Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is already looking forward to her banana pudding.
“I know some people will be frustrated by the people I take out the wafer,” she said. She crushed Nira Wafff with a rolling pin instead of splitting the leaves with vanilla pudding and sliced bananas. “But I like that they’re crashing on it.”
Last week, on a bright morning at her home in Montecito, California, Meghan rumbled between the gardens, Prince Harry stopped at a strawberry patch in Birkenstocks, saying he was getting a job call while her mother, Doria Ragland, was there, his mother, Doria Ragland – grace on jeans, white nose and silver nose rings – rumm for Double-double-wide verrime for Beijing for Double-wide wide the Breight for Breight for Breight for Breight for Breight wheeb nide wide wide.
Meghan pointed to Ms. Lagrandon’s mother and said, “Grandma Jeanette will use it instantly because they tasted a batch of homemade puddings with Vanilla.” But she will love it. ”
Last month, the Duchess made the world first watch her life from Broken Royal Bride to the Victorious Family Goddess in the new Netflix series “With Love, Meghan”. She and Harry fled Britain and its ruthless criticism in 2020 to settle in this safe, sunny, wealthy enclave. But the show brought some darkness back to her door.
Like Gwyneth Paltrow, Chrissy Teigen and other celebrities with culinary and lifestyle brands, Meghan also has no professional cooking training. Last week’s visit – the first time inviting reporters into her kitchen – shows that she is a passionate home cook who knows that she is in vinegar quickly, and that his lemon Zester is quick, skilled with a knife. (I was allowed to open a house without taking pictures.)
At 43, she was still figuring out her public identity when she was putting her to audiences around the world with her unlimited enthusiasm and huge Charlotte York Energy. Her decision to do so may read to some people in an entrepreneurial or cute or narcissistic way, but you can’t say it’s not a big swing.
It will get bigger. On Wednesday morning, the sale played as always, Meghan’s food product line priced from $12 to $15, including baking mixes, honey and internet-famous jams – to her frustration, being labeled “fruit jams” due to FDA regulations. A spokeswoman said they all sold out for an hour. (The brand was originally announced at the American Riviera Orchard, but it was reportedly changed after the trademark challenge.)
Last week, Meghan announced that she will host a new podcast series, “Confessions of Female Founders,” and started a Shopmy channel where fans can buy the clothes and products they see on screen, from Head (Lottabody’s Control Me Edge Gel) to Toe (CND Shamsac).
“Love, Megan” shows her in a series of idyllic scenes (none of them were photographed in this kitchen – the nearby house was used as a studio), cooking, hand-crafting and planning tea parties. However, anyone who thinks of truffle popcorn and balloon arches will be undisputed.
When the show came, millions of people who had long been entitled to criticize Meghan as a member of the British royal family were free to judge her as a wife, mother, chef, decorator and hostess. Many people did this, calling her saccharin, unreal and indifferent. Comparing her with Hannah Neelman of the Ballet Dance Farm and other influencers riding the trade wave, they were charming and fascinated by old-fashioned “women’s works” such as feeding chickens and cooking breakfasts, many women don’t want to return.
The best plots feature Meghan as a respectful student for chefs like Alice Waters and Roy Choi. In other cases, she was a teacher, showing a range of friends recipes such as pasta salad and entertainment tips, who were accused of showing enthusiasm while she handed them a raw fish or tied a bow to a gift bag of peanut cookies. These episodes are the most ridiculous.
Some critics have pointed out that social media posts zeroed on her Le Creuset Pots, claiming they are too expensive, can’t afford it for many black women, and have a more bust than traditional cast iron. In response, black women began posting photos of their extensive Le Creuset collection online. Reporter Michele Norris came to Meghan’s defense and asked: “Why would anyone be surprised or upset because she would have beautiful color-coordinated cookware? Does anyone drag Ina or Martha for their cookware?”
She noted in an interview that it is also illogical that Meghan, who does not use her “real” kitchen. “Every set is a performance kitchen,” Ms. Norris said. “I think she managed to introduce her real version of herself in that artificial space. What’s bad about people who want to share their joy?”
“Everyone has something someone or wants her to be,” said Chef Carla Hall. “There is no victory in this game. ”
This raises the question: Why did people over the years endure the worst public attention, which put themselves under a microscope?
Of course, one reason is money. Meghan and Harry signed with Netflix in 2020, and most of their recent other efforts – documentaries about Polo and Harry’s Invictus Games, have failed. But Netflix bets on her: The show has been filmed for a second season and the company has been her investor.
Despite being criticized, millions have appeared for her over the past month. According to Netflix, the show ranked in the top 10 in 24 countries in the week after its premiere, with 2.6 million views. Many of the clothes on Meghan’s Shopmy page sold out in hours or days. Since launching a new Instagram account on January 1 (she deleted her old account shortly before marrying the royal family), she has gained 2.7 million followers.
Another reason is personal. “I need to work, I like to work,” she said, noting that she hadn’t had a job since she was 13 until she met Harry. With two children to be raised, she said, “This is a way I can contact my family life and work.” (Prince Archie is 5 years old and Princess Lilibelt is 3; they are ranked sixth and seventh on the throne.)
