By Annie Groer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 2, 2006; H01
Martha Stewart has delivered unto us useful, tasteful lessons about virtually every aspect of our domestic lives for nearly a quarter of a century.
In print and cyberspace, on radio and television, she has preached the gospel of clothes keeping, pet tending, wedding planning, flower arranging, glue gunning, meal prepping, flea marketing and silver polishing. One might think she'd have nothing more to say on such subjects. And yet, and yet . . . the proselytizing continues, as her latest book -- she has penned more than two dozen in what promises to be an endless bibliography -- makes abundantly clear.
"Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook" enters the world with a whopping first printing of 500,000. (By way of perspective: A book is considered successful if it sells 50,000 or more.) Bestseller-dom would be a good thing, given that Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia reported a $25.2 million loss for the third quarter that ended Sept. 30.
For once, Martha -- a one-name wonder like Bono and Madonna -- is not ahead of the curve. Seven years ago, Cheryl Mendelson, a then-obscure New York philosophy professor and lawyer, published an even longer, surprise bestseller on the topic. "Home Comforts: The Art & Science of Keeping House" is still keeping her in royalty checks for the 270,000 hardbacks and 50,000 paperbacks sold thus far.
Mendelson said her book appeals to baby boomers "who were told, 'You don't need to know that. You will have this fancy career.' But even if you are working, you want to have a good meal. You want to have a clean house."
True enough. But it's also pretty clear most of us don't want to work too hard to achieve that exalted state.
Martha's perfect-home tome arrives as American women are spending roughly half the time -- 12 hours a week -- on cooking, cleaning and laundry that they did in 1965. Back then, women devoted 25 hours to such interior chores, said economist Erik Hurst of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. (For the record, men are actually pitching in a tiny bit more, from a pitiful two hours in 1965 to 3.5 hours today, but most of their work is outdoors, in the yard, not indoors.)
This decline in household labor has been attributed to many factors: working couples hiring others to clean their homes; time-saving appliances; fast-food restaurants and supermarket sales of prepared food; and home deliveries of meals, "which have gone through the roof, even in rural areas," said Hurst, co-author of several domestic studies with University of Rochester economist Mark Aguiar.
To be sure, the genre of housekeeping uber-manuals has a proud tradition. Martha cites several classics in her "Homekeeping" introduction, including "An Encyclopedia of Domestic Economy," published in the United States in 1845, and "Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management," published in London in 1861.
Practically every subject in "Homekeeping" has already been covered or perfected in her myriad publications and her own homes over the decades. She currently has five domiciles, including one that's for sale, and unlike most of us, she has a staff at each.
But her techniques for folding a sweater or gilding a pumpkin remain the same whether she personally executes the tasks in her East Hampton, N.Y., home or instructs us mere mortals, where'er we dwell: an urban studio, a messy teen's bedroom, a sprawling suburban manse.
The text, pictures and charts -- black-and-white softened by her signature pale turquoise -- consolidate what she has been teaching the masses since her 1982 debut cookbook (although this volume contains no recipes). Today, she oversees a heavily branded empire that includes lines of furniture, paint, dishes, holiday decor and even houses.
While some of her advice may seem obvious to some -- use separate cutting boards for meat and vegetables to prevent cross-contamination -- many of us are woefully ignorant of the basics. Who better than Martha to tell us that a wooden citrus reamer is the best tool to juice a lemon, and a soft paintbrush is perfect for dusting a picture frame?
We learn how to avoid scary bacteria in the kitchen (don't use sponges), store candles (wrap in tissue paper, then slip into cardboard paper-towel tubes) and prolong the life of a mattress (never sit on the edge, let kids jump on it or place a board between mattress and box spring, which can interfere with its support system).
We may roll our eyes at Martha's maintenance schedules -- sweep the kitchen floor daily, dust bedroom furniture and artwork weekly -- but in the end, one must grudgingly salute this exhaustive expertise.
I recently spied a tiny mouse in my Georgetown apartment (chilly October to February are peak invasion months, she informs), promptly baited two snap traps with peanut butter and bacon, and waited for the gotcha! sproing . It never came.
Now I know why. "Homekeeping" decrees I'd need five to 10 traps per mouse hole (assuming I could find it/them), spaced two feet apart at right angles to the wall and baited with peanut butter mixed with rolled oats, raisins or "bits of whole grain bread." (Right: Like I'm going to bake vermin treats.)
Alas, "Homekeeping" has no bread recipe. But that may be one of its few oversights.
