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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.