My Visit with Martha

Yesterday my mom was in town and we went to see a taping of The Martha Stewart Show in NYC.

We were super excited just to see what Martha was doing, but also because guests in the past few days had received awesome giveaways such as $100 juicers, cupcake stuff, craft stuff, special edition Estee Lauder makeup sets, etc.

After waiting for a train that was delayed 45 minutes, we finally arrived in the city and walked our way through the crowds only to wait in line another 45 minutes in the freezing cold outside her studio. While waiting, we saw people leaving the taping of the LIVE show for the day that tapes in the morning. They had huge brown bags filled with stuff, so we were all starting to get more excited.

They finally let us in and Joey came out (if you watch the show, you know who he is) to tell us what the show was on. It was now Tuesday, February 10th, and we were talking about stuff for Valentine's Day. Martha had one of her former chefs on and they were going to make steak au poivre and pastries. She was also going to do a glitter craft and had some live birds on her show before doing another craft. We all thought we were going to get to taste some pastries and get some good foodie and/or crafty giveaways. Yeah!!

The staff came around to see if anyone had questions for the "Ask Martha" segment they were going to record if there was time and they put stars on your tickets if your question was picked. My mom got a star which meant we got awesome seats!

They lead us all into the studio (after giving us the signs for applause, aahh, oohh, and mmm of course!) and we anxiously awaited Martha. She looked so pretty when she came out in a yellow shirt, khaki colored dress slacks, and high heels. She went right to work cooking the steak and it smelled heavenly! After a commercial break, they came back and finished up the steak and proceeded to give out the first giveaway. What was it you ask? A new pan, Omaha steaks, a special pepper grinder? Oh no my friends. We got demi glaze! Yeah. The $5 tub you could make yourself or buy at the grocery store! Whoopie de da do! And we didn't get to taste any pastries either :(

The next segment was Martha crafting the glitter heart buckles to use on wrapping your valentine gifts. Very cute, but seeing how they didn't give out the glitter, and I'm not even going to be around this Valentine's Day, I don't think I'm going to be rushing out to buy all the different colors to make my own "bedazzled" buckles! Not to mention the fact that I don't think my hubby will wear it after he unwraps his gift.

Next was time for the birds. They had a lady there from the Maryland Zoo with 4 different kinds of endangered birds. The first one was this huge crane that looked like this:

The bird had to make a grand entrance, so they had him in the back of the studio audience and when called he flew down over us (we were directly under his flight path) up to the front. After they finished his segment, he was supposed to fly back up to the trainer behind us. As he took off, he was a lot lower over us going back than he was coming, and two rows short of the back he decided he got tired and decided to perch on some lady's head instead! It was hilarious!! Best part of the whole show!

Once they got the crane off her head, they went on to show us the hawk, parrot and tucan that they had as well.

After the commercial break, Martha was supposed to show us how to etch on a fish tank and we were all supposed to get another giveaway (which my mom peeked on the way out and saw it was a glass etching kit which I've wanted for a long time), but to protect themselves from getting sued, they had the lady who had the crane on her head come on to have her say on national tv that she was okay after the incident, and ran out of time to do anything else.

My mom did get a chance to ask Martha her question after the show was done taping, "How do I get red candle wax off my white wall?" and Martha's answer was, "Paint. It will never come off and ban all red candles from your house like I have because the red dye is the worst."

So, even though we only came away with "meat glaze" as my mom likes to say, we had a great time and are looking forward to getting tickets again.

If you feel like seeing a lady with a giant crane standing on her head (and my mom and I because we should be in the front row off the floor) then definitely watch the show on February 10th. It's hilarious!

P.S. We came home and watched the live show from yesterday morning's taping to see what they all had in their big brown bags and they got fleece jackets, Quaker oat products and an Obama hat. I could have done without the hat, but the fleece sure would have been nice!