Martha Stewart says she loved cooking for late comedian Robin Williams: 'His mind was like a computer'

Martha Stewart says cooking for late actor Robin Williams was a delight.
Martha Stewart says cooking for late actor Robin Williams was a delight. "No matter what I said, he had a retort and he was so quick," she shares. (Photo: Getty; designed by Quinn Lemmers)

Because food connects us all, Yahoo Life is serving up a heaping plateful of table talk with people who are passionate about what's on their menu in Deglazed, a series about food.

Martha Stewart's unlikely friendship with rap icon Snoop Dogg is a well-known celebrity pairing, but the 81-year-old media mogul says she's cooked for plenty of other people in the music industry.

"I very much liked cooking with Usher," Stewart tells Yahoo Life. "I worked with Puff Daddy. All the rappers came on my show. The only one who did not come on my show was Eminem, and I still have not met Eminem."

There was a time she almost met the Real Slim Shady rapper, but technology got in the way.

"Snoop promises me [he will introduce me]," she tells Yahoo Life. "We had it all set at the Super Bowl and I didn't get the text that said, 'Come now to backstage.' By the time I got the text, they were already entering halftime and I couldn't get to the stage and I missed Eminem."

In a recent interview with Yahoo Life, Snoop shared the best meal Stewart has ever cooked for him was Wagyu beef, which she prepared with some help from actor Matthew McConaughey. "Oh my god," he said in the interview, "it was the best meal I ever had."

While Stewart says she doesn't recall the exact recipe she and McConaughey used to prepare the steaks, she has learned exactly how to impress Snoop in the kitchen. "Snoop is a very simple eater," she shares. "He doesn't want a lot of bells and whistles on his food and he needs to be able to identify what he's eating. Like, he won't touch an oyster for a million dollars, he won't eat liver, he won't eat this, he won't eat that, so the simpler and more identifiable the better, but he is so charming."

In addition to rappers, Stewart says late actor and comedian Robin Williams is among her favorite celebrities she's spent time in the kitchen with. "We had so much fun because he was the fastest wit and the fastest mind and his mind was like a computer," says Stewart. "No matter what I said, he had a retort and he was so quick. I was marinating meat and he loved that — can you imagine what he did with 'marinating meat' and 'rubbing the meat' and 'ooh la la?' Watch the segment, it's really good."

So how does Stewart handle the less adventurous eaters who arrive at her dinner table?

"I don't pay any attention to picky eaters and I never ever ask, 'Are you allergic to something?' Never," she says. "So if guests come to my house, unless they already have ahead of time emailed saying, 'I am really allergic to fish,' or, 'I can't eat meat,' I have nothing prepared for any finicky people or actual people with real eating problems. I can always make an omelet. I can always boil an egg. I can always make a piece of toast. So that's how I deal with it."

Yahoo Life spoke to Stewart at the opening of her first-ever restaurant, the Bedford by Martha Stewart, located inside the Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino. The restaurant is modeled after her own New York farmhouse, right down to the special touches. "In the room over there, you can sit at a table that's a replica of my mother's dining room table that she gave to me, which I still have," she shares. "It's an iconic place and the drinks are spectacular."

Among the drinks on the Bedford's menu? A Martha-tini, which Stewart describes as "vodka, a splash of vermouth, icy icy fresh ice and a wonderful twist of lemon."

But at home, Stewart says she's careful not to indulge in too much alcohol. "I don't drink at home ever by myself," she says. "I don't go and have a glass of wine when I get home from work by myself. I'll go out and have a glass of wine with a friend, but more than anything I love clean delicious food."

Her favorite cuisine? Japanese. During her time in Las Vegas, Stewart shares she ate at Nobu, a neighboring restaurant to the Bedford where world-renowned sushi chef Nobu Matsuhisa controls the menu. "I can eat Japanese morning, noon and night," she says. "I love raw fish. I love sushi and sashimi."

And how does the Martha Stewart Living creator feel about being such a home-making icon to generations of women?

"I was brought up by teachers," she shares. "My mom and dad were both teachers and I always wanted to be a teacher, so guess what? Really, that's what I am."

"I am a teacher and everything I've done is to try to provide unfiltered, authentic, accurate information to as large of an audience as possible," she continues. "That's what I do."

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