Martha Stewart Living March 2018

SOME OF MY FAVORITE childhood memories with my mom involve hopping into our family st ation wagon and heading to all kinds of estate sales, flea markets, antiques shows, and auction houses. This is a hobby for many, but we were on a mission: to find discontinued Haviland & Co. china from the 1880s. She had a unique business, a matching service, and people would call her from all over, hoping to procure a particular vintage pattern to fill out a family set (or to replace a treasured plate that some newly minted persona non grata in the household had accidentally broken over the holidays). They often knew little about what they had, except that they adored it (or, in other cases, wanted to sell it). She would identify the…

LIZ BANFIELD (PORTRAIT); COURTESY OF CLARKSON POTTER (BOOK); PETER ARDITO (VEGGIES, VASE); MIKKEL VANG (CAKE); ERIC PIASECKI (BATHROOM)…

| ON THE ROAD | ENDLESS LOVE For number crunchers and pie fanatics, March 14 is a double delight. The date matches the mathematical constant 3.14… (the never-ending pi), and is a brilliant excuse to indulge in puns and pastries. Brooklynites geek out at Four & Twenty Blackbirds (right), with its $14 three-slice special—get it? Here, a few other infinitely delicious options. DURHAM, N.C. Every runner in the Pie Day Pi K race wins a mini pie made by Scratch Bakery in a surprise flavor. Last year: apple or dark-chocolate sea salt. piefantasy.com MILWAUKEE Door County cherries do good: Honeypie Bakeshop donates 3.14 percent of sales from its nation-wide deliveries (aka PieGrams) to Girls Who Code. honeypiecafe.com SAN FRANCISCO For Bay Area mathletes, Three Babes Bakeshop sends out almost as many Key lime pies (and other flavors) as they do…

Focus on Food Learn how to light and frame your plate like a pro before you dig into the best eats the Funk Zone district has to offer. Santa Barbara, California; eatthisshootthat.com See Urban Sights Shoot the Twin Cities’ unique architectural elements, such as the St. Paul skyway, on quarterly walks led by local design and photography experts. St. Paul, Minnesota; mnpreservation.org Capture the Desert Compose a keeper of iconic Camelback Mountain (or the stylish cocktails served afterward) in a class at this newly renovated midcentury resort. Paradise Valley, Arizona; mountainshadows.com…

EVERY MARCH, my grandchildren, Jude, now age 7; and Truman, age 6, celebrate their birthdays together with one big party for their classmates. Since they have been studying Mandarin at their school in New York City, we all agreed that the Lunar New Year would be a perfect theme for the festivities last spring. Since the children’s first joint party in 2013, Alexis and I have gotten pretty good at creating large-scale birthday gatherings. This year we enlisted the help of Danielle Chang, founder of an events company called Luckyrice; and Anne Kuo Hyun, proprietor of Black Twine, a party-planning business. They were invaluable in helping us put together the day, introducing us to bakers, musicians, dancers, and martial artist s. We filled my office’s clerestory with vivid paper lanterns and gigantic…