Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg Are TV’s Wild and Unexpectedly Brilliant Duo

Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg discuss dinner, lobsters, and what they’ve learned from each other thanks to VH1’s Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party.

Who knew we needed a cooking snow that featured America’s lifestyle mogul, Martha Stewart and the original gangster rapper, Snoop Dogg? Apparently, SallyAnn Salsano knew and brought the duo together. The end result, Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party, features this unexpected duo serving and cooking dishes on VH-1 with an array of guests. It also offers a hell of a lot of laughs and lots of weed talk.

Martha & Snoop’s emerges as the show we didn’t know we need and leaves you feeling hungry. The good news is the show will be back for a second season this fall.

I paid a visit to their set where Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg held court. There, Snoop joked that, today, he should be referred to as Martha’s assistant.

On sampling Los Angeles-based restaurants and keeping it under wraps.

Martha Stewart: We haven’t done it together. Only once we’ve done it and had a back room off the kitchen.

Snoop Dogg: It felt like a mafia movie.

Martha: I go to restaurants all the time. Last night, we went to the Sunset Tower. It’s so dark in there you can’t even see your food.

Snoop: Boa is really outside the box thinking.

Martha: The New York Times had a big story about L.A. restaurants, and we’ve tried a few of those already just to see what they’re talking about. I did a big story with the L.A. Times about all the bakeries of L.A. because I’m a baker. We went to all the bakeries, and I gained 14 pounds.

On post-election reaction to their show seen as a bright light:

Martha: We got a lot of reaction as a show that merged cultures and music and serious lifestyle and ghetto. We had so much applause for that. It was my first instinct and Snoop’s too.

Snoop: It feels good when people appreciate the fact that we are two people who love to do what we do. We have a lot in common and we have a lot that we learn from each other. We are teaching the world on how to be better people at the same time. We’re doing it.

On whether they feared their core audience wouldn’t follow the show:

Snoop: Never. Martha has always been respected in the hip-hop community and has always embraced the culture. She’s always been a real person. There was never a leap of faith wondering what’s going to happen. It was a leap of faith knowing great things were going to happen.

Martha: Some of my executive team were a bit worried only because I have a lot of different reach out partners. We don’t talk politics on the show. I don’t look at any personalities like that. I am very open-minded, and I’m not a segregationist at all. Actually, I keep dogs, cats, birds in the same house. I might have a cat hanging on my canary cage, but I keep those canaries safe. I was brought up in a very open-minded family. Any kind of thought that rap won’t mix with life in a house is crazy. You open your car window, or you play it on your own radio, rap is everywhere, music is everywhere. Every kind of people are everywhere. It’s fun to mix, mix and match.

It feels good when people appreciate the fact that we are two people who love to do what we do. We have a lot in common and we have a lot that we learn from each other. We are teaching the world on how to be better people at the same time. – Snoop Dogg

On what they’ve learned from each other:

Snoop: I’ve learned to be a better chef, to prepare my meals better, to be more of a listener. I tend to take the lead, but when I’m with Martha, I did a collision course on going back to school on life and cooking, so that’s what I’m learning.

Martha: I learned that our program is quite universally watched. I travel a lot and people in Asia and Europe are watching it. They’re very curious and want to learn. What we’re doing on the show is providing a learning and entertaining experience for the viewer. I think they are taking recipes out of the show and that’s important to me. We publish well tested recipes. I learned a lot about the music community from this show that I would never have known. Lil Yachty is a good role model, and he’s really cute. He represents very fine American companies with his lifestyle, and that’s very interesting to me.

On what’s more gangster, featuring on the Chronic album or baking cookies with Martha:

Snoop: I think a bit of both because you’ve got to have some cookies in order to make the music.

On how they met:

Martha: We must have had a good booker on our market show because Snoop showed up one day, and we did a cooking segment where we baked brownies. We had a nice rapport, and we did the Justin Bieber roast.

Snoop: It was chemistry. You could just feel it. I never thought it, but it felt good. The people who booked me on the show, just to get our chemistries together and to get that flowing. When did the Bieber roast it was natural.

Martha: Dear old Bieber hasn’t been on our show yet.

Snoop: We’re going to get him.

