I spent an embarrassingly large portion of my childhood glued to Home and Garden Television. While I loved “Mission Organization” and “Decorating Cents” as much as the next eight year old, I would argue that no name is more synonymous with domestic goddess-hood than Martha Stewart’s.

So imagine my delight when I came across the headline “Martha Stewart Eats Cheese Steaks” on philly.com. It’s not every day you get to see a Queen of the Kitchen turned jailbird turned Queen of the Kitchen (again) sample Philly’s finest.

I’m not sure where you stand on the cheesesteak battle. I’m of the “I don’t care” school, but I couldn’t think of a better way to settle The Question than by deferring to the refined palette of Martha Stewart.

Now, before I reveal the results, let me remind you that this is the same woman whose website contains no fewer than 400 hits for “turkey recipe.” (Roasted with quince sauce, salt-and-pepper grilled, spice cured, roasted with sage, herb-rubbed, brined, deep-fried…) Her halloween specials included marzipan pumpkin petits fours, devil’s food cake with flame tuiles and chai-spiced cider punch, so from the start I was sure that Pat’s and Geno’s were doomed to be dismissed as layman’s food, chock full o’ grease and drizzled with something Martha wouldn’t even consider to be real cheese.

But I was wrong.

Martha’s eyes dance with glee as the cheesesteaks are set down in front of her on a white plate (I’m sure the wheels in her head were turning, silently criticizing the sub-par presentation). She picks up the steaks and studies each one like she’s some kind of curious ape, struggling to verbalize her expert assessment, “Onions, oooh American cheese! Ch-ch-ch-cheese whiz?”

But best of all at the one minute and 47 second mark, she tears into a Pat’s steak and, with the authority of a trained professional, turns to face the camera and declares, “kind of bland.”

Geno’s it is.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 11:48 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.