She hopes to do so without feeding the fires of tabloid headlines and online gossip. Her team teased through the comment section and social media for the head of global brands, so she didn’t have to. She was confused when I told her about the Le Creuset controversy. “Is this happening in 2025?” she said, reaching out and turning to her mother.
Ms. Lagran, 68, calmly said: “Everyone is hot these days.” The women then went on to discuss more important businesses, such as whether a person needs explosives, why immersion mixers are so good for the soup, and whether Grandma Janet filled her hand pie.
Meghan is optimistic, charming when asking reporters questions and always posts information. But she was clearly troubled by the allegations that were not intertwined and disconnected. She may have lived a fairy tale, but it wasn’t before, she was a not-famous actress in a medium-wide TV series. She divorced in her 30s and was unsure of her next job or home.
“Don’t they know that my life isn’t always like this?” she said, signaling the view and the sleeping dog.
The chef’s progress
When Meghan grew up in Los Angeles, her mother worked for a long time and had little time to cook. But Ms. Lagrand grew up with a strong food tradition.
Her father, Alvin, was rooted in Tennessee. “My father had a bottle of red rooster sauce everywhere,” she said.
For her mother, Jeanette, like many black women of her time, cooking and gardening skills. Meghan said at her home near Crenshaw, her grandmother planted kale and tomatoes in the yard, whipped her hand pie from scratch after dinner, and made almost all her cooking with a cast iron skillet.
As a self-described latch kid, parents divorced, Meghan loves to pick up fast food – Jack in the box curly fries is a favorite – and go home and watch back-to-back cooking shows on the Food Network. “Or I’ll go to Grandma Janet after school,” she said. “She made the best after-school snack: grilled cheese with cowhide on white miracle bread,” Megan recalled in a dream. “All butter.”
Ms. Lagran’s job as a travel agency means the two travel frequently, trying out Wahakan Street food and Jamaican roadside assholes and searching for Thai restaurants near Los Angeles.
Meghan’s undergraduate student at Northwestern University started cooking for friends and served with Rachael Ray’s recipe with grilled cheese sandwiches, topped with fontina cheese and sliced pears.
“At 20, in a tiny apartment in Evanston, serving sandwiches and a bottle of two cups of chucks – that was when trader Joe grew older – we all thought it was such a fantasy.”
In the following years, she held a dinner in Toronto, the series “Suits” was being filmed, opened a lifestyle blog called The Tig, and taught Prince Harry how to grill chicken. (Specifically, Ina Garten’s perfect roast chicken, they made it together when he came up.)
She used her short-lived royal platform to conceive and publish “Together: Our Community Cookbook,” a collection of recipes by women who lost family members in Grenfell Tower, the West London high-rise that was consumed by a catastrophic fire in 2017. In a Substack newsletter last month, the royal chronicler and Meghan skeptic Tina Brown described the book as a moment “when her culinary and lifestyle Interests fused with an authentic charitable initiative and “PR Grand Slam dunk”.
Chicken nuggets to Chantilly Cream
Meghan rinsed strawberries from her grandmother’s kitchen, sliced them thinly and soaked in sugar, lemon juice and passion to put in sugar with pudding and banana slices, soaking them in the garden.
Unlike the stylish white kitchen on the show, this kitchen (designed and built by the former owner) has weathered wooden islands (except marble), one with a good Viking stove and classic blue and white ceramic tile trim.
There is an old butler pantry with cabinets, glasses and tea covers, and a modern food pantry stuffed with well-organized ingredients and snacks. The shelves hold the recipes of Giada de Laurentiis, Yotam Ottolenghi and Toni Tipton-Martin, as well as a high-profile copy From Seeds to Frying Pan, a 2010 classic by celebrity gardener Jimmy Williams, about creating and cooking from a home garden. Just outside the door, like his mother Princess Diana, Harry’s framed picture makes people proud.
Megan quickly admitted that she had a lot to learn. The house comes with two pizza ovens, mostly dormant, and she says her first attempt at sour bread was boring and traumatic enough to send her back to the bakery.
“Some professionals are better than I would do,” she said.
She said she often relies on chicken nuggets, vegetarian burgers and Tater Tots (the fridge is stuffed) when she is the only one who has supper with the kids.
What stands out in the crowded food impact field is her detailed eyes. Calligraphy and gift wrapping tips she developed are now providing extra money for extra money to work in cakes and fluffy salads. She really cares about which direction the carrots point, and she does sometimes transfer takeaway food to the dishes (I’ve seen the plate).
To finish the pudding, she took out a hand mixer to make chantilly butter-vanilla thorny, sweet whipped cream that can make the dessert name: Chantilly Lili, 3-year-old Redhead just returned home.
Ms. Lagran said she still doesn’t believe she needs her own hand-made mixer. She has a KitchenAid Stand mixer at her home in Los Angeles. The Duchess rolled her eyes at her mother like her daughter.
“My mom still has Grandma Janet’s cast iron skillet,” she whispered to me. “That’s what I really want.”
