Zeno's Bar & Grill

She gets the prize for turning the dreaded "housework" into "homekeeping", which somehow almost makes you *want* to do laundry. And now Martha Stewart has a new book for Perfect Moms everywhere: the Homekeeping Handbook. Unfortunately, she's about four years too late. The gargantuan Home Comforts: the Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson beat Martha to the punch in '02.

I found the Home Comforts book, which was a bestseller, to be both fascinating and dreadful, kind of like a car wreck you can't peel your eyes from. Do we really need to read a book with chapters like "Common Laundry Mishaps and Problems," " Peaceful Coexistence with Microbes," and "Working with Household Help?" All true titles, I swear.

Well, I must have thought I needed it, anyway, since I shelled out the twenty five bucks or whatever it was to purchase the thing. I blame all the rave reviews it was receiving at the time. In the end, Home Comforts has been most useful as a writing reference for examples of obsessive housework! Plus, it'll be handy if anything ever happens to my doorstop.

--Melanie