Martha to visit mall

Lifestyle maven Martha Stewart is expected to cause quite a stir Monday at Barnes & Noble as she sends her fans to cooking school with her new book.

Managers at the Americana at Brand bookstore anticipate hundreds of fans will begin lining up outside as early as 5 a.m. Monday to ensure they are one of the 400 people allowed to have a few seconds of face time with the mass media business magnate. The stop is one of only two in the Los Angeles area for Stewart as she promotes her latest book, “Martha Stewart’s Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook.”

The stop is also considered another notch for the Barnes & Noble at the Americana. In the six months since it set up shop at 210 Americana Way, the bookstore has started to establish itself as the go-to place for A-list book signings and readings, sharing top billing with its sister store at The Grove.

But most of the attractions hosted at the Americana so far have been big-name authors, not cultural and lifestyle icons. Stewart’s event Monday is expected to be the biggest so far, attracting a large media and paparazzi contingent, according to pre-event sign-ups, Community Relations Manager Khristine Pan said.

“We’ve been getting a ton of calls about it,” she said. “It’s definitely our biggest.”

It was par for the course for Stewart, who on Friday was en route to a book signing in Philadelphia. On Sunday, she was set for Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena. Dallas was on her itinerary for Tuesday, after Monday’s stop in Glendale.

In between it all, she still found time to extract nearly 50 pounds of honey from her own beehives Thursday and take care of her growing family of canaries while negotiating new ventures with 1-800-Flowers.com, Macy’s, Costco and Wal-Mart stores, she said.

“It’s organization, it’s waking up earlier and going to bed later,” Stewart said.

At 512 pages, her latest cookbook is among her most ambitious, the culmination of more than 15 years of teaching others how to make a salad, dress a chicken or whip up her brandy butter dessert sauce, she said.

It took 2 1/2 years alone to compile and write the book, Stewart said, which comes chock full of how-to photos.

“This was hard because you have to make sure you didn’t miss anything,” she said.