Meghan’s top tips: From using your bee voice to preparing a guest room

The duchess shared an abundance of suggestions in her new Netflix lifestyle series With Love, Meghan.

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The Duchess of Sussex offers up endless cooking tips and happy home life suggestions in her new Netflix series.

From cleaning as you go, finding affordable things in a grocery store, choosing flowers by colour, and achieving Californian-style gardening in little London flats, Meghan is full of recommendations.

In 2012, the Princess of Wales’s sister Pippa Matthews wrote a book called Celebrate, billed as a one-stop guide to entertaining, but it was mocked by some for its over-simplistic advice.

Meghan shared tips on how to achieve her Californian hosting lifestyle (Yaroslav Sabitov/PA)

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With Love, Meghan, which premiered on the streaming giant on Tuesday, has already been described as “endlessly spoofable”.

Here are just some of Meghan’s suggestions:

– Cooking pasta:

“You put the dry pasta in and you pour boiling water on top and that’s it,” the duchess says.

She does, however, light the stove afterwards.

– Californian lifestyle in little London flats

Meghan says “people would watch this and go, ‘but I don’t have this space at home’”, as she takes chef Alice Waters around her vast vegetable and herb garden.

Meghan gives tips on adding dehydrated fruit slices to cocktails (Aaron Chown/PA)

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But the duchess suggests they plant on their windowsill, saying: “Even if you’re just in a little flat in London or small apartment in the city, what people can do to make them feel that they have some small piece of this.”

– Pick flowers by colour

Meghan talks about her process of selecting flowers: “First thing I do is see what colour I gravitate to, and then everything goes from there.

“Kind of think about it like an outfit, and once you pick the base look, you have to accessorise in a way that makes sense and matches.”

She also warns people off putting flowers in a clear vase.

“I don’t know who has time to change the water on flowers every day,” she says.

– Grocery stores offer both beauty and affordability

Meghan reveals: “When you go to the grocery store, sometimes you can get things that are beautiful and things that are really affordable.”

She is shown laying out a huge armful of six or seven bouquets, featuring different varieties of flowers, to decorate her home ready for a lunch with Suits co-star Abigail Spencer and friend Kelly Zajfen.

Harry and Meghan surrounded by an archway of flowers on their wedding day (Ben Stansall/PA)

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“These are carnations. How do we make them stunning? By adding to other flowers,” she says.

– Dress up shop-bought foods

“You don’t always have time to make hummus or a dip from scratch, and there are ways to make store-bought things look and taste even better,” Meghan says.

“Put some olive oil in there – already better.”

– Speak to bees in your “bee voice”

The series begins with Meghan harvesting honey from bees as she says: “The biggest thing is keeping a low tone – talk in our bee voice.”

Meghan whispers to a beekeeper who is helping her: “You know what it is?

A garden hive is checked for honey (Ben Birchall/PA)

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“It’s like also that reminder to do something that scares you a little bit.

“I think that’s part of it, but I’m trying to stay in the calm of it because it’s beautiful to be this connected.”

– Prepare the guest room when people come to stay

Meghan goes one step beyond getting the guest room ready.

She creates a tray of homemade bath salts and empties snacks into clear plastic gift bags for her friend, make-up artist Daniel Martin – and labels them as having peanuts even though Martin is not allergic to nuts.

But she warns “don’t tie a knot without a bow” in case your guest cannot open it.

She describes how one of her favourite things to do when people come to stay is “prep the guest room” and think about their “good morning and night moment”.

“Whenever I have someone come and stay, one of my favourite things to do is to prep the guest room,” Meghan says.

“I think about the two places of a guest experience once they’ve gone into their room. What’s at the side of the bed for them?

“That’s their good morning and good night moment, and what is in the bathroom for them so they can have a beautiful soak, a nice bath at the end of night.”

– If your partner likes salt in their food, put less salt in it

Meghan confesses to under-salting her recipes because the Duke of Sussex always adds salt himself.

“Well I have a family, a husband, who no matter what meal is put in front of him before he tastes it puts salt on, so I try to under-salt,” she says.

– Children will definitely eat colourful vegetables

The Sussexes enjoy a daily veg platter, Meghan reveals.

“We have a veggie platter, crudites, every day in our house,” she says.

She says Prince Archie and Princess Lili love vegetables.

“Even for our kids, I think what’s been so nice and why they love eating vegetables is because it looks colourful and fun.”

She also suggests that parents make a rainbow-coloured and shaped platter of fruit for their children’s breakfast to make mornings “a lot more fun”.

– A balloon pump can be used to pump up balloons

During a “Welcome to the Party” episode, Meghan creates food and decorations for a children’s party with actress Mindy Kaling and reveals she now relies on a handy gadget.

The then-Duchess of Cambridge, Meghan and Kate’s sister Pippa Matthews, who released her own book on entertaining called Celebrate in 2012 (Mike Egerton/PA)

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Meghan says making a balloon arch: “The first time I had the fascinating adventure of doing this manually, it can really start to get tiresome on your cheeks.

“So instead there is a great little device you can buy – it’s a balloon pump.”

– No tap water for ice cubes

Meghan demonstrates how to freeze edible flowers in ice cubes and orange juice for cocktails, but warns viewers off using regular tap water.

“I’ve made this mistake. Do not just use tap water,” she says. She recommends using distilled water or boiled water.

“Otherwise the ice cubes just come out a little cloudy and you want to see the flower.”

– Make crepes not pancakes

Crepes, not fluffy pancakes, are more special, according to Meghan.

“If you were to do Sunday breakfast at the house yes, you can make pancakes for your family and the kids, but you can also make crepes,” she recommends.

“Why does a crepe sound more special than a pancake? I don’t know, but it does.”

American pancakes are thick and fluffy pancakes made from a batter of eggs, flour, milk and baking powder, whereas crepes are thinner and do not use a raising agent.

– Use a food dehydrator

Meghan has a food dehydrator – a Christmas present for her and Harry from her mother – for drying out fruit slices for cocktails.

“I have a food dehydrator because this became a project that I was doing more often than I thought I would… so we use it, but you can put this in the oven,” she says.

– Clean as you go

“So, just as with cooking, I will always have like a garbage vessel. Everything stays organised, clean as you go,” Meghan declares.

“Lili has made a song out of it,” she says before singing herself: “Clean as you go – clean, clean, clean, clean.”

She adds: “Once you figure out a little bit of a system, it is not hard, and anyone can do this at home.”

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