Martha Stewart Living March 2020

TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE. I first read this famous Shakespeare quote in Hamlet decades ago, but my mind goes to it almost daily, like a mantra of sorts. My good friend Julie scrawled it in my high school yearbook on the last day of our senior year. By summer’s end, the plan was that she would set off for a top state university a few hours’ drive from home, along with many of our classmates. And I would board a plane bound for college on the East Coast, where I hardly knew a soul. It was an exciting yet slightly scary time, and I think the quote was her way of saying, in teenage parlance: You be you (and be good!), and it will all work out. Loosely…

ON THE ROAD EASY DOES IT New Orleans is humming with freshly minted museums, eclectic restaurants, and bayou-tiful boulevards. For access to it all, plunk yourself in the Marigny district. Consider staying at Hotel Peter & Paul—a 19th-century schoolhouse, church, and convent now filled with guest rooms done up in handmade textiles and painterly palettes (hotelpeterandpaul.com). Then hit these colorful spots. COME HUNGRY to the Franklin, a grocery-store-turned-gastropub where the dinner menu (breadcrumb-topped blue-crab pasta, hanger-steak frites) is as authentically NOLA as the expertly crafted cocktails. thefranklinnola.com MOSEY DOWN Frenchmen Street. Peruse the nightly open-air Palace Market Frenchmen, where artists and jewelers sell top-notch work; follow your ear to the Spotted Cat Music Club for some hopping live jazz. palacemarketnola.com; spottedcatmusicclub.com SNAG A SEAT at the Marigny Opera House—a church built in 1848 that’s been…

When I was growing up, my mother made it a tradition to serve a big kettle of brined brisket, prepared with cooked cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and turnips, whenever the calendar hit March 17. She would bring the meal to the table on an immense board, along with small bowls of coarse salt and hot mustard. Sometimes our Irish neighbors joined us, and they would regale us with stories from their home country. Sometimes it was just us. But we always loved every minute of it, and stuffed ourselves accordingly. When I hired Kevin Sharkey, who today is our executive director of design and a very dear friend, he made it crystal clear that St. Patrick’s Day was an important holiday to him. Raised in Boston, he looked forward to eating his…

CELEBRATE Irish Times For a St. Patrick’s Day salute that doesn’t involve green bagels or beer, top slices of soda bread with fruit preserves and slabs of nutty, sweet Kerrygold Dubliner cheese, then wash them down with a refreshing twist on a shandy. Our food editors reach for We Love Jam Montmorency cherry–apricot ($10 for 9 oz., welovejam.com). To get our Irish soda-bread recipe, see page 100. STOUT SHANDY In a pint glass, combine 2 ounces chilled stout, such as Guinness, with 4 ounces chilled grapefruit sparkling soda, like Lorina. Garnish with a grapefruit slice. Charmed, for Sure Share the luck of the Irish with a leprechaun-size symbol of good fortune. You can embroider a loved one’s shirt cuff or hankie with a tiny four-leaf clover (above) using our template, or iron a serendipitous patch (right)…

COOL CUSHIONS “No two Kirsten Hecktermann throw pillows are exactly alike,” says designer Heide Hendricks of the Connecticut firm Hendricks Churchill. The hand-dyed velvet differs even within the same shade. Hendricks likes to top sofas with variations on one color. From $85 each, kirstenhecktermann.bigcartel.com. STYLISH STORAGE The Brooklyn Home Company’s Holly Waterfield enlists World Market Margaux water-hyacinth tote baskets as flexible corral-alls—for extra pillows and throws in dens, shoes in entryways, toys in kids’ rooms, rolled towels in bathrooms. “I love the chunky texture,” she says. “For the price, they are really sturdy.” From $30 each, worldmarket.com. FINE FOUNDATIONS Hendricks gets jute rugs at Overstock.com to ground her clients’ living spaces. She layers thin ones, like the Miranda Haus braided style (from $33), under antique patterned carpets. A “beefy, tactile” type, like the Curated Nomad…

MOLLY LUETHI AND KEI TSUZUKI are the brains and guardian angels behind Kei & Molly Textiles, a company with a cause. When they met 10 years ago, at the Albuquerque school both of their kids attended, Swiss-born Luethi had run a children’s language program for decades, and Tsuzuki, born in Japan and raised in Canada, had worked in immigrant women’s economic development. The Spark of an Idea The pair quickly realized they shared a dream: to support the city’s refugee and immigrant communities—10 percent of its population—through a for-profit social enterprise. They began by pooling their talents. Tsuzuki, an MBA with a creative streak, taught Luethi, who speaks four languages, how to screen-print at her kitchen table. They made 135 flour-sack dish towels for the local elementary school’s holiday crafts sale,…