A few weeks ago, Ina Garten left a cheeky comment on Reese Witherspoon’s Instagram. Reese was trying to shill some self-help book about how to manage your time and intent (or something) and Ina was basically like: during the pandemic, do what you need to do to survive. Ina’s suggestions were along the lines of “Drink more large cosmos” and “Stay up late watching addictive streaming series” and “Stay in bed in the morning playing Sudoko instead of reading a good book.” Well, guess who hated all of that? Martha Stewart. Martha is fully committed to beefing with Ina Garten. Martha was like: that basic bitch is always sloppy drunk and it’s not cute.
Earlier this month, Ina Garten commented on a post of Reese Witherspoon’s and revealed that her “formula” for coping with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic includes drinking “more large cosmos.” But Martha Stewart isn’t totally on board with that advice.
“I do not agree about taking to drink to cope with things like the pandemic,” the lifestyle expert and businesswoman tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “To me that’s not charming.”
Instead, Stewart prefers to keep busy with new projects, like launching her new chardonnay, Martha’s Chard, with Australian wine brand 19 Crimes. “To me it’s continuing to work really hard, to be as productive as I possibly can be, to enjoy my grandchildren,” she says.
Stewart, 80, is “not a big drinker,” she says. “I never have been.” She’ll have a glass of wine or two with dinner and will extend the glass with the addition of ice cubes (a tactic she promises is now totally acceptable, even to fine winemakers). She credits her productivity to her daily routine at home in Bedford, New York.
“I have a lot of energy and a lot of curiosity. I get up early every single day,” she says. “I live on a farm, so the farm life starts early. At 7 a.m. we’re all at work — snow, rain, sunshine, we’re here. Animals don’t wait.”
She tells PEOPLE she watches TV “only at night” rather than during the day. “I have two iPads, and I might use up all the power in both during a night watching something,” she says. “I just binged season 3 of Yellowstone. I loved it. Kevin Costner never looked better.”
The entrepreneur is also looking and feeling her best. Her secrets? “I just brought Frederic Fekkai home from California to cut my hair. I continue with my facials at Mario Badescu,” she says. “And the pandemic has been okay to me physically because I haven’t been eating out as much. I’ve lost some weight. I feel good.”
The rest of us are limping our way through two full years of a panny and Martha was like “how dare you need coping mechanisms, y’all should be WORKING.” I mean, I’m not a drinker anymore, so I actually have been working this whole time, but I still have my much-needed coping mechanisms (outdoor walks, watching tennis & Poirot DVDs). Martha needs to let Ina and everybody else have some drinks though. Not all of us live on a damn farm, putting ice cubes in our wine and judging the lesser mortals. (Incidentally, I never thought Martha would be pro-ice-cubes-in-wine, how gauche.)
Photos courtesy of Instagram, Avalon Red.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pLHLnpmirJOdxm%2BvzqZmcG1haIZxe8yaqa2gkZTAtbHWmqmtl5mpwKC6zq2WnKCRp7qqusaYnaiqj567oqvGmqmtnZ6UwbCrwaims52PnbKzq9aasJismKe8trPHmKuhnY%2Blrq%2BwxKagnGc%3D