Friday, March 16, 2007

Members

Who's Who on Mad About Martha?

Maris Callahan
Maris has been a fan of Martha Stewart since 1996, when she saw the domestic diva’s E! True Hollywood Story. For as long as she can remember, Maris has loved to cook and throw parties and has recently come to terms with her secret addiction to craft projects.

Since graduating from Susquehanna University in 2006 with a BA in Creative Writing and Communications with an emphasis in Public Relations, Maris has worked in the world of PR. While she began her career in the fashion/beauty industry, she now works in the consumer sector, where she's been able to exercise a lot of writing skills and creativity.

Maris also maintains a personal blog, In Good Taste about cooking, food and life. In her "me" time, she enjoys running, knitting, yoga and a good latte.

Sarah Caron
As a student at Barnard College, Martha Stewart’s alma mater, it was hard not to be curious about the media maven’s interesting past. So in senior year when an employer offered Sarah a copy of her unauthorized biography, she jumped at the chance to read it. But that wasn’t Sarah’s first exposure to Martha – she’d grown up dreading weekends when her mother and grandmother would eagerly watch Martha Stewart Living (hello, interrupting cartoons!). But now Sarah is a bit of a Martha fanatic (she also loves Ina Garten, Julia Child and sometimes has been known to get a kick out of Rachael Ray). Oh, and she and her friends make annual winter trips to Chelsea in New York City to watch The Martha Stewart Show tape. Sarah also writes her personal blog, Cucina Bella, and edits Fit Fare and Well Fed On The Town. And in her spare time (chuckle) she wrote a cookbook, Families Eat Together (Ladder Press), which is due out this year.

Diane Clark
Diane Clark lives, and sorts trash into various pre-assigned categories, in a rented Japanese mini-castle with her husband, a civilian teacher on a U.S. military base, and their two children. When she's not part-time homeschooling or running her kids around to school and lessons, Diane is writing essays, planning a new Asian adventure, soaking up some kind of culture, digging through her burgeoning bedside library, or working toward the Martha-esque title of Super-Homemaker. She also takes furtive photographs and aspires to be a crafter. Diane blogs about her varied interests here.

Tracy DeBlois
Tracy was first exposed to Martha when the catering company she worked for in the late 80s and early 90s borrowed heavily from Martha’s wildly popular serving style, using distinctive baskets and platters for serving, and decorating with flowers. Since then she has embraced other aspects of the Martha philosophy, and has subscriptions to almost all of the Martha magazines. She lives in the Seattle area, with her husband, and four children (a four-year-old boy, twin two-year-old boys, and an almost one-year-old daughter). They are in the process of building a house big enough to hold her cookbook collection. She maintains her own mostly food-focused blog, the Modern Apron.

Randi Dukes
I've loved Martha for as long as I can remember. I have all her early books and a lifetime subscription to Living. The love has been passed on to my husband and our four children: a 10 year old, a 9 year old and 2 year old twins. I'm a stay-at-home mom who loves to cook, sew, knit and craft ... if Martha makes it, I'll try to copy it! Dukes and Duchesses is my personal blog where I discuss life as I see it and live it.

Abbey Lile-Taylor
Wishing she was Martha since early high school, Abbey has now settled for being a devotee instead. Some of her other spatula-wielding heroes include Ina Garten, Nigella Lawson, and Paula Deen… a fellow southerner. When she’s not writing on her personal blog, indulge*laugh*create, you will find her taking photographs, drinking way too much coffee, stitching up her next crafty project, reading or heading out to the local flea market. She currently lives on the central coast of California with her geeky, but adorable, husband, their dog, Molly, and three out of control cats.

Cate O'Malley
Cate loves Martha, ain't no denying it. She also loves Barefoot Contessa, Giada de Laurentiis, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, and even a little bit 'o Rachael Ray. Cate's writings can also be found on her personal food site, Sweetnicks, The Well Fed Network, and she also writes for Cooking Light magazine's web site and the new Hearst/MSN partnership, Delish.com.

Ashley Timiraos-Sweren
Ashley was bit by the Martha bug as a teenager and has been a devoted fan ever since. She is a writer and editor in the Silicon Valley, helping high-tech clients expound the virtues of their latest semiconductor and nanosensor innovations. While that gig pays the bills, Ashley would much rather be at home whipping up a gorgeous soufflé or arranging a seasonal tableaux on her mantle. She and her husband live in a cute little house in the suburbs, where they enjoy working in the yard, sampling new recipes and catching up on their never-ending Netflix queue.

Misty Wagner
Misty Wagner is a freelance journalist coming to us originally from the South West. Having spent the majority of the past decade covering the entertainment industry, she has gone on to write several non-entertainment related articles, as well as completing a novel. Among her many passions are Interior Design, Photography, Culinary Arts, Paper Crafting, Reading and Travel. You can keep up with the more everyday moments of her life at here.

Misty first fell in love with Martha Stewart as a young bride of 18. Having had a less than ideal childhood, she was suddenly "introduced" to this amazing woman who seemed to be able to make, create or find inspiration in just about anything. It was all stemming from Martha that Misty fell in love with cooking, design, party planning and organization.

Robin Wheeler-Barber
In 1995, while watching her first Martha Stewart holiday special, Robin Wheeler-Barber became obsessed with the idea of a Styrofoam wreath form, studded with fresh cranberries. So obsessed that she scrounged every store in town in search of the issue of "Martha Stewart Living" with the wreath on the cover. Because that's exactly what every 24-year-old college drop-out living in a two-room basement apartment needs - wreaths made from fresh berries.

In the following years Robin attended culinary school, wrote a monthly column in a regional food magazine and taught culinary classes. By 2002 she was operating a small catering company from her home, a la Martha.

Robin put her plans for her media empire on hold in 2005 after the birth of her daughter. These days, she writes about her life at Poppymom. She's Robin 1 on the food blog Frigidare Pair with her friend Robin 2, where they focus on turning conventional recipes into homemade convenience foods. On the Well Fed Network, her writing can be found on A Nice Cuppa, Kids Cuisine, Growers and Grocers, The Cook's Kitchen, and Paper Palate.

She still hasn't made that cranberry wreath.

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