it was time to put the plan into action. I chose an easy-sounding, onion-free recipe of sesame-seed encrusted chicken pieces in a soy marinade served inside baked acorn squash halves. Preparing everything took well over two hours but it was very tasty. I didn't have time for the rest of the menu which included an elaborate side dish and dessert. In my rush to make this dinner, I had neglected to wash the lettuce for a salad, so I had to get up from the table and do that. Hubby-to-be offered to do it, but I was desperate to become accomplished in the kitchen so I wouldn't let him. I placed the salad in front of him and realized I had not made any salad dressing. The salad dressing I had wanted to make required walnut oil which I did not have so I substituted olive oil which was fine, but not what Martha called for. After dinner, Hubby-to-be offered to do the clean up and because I was tired, I let him. An hour and a half later, I peeked into the kitchen where he was still battling a huge pile of dishes, cookware, glasses, etc. "Did you have to use every single plate, bowl, pot, and measuring cup in the house?" he asked peevishly. I made a quick note to myself never to let him do the clean-up again. "Good food takes time and makes a mess," I said defensively. "I just followed the recipe in this book I borrowed from your mother called 'Quick Cook'." He said that next time he would prefer "Quick Clean-Up".
After the "Quick Cook" fiasco, I sadly returned the book to my future mother-in-law and went back to Campbell's Tomato Soup and cheese toast. My loyalty to and desire to be like Martha only grew, however. I devoured everything she wrote and was an early subscriber to her magazine, "Martha Stewart Living." Apparently I was not alone in wanting to channel Martha. If will power could have transformed my home to one that looked like Martha's, I would have succeeded but will power cannot change an Ineffective Person. Just the same, I sewed curtains, made elaborate Roman shades, designed adorable Halloween costumes for my children, ordered Martha's craft project kits, and made my own piping for kitchen chair cushions. But it wasn't enough. Every project that I tackled, nearly did me in because of the mess it created and the time it took away from housekeeping. No matter how hard I worked at straightening, organizing, cleaning, decorating, my house was always a mess. I was at a low point in my quest to be Martha when she tried to cheat the system and had to go to the Big House to pay her debt to society. Betrayed, angry, hurt, and exhausted I renounced my Goddess and decided to give the Fly Lady a try.
Where the pre-felony conviction Martha was all about the kind of good taste and restraint that only money can buy, the Fly Lady would be right at home in a trailer park. My suspicion is that the person behind the Fly Lady was once, or maybe still is, a hoarder, in other words obsessive-compulsive. After she taught me how to get out of bed, get dressed to the shoes, and shine my sink, she then bombarded me with reminders to tackle my "zone", drink a glass of water, "bless" my home, and update my control journal. Martha had been a sort of siren with her lifestyle that felt tantalizingly attainable when I read her magazines and books (even though I would never have the money to hire enough people to clean up after me); the Fly Lady, on the other hand, was like the most annoying pre-school teacher I had ever met. She was So Perky! So energetic! So Positive! And her messages were So Simple! But I gave her a chance anyway because my life was chaotic and I couldn't remember to change the air conditioner filters or get the cars serviced or any of those routine chores which cause big problems if neglected.
The Fly Lady's Control Journal is her answer to "Martha's Calendar" which graced the pages of her monthly book of "good things." Martha would schedule "washing window screens" along with yoga, picking raspberries with Mom, canning tomato sauce, and polishing the brass fittings and leather harness on her two-horse carriage. The Fly Lady had probably never picked berries, taken a yoga class, or come withing two miles of a horse. Her control journal was all about fighting the entropy of modern life by motivating her follows to grab that feather duster and start stirring up the dust motes.
Fortunately for my family, my Fly Lady phase lasted less than a month. At first, the constant reminders in my email inbox kept me focused but when I tried to develop and live by the control journal, everything fell apart. My control journal was not perfect so every time I tried to use it I found something that needed to be changed, so off to my computer I would go. I spent so much time perfecting that year-long to-do list that I forgot to pay my bills and plan Daughter #1's birthday party. Fortunately we had a pool and my daughter was a summer baby so I called her friends' moms and bought a cake from Safeway along with a couple bags of chips and everyone had a great time and because of the short notice, no one brought a gift!
No thanks to the Fly Lady, my house was messier than ever and my to-do list was so complicated that I gave up. Fortunately, we decided to move to Florida so I had an excuse for not being organized. That was seven years ago but I'm using it still.
Copyright 2012 Teresa Friedlander all rights reserved
