Martha Stewart

Does she need an introduction? Martha Stewart, lifestyle queen of television, magazines, books and just plain living, has prepared for the future. She's hit the Internet, video-on-demand, bought Emeril Lagasse's TV and cookbook franchise and is providing a food line through Costco. "The Martha Stewart Show" will air its 500th episode Thursday. We talked to her -- she was on speakerphone in her offices -- just after yoga. How's your day? It's on its way. Partially over. So how is yoga going after last year's hip surgery?

Martha Stewart returns to Los Angeles on Monday for a 5 p.m. book signing at Sur La Table at the Grove. If you've ever witnessed the mob known as a Martha Stewart book signing, you'll know why we called ahead and talked in advance. Though she craftily steered the conversation to "Dinner at Home: 52 Quick Meals to Cook for Family & Friends," a 272-page cookbook released by Clarkson Potter this week, we did manage to slip in a few questions about recession entertaining. Is home entertaining more important than ever?

These are the summer doldrums when networks begin burning off series that didn't make the cut. So CBS tonight introduces "The Simple Life," a noisy, cheap joke-spewing sitcom starring Judith Light as "America's foremost authority on country living." It had been envisioned as a midseason entry, until better judgment prevailed.

What do Mark McGwire, Martha Stewart, Wayne Gretzky and Oprah have in common? You'll see, if Tony La Russa has anything to say about it.

1. "CookWise," by Shirley O. Corriher (Morrow, $28.50). 2. "Marcella Cucina," by Marcella Hazan (HarperCollins, $35). 3. "Joy of Cooking," by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker (Scribner, $30). 4. "Cooking With the Two Fat Ladies," Jennifer Patterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright (Random House, $25). 5. "The New Making of a Cook," by Madeleine Kamman (William Morrow, $40). 6. "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," by Deborah Madison (Broadway Books, $35). 7.

Strange bed and bath fellows? Kmart Corp., the nation's second-largest discount retailer, and Martha Stewart, the multimedia queen of home and hearth, Wednesday announced an alliance to sell a full line of Stewart-branded bed and bath products at store-within-a-store displays at Kmart. A separate line of Martha Stewart paint will be rolled out in May, designed for easy color coordination, even by the hard-of-fashion.

Martha Stewart, whose recipe for 1990s family life has grown into a media empire of cooking, gardening and entertaining how-to, has taken control of her namesake magazine and TV series. The purchase Tuesday calls for Stewart to buy out most of founding partner Time Inc.'s stake in Martha Stewart Living magazine, her syndicated TV show and some book-publishing operations. (Time Inc. is the publishing division of Time Warner Inc.

In concept, it's a hyperactive calendar. It not only reminds you when the car-insurance bill is due, but if you dent a fender, it tells you the deductible. It alerts you to birthdays and doctor's appointments. It does meal planning and airs the news, the soaps, whatever else you're half-watching between tasks. What's more, it isn't bulky and hard to use like a typical home computer. Its flat screen shares space with the magnets and crayon drawings on your refrigerator.

Author and home arts expert Martha Stewart will talk on gardening at a charity fund-raiser at the Redondo Beach Marina on May 9. Her talk will kick off a show called "Entertaining in the Garden," to be held at the marina from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 10 and 11 for the benefit of the Little Company of Mary Hospital Foundation. Tickets for her appearance, which includes a lunch, book-signing opportunity and tour of the show, are $100 a person and are available only through advance purchase.