“I like recipes that take, like, four hours. I don’t do fast recipes at all. I like to braise.”
“Wow, that is so fascinating.”
Is it though? Is it? Netflix is clearly gambling that it is. The second series of With Love, Meghan is with us, albeit alongside the news that the Sussexes’ new deal with the streaming platform is not another $100m (£74m), five-year extravaganza, but a rather less spectacular first-look agreement that gives Netflix first refusal on any shows the couple create.
Queer Eye fashion expert Tan France puts fresh bread in the toaster before making french toast to make it more absorbent. “That’s so good for people to know!” says Meghan. Is it though? Is it?
Such questions – well, slight variations on that one question – abound as we return to see what Meghan is cooking up/assembling from fruit, flowers, twine and name tags in a stranger’s kitchen in Montecito.
I may even voluntarily watch a lifestyle show by her … Chrissy Teigen in With Love, Meghan. Photograph: Jake Rosenberg/Netflix/PA
The high point is probably Chrissy Teigen – model, mom, author and braising fan, with whom Meghan once worked as a briefcase holder on Deal Or No Deal – and an almost thrillingly insultingly brief appearance by her music mogul husband, John Legend. Teigen is good value, as the pair reminisce about lining up to have their false eyelashes put on by the Deal crew then peeling them off and dropping them in a bag on their way out at the end of the day, possibly to be used again. Teigen has tattoos of her four children’s birthdates on her arm but some are too blurry to read, so she has to shout to John to check what they are, and complains about her knees as they squat to cut flowers in the garden. I warm to her considerably. I may even voluntarily watch a lifestyle show she presented.
For Tan, Meghan produces lavender-grey lattes (“Doesn’t that just sound chic?”) and after that the hits just keep on coming. Meghan has more fruit platters (“Grapes create that bounty I was talking about”). She has a passion for being a mum that was evident even in early childhood when she spent her allowance on a real diaper bag for her dolls. She has loving anecdotes about “H” (He said “I love you” first; she ruined a roast chicken for him on an early date because she failed to convert fahrenheit to celsius), Archie and Lilibet (they say “zebra” not “zee-bra”), and still issues no apology for calling the child Lilibet. She has an express flower-pressing kit, ie uses the microwave instead of 40 sheets of blotting paper and patience, which I find myself objecting to quite strongly. She used the phrase “moving meditation” twice – which, if I have translated from Californian fahrenheit to British celsius correctly, means anything you take yourself off to do rather than filing for divorce. Not that there is any suggestion that such thoughts ever cross her mind. All is well in Meghan’s world.
She’s still sprinkling flowers over everything, by the way. I don’t know if it’s a choice or a compulsion, but if you stand still long enough in (not) Meghan’s kitchen, the chances are you will be covered in violets and served alongside a mug of grey foam to a nano-celebrity who is beginning to realise he has not been paid enough.
Swiftly realising he’s not been paid enough … Tan France in With Love, Meghan. Photograph: Jake Rosenberg/Netflix/PA
It’s so boring, so contrived, so effortfully whimsical that, do you know what? In the end, it does become almost fascinating. You find yourself wondering things you would never normally wonder, such as, what would it take for me to embark on making vegan macaroons? How large a part of Meghan wants to run screaming for the hills? How excited could I get about tiny eggs from silkie chickens? What if I were being paid the thick end of $100m to do so, before my original deal ran out?
Above all, the real question is, what do you think Pippa Middleton makes of the whole thing? After the mauling she got for one little book about party planning, do you think she revels in the criticism Meghan’s efforts attract or is pig-sick that she couldn’t parlay her way into a lucrative series of her own? Or is she busy taking notes (“A sourdough starter? Five years after everyone else has thrown theirs in the bin? On it!”) and revering the flower-strewing powerhouse as a god? Bring me a lavender-grey latte and answers, please.
With Love, Meghan is on Netflix now
