Martha Stewart’s headlining event at Vivid in Sydney was not one to miss, with the iconic cookbook author lending her opinion on everything from millennial burnout to Meghan Markle.
She joined Australian author Benjamin Law at the ICC on Wednesday night, and took a moment to lend her expert opinion on the nature of plagiarism in the industry amid the ongoing caramel slice drama between food influencers Nagi Maehashi and Brooke Bellamy.
Nagi vs Brooke
In short, Nagi, creator of the popular food blog RecipeTin Eats, made a claim that Brooke Bellamy of Brooki’s Bakehouse fame had plagiarized her recipes for caramel slice and baklava in her new cookbook.
The drama has divided Australians, with many taking Nagi’s side while others explained how difficult it is to prove that a recipe has been plagiarized.
Nagi shared the allegation on Instagram in April, revealing that she had tried contacting the publishers of Bake With Brooki for months with no success.
© Instagram“I’m speaking up because staying silent protects this kind of behaviour,” she wrote. “Profiting from plagiarized recipes is unethical, even if not a copyright breach, and it’s a slap in the face to every author who puts in the hard work to create original content rather than cutting corners.”
Brooke responded with a statement doubling down on the originality of her recipes. “I do not copy other people’s recipes. Like many bakers, I draw inspiration from the classics, but the creations you see at Brooki Bakehouse reflect my own experience, taste and passion for baking, born of countless hours of my childhood spent in my home kitchen with Mom,” she declared.
Martha weighs in
© Getty ImagesMartha added her two cents to the feud, after being asked if she had ever had any of her thousands of recipes stolen.
“Probably. But I have so many recipes,” she replied. “In the magazine [Martha Stewart Living] we developed thousands of recipes every year and it’s hard to develop a recipe without having a repertoire behind that recipe and I don’t think too many recipes are owned by anybody.”
“They are handed down. They are used and changed,” she added. “And if you print somebody else’s recipe word for word in your own cookbook then that might be plagiarism but I think it’s very hard to prove who actually came up with that particular recipe. So unless they are word for word, you can’t say they’re yours.”
Sydneysider
© Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal via GMartha has created an incredibly successful lifestyle brand over the years, with over 100 cookbooks published, a multitude of TV shows and an enduring friendship with rapper Snoop Dogg.
She visited Australia for the first time since 2019, and shared just how special the trip was for her in a candid Instagram post. “Last evening in Sydney I spoke to a large audience of approximately 3500 Aussies, interviewed on stage by Benjamin Law,” she wrote.
“Celebrating ‘Vivid Sydney‘ the largest gathering of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, which is meant to encourage tourism in this beautiful city, we covered a wide variety of subjects about career, life, goals, and even gardening! The audience was lively and interested and we had a great time.”
© Getty ImagesShe also revealed how she manages her incredibly busy schedule, before jokingly making a dig at millennial work culture.
When asked how she avoided burnout, Martha quipped: “I don’t call it burnout, I call it burning up.”
As for any advice for millennials going through burnout, she replied: “Poor poor millennials. I have no sympathy.”
To learn more about Martha’s fascinating life, see below…
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