Martha Stewart Living April 2018

IF WE WERE EVER going to start using a snappy tagline, “Life Made Better” would pretty much sum up what we strive for at Martha Stewart Living. We always aim to offer inspiration to help improve and elevate your life—from creating a home you love to cooking up delicious meals and celebrating moments both big and small. When it comes to enhancing the home front, this issue delivers in spades. You’ll find ideas for making your most trafficked spots (namely your sofa and bed) sink-into-them comfortable and stylish, and the chaotic corners (that closet!) calm and corralled. And this month’s volume of Living would not be complete without mouthwatering recipes and fun, extraspecial suggest ions for Easter and Passover. But we have a new development to share as well. In the spirit…

ON THE ROAD LAND LOVERS For nearly two decades, chef Dan Barber has devoted himself to cooking local fare and reducing food waste at Blue Hill, in Manhattan, and at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, in Pocantico Hills, New York. Luckily, he’s also trained kitchens full of equally passionate alumni, who are opening eateries of their own. Here’s where to cheer them on. New York NASHVILLE Henrietta Red (shown), run by chef Julia Sullivan, boasts a refined natural wine list and has composted 17.5 tons of food waste. henriettared.com DENVER Chef Alex Figura’s team handmakes fresh spaghetti, gnocchi, and agnolotti at their counter-service spot, Dio Mio. diomiopasta.com ST. LOUIS An outdoor wood-burning grill is the heart of the plant-centric menu at Vicia, owned by husband-and-wife duo Tara and Michael Gallina. viciarestaurant.com SECRET SOURCE Gray Lines Linen “When it comes to buying high-quality fabrics in every…

Alabama The nonprofit PALS (People Against a Littered State) arms Alabamians from Gulf Shores to Montgomery with trash bags to spruce up their highways and roadsides. alpals.org Great Lakes Region Tens of thousands of Adopt-a-Beach teams fan out along the shores of all five bodies of water to keep plastic and other picnickers’ leftovers off the dunes and out of the waves. greatlakesadopt.org Oregon Volunteers in Portland and beyond collected a staggering 35 tons of trash (including 52 tires and a sectional sofa) in 2017 as part of the Solve It community clean, started in 1990. www.solveoregon.org…

I FIRST MET the late David Rockefeller, a son of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., when I purchased my home Skylands, in Seal Harbor, Maine, in 1997. He was the first of my new neighbors to pay me a visit. I remember how warm and friendly and full of stories he was. He soon invited me to dinner at his home, where I was introduced to the “Rockefeller” style of entertaining. Amid towering fir and spruce trees, in a contemporary home overlooking the sea, David would host dinners for 10 to 12 guest s in an intimate dining room with walls lined in paper panels painted by the French impressionist Édouard Vuillard. Locally grown vegetables, wild things foraged from the sea and the woods, and meat from his nearby farm were all…