When I received a copy of Martha Stewart’s first book, “Entertaining,” not long after it was published in 1982, I devoured it in one sitting. I envisioned throwing a Thanksgiving dinner for 24 at a long candlelit farm table set with antique plates and serving a savory soup in a hollowed-out pumpkin. Or planning a Valentine’s Day dinner for two, for which I would wear a romantic white cotton dress and pearls and serve a perfect rack of lamb and heart-shaped coeur lab crème. So what if I lived in a one-bedroom apartment and didn’t raise geese, own a samovar or have my own Italian honeybees? A girl can dream, can’t she?
