A few summers ago, I planted corn in our backyard garden. I did it on a whim, not really expecting much to come of it. When actual stalks grew, I was amazed. When tiny ears of corn appeared on those stalks, I was overjoyed. Corn! Corn is growing in my yard! I'd tell people excitedly. Come see! Friends would dutifully trudge to my little plot, eyeball my ten plants, and mumble half-hearted encouragement. Worried about my crop, I did a little research on the Internet and discovered that we might be facing pollination problems. Soon I was out in the garden in my pajamas, playing human bee, shaking the tassels of my plants at each other. Something must have worked because I had a harvest that summer: two dozen ears of the sweetest, albeit somewhat petite cobs of white corn you've ever tasted. Also the most expensive. But who counts pennies when miracles are involved? This useless city girl actually grew her own food, sort of. It was inspiring.

My powerful, erratic drive to do things the hard, old-fashioned way is why I don't feel any real malice for Martha Stewart. Bashing her nearly insane brand of domesticity has never been more fashionable than right now as we watch her being gutted and broiled in an insider trading scandal. No one seems to know what really happened with Martha, her broker, and that plump cache of ImClone stock. She says one thing, he says another, and the press gleefully salivates at the prospect of America's iciest home ec queen going down in flames. The whole idea of insider trading is, like most of Martha's home and hearth ideas, a little beyond me. While her bank account has fattened on secret stock tips and stockpots, my 401-K has shriveled like the fresh beans I bought at the farmer's market, then forgot in the back of the fridge. So why do I have a soft spot for the blonde battle-axe? Because things made by hand and from scratch really are nicer.

When was the last time you had a glass of homemade lemonade? Don't ask me - I just dumped a tub of Crystal Light into a plastic pitcher of tap water. How about a homemade blueberry pie, the kind with melting, flaky layers of buttery crust blanketing tart-sweet fruit so ripe that you can't help but close your eyes and sigh as you taste it? Me neither. Maybe later today you'll curl up on the cushioned wicker recliner that you rescued from a flea market, painted, reupholstered, and set out on your spacious, plant-lined front porch. No? Neither will I. I don't have a porch, a rescued recliner, or even ten minutes to call my own for that matter. But it's nice to think about, to dream of a life that can be so easily mastered with a whisk, a paintbrush, a potted geranium. That's why we secretly like Martha. Her willful pride in the pleasures of the home, its colors, and flavors, and smells speaks to the place inside all of us that rebels against the dreary cubicles, tasteless foods, and baffling mazes of stalled traffic which have come to define our daily existence. We want more; we seem to remember having had more, back then, whenever then was. Martha's promise is simple, even if her methods aren't: more of everything good can be ours, if we're just willing to put in a little work.

Last month, on a bright, hot Saturday morning, Eric, Olivia, and I went strawberry picking. Eric focused on carefully selecting the most perfect and beautiful berries while I picked and kept one eye on the baby. We picked and picked, backs hunched over in the blistering heat, fingers stained crimson. I glanced behind me to check on Olivia. She stood there, a huge ripe berry in each hand, cheeks bulging with fruit, red juice dribbling down her chin onto her t-shirt. Babbling and laughing, she swiped at the berries still hanging from the bushes. I watched in wonder. She'd never liked strawberries before, adamantly rejecting every attempt I made to serve them to her. But now she was gobbling them. Maybe those berries were extra sweet. Or maybe they just seemed sweeter, because she discovered them herself in a sun-baked country field, instead of on the hard plastic of her highchair tray. The good things are like that: they require us to bend and reach, to search for the sweetest rewards.