‘Unfettered’ Stewart begins show

The daytime phase of Martha Stewart’s TV comeback found the domestic diva right at home Monday with her new syndicated show.

“You’ll notice we don’t have any couches,” she told a live studio audience in New York, drawing attention to her kitchen-to-die-for set. “We’re doing a show about doing things.”

“Desperate Housewives” star Marcia Cross presented Stewart with gag gifts -- rubber gloves and apron adorned with fake leopard skin -- but confessed she is no Martha Stewart off-screen, then proved it as Stewart took her through a cooking lesson: scrambled eggs served in their own egg shells. Stewart also introduced what she said would be a regular taped feature: popping in on a family -- Monday’s was from New Jersey -- at home to lend assistance in cooking dinner.

At the top of the show, Stewart arrived on stage ebullient: “I am unfettered; I am free!”

She was referring, of course, to legal problems that led to her five-month jail term for lying to authorities about a stock sale. A subsequent period of almost six months of home confinement ended Sept. 1.