What Working for Martha Stewart Actually Looks Like Behind the Scenes, According to ‘House Guest’

Working in food media looks glamorous from the couch. A beautiful roast goes into the oven, a perfect one comes out, and the host casually says, “I made one earlier.” On House Guest with Kenzie Elizabeth, Krissy Downey pulls the curtain back on what “earlier” actually means—plus what it’s like to do it for the icon Martha Stewart herself.

Downey, who went from culinary school to Food Network and now works behind the scenes at The Today Show, explains the invisible machine that makes food TV feel effortless: shopping runs that turn into tri-state scavenger hunts, 12-hour days that still somehow demand perfection, and the kind of standards that force a team to bond fast. 

Below are highlights from the conversation, adapted from House Guest.

What did working for Martha Stewart actually look like day-to-day?

“I worked for her on and off as a permalancer for several years. So I was working for her and I was covering someone’s maternity leave, and I knew that her maternity leave was coming to an end, but was I gonna stay? I didn’t really know what I was going to do, and a coworker sent me the listing on LinkedIn and was like, ‘I really think you have to go for this…’ And so I applied on LinkedIn and my boss at the show, Katie, who’s the best. She also used to work for Martha…and we fell in love…

…I’ve done all kinds of things for her. She had a TV show on Roku that filmed at her house. I worked that show. I was at the house all the time. It was crazy. It was so crazy…I was the shopper for the show, so I procured all the food, which was cuckoo bananas, like I would drive all over the tri-state area. I would forage things from her own garden. I would use eggs from her chickens.”

Why is Martha’s ‘high expectations’ reputation so real?

“She’s one of those people with just such high expectations…She’s very intense, but in a way that you just admire so much, and she is, I would describe her personality as just very intense with like these very funny moments of lightness that come up that you’re just like, ‘Did she just say that?’”

What’s the most surreal part of filming at Stewart’s house instead of an office?

“I really had no idea what—I mean, I had worked for her before, in her offices, but it’s such a different experience to be on the grounds of her home…It was crazy. It was so crazy…It was like a mile drive from the start of her property to where we would film on the property…

…I remember on the first day being like an hour and a half early, and like the call time was probably 6:00 a.m.—like I was there at 4:45—and there was a bagel place that was open, and so I went and got a bagel and like sat on the edge of her like gate eating this bagel just being like, ‘What is happening with this right now?’”

What was your role on Stewart’s Roku show and why did it require a car?

“I was the shopper for the show, so I procured all the food. Which was cuckoo bananas, like I would drive all over the tri-state area…I needed a car to do the job because I was doing the shopping. My uncle, God bless, has a used car dealership and he was like, ‘I’ll get you a car…’ so he got me this 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix that barely drove, but it was perfect, like it was exactly what I needed.”

How does food TV really work when the host says ‘I made this earlier’?

“So, you know, when you watch a show and they put a chicken in the oven and then one comes out and they’re like, ‘and I made one earlier?’ They didn’t make it earlier, we made it earlier, and people are always so disheartened to hear that…But the talent nine out of ten times has a huge hand in the process and like it’s their recipes, it’s their vision, so we’re totally just executing there. It’s just for the filming process. Like it wouldn’t be possible for one person to like to produce all that food, like there’s just no way…Even still TV schedules, even with teams of like five food people, like it’s still a 12-plus hour day most of the time.”

What’s the difference between competition shows and ‘in the kitchen’ shows in food TV?

“So it depends on the nature of the show, like a competition show, and they call them ‘ITK—in the kitchen’ shows, like Barefoot Contessa, they work very differently. A competition show is much higher volume. There’s tons of food, and you know, sometimes I’ve done shows where there’s 16 contestants, so there’s 16 bottles of soy sauce at every station and like 16 everything, and just like the equipment, everything is out of control. And then a smaller show like an in the kitchen show is very like—you make three of one thing and it’s much more—it’s not peaceful, but like it’s much more peaceful in comparison.”

What’s it like to prep food for everyone from first-time cookbook authors to Martha-level pros?

“It’s like a funny gambit of people that come on because we also get like bloggers and it’s like their first cookbook and they’re so excited to come on and we’re kind of not coaching them on how to do it, but for like a lot of people it’s their first time on live TV so we’re giving them like pointers on that. And then the next day Martha will come on, who’s like such a pro, like she doesn’t need any pointers from me, she just needs like, ‘Okay, where’s the spoon,’ you know? And then like Jennifer Garner came on once and made this cobbler with her mom, cause her mom had posted this recipe that had gone viral or whatever. It’s just been the craziest opportunity to see just all the different types of people we get to do things with, it is literally crazy. It’s all these people who are like at the top of their fields or like the top of their craft.”

To hear Krissy Downey’s full conversation with Kenzie Elizabeth, listen to House Guest wherever you get your podcasts.

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