FRIENDS Martha Stewart, Snoop Dogg prove to be winning duo
Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg are an unlikely, yet winning, duo
Here are some things Martha Stewart has done on her new show with Snoop Dogg: She has worn a blinged-out cheese grater on a chain around her neck. She has drunk out of what can only be described as a pimp cup. She has taste-tested a stoner recipe for a pizza omelette. She has not flinched when Rick Ross said to her audience, “I wanna make some noise for Martha because baby got back.”
When did Stewart go from being America’s most earnest homemaker to being America’s coolest grandma? After she went to prison, of course, but not right after. The cultivation of New Martha, of Hip-Hop Martha, took time. And it has culminated in Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party, her cooking-show-meets-stonerbuddy-comedy now in its second season Mondays on Gusto.
“I’m a very straitlaced person,” Martha told The Washington Post. “I don’t smoke, I hardly drink. It’s kind of an odd combination right from the get-go.”
Respectfully: Is Martha all that straitlaced anymore?
It’s the perception that she is straitlaced that makes it funny just hearing her say the names of her guests, often hip-hop artists. This is, after all, the same woman who wrote an extensive blog post about bathing her donkeys. It’s the same woman who, in the Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber, delivered a withering, unprintable monologue.
Her show with Snoop is a very particular cultural exchange between two people of seemingly disparate backgrounds, which is a thing America could use more of these days, frankly. Stewart tries on a grill, shotguns a beer and glugs out of a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor this season. Snoop, meanwhile, has learned about lobster thermidor and croquembouche.
“She’s taught me how to ... have better food etiquette, how to be more professional in the kitchen,” Snoop said. “I showed her a few things, the ghetto way of doing things,” like his method for making bacon.
“I’ve learned a lot about music from Snoop and our guests,” Martha said. “He’s extremely knowledgeable, he’s also very amusing. He’s really laid back,” she said, quoting one of his songs. She genuinely likes rap: “Ever since I saw 8 Mile. It started with Eminem ... I like that kind of poetry.” And Rick Ross: “We’re email pals.”
Snoop is becoming Stewart, and Stewart is becoming Snoop, and it’s been happening for years. He first appeared on her show in 2008, putting cognac in his mashed potatoes, teaching her the phrase “fo shizzle.” A year later, they made brownies with green sprinkles and a wink and a nod, because those green sprinkles stood for an altogether different green substance. Then a Reddit Q&A in which Stewart said Snoop was a person she would like to get to know better, and then the Bieber roast. After that, SallyAnn Salsano, who also produced Jersey Shore, realized that they would be the perfect odd couple for a cooking show.
“These guys are genuinely friends, and that’s why I think it works so well on screen,” Salsano said. “Their relationship is real.”
Some of the show’s best comedy comes from how Snoop and Stewart play off each other when she says something contrary to type or he eats something delicious. Snoop will look at her and say “Martha,” amused and awed. The format is basically this: Snoop and Stewart each make dishes according to a theme, like tacos or grilled cheese, and invite celebrity guests to hang out. This season features Laverne Cox, RuPaul, T-Pain, Ty Dolla $ign and P. Diddy, among others.
Snoop is, unsurprisingly, high for every episode.
“He comes onto the set pretty high, and leaves pretty high,” said Stewart, laughing, but he’s “not incompetent or incoherent at all. That’s the way he lives.”
“Sometimes I may smoke one blunt, sometimes I may smoke 100 blunts,” Snoop said. “It depends on what’s necessary for me to do what I’m doing.”
And then he has some cocktails, because many episodes begin with Stewart demonstrating a drink recipe.
“Every episode I was drunk. Every one,” Snoop said. “The lines become that much more easier, the flow becomes natural. It’s more relaxing. You’re not doing a job, you’re just having fun.”
Stewart is having fun, too. She seems cannily aware of her role as the comedic straight man, the person who can send Jamie Foxx into peals of laughter by sucking on a helium balloon, as she does during season 2’s Birthday Party episode.
Stewart and Snoop aren’t so different. They’re both lifestyle gurus — Snoop has a cannabis company, a digital media company and a series of apps. They’re both rich people who live in fancy homes. When they appeared on The $100,000 Pyramid, Stewart grilled Snoop on the intricacies of interior design: wainscotting, sconces, credenzas. He answered every question correctly.
Snoop is writing his own cookbook, one more thing he’ll have in common with Stewart. It will feature recipes from the show.
“People were inquiring about those dishes, and how can we do it. I was like, you know, (expletive) it, I’m gonna do a cookbook.”
And it won’t be about cooking with cannabis. “I’m gonna be on cannabis while I’m cooking, but ain’t no need to put it in the food.”
Stewart says she doesn’t consume cannabis, though she says she has got a contact high from being around Snoop. He has gifted her with marijuana seeds, and she hasn’t yet planted them, but is considering doing so at her Maine household.
New Martha makes weed jokes. Old Martha wants to grow something else.
“I’d rather do a line of my own hydrangeas or my own tulip bulbs,” she said.