On getting guests and people to experiment with food:

Martha: In the 1960s, there was this lady called Julia Child who changed the way Americans eat. What we’re doing with this show with the Americans who weren’t changed is we are introducing them to all kinds of great stuff. I made steak au poivre the other day. It was so good.

Snoop: It was so good. I ate everything.

Martha: People will try these recipes and enjoy them. We do a lot of healthy stuff on this show, getting people to eat more from the garden and farmer’s market. Snoop keeps reverting back to government cheese.

Snoop: You have to revert to what you know.

On how the show has helped expand his palette:

Snoop: It’s opening me up. I ate a fried oyster recently. It looked like a shrimp sandwich. She is teaching me how to open my mind and my stomach up to different meals.

Martha: He’s touched a lobster which he would never have done.

Snoop: I’m doing a lot of things that I would never have done, but she is opening me up.

On what we can expect from Season 2:

Martha: Expansiveness in the food and recipes. The guests are terrific.

Snoop: We had P.Diddy, Wanda Skyes, La La Anthony, Usher and Terrence Howard.

Martha: I love him. He makes beautiful lighting fixtures in the shape of crystal clear acrylic.

Snoop: Last season, the guests were iffy. You could tell when they walked on the set, they weren’t sure. Now, they come on with gifts and excitement. They know what they’re in for.

Martha: Diddy said he’d come on anytime to get a good meal.

Snoop: He was really hungry.

Martha: Usher was thirsty.

Snoop: He wasn’t thirsty when he left. It’s good to see when the guests come, and they really want to eat. When they eat, it’s a natural reaction.

On their favorite junk food:

Snoop: Funyuns. Those onion rings you didn’t like.

Martha: That’s another thing I’ve learned. I’ve learned a lot about potato chips. There are different kinds of cheeses. I didn’t realize those chips are so tasty.

Snoop: I’ve turned her on to sour cream and onion.

Martha: I make really good drinks on the show.

On when they first started cooking:

Snoop: Early at home. Around 14. My brother was a good chef, my mother taught him so I’d watch him. He’d only cook for himself at a certain point, so I had to learn to cook my own food and experimenting. Once I had a family, I started mastering cooking and taught everyone how to cook. I started with breakfast, bacon, eggs, and chicken. I started with small dishes that I couldn’t really mess up.

Martha: He makes lobster thermidor.

Snoop : My grandson likes going to McDonald’s.

Martha: My grandkids have never tasted McDonald’s, but they go to En Brasserie once a week in New York. They know the menus by heart and all the chefs. They eat the tuna tartare, the mushi – they just love Japanese food. They’re vegetarians.

On their one favorite ingredient when cooking:

Snoop: Seasoning salt or garlic salt. Martha doesn’t like me saying that, but I love garlic salt. She loves the real garlic. I need my sprinkle game.

Martha: I love butter and lemon. Whatever’s fresh.

On the possibility of doing a cookbook:

Martha: We will.

Snoop: We want to be a hundred recipes deep before we do it.

Martha: We’ve done over fifty so far.

Snoop: By the time we get to Season 3, we’ll have a book out.

On their favorite “two truths and a lie” revelation:

Martha: We have a lot of games on the show.

Snoop: This time around we’re involving the audience in on it. I don’t know what my favorite one is.

On the other’s favorite dish:

Snoop: Her steak au poivre shut everything down.

Martha: His stuffed cornish game hens. I’m not a big fan of game hens. I ate everything. The stuffing and dressing was my favorite. He stuffed them and put the excess stuffing at the bottom of the dish. I always cook my stuffing separately, but it was so good with all that juice.

Snoop: I can’t believe you ate all of that. You made me so proud I wanted to cry.

On their signature pot luck dish:

Snoop: Potato chips.

Martha: I raise my own chickens, so I’ll take eggs. I took a giant bowl of perfectly hard boiled eggs and they disappeared.

Snoop: Her eggs are different colors they’re like the Easter egg hunt.

On how many recipes does she have:

Martha: My company has created over 25,000 recipes. We have 88 books. We’re working on our 89th book. My 90th book will be about flowers and will be called Martha’s Flowers.

VH1’s Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party returns this fall for a second season